Scottish politics

Jeremy Corbyn, Labour and Scottish Independence Gerry Hassan Sunday National, November 17th 2019 This week Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s trip to Scotland made the headlines - and not for positive reasons. Corbyn’s position in less than 24 hours changed more than once on independence. First, he shifted from his previous position of not having an independence referendum in the ‘early years’ of a Labour Government, indicating that a vote would not take place in ‘the first term’ of an administration. Then when this was seen as the significant shift it was, he rowed back and returned to the first position,

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Conventional wisdom is no guide to the future in an age of turmoil and surprise Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 13th 2019 UK general elections are never about one single subject even when politicians try to define them as such. Ted Heath’s ‘Who governs Britain?’ election of February 1974 became about the state of the country, and Winston Churchill’s belief after the war in Europe ended in 1945 that he would be elected by a grateful electorate turned out to be illusive as voters instead looked to the future. Similarly this election will not be about just one issue

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The Last UK General Election Ever? Or the Last Bar One? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, October 27th 2019 Boris Johnson on Monday makes what is his third attempt to get the votes to call a UK general election – needing 434 votes to win a two-thirds majority under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. This piece was written before the moves by the Lib Dems and SNP to bring about an election on December 9^th via a simple, single line bill. This may have more chance of succeeding later this week. But whether it does or does not it doesn’t invalidate

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Does Boris Johnson’s ‘deal’ pose the end of the Union? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, October 20th 2019 It has been another tumultuous Brexit week. But this is not the end of Brexit, or even the beginning of the end, but just another staging post in this drawn-out process. Fundamental to the Johnson deal is what is proposed for Northern Ireland. In place of the so called ‘backstop’ the province is instead put in a special place in relation to the rest of the UK and EU. It remains legally in the UK customs territory, while practically remaining in the EU

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Scotland needs fundamental change. A nationalist project is not enough Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, October 16th 2019 Five years after the indyref and three years after the Brexit vote Scottish politics feels like it is in a holding pattern, full of pent up pressures, but stuck in a vortex of powerful forces beyond its control. The SNP, who just met at their annual conference in Aberdeen, are by far the leading party. Yet their dominance can be overstated, it being aided by the fragmentation of multi-party politics, divided opposition and the negatives of Labour and Tories. The most recent

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Deal or No Deal? Brexit Endgame or the End of Britain? Gerry Hassan Sunday National, October 6th 2019 Boris Johnson has finally revealed his Brexit plan with less than one month to his intended exit date from the EU. Constantly presented as a ‘deal’ by insular British political discussion and media who have contributed so much to fueling Brexit, it is in fact nothing of the sort. It is rather an agreement between Boris Johnson, the Northern Irish DUP, the Eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG) and what remains of the parliamentary Tory Party. Politics does not stop at the

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The crisis of British democracy and Parliament isn’t going away anytime soon Gerry Hassan Sunday National, September 29th 2019 The British Parliament returned to work last week – reopened after the historic Supreme Court verdict. Its undertakings were highly charged, contentious and even abusive in language and exchange. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox sneeringly stated ‘this Parliament is dead ’ with ‘has no moral right to exist’, Boris Johnson talked dismissively of a ‘paralysed’ and ‘zombie’ Parliament, while even the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg described it as ‘exhausted and broken’. Beyond the drama and high tension, one emerging question is what is

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The future of the Scottish Tories after Ruth Davidson Gerry Hassan Sunday National, September 1st 2019 One constituency consistently admired Ruth Davidson - the media. As in her eight years of Tory leadership, the same has been true of her resignation; with numerous plaudits, magnified by how the London media misunderstand and misread Scotland. One example was provided by BBC ‘Newsnight’s’ programme on Thursday evening when Ben Chu opened his Ruth Davidson film with the proclamation: ‘She was an election winner with a gold dust appeal to millennials’, which was completely wrong in both its assertions. In her period as

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The Rise and Fall of Ruth Davidson, Brexit and the Future of the Union Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, August 30th 2019 Ruth Davidson has been a very successful politician in one inarguable aspect. As Scottish Tory leader she was continually spoken about, commented upon and discussed in the mainstream media and, often in non-Tory circles, in a positive light. After eight years as Tory leader in Scotland Davidson has decided that she wants to quit, for reasons both personal and political. She is 40 years old, with a new child, Finn, and plans to marry her partner Jen in the

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Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘obsession’ with staying in office and life after Sturgeon Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 28th 2019 In the past week Nicola Sturgeon made a couple of important statements about politics and power in Scotland. Speaking with the political comedian Matt Forde at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Sturgeon was revealing in a way she seldom is, and not perhaps in the way she intended to be. Firstly, Sturgeon said she was ‘obsessed’ with keeping the SNP in office and not ending up in an ‘existential crisis’ like Scottish Labour. Secondly, she said that the decline of Labour in Scotland and

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