British politics

The European Debate has only just begun for Scotland and the UK Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, November 15th 2015 Europe has returned to the centre of British politics. The phony war within the Tories is over as David Cameron revealed his want list from European leaders. It wasn’t exactly long or substantial. He wants change in four areas - exempting the UK from ‘ever closer union’, boosting economic competitiveness, protection of the non-euro countries from further integration, and restrictions on EU migrants drawing UK benefits. These requests are not far-reaching, leading Tory MP Bernard Jenkin to ask ‘is that it?’

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The Appeal and Vision of Tory Britain shouldn’t be underestimated by the left Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, October 11th 2015 The Tory conference gathered this week in good spirits after unexpectedly winning an overall majority in May, and with all their main UK political opponents in disarray. One rather significant anniversary passed unnoticed this week. This was the 65^th anniversary - the day after Cameron’s speech - of Harold Macmillan’s ‘you’ve never had it so good’ election victory in 1959 when the Tories won a third term and overall majority of 100 seats. Britain and Scotland have changed dramatically

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Corbyn and Anger: Rage Against the Machine is understandable but never ever enough Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, September 20th 2015 Jeremy Corbyn has dominated the news headlines this week. Let’s start with the obvious - the failure of mainstream politics. Conventional British politics are bust. The Labour right, the Blairites and soft left have nothing to offer their own party, let alone the country. More seriously, the Cameron Conservatives after five years in office have yet to find a convincing governing mantra. ‘Big society’ and ‘compassionate Conservatism’ are long dead, leaving little that represents Cameron and Osborne beyond living within

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Scotland and Britain Have Changed: The 'Big Bang' of the Indy Ref and After Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, September 13th 2015 One year ago Scotland went to the polls. An amazing 85% of us voted: 45% for independence and 55% against – both expressions of Scottish self-government and a desire for a different Scotland. Scotland did not vote for independence, but nor did it settle for the status quo of the existing union. Instead, it voted to continue in a kind of interregnum – a transition from something familiar to something still hazy with a destination as yet unknown.

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One Year on from the IndyRef: Making the Scotland of the Future Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, September 2nd 2015 Scottish public life has dramatically changed in recent times – the SNP 2011 first landslide, the independence referendum, and the 2015 tartan tsunami. Yet Scotland, like everywhere, is about more than politics. In this and other areas there have been huge changes, but also continuity and conservatism, the balance of which we are still trying to make sense of, and with huge consequences for the future of Scotland and the UK. Take the indyref. It didn’t come from nowhere. It came

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Let Us face the Future: Labour, Jeremy Corbyn and the Power of the Past Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, August 21st 2015 This is the most exciting and cataclysmic Labour leadership contest in a generation. The nearest comparison must be the Benn insurgency for the Deputy Leadership of the party in 1981, where he narrowly lost to Denis Healey. This marked the peak of the left’s influence in Labour - until now. What is occurring in the Labour contest, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and the diminishing of Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, is little more than

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Time for an Independence of the Scottish Mind Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, August 9th 2015 A second independence may be off the agenda of SNP conference for now, but Alex Salmond regards it as ‘inevitable’. Such are the pressures and tensions of success. Where do you take a movement which came close to winning independence last September? How do you balance pragmatic and idealist hopes? What do you after the SNP ‘tartan tsunami’ of May this year which carried nearly all before it – and, when your opponents are so weak and disorientated? There is talk in places of a

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A People’s Revolt in Labour but where will it end? Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, August 2nd 2015 ‘The Labour Party has gone mad’. ‘It has abandoned its senses’. ‘This is a summer of insanity’. These and suchlike comments made about Jeremy Corbyn are now familiar refrains in the Westminster mainstream. Before that this disdain was targeted northwards - asking ‘has Scotland gone mad?’ Jeremy Corbyn’s rise and emergence has caught the Westminster bubble by surprise, but isn’t hard to fathom. The other three challengers are dire. What passes for Labour stars are sitting it out. Labour members are dismayed and

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‘You’re Fired’: Jeremy Corbyn and what Voters Want to Say to the Political Classes Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, July 26th 2015 This week Tony Blair compared Scottish nationalism to ‘cavemen’ and told supporters of Jeremy Corbyn who wanted to vote with their heart to ‘get a transplant.’ You always know something is up when the political insults start flying. Labour have no idea what has happened in Scotland, and to compound matters for the party establishment, this week saw the rise of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership challenge. The trigger was a poll which put Corbyn not just ahead of the other

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The Nationalist Lion Roars at Westminster! Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, July 19th 2015 The times are changing in Scotland and Britain: the SNP impact at Westminster; Tory maneouvres to hurt, harm and trap Labour on union reform and welfare, and the vacuum of Labour and Lib Dems post-election defeat. The SNP scored early blood on fox-hunting and English votes for English laws – forcing government postponement on the first and regrouping and redrafting on the second. This has produced Tory anger and fury at the Nationalists, and eventually see the Tories attempt to get their revenge. A significant part of

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