New Statesman: The twilight of the Union

The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic overshadowed the trial, and made the constitutional debate about Scotland’s future seem trivial. Suddenly there were other more pressing issues to think about, a lethal and mysterious plague that threatened to overwhelm the NHS and devastate the economy. Although, technically speaking, NHS Scotland is a distinct entity, founded on separate Scottish legislation, this fact belongs to the arcane lore of policy wonks: the NHS is widely regarded in Scotland as a UK institution. During lockdown Scots banged pots and pans on a Thursday night for the NHS, not specifically for the NHS in Scotland. And everybody knew that the Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s generous furlough scheme came courtesy of the deep pockets of the UK Treasury.

Yet, bizarrely, the Scottish Question did not hibernate. Instead, opinion about Scottish independence shifted significantly during the Covid lockdown. At the start of the year, the pro- and anti-independence camps were running neck and neck in the opinion polls, and remained tied as late as May. But more recent polls demonstrate a marked rise in support for independence, which is now running at 54 per cent, once the don’t knows are excluded. [...]

To be sure, nationalism plays a significant part in the independence cause. But in the broad miscellaneous coalition of voters that supports independence, flag-waving nationalists, though the most obviously visible cohort, rub shoulders with a range of other social types. There are the voters, often middle-aged, who think independence is the best way of preserving what remains of Britain’s cherished welfare state; those who want to live in a normal northern European country – like Denmark or Norway – with a Nordic model of egalitarian social democracy; those who despair of the Brexity delusions of Britain’s post-imperial nostalgia; and a radical younger generation that identifies with Rise, the alternative movement for “Respect, Independence, Socialism and Environmentalism”.

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New Statesman: Nicola Sturgeon: Britain’s most powerful woman

By most accounts Sturgeon has had a good crisis. Five and a half years into her reign as leader of the Scottish National ­Party and First Minister, she is the most ­powerful woman in Britain. Her avowed aim, of course, is Scottish independence and step by stealthy step she is creeping closer to achieving it. A recent Panelbase poll put her personal rating at plus 60, while that of ­Boris Johnson – who is even less ­popular north of Hadrian’s Wall than Margaret Thatcher was – is at minus 39. [...]

Sturgeon’s admirers are barely able to conceal their glee. One senior SNP member of Scottish parliament who has known her for decades says, “we’ve been incredibly lucky to have her,” adding, “No one expected her to be quite so exceptional.” What has impressed him has been the forthright, uncompromising manner in which she has informed the public about what is ­expected of them. There has been no obfuscation, no false optimism, no dithering, no knee-jerk pandering to those clamouring for an early return to “normality”. People may not like what she has to say but in general they ­accept it as a prescription that must be followed. Yet, despite Sturgeon’s ­direct ­approach, Scotland has recorded 2,491 deaths from Covid-19 since March. [...]

A poll for the Wings Over Scotland website, a haven for the fundamentalist cohort, found that 26 per cent of voters would either “definitely or probably” give their list vote to the so-called “Alliance for Independence” party if it was fronted by Salmond. It is not a prospect that those in the upper echelons of the SNP relish. “The idea of ­splitting pro-independence votes is manna from heaven for the unionists,” says one former confidante. “He is feasting with panthers.” [...]

Where Salmond was “collegiate and would take advice from everyone”, observes Campbell Gunn, who has worked for both the former and current first ministers, Sturgeon relies on a small group for advice. The close circle includes Liz Lloyd, her chief of staff, and her husband. But other names are conspicuous by their absence. Gunn recalls that when he was working for Salmond and monitoring press coverage over the weekend they would be in constant communication. In contrast, Sturgeon is happy to delegate. “Call me if there’s ­something urgent,” she’d say. “Otherwise leave me alone.” Having said that, Gunn says of her: “If she achieves ­independence, she has her place in ­Scottish history. I thought Alex had done a ­remarkable job in transforming the SNP but Nicola has done even better.” 

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TLDR Explains: Johnson's 30 Mile Bridge: Connecting Scotland and N. Ireland

For a while now Johnson has been talking about building a 30 mile bridge from Scotland to Northern Ireland. This rather out there plan might be possible, if the UK is willing to spend enough money to make it happen. In this video we discuss the viability of the plan and why Johnson wants to do it at all.

BBC News: Dukes, aristocrats and tycoons: Who owns Scotland?

Scotland is said to have some of the most concentrated land ownership in the developed world. It’s estimated that fewer than 500 people own half the country’s privately-owned rural land.

But how does land ownership affect our lives and is it important who the land belongs to?

The Guardian: Jeremy Corbyn’s stance on Brexit could yet pay off, even for remainers. Here’s why

Yet, seeing Campbell announce this week that he’s given up on the Labour party, mainly because under Jeremy Corbyn it won’t go all-out remain, I couldn’t help wondering if he shouldn’t also take heed of that Irish lesson. Because if you want Labour to be a pure remain party – against the wishes of so many of its marginalised, traditional voters, particularly those working-class people in the north – then don’t do it after a referendum in which those same voters had the once-in-a-lifetime chance to actually make their vote count. Don’t choose this moment to tell millions of long-standing party supporters that you’re ignoring their deeply held views. [...]

Corbyn is facing far more flak for this today than New Labour did 20 years ago, and that’s because many on the right of the party don’t actually want to see him win power. (If you want proof, look at Stephen Kinnock’s stony-faced reaction, captured by a BBC documentary camera, as the news broke that Theresa May had lost her majority in the 2017 election.) Many of those in and around politics still yearn for the Blair-Brown era when they were close to power. They’re not worried about the damage Labour would suffer by going “full remain”: an election defeat would merely hasten the day when the hated Corbyn steps down.

Others say that now Boris Johnson has energised the hard right and united his cabinet over no deal, Corbyn must do the same – but for remain. This is nonsense. Johnson has already seen the damage caused by his rash decision-making. He’s boxed himself in by refusing to talk to European leaders until they ditch the backstop; he’s been slapped down by Nicola Sturgeon and learned that his stance is boosting the cause of Scottish independence; he’s faced angry Welsh farmers whose livelihood is threatened by no-deal tariffs; and he’s gone to Northern Ireland, where he’s been told that the peace process is at risk. And in Brecon and Radnorshire he’s tasted defeat after just a week in office, losing an 8,000 majority. Far from rallying supporters, his Brexit stance has just piled up his problems. He can’t even rely on the party’s hardcore Brexiteers to support any deal he might achieve with Europe.

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TLDR News: Will Scotland Leave the UK Because of Brexit?

For years Scotland has been talking about leaving the United Kingdom and Brexit has really reignited that conversation. We discuss the history of Scottish independence as well as if Scotland will actually leave because of Brexit.

The Conversation: SNP surge in European elections has major implications for a second independence referendum

Unlike most of the rest of the UK, where the upstart Brexit Party topped the poll, in Scotland the SNP finished first yet again. The party took more than 38% of the vote, picking up half of Scotland’s six seats in the European Parliament.

This is quite a remarkable success for a party that has been in power in Scotland since 2007 and has finished top in every election since 2011. [...]

For the SNP, Scotland voting differently from the rest of the UK feeds into the narrative that Scotland is just politically different and should make its own decisions. [...]

The Conservative anti-independence message to an extent prevented the party from having an even worse election. They are likely to remain the main unionist party, particular as their leader Ruth Davidson has a very high profile, rivalling only the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon, and is also relatively popular too. [...]

Meanwhile, the Brexit Party did finish a distant second with around 14% in Scotland but this does not place them to do well in the next Holyrood election. UKIP won a seat at the 2014 EU elections in Scotland and gained less than 2% two years later at the Holyrood elections.

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The Atlantic: Britain Is Rushing to Seal a Brexit Deal Few Support

May needs at least 320 lawmakers to back her deal in a final vote for it to pass. Without a parliamentary majority or a unified party behind her, it’s estimated May can only count on as many as 235 party loyalists, as well as four to five Labour lawmakers. Those who have already pledged to vote against her deal include a group of as many as 40 Hard-Brexit Conservatives, a majority of Labour lawmakers, as well as the SNP (35 lawmakers), Liberal Democrats (12), Plaid Cymru (four), and the Greens (one). [...]

Though May appears to have avoided the high-profile cabinet resignations that have plagued these negotiations, a figure who could be key to the deal’s success in the days and weeks ahead is Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, the prime minister’s pick to usher the deal through to its final phase after Davis’s resignation over the summer. A committed Brexiteer, Raab has been among the most vocal in cabinet against a deal that risks keeping the U.K. closely aligned with the EU. If he is able to accept a provision to maintain some regulatory and customs alignment with the bloc to maintain the status quo at the Irish border, there is a chance others will too. [...]

Ultimately, however, the fate of May’s plan won’t be decided by cabinet, but by parliamentary calculus. Conservative Brexiteer Peter Bone warned the prime minister in the House of Commons on Wednesday that if reports of the draft deal’s contents are true, the agreement could be dead on arrival. “You are not delivering the Brexit people voted for,” he said, “and today you will lose the support of many Conservative MPs and millions of voters across the country.”

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statista: The most popular political figures in the UK

In a time of political upheaval and uncertainty in the UK with key figures pulling in very different directions, where do the public's affections lie? Unsurprisingly, it is as split as the political landscape itself. According to the latest YouGov 'Ratings', Boris Johnson and Theresa May enjoy the most positive opinions from the public, both of which having a 32 percent favourability rating. The Labour leader Corbyn is in third place with 30 percent of respondents saying they view him positively.

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The Guardian: Now Brexit really is threatening to tear the UK apart

If anything, May has been even more churlish in her handling of the union with Scotland. In her relations with Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish government, she has been an uncompromising centraliser. Scotland’s 62% vote for remain has been consistently ignored. So have Sturgeon’s various ideas – some of which were moderate and reasonable – about mitigating Brexit in Scotland. Instead, some Scottish devolution powers have been suspended and the UK government has fought a court case against the Scots: a curiously tough form of love.

To be fair to May, dealing with this Scottish government is not easy. The SNP wants out of the union altogether. It uses any and every issue to leverage the case for separation. To make a Brexit deal with a party trying to use Brexit to advance the separatist cause would test even a skilful negotiator, which May is not.

Nevertheless, Sturgeon made a telling point on Tuesday when she compared the receptivity of the EU to Ireland’s special concerns in the Brexit negotiations with the hostility of the UK government to the special concerns of Scotland. May has been unbending towards a part of the UK that – never forget – voted decisively in 2016 to remain in the EU. The result, as Brown put it in June, is that there will be “long-term consequences” from May’s approach. And those consequences directly threaten the stability of the UK.[...]

May’s approach to Brexit has never had space for compromise with the 48% of the UK that voted remain. But she has consistently made compromises with a section of the Tory party that cultivates a particularly reactionary form of Anglo-Britishness, and which regards Brexit as much more important than the preservation of the union. Polling this week showed that 77% of English Tory members would rather see Scottish independence than abandon Brexit; much the same proportion of May’s party say they would sacrifice the Irish peace process too.  

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DW English: Nicola Sturgeon: UK lacks realism in Brexit negotiations

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon discussed the ongoing Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU during an interview with DW. She said the Tories' accusations that the SNP was "weaponizing" Brexit to undermine negotiations were "nonsense."

BBC4 Thinking Allowed: Mixed-race families, Racial inequality now

Mixed race families: Around 50% of Black Caribbean men have white partners and the figure is just under a third for Black women. Inter-racial unions are now an unremarkable feature of British life. Miri Song, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, talks to Laurie Taylor about the meanings that these parents attach to their racial identity. Also, Nasar Meer, Professor of Race, Identity and Citizenship at the University of Edinburgh asks why racial and ethnic disparities continue to be fundamental to our society.

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The Guardian: Welsh and Scottish governments raise pressure over Brexit plans

Both governments are pressing ministers in London to reverse proposals that they say will allow the UK government after Brexit to take unjustified control over key policies with a UK-wide scope, such as farming, fisheries and environmental protection. [...]

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, told BBC Scotland it was very likely Holyrood would refuse to agree to the UK government’s proposals – spelt out by the Cabinet Office minister, David Lidington, on Monday – unless they were radically changed.  [...]

The continuity bill being put before the Welsh assembly is designed to legally transfer EU powers into Welsh legislation, and would be submitted formally if the talks with UK ministers over post-Brexit powers collapse. [...]

Although Sturgeon and Jones have worked together to force changes to the Brexit bill, a split is emerging between the two governments. The Welsh administration appears more optimistic about the prospects of deal. That may reflect the Welsh vote in favour of leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum, when Scotland voted heavily in favour of remain, but also Labour’s decision to accept the Brexit vote. In contrast, the Scottish National party remains deeply hostile to Brexit.  

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The Guardian: Brexit Britain will have to get used to life as a ‘third country’

Once upon a time there was a creature called Brussels that ate national sovereignty. This monster had a special hunger for Britishness, feasting on the independence of that nation, while its neighbours were mysteriously undiminished. France never became less French, despite dwelling closer to the beast’s lair. Prime ministers were forced to pay tribute to Brussels. They defended themselves with magical red lines, but the monster was too powerful. It had to be slain. [...]

David Davis, for one, does not fancy life in a third country. We know this because he was stupid enough to write it down. In a memo leaked last week, the Brexit secretary complained that “some EU agencies have published guidance to business outlining that the UK will become a third country when we stop being a member state”. This, he said, was spooking investors. But being a third country and not being a member state are the same thing. Davis is unhappy that Brexit means Brexit.  [...]

Still, it is jarring for EU leaders to hear Britain ask for special deals when its membership package was the most bespoke of the lot: outside the euro; outside the Schengen border-free zone; treaty opt-outs on social protection and criminal justice; a budget rebate. Those concessions were won from a seat in the room. Once on the outside, the question is not what new favours are available, but how much it costs to restore old privileges.

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Politico: Scotland’s (latest) Brexit strategy

And while the paper doesn’t actually mention the Labour Party, it’s another clear target. Interviewed by the BBC at the weekend, the first minister challenged U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to “decide where he stands,” suggesting that many of his supporters would balk at him appearing “to be only slightly less in favor of a hard Brexit than the Tories are,” a clear attempt to position the SNP as the unequivocal party of a “soft” Brexit.

Sturgeon also came close to accusing Corbyn of lying over his questionable claim that the single market “is dependent on membership of the EU” and therefore not an option for the U.K. as negotiations continue this year. “Saying this once could be a simple mistake,” tweeted the first minister. “Continuing to say it when you know it is inaccurate can only be an attempt to mislead people.”  [...]

The SNP’s (justifiably) gloomy analysis of Brexit, however, invites an obvious rejoinder: Why are Nationalists being rather more vigorous in assessing the impact of leaving the EU than they were — or rather are — about Scotland leaving the U.K.? Today’s paper could end up being a double-edged sword.

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Al Jazeera: Scotland still wants independence

These setbacks have occurred after a decade of nearly uninterrupted progress for independence supporters. The SNP first took control of Holyrood, Scotland's devolved national parliament, in 2007. In 2011, it won an overall majority of the parliament's seats. In 2014, it staged (and narrowly failed to win) a landmark vote on the break-up of Britain. So the rapid loss of momentum that has taken place this year has been profoundly disconcerting for a movement that had come to view independence as a cast-iron certainty. [...]

The baseline numbers tell their own story. A poll from September put backing for independence at 46 percent - one point higher than it was at the same stage in 2014. Other surveys suggest it might be slightly lower than that, but few indicate that it has fallen far below the symbolic 40-percent mark. Similarly, the SNP - which is now in its 11th year of office - continues to register double-digit leads over Labour and the Conservatives at both the devolved Scottish and UK parliamentary levels.

Until quite recently, polling of this sort would have been unthinkable for nationalists. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, barely a quarter of the Scottish electorate wanted Scotland to leave the UK. Today, it's cited as evidence that the independence movement has stalled and that the SNP is spiralling into decline.   [...]

Since the 2014 referendum, the case against independence has rested almost exclusively on the claim that Britain insulates Scotland from economic pain. In the absence of English public subsidies, unionists argue, Scotland would be a financial basket case, incapable of covering the basic costs of self-government. Even Jeremy Corbyn - who otherwise vigorously insists that spending cuts are an ideological choice rather than a fiscal necessity - has suggested that independence would mean "turbo-charged austerity" for the Scots. [...]

And the ongoing controversy in Catalonia is more likely to shrink the prospects of Scottish independence than it is to advance them. The constitutional standoff between Barcelona and Madrid may have animated the SNP grassroots, and even prompted the party's instinctively cautious leadership to launch a rare intervention into the affairs of a foreign state. But it also illustrates the pitfalls of declaring independence unilaterally (London will resist giving the green light to another Scottish vote for as long as it can), as well as the EU's intense institutional hostility towards regional and sub-state secessionist movements.

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Politico: Support grows for second Brexit vote

Just over half of those surveyed said they back some form of a second referendum, with the most popular scenario being a vote to either accept the government’s Brexit deal, or to stay in the EU — an option backed by 34 percent. That is up from 28 percent in a similar survey in March, according to new findings from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR). In the earlier survey, 45 percent of people backed a second referendum — although these figures include public votes that would still mean the U.K. leaves the EU under either outcome.

The pro-EU Liberal Democrats are the only U.K. political party now backing a second referendum, but they hold just 12 seats in parliament. The opposition Labour Party, which meets for its annual conference in Brighton this week, has so far ruled out the idea — and decided Sunday not to have a debate or vote on the issue during the gathering. The Scottish National Party is not formally pushing for a vote, but leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon hinted it still might, telling the New Statesman last week that the case for a second vote “may become very hard to resist.” [...]

Among Labour voters who responded to the survey, support for some kind of second referendum is at 70 percent, with a referendum on accepting the Brexit deal or staying in the EU the most popular, backed by 51 percent. [...]

Overall, 39 percent of respondents reject the idea of a second referendum — and 7 percent want a “hard Brexiteer’s referendum” in which people would choose between the government’s deal and leaving the EU without a deal. Another 10 percent back a referendum that would give voters the chance to reject the government’s Brexit deal, but send it back to the negotiating table. [...]

While there is broad support for the fundamentals of the U.K. government’s negotiating position, it is the increasing interest in revisiting the entire question of Brexit that will be of most interest, particularly to the opposition Labour Party, which gained much of its support from voters drawn to its softer stance on Brexit. The Lib Dems will also take heart from the findings, after failing to cut through with voters at June’s general election with their second referendum message.

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Al Jazeera: Will the Scottish National Party lose to Corbynism?

At the UK's snap general election on June 8, the SNP shed 21 of its 56 Westminster seats and saw its share of the vote slump by 13 points. Angus Robertson, the party's chief strategist, and Alex Salmond, its former leader, both lost their once rock-solid constituencies in the rural north-east. Towering nationalist majorities across Glasgow and the central belt crumbled. Even the Liberal Democrats enjoyed a modest Caledonian revival, adding three new Scottish MPs, in Edinburgh, Dunbartonshire, and Caithness, to their previous, solitary total of one. [...]

Remarkably, given the scale of its losses, the SNP hasn't collapsed into acrimony, nor is Sturgeon's leadership in any serious trouble. However, a debate is starting to brew within nationalist circles about the exact nature and purpose of SNP strategy - a strategy that is clearly no longer working.

The most urgent criticisms are coming from the left. Some senior nationalists, such as Tommy Sheppard, the MP for Edinburgh East, want the party to embrace a more radical social democratic identity. They are worried that the appeal of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn runs much deeper in Scotland than anyone had initially anticipated and that, in the event of another election, the SNP could haemorrhage seats in its urban and working-class heartlands.  [...]

Davidson's unexpected success capped the resurgence of a party that had been relegated to the fringes of Scottish political life in the late 1990s, but has now navigated its way back into the mainstream on a wave of unionist frustration. For the first time since Holyrood was created 18 years ago, the Scottish right is brimming with confidence. Davidson has cast Sturgeon's referendum U-turn as a personal victory, and is pressing the SNP for additional concessions, notably, that any talk of independence is suspended until at least the next Scottish election in 2021, and that the nationalists get back to their "day job" of running Scotland within the constraints of the current devolutionary settlement. [...]

The numbers are stark. At the 2014 independence referendum, 1.6 million Scots voted "Yes" on a record-breaking turnout of 84 percent. The following year, at the 2015 UK election, the SNP soaked up most of that base, winning 1.4 million votes. At the 2016 Scottish devolved election, the SNP vote dipped to just over one million. In June, it dipped again, to 980,000, on a massively reduced turnout of 66 percent.

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The Huffington Post: Sturgeon’s Last Stand

One of the main reasons the SNP froze Council Tax from 2007 was because they wanted to court the Tory vote. This has been an extremely popular measure in Scotland, yet it has inflicted a massive amount of austerity upon local councils, with the council tax freeze leading to Scottish local authorities facing £14.8billion of debt, and having to make frontline cuts.

The general election paid testament to how reliant the SNP are upon conservative voters. Labour did make seven gains increasing their vote share in every seat. But it is conservative voters leaving the SNP who they really owe their seats to. Just look at Gordon Brown’s former super safe Labour seat of Kircaldy and Cowdenbeath, that he won with a majority of 23,009 in 2010.In 2017 although Labour won the seat with 17,016 votes, the number of Labour votes was down from 2015 when they lost with 17,654. This was because the Conservative vote surged with 13.4% swing from the SNP to them, doubling their votes to 10,762 whilst halving the SNP vote from 27,628 to 16,757. Even in seats where Labour did get substantial swings such as Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill or Glasgow North East were pretty much matched by the Conservatives. [...]

Of course Davidson is at odds with the hard brexit, social conservative brand of conservatism that became central to Mayism. Davidson is one of last Cameronians standing in a prominent position within the conservative party. She is socially liberal, a remainer and unlike the Cameroons ambivalent towards austerity. So the Conservative revival is very much down to Davidson’s brand of conservatism and unionism. She and her MP’s are now in a coalition with the conservative party. Her 13 MP’s are central to the Conservatives being the largest party and will be even more pivotal than the DUP at holding the Conservative party together.

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Jacobin Magazine: Independence on Hold

The Scottish independence movement did indeed continue after the referendum, and the SNP itself reached historic highs in the 2015 general election, winning fifty-six of fifty-nine seats, and a fresh mandate at the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. In March 2017, new SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon announced her intention to organize another independence vote. [...]

Labour minister George Robertson famously promised that Tony Blair’s creation of a devolved assembly in Edinburgh would “kill nationalism stone dead,” satisfying the demand for national autonomy. Yet this parliament in fact provided a platform from which the SNP could build itself as a party of Scottish government, even while in permanent opposition to UK administrations. [...]

In office in Edinburgh starting in 2007, the SNP pointed to its flagship free education policy and measures to thwart the Tory “bedroom tax” (benefit cuts for those with supposedly “unoccupied” rooms) as evidence that Scotland could follow a different course. While Salmond’s SNP was always a pro-business party interested only in electoral politics, it projected a strong progressive image. Its sometimes-sharp opposition to Tony Blair’s foreign policy particularly focused this agenda. [...]

Purely episodic factors do much to explain the SNP’s difficulties. While Sturgeon has been First Minister for less than three years, the party has been in government in Edinburgh since 2007. This is a long time for any administration to maintain support; by the end of this parliament, the SNP will have been in office longer than either Thatcher or New Labour. [...]

Yet with the UK heading out of the European Union and the meaning of Scottish independence unclear, it is difficult for Sturgeon to provide a sharply defined vision of what comes next for Scotland. The fate of the now-weakened Tory government in Brexit talks will be decisive for the SNP’s chances of recovery.

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