Tuesday , March 19 2024

Tag Archives: European Union Referendum

What can be done about the BBC?

The BBC is trusted to provide an in-depth and unbiased account of the news.  Does it fulfill this brief? National and Public Service Broadcasters use four main techniques to impose bias. The most frequent bias is the omission of news from one side of a debate so that it appears …

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Why a Second Referendum is Undemocratic

Imagine there were a General Election won by Labour. Suppose the Tories delayed their departure from office for 3 years and then, when the opinion polls were ripe, held another General Election to “confirm” the first.  Surely no-one would say that this was a democracy. Suppose the Scottish were indeed …

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The Tyranny of Parliament

The sovereignty of Parliament is uncontested. The Supreme Court reminded us in the Gina Miller case as have a thousand constitutional commentators before and since. This is the law and it is correct. A recently formed group of MPs – the Independent Group – have proclaimed their independence of their …

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Turning the key

There were always two types of empire. There were those like the British and the French that spread overseas. British and French people would move to Delhi or Saigon and pretend they were living at home only it was rather hotter. These empires were always fragile. The other type of …

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Binning the Vichy water

It is perfectly possible to imagine a mutually beneficial deal emerging from the UK’s negotiations with the EU over Brexit. We already trade freely with EU countries and meet whatever standards are required to do this. It should pretty much be a matter of saying let’s continue more or less …

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Pommes frites à l’écossaise

Apparently the Scottish Parliament has just refused to consent to Brexit. The Lib Dems, Labour, Greens and SNP all joined together to thwart the plans of those wicked Tories to undermine the powers of the Scottish Parliament. There is a peculiar logic going on here. There are various issues that …

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A senseless struggle about nothing

There are two forces going on in human nature, the desire to unify and the desire to separate. The reason that we have nation states at all is because people have felt the need to unify with others who are similar to them.  In antiquity each small village had its …

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How to respond to Nationalist threats

Before finally deciding to campaign for Brexit, Boris Johnson prepared two articles for his regular Telegraph column. The first explained why he was choosing to vote Leave the other why he was choosing to vote for Remain. Many people would see this as a sign that his eventual decision was …

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Learning from Leave

In Scotland it’s important that Pro UK people move beyond our disagreements.  Keeping up the pressure on the SNP requires us not to squabble among ourselves.  Whichever way we voted in the EU referendum it’s crucial that we learn the lessons of that campaign. Obviously Remain had good arguments that …

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Sturgeon just revealed her hand

If you’ve ever played a card game that involves bluffing, you will no doubt be aware that it crucially depends on the players not being able to see each other’s cards. I can pretend that I have four aces only if my cards are hidden. This makes it possible for …

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A new Act of Union

Every now and again someone in Scottish politics pops up and mentions the word federalism. This has become even more frequent since the EU referendum. Apparently the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to Remain in the EU, while England and Wales voted to Leave has caused a problem …

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The Turning Point

Certain people I know and certain people I read have been describing the past year as something horrible. You only have to go back one hundred years to see how foolish this assessment is. Imagine you had just celebrated Christmas in 1916. There is every chance you would have lost …

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We have the chance to kill off Scottish nationalism

Just after the Brexit vote I came back from holiday and found a string of messages from Pro UK people. They were worried. Nicola Sturgeon was continually on the television complaining about something or other. Far from encountering systematic bias from the BBC, she was getting encouragement. At least she …

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The SNP have reached the end of their day

Something rather interesting just happened to Scottish politics, but I’m not sure anyone noticed. There is so much comment and speculation about day to day political events that there is a tendency to miss the essential. The complexity gets in the way of our ability to see the simplicity. The …

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To see ourselves as others see us

There is a stuffy consensus in Scotland. There always has been. Perhaps it has to do with the Presbyterian idea of the elect. We are exceptional. We are different. Wha’s like us. It makes our newspapers exceptionally dull, because almost no-one questions the assumptions which are shared even by political …

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Our Scottish president

The left lost the economic battle when the Berlin wall came down. No-one after that could take socialism seriously as a way of running an economy. Given the chance people living in a socialist society will vote with their feet. Of course there are those who are either too young …

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Parliament must not thwart democracy

Imagine if Yes had won the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 by 52% to 48%. There would have been much celebrating and there would have been the expectation that soon Scotland would be independent. Imagine however if someone resident in Scotland, but born in England had been so horrified by …

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Gone, gone the damage done

There is a reason I’ve been writing so much since the EU referendum and with perhaps a higher intensity than before. I returned from holiday in early July only to find one of my friends and colleagues in absolute bits. I remember that whole period of uncertainty leading up to …

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A “Hard Brexit” will bury the SNP forever

I never thought economics was a subject worth studying until 2008. But suddenly with the worst economic crisis since the 1930s making a difference to all of our lives, I thought it best to try to come to some sort of understanding of what was going on. I didn’t, of …

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It’s time to stop spoiling the SNP or the tantrums will get worse

I keep reading stories about how the SNP are trying to block Brexit. Sometimes they seem determined to stop the whole of the UK leaving the EU. At other times they apparently want Scotland to both remain in the UK and in the EU. There have been all sorts of …

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