Tag Archives: European Union

I have in recent days found myself dealing with perpetual criticism of the Vote Leave campaign’s use of the ‘£350m’ figure during last year’s EU referendum campaign. Scores of Twitter followers and individuals I know in person have, it seems, converged on me, telling me that our figure was either …

One of the best bits from Tim Shipman’s book “All out War” is when he describes David Cameron’s attempt to negotiate some sort of deal with the other EU leaders. The account feels already like another country as if we could look back on those days from a perspective of …

Today, Tuesday 17 January, 2017, UK Prime Minister, Theresa May will lay out the framework for Britain’s exit from the European Union – Brexit. It was an excellent blue print for a global Britain. President Trump has indicated a desire for the USA to conclude a free trade treaty with …

So much noise is made about the Single Market that commentators forget that the EU forces us to be part of something much worse and much bigger. A Customs Union. The EU is the world’s largest anti-trade organisation. This means the 28 nations and 510 million people of the EU …

To give Scotland a different EU status to any other part of the UK would in effect be to give it independence.  It might be the case that the UK would continue to exist in some odd way still technically united, but for how long could such an arrangement last? …

There is no question that uncertain times lie ahead for the European Union. After the historic Brexit vote of June 23rd, 2016, the EU was left in quite the predicament. Not only had one of its major players left the bloc after 43 years, but panic spread across Brussels, wondering if there …

“We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed. If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.” – Winston …

https://youtu.be/f07h2f1AKxI Friendship and cooperation No, Theresa May was not mortally humiliated at the current EU summit underway in Brussels. Somehow, probably after a few nights in intensive care and some trauma therapy, the prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will bounce back from being …

Because the remain campaign had no good reasons why we should stay in the EU they resorted to Project Fear instead. Telling us a pack of lies to try and win the referendum. But these lies were so obvious and so ridiculous that only the most dim witted didn’t see …

The National Review might not be down on all the fine details of Brexit*, and quite possibly put too much faith in the elimination of tariffs as a means of spurring trade, given the modern shift toward non-tariff barriers, but their forthright and optimistic call for a swift US-UK trade agreement is most …

The above graph is taken from the Facts4EU website, a great reference if you want the truth, instead of the Bremoan propaganda of the BBC, the Financial Times and the Economist (link to their site here). The graph is based on proper, statistically valid, opinion polling by the highly respected …

There is an odd concept in Scottish politics that things that are paid for by someone else are free. The SNP in particular has based much of its populism on providing these “freebies” to their supporters. We now have “free” prescriptions, “free” eye tests, “free” passage over the sea to …

So as was always a possibility, the High Court has ruled that the government does not have the authority to initiate Britain’s secession from the EU by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty without first winning a vote in Parliament. From the Guardian: Parliament alone has the power to …

Whichever fat fingered BBC technician “accidentally” substituted some film of a psychotic rampaging gorilla for the latest film of Nicola Sturgeon making threats deserves some sort of award. Give that man a Nobel Prize for services to humour. There is a long history in Britain of turning people like Sturgeon into …

The global, liberal elite are increasingly transcending any lingering commitment to patriotism and national identity, setting them on a collision course with the small-c conservative majority Michael Lind has an unmissable essay in the National Review this week, entitled “The Open-Borders ‘Liberaltarianism’ of the New Urban Elite“, which manages to explain …

The SNP are planning another so called “National Conversation” on whether Scotland should leave the UK. It was supposed to happen this summer, but has been put off for a while because of the UK’s decision to leave the EU. It’s crucial therefore to realise that even if the UK …

British schools and universities represent an oppressive and highly unsafe space for young students who believe in free speech or hold pro-Brexit beliefs If you think that you have been made to feel uncomfortable for holding eurosceptic, pro-Brexit beliefs, spare a thought for those young Brexiteers trapped firmly behind enemy …

There is a very respectable argument for Scottish independence that surprisingly is rarely made by supporters.  It goes something like this. We want Scotland to be independent because we want Scotland to be a sovereign independent nation state just like all the others in the world and we don’t care …

This failed military coup has achieved the awful outcome of allowing Turkey’s tin pot dictator in gestation, the despicable President Erdogan and his supporters, to pose as champions of the very democracy they are busy subverting Nobody in their right mind usually yearns for a military coup – the violence, confusion, civilian …

I feel like I’ve been in one long referendum campaign for the past five years and more. I’ve written over two hundred blogs, nearly all of them about Scottish politics. It gets tiring. Now some Scottish nationalists want another referendum. The SNP campaigned for Scottish independence first time round and …