Brexit

The World Has Been Turned Upside Down: The End of the Era of Robber Baron Capitalism Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, January 24th 2018 The world has been turned upside down in the last few weeks. Ten years after the banking crash showed that the economic assumptions which shaped most of our lives were bogus, along has come the collapse of Carillion, the biggest outsourcing company in the UK. The taking of the public out of public services has been a long war of attrition which has been waged by all the mainstream Westminster parties. It hasn’t improved public services

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Time to Wake Up and Ask Some Difficult Questions abut the SNP and Independence Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, January 23rd 2018 ‘What Do You Do When A Society Lies to Itself?’ So said writer Umair Haque this week in the context of the constitutional standoff in Trump’s America. But it is true of most nations most of the time; certainly it is true of today’s UK - and also of modern Scotland. Scottish politics are currently in what can only be described as a phoney war - a becalmed period of inertia and inactivity in-between the storms that buffet politics.

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Winston Churchill: The Man, the Myth, 1940 and Who can speak for Britain? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, January 16th 2018 Winston Churchill is everywhere at the moment. It is as if there are only two narratives about Britain’s past: the Second World War and dramas about people of privilege, class and money. The Churchill industry can cover both strands, and for some his is the last uncontested great story of Britain. To others he is the last statesman who unreservedly represented the moral case for Britain; whereas for many on the left he has long been a problem figure. And

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Brexit is turning Britain upside down – and Scotland has a chance to say No Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, January 15th 2018 Brexit has turned British politics and Britain itself upside down. But to the UK Government and Westminster political classes it is business as usual on the home front as far as Brexit and everything else is concerned. Not for them that Brexit is nearly entirely an English revolt (with Welsh acquiescence), or that Scotland and Northern Ireland are being dragged along against majority sentiment in their territories. Today the Scottish Government published its latest paper on Brexit,

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The World in 2018: Trump, Brexit, Britain and the Scottish Debate Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, January 10th 2018 The New Year is always a time for reflection. I spent the Christmas and New Year break in the United States, providing an opportunity for reflection and a different take on the world. Two and a half weeks in an American urban setting, even in one of the wealthiest and most creative clusters in the country around Boston and Cambridge, showcases what works and what doesn’t. Conspicuous wealth sits side-by-side crumbling infrastructure and poverty personified by the MBTA train system that looks

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The Ireland Question is not just about Ireland, but a selective view of Britain Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 29th 2017 Brexit has become a constitutional and political clusterfuck - a rolling embarrassment for Britain in a show that is set to run officially at least until 11pm on 29 March 2019, and in all probability for years after. It is a crash between a right-wing Fantasyland version of Britain (witness Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and Jacob Rees-Mogg) and at the margins, a left-wing British exceptionalist story led by Corbyn which hopes, by keeping quiet, to pick up the pieces,

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The Fantasyland Version of Britain is alive and kicking – and driving Brexit Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, Oct0ber 25th 2017 British democracy used to be presented as the envy of the world - the Whig version of history, the rule of law and above all the sense of continuity which was meant to differentiate the UK from its European neighbours. Such a view permeated British elites, institutions and public life. But it also informed many left-wing radicals and dissenters. One notable example was provided by the American writer Edward Shils on visiting the UK in 1953. He reflected on being

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Is this the end game for Theresa May and Tory Britain? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 11th 2017 The British Conservatives have for most of their history been an impressively successful political force, winning elections and forming the UK government on its own or in coalition for two-thirds of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. It then behooves the rest of us to try and understand the Conservative Party – what motivates its thinking, actions and ethos. And this matters even more when they are engulfed in infighting and faction fighting, in what looks like the lingering death rites of

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Brexit, Dunkirk and a Britain Where the Past Shapes the Future Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, July 26th 2017 The past is always around us in what passes for modern Britain. In recent years, particularly in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, it seems more omnipotent and increasingly problematic. From politics to culture and most aspects of public life we are confronted with a fantasyland version of the collective past which is selective and sepia-tinged. This matters because it reduces the prospect of us believing that we can make a better collective future than the nasty, mean-spirited reality which is for

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An Open Letter to the SNP and Independence Supporters Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, March 17th 2017 These are fast moving political times for Scotland. The events of the last week illustrate the accelerated fragmentation and disintegration of the UK as we know it. But these are also times of high stakes and stand-offs, with the Scottish and UK Governments gaming and predicting the actions of the other. Monday’s announcement by Nicola Sturgeon took the UK Government by surprise and seized the centrestage of British politics – forcing the postponement of triggering Article 50. Theresa May’s most recent statement, declaring

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