Nicola Sturgeon

‘Peak SNP’ and how Scotland and the UK are changing Gerry Hassan New Statesman, April 28th 2015 Scotland is everywhere in the news only a few months after the indyref. Scotland and its politics are being widely discussed and portrayed not just north of the border, but by UK media and politicians, as well as getting significant international coverage. Scotland feels different. It is as if something fundamental has shifted in how voters see politics, the consequences of their votes, and themselves. For years a sizeable segment of voters have thought at Westminster elections that the most important issue was

Continue Reading ‘Peak SNP’ and how Scotland and the UK are changing

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP and the Age of Anti-Austerity Politics Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, February 15th 2015 It has been a week filled with economic news and controversies. There was the imploding crisis of HSBC’s secret Swiss bank accounts and tax avoidance; the on-going Greek-German Governments European stand-off which threatens the future of the entire euro zone; while Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, is getting people ready for a year of flat or even falling prices. At the same time after years of public spending constraints and cuts, across large parts of Europe there is a

Continue Reading Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP and the Age of Anti-Austerity Politics

Message to the Messengers Part Two: Where next after the indy referendum? Gerry Hassan Scottish Left Project, December 12th 2014 The winds of change are without doubt blowing through Scotland. There is the decline of traditional power and institutions, the hollowing out and, in places, implosion of some of the key anchor points of public life and a fundamental shift in authority in many areas. This is Scotland’s ‘long revolution’ – which the indyref was a product of and which then was a catalyst of further change. It is partly understandable that in the immediate aftermath of the referendum,

Continue Reading Message to the Messengers Part Two: Where next after the indy referendum?

The Challenge of Success for Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, November 16^th 2014 The SNP are in good spirits with new leader Nicola Sturgeon describing the party as having ‘the wind in its sails’. The party might have been on the losing side of the recent independence referendum, but is riding high in the polls for Westminster next year and the Scottish Parliament elections the following year, with party membership sitting now at 85,000 and rising. This is the party that Nicola Sturgeon inherits from Alex Salmond this weekend. ‘The country has changed, and changed utterly’ claimed

Continue Reading The Challenge of Success for Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP

What kind of Scotland does Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP want? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 12th 2014 Scotland and Scottish politics are in unchartered waters. The post-indyref has shaken and rearranged the normal reference points: SNP membership has gone through the roof, while the Labour ‘winners’ have laid claim to putting on a paltry 1,000 members. Amid all the noise and debate, there is in the confusion, an eerie lack of substantive discussion, as people try to find their way. In the Labour Party a clutch of left-wingers believe that their core problem is the party’s embrace north

Continue Reading What kind of Scotland does Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP want?

We are One Scotland: Anatomy of a Referendum Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, September 24th 2014 It was a momentous moment in Scottish and British history. The Scottish independence referendum. It dominated Scottish and British airwaves in the last couple of weeks, and became a huge international story. Nearly every single cliché has been dug up, used and then over-used to exhaustion. What then as the excitement, claim and counter-claim quieten down, is there left to say and do? Actually, there is quite a lot. Let’s talk about the immediate reactions post-vote from the Scottish and British political classes. They both

Continue Reading We are One Scotland: Anatomy of a Referendum

Britain is on Borrowed Time: The Future of Scottish Independence Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, September 19th 2014 Scotland voted No to independence. In answer to the question, ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’, 1,617,989 voted Yes (44.7%) and 2,001,926 voted No (55.3%) in a massively impressive turnout of 84.6%: the highest ever anywhere in the UK in post-war times. The result, and campaign, will be rightly mulled over and analysed for years, but in the fast moving aftermath it is important to lay down some thoughts and calm-headed thinking. Scotland has changed and shifted in how it sees itself

Continue Reading Britain is on Borrowed Time: The Future of Scottish Independence

The Power and Absence of Doubt in the Nationalist Independence Cause Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 13th 2014 It has not been a great week for the independence cause and for the SNP. This has been made worse by the self-denial and delusion expressed by a host of independence supporters including parts of the commentariat, the SNP and on-line opinion. The SNP’s position on currency union, along with EU membership, has for ages been the weak flank of their entire proposition. Thus, it should have been no surprise to anyone when Alistair Darling basically mugged Salmond on the former in

Continue Reading The Power and Absence of Doubt in the Nationalist Independence Cause