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The National
5 days ago
- General
- The National
Independence isn't going away no matter how much Keir Starmer wishes
A GROUP of leading pro-independence campaigners have written to Keir Starmer about his diktat that there will be no second Scottish independence referendum even if Scots choose to elect a pro-independence majority of MSPs at next year's Scottish Parliament election. Writer and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch, Believe in Scotland (BiS) founder Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp and Common Weal's head of policy and research Dr Craig Dalzell are all amongst those who have signed the letter as have former BBC Scotland presenter Ken Macdonald and Dr Tim Rideout, the convener of the Scottish Currency Group. The group wrote: "So this is a statement of our intent to keep campaigning for independence, an option currently favoured by more than half the Scottish population in recent opinion polls, and for the democratic right to choose – something embedded in legislation for Northern Ireland but repeatedly denied to Scotland." The group continued: "The Labour leader may think he is simply challenging the SNP before a critical by-election this week and Scottish elections next year. But Scotland's future is not an electoral game. "By denying a second referendum regardless of the 2026 election outcome, the Prime Minister is snubbing democracy, devolution and the many Scots who once viewed his party as the best democratic option to the Conservatives at Westminster." The group added that Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK "clearly offer no democratic resolution to Scotland's constitutional impasse". The letter concludes by saying that this is "precisely why we restate our determination to keep working towards independence". Of course, Starmer will file this letter in the bin, he pays attention only to focus groups stuffed with Reform UK-leaning voters from England, but it's still useful to remind a man elected on one third of votes cast in last summer's Westminster General Election that he cannot indefinitely deny the 54% or more of Scots who want independence the right to a say on the constitutional future of their country. The issue of Scottish independence is not going to go away, no matter how much Starmer and his allies in the Scottish branch office might wish it would. Back to genocide-enabling business as usual It's just over a week since Foreign Secretary David Lammy stood up in the House of Commons and told MPs that the British Government said, "tsk, tsk," to Israel over its genocide in Gaza, and its withholding of food supplies as a tool to assist in the ethnic cleansing of the territory, although of course Lammy couldn't bring himself to utter the G-word. Lammy announced that the UK was suspending trade talks with Israel in protest over the genocide that must not be mentioned. Yet within a week of Lammy's statement, Labour peer Ian Austin, who is the UK Government's trade envoy to Israel, was seen on a visit to the country where he said he was going to "meet businesses and officials to promote trade with the UK". The UK Government insisted that despite the suspension of any new trade talks with Israel, the UK still has a trading relationship with Israel. In other words, Lammy's statement was purely performative, like telling a naughty child that you're very cross with them, but then giving them money for sweeties anyway. Only in this case the naughty child is slaughtering tens of thousands of people in a genocidal war of destruction and is openly advertising its intention to ethnically cleanse two million Palestinians and permanently remove them from their homeland. Instead of giving money for sweeties, the British Government is continuing to supply Israel with the weaponry and intelligence and logistical support it needs to complete its destruction of Gaza and render it uninhabitable. But it's back to genocide-enabling business as usual for Labour. A group of Labour MPs have visited Israel on a lobbying trip as the country's brutal assault on Gaza intensifies. The party's most prominent pro-Israel group, Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), sent a delegation of parliamentarians including chair Jon Pearce, as well as fellow Labour MPs Cat Eccles, Kevin McKenna, Peter Prinsley and Mark Sewards. The group has been accompanied by former Labour MP and House of Lords member Luciana Berger. During their trip, the group met with Israeli politicians who have insisted it is "legitimate" to withhold food aid from Palestinian civilians. These include Yair Golan, leader of Labour's sister party, the Democrats. In October 2023 Golan said: 'I think that in this battle, it is forbidden to allow a humanitarian effort. We need to say to them: listen, until the [captives] are released, from our side, you can die from starvation. It's totally legitimate." At Prime Minister's Questions today, SNP MP Brendan O'Hara confronted Starmer with the revelation that UK Government lawyers arguing in the High Court had said that 'no genocide has occurred or is occurring' in Gaza. O'Hara said: 'The Prime Minister has repeatedly told this House that it is not for him or his government to determine what is and what is not a genocide. But that position is no longer tenable because at the High Court recently, the Prime Minister instructed his lawyers to argue that in Gaza, and I quote, 'no genocide has occurred or is occurring'. 'So the truth is, his government has made a determination. The question is: does he have the courage of his convictions and will he repeat from that despatch box what he told his lawyers to argue in the High Court? That he believes that no genocide has occurred or is occurring in Gaza?" Predictably, Starmer did not address the point the SNP MP had made, and retorted with an adolescent and irrelevant gibe at the SNP's opposition to nuclear weapons. Starmer said: 'I have said that we are strongly opposed and appalled by Israel's recent actions, I've been absolutely clear in condemning them and calling them out; whether that's the expansion of military operations, settler violence or the dreadful blocking of aid, it's completely unacceptable. 'We must see a ceasefire, hostages must be released and there must be aid into Gaza. 'But he talks about peace and security, their party, as I understand it at this moment of global instability as we go into a new era, what do they want to do? They want to get rid of the nuclear deterrent, the single most important capability that we have to keep the UK safe, harming the industry and harming the country.'
The National
02-06-2025
- Politics
- The National
The lesson for the SNP as new poll puts independence support at 54%
It's strikingly similar to a string of polls a few years ago which claimed there would be a big boost in independence support, in some cases taking the Yes vote into the high 50s, if Britain voted to leave the EU, or if Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, or if the UK government negotiated a hard Brexit rather than a soft Brexit. All of those three events came to pass, and yet the predicted instant effect on Yes support didn't materialise. The reason is that people are generally bad at answering hypothetical questions accurately, and sometimes think a possible future event will have more of an impact on their own political attitudes than actually proves to be the case. It's far more important, then, that the Norstat poll shows that real independence support in the here-and-now stands at a very handsome 54%, a gain of four percentage points since the previous poll in the series. That may well imply that the increasing danger of Farage grabbing the keys to 10 Downing Street has already shifted some voters into the Yes camp. And it's worth remembering that it's perfectly possible for hypothetical questions in polls to underestimate the impact of future events, as well as to overestimate them. It's unlikely that many people in early 1979 would have guessed the full extent of the transformative effect that Margaret Thatcher's premiership was about to have on support for both devolution and independence over the course of 11 years. If Nigel Farage takes office and starts acting in a way that is fundamentally at odds with Scottish values, as Mrs Thatcher did, or if he tries to abolish or neuter the Scottish Parliament, a sea-change in public opinion could be triggered that might take the Yes vote well beyond the predicted 58% mark. READ MORE: Nigel Farage visit to Aberdeen met by anti-racism protesters There's a much more immediate concern about the impact of Farage and Reform UK on Scottish politics, though. The word from the ground in the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse by-election is that Reform are performing strongly, that they have a good chance of overtaking Labour to finish second, and that they may even have an outside chance of overtaking the SNP to win outright. Because of that consideration, the SNP leadership will have been far more interested in what the Norstat poll shows about party political voting intentions than in what it shows about independence. The large 15-point gap between the SNP and Reform in Holyrood constituency voting intentions will settle the nerves that had been left jangling by a small series of Scottish subsamples from Britain-wide polls, which misleadingly implied that Reform had more or less drawn level. Nevertheless, there's an ongoing frustration that the SNP hold their lead on only 33% of the vote, rather than something approaching the 54% vote for independence itself. It's well known that the biggest reason Labour were able to win a majority of Scottish seats at last year's Westminster General Election was that Yes support had become decoupled from SNP support, and that a great many people were voting Labour while still supporting independence. READ MORE: Scottish Labour councillor defects to Reform UK But Labour's support has collapsed since then, so if those "lost" independence supporters haven't returned to the SNP fold, where have they gone? The answer, according to the Norstat data tables, is that they are now dispersed between several different parties, mostly Unionist parties. Only 56% of those who would vote Yes in any independence referendum held now would also vote SNP on the Holyrood constituency ballot. Some 12% would vote Labour, 10% would vote Conservative, 9% would vote Green, 7% would vote Reform, and 5% would vote Liberal Democrat. It's hard to escape the conclusion that voters are no longer casting their votes with independence at the forefront of their minds, and that there is consequently an opportunity for the SNP to win many of those people back if they can devise a strategy that stresses the urgency of independence and convincingly ties a vote for the SNP to the prospect of Scotland actually becoming an independent country in the relatively near future.
The National
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The National
Only independence can rescue Scotland from the far right
He refused to be drawn on what "really well" means exactly in terms of seats. However, we have already seen that the Westminster parties ignored the clear mandate for a second independence referendum given to the Scottish Parliament by the Scottish electorate in 2021 following a campaign which was dominated by the issue of another independence referendum. The SNP barely scraped a majority in that election but the current Scottish Parliament has its largest ever pro-independence majority. This pro-independence Holyrood majority was Brit-splained away by the Westminster parties and their allies in the media, who insisted variously that the election hadn't really been about a second independence majority after all, that the SNP did not win an absolute majority by itself, or that the SNP's share of the vote was far less than 50%. The existence of pro-independence Scottish Green MSPs and the votes which got them elected were ignored and discounted as were votes won by Alba, then contesting its first election. The total votes cast for the three pro-independence parties was slightly more than 50% but this was brushed aside. This incidentally is why attempts to game the electoral system in order to inflate the number of pro-independence MSPs without increasing the votes of the pro-independence parties are doomed to failure if the goal is wresting another referendum out of Westminster. Although we are four years away from a Westminster General Election and a week – never mind four years – is famously a long time in politics, this poll is a chilling reminder that only independence can rescue Scotland from the storm clouds of far-right English nationalist supremacism which are gathering south of the border. The recent elections in Canada and Australia ought to teach the Labour Party that the far right can be successfully headed off, but only if it is challenged and stood up to. Keir Starmer's attempts to pander to the talking points and politics of Farage are counterproductive, serving only to empower Reform UK and entrench them even more. The bottom line is that no British prime minister will ever agree to another Scottish independence referendum as long as there is the slightest possibility of a Yes victory. Excuses will be found, goalposts will be shifted, no matter the outcome of a Scottish Parliament election. That said, John Swinney was correct when he said that another independence referendum is possible if the SNP does "really well", however that is defined in practice. If the SNP do not do well in the next Holyrood election, and God forbid we end up with an anti-independence majority, then Keir Starmer will triumphantly announce that Scotland has rejected 'nationalism' and we will have nothing to defend Scotland from Starmer's brand of centre-right British-nationalism or the even more vile far-right English nationalism of Nigel Farage that is waiting in the wings. A pro-independence majority in Holyrood in 2026 will not get Starmer to agree to another independence referendum, but we need a pro-independence majority in Holyrood in order to give greater political legitimacy to a majority of SNP MPs returned in the next Westminster General Election due in 2029, when on current form we are likely to see Nigel Farage as the next prime minister. Those MPs need to precipitate a constitutional crisis and jam up the operation of Westminster, giving legitimacy to a Scottish Parliament which must be prepared to engage in institutional disobedience and defy Farage. Westminster poll puts Reform at top A new poll has found that Reform would sweep to power in Westminster if a General Election was held tomorrow. The poll, carried out by More in Common, puts Reform on 27%, well ahead of Labour on 23% and the Tories on 21%. Translated into Commons seats, this would put Reform on 364, well above the 326 needed for a majority. Due to the distorting nature of the first past the post system, Labour would collapse to just 86 seats, the Lib Dems would become the official opposition with 87 seats, while the Tories would be almost annihilated, being left with just 17 seats. The SNP would recover most of the seats lost in 2024 and would have 44 seats, making them by far the largest Scottish party. The Greens and Plaid Cymru are also predicted to gain seats, with the Greens going from four to seven and Plaid Cymru up from four MPs to six. Starmer continues to double down on Labour's attempts to appease the far right, responding to the recent English local elections by announcing a crackdown on student visas, refusing to reconsider the cuts to disability benefits or Winter Fuel Payments, and throwing the trans community under the bus. It's a strategy which is doomed to failure, succeeding only in alienating Labour's traditional supporters while allowing Reform to claim that their politics are mainstream. The media think VE Day is all about the royals It's the 80th anniversary of VE Day, marking the end of a global conflict which resulted in the deaths of as many as 85 million people, redrew the map of Europe, displaced tens of millions of people, and saw the genocide of millions of Jews, Poles, Roma, and others. Yet according to the British media, it was really mostly about the British royal family, at least according to the amount of airtime given to royal posturing and sycophancy. It wasn't too long before WW2 broke out that members of the British royal family were happily giving Nazi salutes – now rebranded as Elon Musk throwing out his heart. This anniversary could have been a solemn refection on the dangers of militarism and the far right, especially apposite at a time when the far right is in the ascendant and governments are spending more on armaments with wars brewing around the globe and an actual genocide taking place in Gaza. Instead, we are treated to militaristic parades and gushing accounts of the privileged and tone-deaf super-rich Windsor family.
The National
01-05-2025
- Politics
- The National
Nigel Farage's fan club is bullish about by-election chances
ENGLAND goes to the polls today in local and mayoral elections which are mostly in the south and Midlands of the country. There's also a Westminster by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, called after the sitting Labour MP Mike Amesbury resigned as an MP following a conviction for assault which initially saw him sentenced to 10 weeks in prison, a sentence which was suspended for two years on appeal. At last year's Westminster General Election Amesbury won the seat with 52.9% of the vote and a majority of 14,696 over the Reform UK candidate, who won 18.1% of the vote, pushing the Conservatives into a poor third place. Nevertheless, Nigel Farage's fan club is bullish about its chances of pulling off an upset and snatching the seat from Labour. Polling suggests that Labour and Reform UK are neck and neck and the seat could go either way. Yet even if Labour does manage to hold on in the face of the surging far-right party, the result will be cold comfort for Labour. In normal circumstances Labour should hold this seat, considered one of its safest, comfortably. Privately, Labour's strategists are bracing themselves for a loss. Labour have seen a precipitous fall from public grace since winning a landslide majority in the Westminster General Election last year. However, Labour's apparently massive win was an artefact of the unfair first past the post voting system employed in Westminster elections. It was a victory built on the shallowest of foundations, won on just 33.7% of the popular vote. Labour promptly set about everyone who had voted Labour in the hopes of the promised change from the hideous and incompetent Conservatives they replaced, opening the door to the even more hideous Reform UK to pose as champions of ordinary people. It's a sign of the unpopularity of Prime Minister Keir Starmer that he did not join Labour candidate Karen Shore on the campaign trail. It made him the first leader in almost two decades not to campaign in their party's first defensive by-election after a national vote. But right now Starmer is electoral poison to any Labour politician fighting for votes. Anas Sarwar managed to get through his speech this week to the STUC in Dundee without mentioning Starmer at all. It's the Tories whose election prospects have most to fear from Reform. There is the very real possibility that we will wake up on Friday and find that another Westminster seat and several English local authorities and mayoralties have fallen into the clutches of Donald Trump's English mini-mes. Nigel Farage will hail this as a sign that he's on course to become the next Prime Minister and pressure on the Tories to do a deal with Reform or to move even further to the right will only increase. Trump wouldn't be too upset about breaching the constitution Constitutional experts in the USA have warned that Donald Trump's efforts to pressurise the British Government into helping him secure the golf Open Championship for his Turnberry course on the South Ayrshire coast could be in breach of the American constitution. This would of course not concern the convicted criminal in the White House one bit. The Guardian newspaper has reported that Trump and his aides have repeatedly raised the issue of holding the Open at Turnberry during Trump's phone calls and contacts with Keir Starmer. One person with knowledge of the discussions told the paper: 'The Government is doing everything it can to get close to Trump." The Open has not been held at Turnberry since Trump took ownership of the course in 2014. The decision on where to hold the Open is taken by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, which reportedly has concerns about access and facilities at Trump's Turnberry course which is over five miles away from the nearest train station at Girvan on the unelectrified and single track Ayr to Stranraer line and can only be reached by road along the single carriageway A77. There are fears that Trump is pressurising the British Government to spend public money to allay the concerns of the R&A and get the Open held on his course, which would be immensely profitable and prestigious for the narcissistic money grubbing president. Richard Painter, a law professor and former chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005-2007, said: 'This apparent pre-condition of government investment, along with the prime minister's role in trying to influence decisions of R&A about tournament location, looks like sufficient government involvement to meet the meaning of a foreign emolument under the emoluments clause.' The emoluments clause in the American constitution prohibits an American president or government official from accepting payment in cash or kind from foreign governments. Another expert, Jordan Libowitz at ethics watchdog Crew, said that while conflict of interest laws do not apply to the president, it was still 'highly unethical' to use the presidency to benefit your private business. He added: 'If moving the tournament there would result in British government funds being spent at the course, it would likely violate the constitution's prohibition on foreign emoluments." While Trump will certainly not care, the issue here is the willingness of Keir Starmer and the British Government to abase themselves in their efforts to suck up to Donald Trump. At this rate we can expect Keir Starmer shortly to issue a statement saying that he supports Donald Trump as the next Pope. Findlay even more boorish than Douglas Ross Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay has well and truly laid to rest any hopes that the Tories might behave less boorishly in Holyrood now that Douglas Ross is no longer leader. Findlay is if anything even worse. At today's FMQs Findlay, who is clearly rattled by the prospect of the even more right-wing Reform UK snapping at the Tories' heels, was told off four times by Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone for being disrespectful to Scottish Green MSPs. During an exchange about the end of oil refining at Grangemouth, Findlay hit out at how the SNP brought the Greens into government when the Greens want to shut down oil and gas production, calling the Greens "dangerous fanatics." When the Presiding Officer intervened and told him to treat other members with respect he changed his insult to "dangerous cranks." Former Sun journalist Findlay thinks Holyrood exchanges are an exercise in finding Sun headlines.
BBC News
04-04-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Welsh Lib Dems promise 'grown up politics' at Senedd elections
The Welsh Liberal Democrats have promised "grown-up, adult" politics ahead of next year's Senedd leader Jane Dodds said her deal to pass the Welsh government's budget last month showed she would not "play politics" with people's also refused to rule out Ed Davey-style stunts during the election told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that voters would have to "wait and see". Sir Ed led the Lib Dems to a record 72 seats at last year's Westminster General Election, having paddle boarded, free-wheeled down a hill in Knighton on a bike and bungee-jumped during the is the sole Liberal Democrat MS in the month she agreed a deal with the Welsh government to pass its £26bn budget, having secured an extra £108m for social care, child care, a pilot scheme for £1 bus fares for under 21s and a ban on greyhound racing."We had a responsibility to make sure that the budget went through, because if that budget did not go through the people of Wales would have lost five billion pounds straight away," she said. "Now that's not a place I want to be. I don't want to play party politics with people's lives."Dodds said that the approach was paying off with voters."Last night I was knocking on doors... people were saying we want grown-up adult politics," she said. "We want to make sure that people, our politicians, deliver for Wales. That's what we've done before, and that's what we'll do in the future."Had the budget not passed, then the Welsh government would have reverted to a percentage of the previous year's budget, meaning a loss of billions of pounds. There will be a new system for next year's Senedd election with 16 new constituencies each returning six Senedd Members in an expanded 96-seat Welsh will use a system of proportional representation meaning parties will be rewarded for the percentage of vote share that they also said that her party would be "pro-business" without elaborating on the comes at a time when firms in Wales are coming to terms with increased National Insurance contributions and the fallout from President Trump's repeated her claim said that her party would "paint Wales gold" at the Senedd election next May, but polling suggests the Lib Dems will win two or three of the 96 available seats, or even face a said that "loads of people" had asked her about replicating Sir Ed Davey's escapades, but added: "I'm not going to say anything on Radio Wales this morning about that, but you'll have to wait and see."The Welsh Liberal Democrats gather in Cardiff this weekend for their spring received a boost on Thursday night, winning a by-election in Cwmllynfell and Ystalyfera on Neath Port Talbot Council, ahead of Plaid Cymru, Reform and Labour.
