The Strange Death of Liberal England Continued Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, July 30th 2014 Liberal England is in a state of confusion. There is the challenge of the Scottish independence referendum, the continued right wing drift of UK politics, and the slow detachment of the UK from the European Union. All of the above cause apoplexy and dismay to the thinking elements of the English left. One response to this from people such as Labour MP John Cruddas and Billy Bragg is to try to re-ignite the English radical imagination and challenge the increasingly English nationalist overtones of Nigel

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A Time for Boldness and Honesty: 21^st Century Scottish Radicalism Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, July 23rd 2014 The independence referendum has seen an explosion of radical and progressive thinking and activism. Where there was once silence and disillusion, now there is hope, excitement and imagination. There is the generosity and pluralism of National Collective, the breadth and reach of the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC), and the energy and dynamism of the Jimmy Reid Foundation. Then there is a wider set of trends looking at how to develop a deeper democracy from the work of So Say Scotland and its Citizen’s

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The Myth of 'Divided Scotland' Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, July 16th 2014 One of the most oft-repeated descriptions of Scotland at the moment in the heat of the independence referendum is the problem of ‘divided Scotland’. A Yes victory will leave a ‘deeply divided Scotland’ claimed Better Together chief Blair McDougall (Better Together, June 8^th 2014), while a pro-independence website declared in response, ‘A deeply divided Scotland will be the result of a No vote’ (Arc of Prosperity, June 9^th 2014). Much cited recent polling shows that 38% of Scots believe divisions will remain whatever the referendum outcome, while 36%

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A Letter to Scotland’s New Radicals Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, July 9th 2014 Radical Scotland’s re-emergence and re-invigoration around the independence referendum has been one of the most welcome and positive occurrences for many years in Scottish politics. This is a real challenge and change from the predictable stale menu which has been passed off as our political debate and choices for decades. This is even more true of what has presented itself as radical and left politics. An array of groups, networks and initiatives of which the most prominent are National Collective, the Radical Independence Campaign and Jimmy

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What do we do we do about the United Kingdom? And Why Federalism isn’t the Answer Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, July 4th 2014 In the last few weeks political debate has become filled with talk of the possibility of a federal United Kingdom. This has come not surprisingly exclusively from pro-union voices. There was Tory MSP Murdo Fraser’s recent thoughtful speech, David Torrance’s short book on British wide federalism, and even former Prime Minister Gordon Brown mulling over the subject. Murdo Fraser in his Reform Scotland talk said that ‘federalism within the UK, if it were workable and could be

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A Scotland Beyond Yes and No: My Journey to Yes Gerry Hassan National Collective, June 26th 2014 I want to live in a Scotland which is not defined by Yes and No - a world of ‘us’ and ‘them’ - of politics, families and friendships reduced to the emotions of football supporters and tribalism. I want to live in a world of one Scotland and many, multiple, diverse Scotlands. This is a time of many different debates in our nation; about the nature of our constitutional status and the meaning of independence, about who has power and authority in an

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How to Make a New Scottish Democracy Gerry Hassan           The Herald, June 18th 2014 The contemporary Scottish independence debate is about many things and influences: the aspiration of some to make a new Scottish state, or to remain in the shared sovereignties of the UK. But another crucial influence is the state of the UK: its economic and social inequities and concentrations of power and wealth, and the failure of the progressive dream at a British level despite thirty years of Labour Governments in office over the post-war era. Underpinning all of the above concerns is the fact that

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Why the Nazis and 1930s are alive and kicking in the independence debate? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, June 11th 2014 The Nazis are on the rise everywhere. They are cited on both sides of the bitter Ukrainian conflict, in places such as Greece and Hungary with neo-Nazi and fascist parties, and in some of the outrageous comments of the French Front National and even Ukip’s more extreme fringe. The spectre of the Nazis and fascism have become increasingly omnipotent over the last twenty years to become a defining set of historical and cultural references in the UK, and England in

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The Crisis of BBC Scotland – A Lack of Vision, Integrity and Accountability Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, June 4th 2014 The independence referendum has thrown a spanner in the works of large parts of institutional Scotland. So far the biggest meltdown has been CBI Scotland becoming a registered ‘No’ supporter, then baulking at the consequences. Another was the maneuvering of SCVO on the second referendum question and then being left on its own when the politicians agreed on a single question. But fast coming up the tracks in the incompetence stakes is BBC Scotland. The latest instance is the

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How less than 200,000 Scots could decide the Referendum: Your Cut Out and Paste Guide to the Independence Result Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, May 28th 2014 The Scottish independence referendum campaign starts ‘properly’ this week. All of the last two and a half years have been a mere preliminary or pre-season warm-up to the start of the ‘official’ contest. Therefore, in the manner of those cut out and keep guides to the World Cup and Eurovision here is an analysis to the possible result, different permutations and interpretations of the result, along with some of the consequences. And crucially, how

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