Scottish politics

Gerry Hassan, Independence of the Scottish Mind: Elite Narratives, Public Spaces and the Making of a Modern Nation, Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-137-41413-7 Reviewed by Scott Hames Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, Summer 2016 The feverish upheaval of Scottish politics has gradually become its own kind of normal. On 5 May the voters practically yawned as they seized their second chance in twelve months to slaughter the Scottish Labour party. (The body-count is considerable, but it was an apathetic smothering compared to the gore of 2015.) As the SNP’s post-referendum insurgency beds down into cautious hegemony, boredom and

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The Labour Party: that pillar of the British constitution doesn’t have a right to exist Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, July 25th 2016 Politics requires a credible opposition that holds government to account. One that offers the prospect of an alternative government – but now, and for the foreseeable future, Scotland and the UK is without one. This is due to the state of Labour. The last year has been one of the most disastrous in the party’s history. A second election defeat, Scotland lost - and then Brexit. And after last year’s defeat the party curled up even more in

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After Britain: Is Scottish Independence the New Normal? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, July 6th 2016 These are unprecedented times. The Tories, UKIP and English and Welsh Greens are all in the middle of leadership elections, while Jeremy Corbyn is holding on by his fingertips in a stand-off with his own parliamentary party There is a lot of bewilderment, frustration and resentment – not just amongst Remain voters in the EU referendum, but also in the bitterly divided Leave camp. In the midst of this maelstrom Scottish independence looks like the new normal: less risky and the safer option than the

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Is this the beginning of the end of Britain? Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, July 3rd 2016 It may not be the beginning of the end of the UK quite yet. But it is the end of British politics - and Britain, as we know it. The British state faces its biggest geo-political set of challenges in generations. Blair and Iraq, Anthony Eden and Suez pale compared to this in terms of damage to the UK’s reputation, and only Neville Chamberlain and Munich, and Lord North’s loss of the American colonies, are in any way in the same league.

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Whatever happens, Britain has already left the building Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, June 22nd 2016 The UK has already left Europe. It never really joined in any real sense. National debates like this reveals much about the psyche of a country, and how it sees its collective hopes and fears. For one, it illuminates a lot about the ghosts of the past that haunt a country. In the Scottish indyref, for example, a great deal of this focused on the perceived legacy of Thatcherism and deindustrialisation. In this European debate, the ghosts seemingly ever-present are those of the spectre of

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This campaign is a future warning from a British Trumpland Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, June 19th 2016 The Euro campaign has been without any joy or love, and has reached depths unseen for decades in British politics – reducing complex subjects to the gutter. This last week has been a humbling one. The tragic death of Labour MP Jo Cox, the UKIP poster ‘Breaking Point’ on the threat of mass immigration coming to the UK, and the disgraceful antics of Leave.EU (the UKIP dominated Leave campaign) linking the Orlando massacre to Muslim immigration. It has been a long low road

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The SNP, Centre-Left Politics and the State of Social Democracy Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, June 8th 2016 One party stands head and shoulders above all others in Scotland - namely, the Scottish National Party. It has got there through its own efforts, hard work and virtues, along with the numerous mistakes and weaknesses of its opponents. Scottish Labour’s long car crash was part tragedy, part comedy, but mostly of its own making. If it ever has an obituary written, it will say: ‘died at its own hands’. The Scottish Tories have been toxic for a generation, even seen as unScottish

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What's Missing from the European Referendum? Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, May 22nd 2016 As memory of the Scottish campaign fades, along comes another one: the European referendum. It is like the deregulated chaos of buses – first none, then a stampede! We now have regular referendums. Scotland has had three, as has Wales, Northern Ireland two, and this is the third UK-wide vote. When they were first mooted in the 1970s they were called, particularly by MPs, ‘alien’, ‘unBritish’, ‘undermining of parliamentary sovereignty’, and the sort of things dictatorships do. Since then the referendum has slowly become part of the

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Have We Passed Peak SNP? After the Three Dreams of Scottish Nationalism Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, May 18th 2016 Nearly fifty years ago Scotland embarked on a new political journey - one defined by the politics of Scottish nationalism, the electoral challenge of the SNP, and the debate on self-government and how to best express Scotland’s collective interests. It has been a bumpy ride, involving controversies, incidents, moments of elation and disappointment, but while history is never tidy and linear, Scotland post-Winnie Ewing winning Hamilton in November 1967 was never the same. That much is uncontroversial. There have been subsequently

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An Open Letter to the SNP Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, May 15th 2016 Congratulations on last week’s historic third term. It was well deserved. The party has rightly established a reputation for competence. Nicola Sturgeon is popular and liked; none of the opposition come near. The SNP has contributed enormously to public life. It is seen as standing up for Scotland’s interests and after decades of Labour cronyism has been a new broom. This is probably as good as it gets. For the good of the country, the party and independence, it needs to understand the nature of its

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