The Twilight of the British State: Alex Salmond, Scottish Independence and the European Question
The Twilight of the British State: Alex Salmond, Scottish Independence and the European Question Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, October 28th 2011 This is a fascinating and fast moving period of politics, at a global, European, British and Scottish level, challenging many of the most deep-seated and unexamined assumptions held across the political spectrum. In the last week we have seen the euphoric SNP conference at Inverness showing a party on the crest of a wave which seems to think that the future is within its grasp. Then we have at Westminster the return of the popular bogeyman – Eurosceptism
Anatomy of a Scottish Revolution: The Potential of Post-Nationalist Scotland and the Future of the United Kingdom
Anatomy of a Scottish Revolution: The Potential of Post-Nationalist Scotland and the Future of the United Kingdom Gerry Hassan Political Quarterly, July-September 2011 Introduction The face of Scottish politics has been utterly changed. The political map of Scotland which was once uniformly Labour red across the Central Belt is now nearly completely SNP yellow with small pockets of Labour representing a battered, seemingly defeated army. Why has Scotland changed so dramatically, and what does this mean for Scottish politics? What has occurred in Scottish society, identity and the politics of nationalism and unionism? What are the likely consequences
The ‘Forward March’ of Scottish Nationalism and the End of Britain As We Know It
The ‘Forward March’ of Scottish Nationalism and the End of Britain As We Know It Gerry Hassan Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, Summer 2011 Introduction Scotland has been changed dramatically and fundamentally. The SNP landslide victory has resulted in a completely different political map of Scotland. This is a wider set of changes than just a northern, near-foreign politics of little real interest to the Westminster village. For a start there is the demise of the Labour hegemony north of the border. This is part of a deeper crisis of the British political class and state, British identity
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After ‘new Britain’: The Strange Death of ‘the Labour Nation’
After 'new Britain': The Strange Death of 'the Labour Nation' Gerry Hassan Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, Autumn 2010 The question that hovers above the Iraq inquiry is – since the evidence on Saddam Hussein’s weaponry was so flaky and the post-war planning so atrocious – why on earth Tony Blair did it. One theory, albeit not the one likely to be offered by Mr Blair himself, is that his militarism and messianism, the mix of responsibility and entitlement that he evinced, are part of the inheritance of all post-imperial British leaders… If empire is the backdrop of Britain’s
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Labourism, the New Labour revolution and what comes next?
Labourism, the New Labour revolution and what comes next? Gerry Hassan Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, Autumn 2010 The New Labour era has finally ended. And though the full scale of the destruction and wreckage which it has inflicted upon British politics, society and progressive ideas will not be entirely clear until we can gain an element of hindsight through the passage of time, this is not a happy story. Nor is there any prospect of a ‘Back to the Future’ politics for Labour - a ‘restoration’ that returns us back to the certainties and parameters of
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Goodbye to Gordon Brown and All That
Goodbye to Gordon Brown and All That Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, May 6th 2010 The last act of Gordon Brown has surely arrived. A gruelling election campaign fighting on two fronts. Three years of leading a disunited, unpopular government. Thirteen years in office and a culmination of mistakes made and enemies created. Gordon Brown is as well as being the Prime Minister for the last three years and a senior Labour politician for more than two decades, a prolific writer who has ‘written’ and ‘produced’ more than a dozen books under his name. In the last few weeks, Brown has
The Battle of Britain 2010 Edition and Living in the Shadow of Empire
The Battle of Britain 2010 Edition and Living in the Shadow of Empire Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, April 6th 2010 After a seemingly never-ending period the ‘official’ election campaign has finally begun. The 2010 British general election will be about many things: thirteen years of New Labour, Cameroon’s Conservatives, the state of the economy, public services and public spending, and the condition and character of our politics, political system and democracy. Underlying all of this is a wider set of questions and issues which can be summarised as: who are we, what do we want to be, what kind of
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Doctrine and Ethos in the Scottish Labour Party
Doctrine and Ethos in the Scottish Labour Party Gerry Hassan and Eric Shaw Paper to the Political Studies Association Annual Conference,'Regionalist Parties and Territorial Politics' April 1st 2010 Before I was born my father was involved in socialist politics and from boyhood I have known all the great men – Hardie, Maxton, Tom Johnston and Wheatley. I have heard some describe the wonderful society that socialism will bring to the working class. All of them went down to the Parliament in London, and from there they could never deliver socialism to the Scottish working class.
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Goodbye to ‘Churchillism’: From Munich and Suez to the Iraq War
Goodbye to ‘Churchillism’: From Munich and Suez to the Iraq War Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, March 5th 2010 Gordon Brown’s role in the Iraq war will come under focus today when he gives evidence to the Chilcot inquiry. The Iraq war is the point where Tony Blair lost his political touch, and became ‘Bliar’ in the eyes of many voters. Despite four previous inquiries into the war, none of them as comprehensive as this, a sense of anger, frustration and lack of trust now pervades how the public view politicians and the conflict. Much of this anger is addressed personally
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An Age of Anger: The London Review of Books and the British Crisis of Democracy
An Age of Anger: The London Review of Books and the British Crisis of Democracy Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, March 1st 2010 The current crisis of the British state, politics and democracy should be a golden moment for radicals, constitutional reformers and campaigners. It should also be an era in which left and liberal publications have the opportunity to engage and involve a wider audience about the state of the nation and democracy. One of those publications is the ‘London Review of Books’, which sees itself as urbane, cosmopolitan, liberal minded, addressing British concerns and global issues in a challenging
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