Elections

The Road To Independence Part Two – Johnson’s Journey to Yes

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 11 Comments

“The wizards, once they understood the urgency of a problem and then had lunch, and argued about the pudding, could actually work quite fast. Their method of finding a solution, as far as the Patrician could see, was by way of creative hubbub.  If the question was, ‘What is the best spell for turning a book of poetry into a frog?’, then the one thing they would not do was look in any book with a title like Major Amphibian Spells in a Literary Environment: A Comparison.” – Terry Pratchett, The Last Hero

Introduction

In Part One of this series, I laid out the reasonable options that Scotland could pursue in order to demonstrate the democratic will for independence. There have been some murmurings of a potential “Plan B” to supersede the “Plan A” of a sanctioned referendum by Section 30 order so as to circumvent the current barrier of Boris Johnson simply saying “No” everything time we ask for one.

In that article, I referenced Pete Wishart who has expressed his objection to any “Plans B” and has since written his own blog post outlining some of the same challenges as I have identified – albeit without also challenging the limitations of the “Plan A” approach. I strongly encourage folk to read his article in conjunction with my own efforts and to start discussions in earnest about which option you prefer AND how you’d like to see the challenges addressed.

To greatly summarise my own Part One, I found that all of the reasonable options bar the “Plan A” of a sanctioned referendum cannot be blocked simply by dictat from Westminster BUT in addition to individual challenges unique to each of those Plans, they all suffered the common problem of not having an automatic mechanism of bringing the UK Government to the table to accept the results and begin to negotiate independence. On the other hand, “Plan A” – which DOES have that mechanism via something like the Edinburgh Agreement – suffers from the problem that Westminster can ensure that the vote itself doesn’t take place. The effect is the same in all cases. Until Scotland can put pressure on the UK Government to accept the Plan and the results, we are not going to become an independent country.

In this article, I’m going to draw again from Common Weal’s strategy paper Within Our Grasp to look at various ways that Scotland could ramp up the pressure on the UK Government until they agree to recognise our independence.

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The Road to Independence Part One – A Democratic Event

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 13 Comments

“There is always a choice…Or, perhaps, an alternative. You see, I believe in freedom, Mr Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all others are based.” – Havelock Vetinari, Going Postal.

You would have thought that Lockdown would have opened up more time for me to look after my blog but instead Common Weal dove headlong into its busiest session of policy-making we’ve ever seen. Between pushing for more effective Covid strategy, analysing the impact of the pandemic on the Scottish economy and launching our post-Covid reconstruction plan I’ve been writing everywhere BUT here.

But most of that has now been completed and I’m currently on holiday which means that instead of writing about politics for work I now get a little time to write about politics for FUN!

Over the next few blog posts I intend to lay out what I see as the main strategic block on the development of the Scottish Independence campaign. Namely, a focus on developing “mandates” for another Scottish independence referendum rather than working out how to actually get one, where to go if one doesn’t happen and what to do after one happens.

This kind of thinking is long overdue but in the absence of it coming from the Scottish Government I’d like to offer my own thoughts and analysis to and for the sake of the independence movement.

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Substantial parts of this series will be drawn from Common Weal’s strategy for gaining independence Within Our Grasp which you can read here.

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The Ever Molding Mandate

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 4 Comments

“To discover strategy is to fulfill mandate” – Sunday Adelaja

On Sunday Politics Scotland this morning, the new Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack shifted the goalposts again. The 2014 independence referendum has now been declared a “once in a lifetime” event and that even a pro-independence majority in the 2021 Scottish elections or even an outright SNP majority in those elections would be insufficient grounds for him to grant Scotland his permission to self-determine our form of government.

He went even further than this extremist position by stating categorically that he believed that it would be “absolutely unacceptable” for Scotland to hold any such referendum at a time of its choosing and under our own terms – effectively attempting to apply a veto to the Referendums Bill passed by the Scottish Parliament recently.

I think we should have a look at this Tory attempt to stifle Scottish Democracy.

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It’s Time to Get Brexit Done

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” – Thomas Paine

Last night was a long one. It was a long one for myself as I was on election analysis duty over at Broadcasting Scotland and didn’t get home till almost 7am.

It was a long one for Scotland and the UK as well. The balance of the last couple of years of hung parliaments and indecision has been struck. Boris Johnson has won the largest Tory majority since the Thatcher era.

It is time to Get Brexit Done.

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How Scotland Votes: A Guide to the 2019 UK General Election

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

Disclosure and Disclaimer: Although I am politically active and an active member of the Scottish Green party, this post is intended to be objective and politically neutral. This is a guide on how to vote, not a blog to try to convince you to vote for or against any particular person or party.

For the third time in four years, the UK is preparing to go to the polls to elect a Parliament to the House of Commons. The UK would not normally have been expected to be in this position as for the last several years there has been a law in place called the Fixed Term Parliaments Act (FTPA) which was supposed to have fixed parliamentary terms at five years rather than the older system of leaving election timing to the whim of the Prime Minister of the day who could call or delay elections (within some limits) according to when they felt particularly advantaged or disadvantaged in the polls.

But Brexit, as with so much in British politics, has changed everything and the current logjam caused by the minority government inherited by Boris Johnson has meant that even his reforms to the Brexit Deal could not be passed through Parliament (and nor could any other permutation of result).

And so, just two years after the 2017 election that resulted in that minority Government, the UK is going back to the polls to see what happens this time.

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The 2017 UK General Election Results

As stated in the disclaimer above, the purpose of this blog post isn’t to convince you to vote in a particular way – that will be for another time and is already being done by others. This is instead a post which acknowledges that a great many people have never voted in a UK General Election before and this may be their first vote of any kind. If you are aged 20 or under, you will likely have been too young to vote in the previous election and there will be some who were eligible to vote but haven’t ever done so before and maybe there’s an issue in this election which has proved to be particularly important to you. It may also be the case that you were not eligible to vote in previous elections but have just taken on British citizenship or suchlike and nor are eligible to vote. If any of these things are the case and you’d like to learn more about the voting process then this blog is for you and is a continuation of my long running series which has also covered the 2015 UK General Elections, the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary Elections and the 2017 Scottish Local Authority Elections. and the 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections.

This guide is also unashamedly Scotland focused because that’s where I am and where the centre of my sphere of political interest lies but the basic principles of this guide will apply elsewhere in the UK (although the balance of candidates and thus voting considerations may vary)

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And Then There Were Two

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

“It is likely that such a replacement will be from the Brexiteer wing. Rees-Mogg has ruled out a run for the job but I think he’d be happier as Chancellor of the Exchequer under his able deputy PM Boris Johnson” – The Common Green, November 2018

“Why PM Boris Johnson should appoint Jacob Rees-Mogg as Chancellor” – Bernard Ingram, June 2019

The Conservative and Unionist Party’s leadership contest has completed its first phase and has whittled the number of candidates down to two. These two will now make their case to some 120,000 Tory party members across the UK who will vote for their preference.

Once they have done so, Boris Johnson will become the leader of the party and, unless there is a general election, will become Prime Minister of the UK.

After the last three years of dismal Brexit jockeying the only thing that could have made this any more Brexit-y would be if the other person in the race had been Michael Gove. Then we could have relived that picture of the two of them standing at their “victory” press conference with that “What do we do now?” look plastered over their faces.

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But alas, Gove was knocked out by two votes and the other contender is Jeremy Hunt. And that look may have gone but believe me, the question hasn’t been answered.

So, with the caveat that my last attempt at a Brexit prediction failed badly because of my assumption of rationality and basic competence, let’s try and answer it. What will PM Johnson have to do once he takes the helm?

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The Centre Could Not Hold

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
– From “The Second Coming”, W. B. Yeats

The UK has completed the exercise in democracy that it wasn’t supposed to have. After almost three years of choosing to spectacularly screw up the attempt to leave the EU, the UK Government took a rightfully earned kicking. The principle “Opposition” party, Labour, also could not come to terms with its own ambiguous position on Brexit and was also pummelled. The UK has joined the ranks of many countries around the world where the balance of power has shifted from the comparative centre of the Establishment to the more radical fringes. We’re living now in interesting times.

EU Map

Source: BBC

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How Scotland Votes: A Guide to the European Elections

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

Disclosure and Disclaimer: Whilst I am politically active and an active member of the Scottish Green party, this post is intended to be objective and politically neutral. This is a guide on how to vote, not a blog to try to convince you to vote for or against any particular person or party.

This is a blog that even up to a few weeks ago, I did not expect to have to write. The UK was originally due to leave the EU before this point and as of the current situation, has the right to leave at any time if the UK parliament can ratify the agreed Withdrawal Arrangement. Even now, at this late stage, there is a possibility that this blog will prove redundant. But as things stand, a deal is looking unlikely and it is almost certain that the UK will, possibly for the last time, take part in the European Parliamentary elections on the 23th of May.

If you are unsure on how to vote – not who to vote for, unsure about how to actually cast your vote – then this blog is for you and is a continuation of my long running series which has also covered the UK General Elections, The Scottish Parliamentary Elections and the Scottish Local Authority Elections.

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Source: Flickr

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The Final Countdown

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 5 Comments

“We’re leaving together,
But still it’s farewell
And maybe we’ll come back
To earth, who can tell?” – Europe

We’re finally there, after delay and shambles, at the day of the “Meaningful Vote” on May’s Brexit deal. I’m about to commit that cardinal sin of political commentary and analysis and actually try to make a prediction about what happens next. May my desk soon suffer not as it has.

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Source here.

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How To Break A Democracy

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

“Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.” – Robert Kennedy

There’s a tweet being shared around Scottish political Twitter advertising an event on October 23rd. Australian company Clearpoll going to be holding an opinion poll on Scottish independence but are doing so in an intriguing way. They are offering a blockchain-based mobile phone app that, they claim, could be the first step in a revolution in how we approach voting. Instead of having to go to a ballot booth, one could simply press a button on your smartphone, secure in the knowledge that your vote will be transfered and counted without the vulnerabilities to hacking and spoofing that occur in other forms of electronic voting.

An advert by Clearpoll for a "blockchain powered mobile vote on Scottish independence" on October 23rd.

First of all. I’m not going to tell people to not take part in this poll. If that’s your thing, go for it. If you want to help test an upcoming piece of technology, by all means.

But I do want to voice my concern about this kind of technology making its way into our democracies. They are vulnerable enough without adding something that, if done badly, could break our voting system entirely.

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