Friday , April 26 2024

Joe Ray

Joe Ray lives in Edinburgh and works in the social investment sector. He writes about Scottish and British politics and in particular how Brexit has changed the dynamic of the Scottish constitutional debate.

The Pillars of Scottish Nationalism have crumbled

The SNP’s remarkable electoral ascent over the past decade has been driven by an ever increasing sense of political momentum. Far from diminishing after the 2014 independence referendum, the SNP’s momentum only gained in strength, and the 2015 election result that returned 56 nationalist MPs, wiping out Scottish Labour and …

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Scotland’s #GE2017: a proxy vote for #indyref2

Nicola Sturgeon may have called for a second Scottish referendum with public opinion polls clearly against any rerun but among the smarter intentions of her March announcement was to position the SNP to fight a snap 2017 general election on a manifesto to seek a further mandate for partitioning the …

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Ignore Sturgeon’s bluster, Brexit has weakened the case for Scottish independence

In the four weeks since Nicola Sturgeon called an urgent Monday morning press conference at Bute House to sound the latest salvo in her perpetual drive to partition the United Kingdom the most notable consequences have been to see support for Scottish independence sink to minus 12 points and to …

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There will be a second Scottish independence referendum- here’s how the union can triumph

Scots will have to face going through a second independence referendum and the sooner this is accepted the better. The vast majority of those who voted No in 2014 naively believed that the 2014 referendum would be a genuine once-in-a-generation event that would conclusively settle the constitutional question for a good 30 years …

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The inconvenient fact of Yes/Leave voters

The passing tourist of Scottish politics can be pardoned for presuming Scotland to be a land of excitable swivel-eyed devotees of the European integrationist project, where attitudes towards mass immigration and its cultural and economic benefits are a pole apart from the primitive tribalism expressed by our backward southern neighbours. …

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Brexit has ruined the economic case for Scottish independence

A majority of Scots believe the break-up of the UK is inevitable, Nicola Sturgeon has her “material change in circumstance” that would allow her to trigger a second referendum and commentators crow about how 2016 was the “Year the Union died”. They are all wrong. Far from creating the circumstances for the …

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