Empire State Britain

The union case needs to deal with the return of the British Empire State Gerry Hassan The National, 7 December 2021 The UK may have been around a fair amount of time but it has never been static; always changing, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. While many UK supporters repeat the great thread of British history, the current UK borders only date from 1922 and the aftermath of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 (its centenary on Monday) while the current name - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland –became legally adopted in 1927. Despite this,

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The World Turned Upside Down: Life after 9/11 and the West’s War Machine Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 8 September 2021 Twenty years ago, the world changed dramatically on 11 September 2001 when al-Qaeda attacked the USA and overturned the post-Cold War assumptions of the West. Prior to this, in the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West believed in its in superiority with ‘the end of history’, ‘the clash of civilisations’, a belief in globalisation, progress and increasing prosperity. All were to be tested in the next two decades and found wanting. The aftermath of that dramatic

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Afghanistan, “forever wars” and the reality of Empire State Britain Gerry Hassan The National, 31 August 2021 The news of the past couple of weeks has been filled with the humiliation of US and UK forces in Afghanistan alongside the humanitarian tragedy unfolding before our eyes; an upsetting wake-up call to those who have become normalised to the permanent war machine of the West and the 20 years of “forever war” in Afghanistan. Rather than reset their assumptions, the war elite have looked on aghast at the decision of US President Joe Biden to withdraw from Afghanistan – abiding to

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The Twilight of Empire State Britain Gerry Hassan Sunday National, 22 August 2021 The UK’s reputation took another hit last week, as after the Brexit debacle and 150,000 dead from COVID-19 came the Afghanistan humiliation. The calamity and chaos in Kabul has united people in shock and fury at the incompetence and hubris of the present UK Government in a way those other disasters have not. It has provided defining accounts of a rotten, venal Tory class of entitlement timeservers such as Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab – and a government that only cares about its own self-preservation. It is

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The Afghan War and the Problem that is the West Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 18 August 2021 The Afghan War has ended in abject failure. A failure whose shape, consequences and brutality will only be fully clear as it is played out in the coming weeks, months and years. In response the UK Government has recalled Parliament to sit on Wednesday, confirming the impotence of the UK. Events on the ground have overtaken the US and UK authorities and other Western capitals. In places there appears a dereliction of duty with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab caught AWOL on holiday

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The Attack on Democracy and Breaking Out of the Empire State in the US and UK Gerry Hassan Sunday National, January 10th 2021 Democracy is under attack. It is being challenged by the likes of Trump and his fascist supporters and by authoritarians the world over – testing its strength and legitimacy. And it is not in great shape in the UK, with academic David Runciman saying that “American democracy is stuck and British democracy is stuck.” The events of 6th January 20201 and the storming of Congress by Trump’s far right supporters has appalled most of the world. Much

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The British Empire is still very much alive and kicking Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 23rd 2020 The British Empire has never really gone away. Its presence and influence has always been here - sometimes in the background, often in the foreground, being invoked, defended and even celebrated by some. It is there in the ridiculous debates about the UK ‘punching above its weight’ on the global stage, the painful dependency of UK elites on ‘the special relationship’ with Washington, and all the clinging to the wreckage of the UK’s diminished international status and that’s without mentioning Brexit. Like

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Living in the Shadow of Empire State Britain and the Problem of Cultural Dementia Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, April 19th 2018 The UK has been an uncomfortable place in the last few days. There has been the controversy over the Windrush deportations, Tory Cabinet minister Esther McVey defending the rape clause at the Scottish Parliament as ‘non-invasive’, and the resuscitation of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ 1968 speech from beyond the grave. On top of this there has been the Trump-led bombing of Syria, backed by UK and French forces, without parliamentary vote or international approval. We have to understand

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