Mission Expendable

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

“Be sure you know the conditions of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations.” – The Bible, Proverbs 27: 34-35

The Guardian reports today that an adviser to the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer – remember that he’s in the job now because the previous incumbent resigned because of a political fight involving who controls his advisers – is claiming that the UK’s fishing and farming sectors should be seen as expendable because they only constitute 1% of the UK’s GDP thus only make up something like a rounding error in the national scheme of things. Instead, he claims, the UK should become more like Singapore and just buy in the food we need. While the UK Government is distancing itself from the comments, it’s not the first time that those in those offices have promoted such views.

Let’s have dive into the data to pull out some of the implications of this potential policy.

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As an aside, meet one of my neighbours

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Shifting Sands

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 5 Comments

“It is fear that reinforces the walls we build, people are afraid to be swayed from their convictions, afraid to question their moral instincts and expose themselves to ideas that may challenge the fabric of their entire existence, but what are we if we are not seeking to better ourselves?” ― Aysha Taryam

We are entering a new phase of the independence campaign. One in which “mandates” are traded against each other – propping each other up more than they are trying to topple the other.

One in which the bounds of the constitution must be challenged rather than worked within.

One in which the “status quo” is no longer the answer to “change” nor is it even on offer.

One in which the nature of the debate becomes ever more existential rather than aspirational.

The idea of a 2020 independence referendum is all but dead with even the First Minster now looking more towards a post-2021 election victory to bolster her own mandate even where the UK Government has already committed to ignoring it.

This isn’t going to be a fight won by legal battles (though a clarification on the UK’s constitution would be welcome) nor by wagging votes at each other.

Meanwhile, Scottish politics itself is suffering as the two major cleaves running through it (Yes vs No and Remain vs Leave) have dealt a crippling blow to the designed “collegiate” atmosphere that the Scottish Parliament was supposed to be founded upon.

Some might hope that a more gradualist approach to independence will get us there, even if it really does take waiting a lifetime. But between the impending climate emergency and the sheer unlikelihood of the other parties changing their minds on their own, I don’t think this is a wise approach.

Common Weal recently published a strategy document aimed at using the sheer power of the Yes Movement as well as the substantial bloc of SNP MPs in Westminster to start to apply pressure on the UK Government – to first mock and embarrass them then to ramp up and slowly bring their ability to govern Scotland to a halt until and unless they accept the inevitability of Scottish independence.

How about we add another tool to that box and start to bring pressure on the Unionist parties themselves? Could we even do this from within? Could we give them the nudge that we need?

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Leave a Light On For EU

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 4 Comments

“The mistakes that have been committed in foreign policy are not, as a rule, apparent to the public until a generation afterwards.” – Otto von Bismark

At 2300 GMT on Friday 31st January, I will no longer be an EU citizen.

My citizenship, and all of the rights, privileges, protections and responsibilities that it entails, have been stripped from me as a result of a narrow vote three and a half years ago followed by three and a half years of pissing about, general incompetence and an unwillingness to listen to any but the most hardline radicals who practically wallowed in their ignorance of the EU and how it worked.

I accept the “will of the people” in their instruction to the government to leave the EU but this is a very different proposition from accepting how that will was discharged.

Had the Brexit process been conducted competently, then that would have been easier to bear. Instead, we have a litany of self-inflicted disasters piling up with no shame and even no sense of self-awareness on the part of those doing the piling. It’s enough to make one smash their face against their desk.

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The Ever Molding Mandate

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 5 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 / 2 Comments

“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 / 4 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.

GE2017

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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We Need To Talk About: GERS (2018-19 Edition)

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 4 Comments

“Fact be virtuous, or vicious, as Fortune pleaseth” – Thomas Hobbes

It’s that time again! The annual GERS report has been released and interested parties continue to analyse, pick apart and spin the numbers as required. And my now annual tradition of diving into the numbers continues with another installment.

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You can read my coverage of GERS 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18 behind those links.

You can read the report and download all of the data tables for this year’s report here.

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A Lease Around Scotland’s Future

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 8 Comments

“Don’t bargain yourself down before you get to the table.” – Carol Frohlinger

At the weekend I gave a talk to Yes Edinburgh North & Leith on the subject of splitting the UK’s debts and assets in the event of Scottish independence. It was based on my 2016 paper Claiming Scotland’s Assets and my recent episode of the Common Weal Policy Podcast but during it someone asked a very interesting question that I’d like to explore here. What happens to Faslane and the UK’s nuclear weapons when Scotland becomes independent and what is the prospect for Scotland “renting” the base until things can be moved elsewhere?

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Source: Wikipedia

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