YES for an Independent Scotland

Labour should cut its ties with the illiberal Henry Jackson Society

Born of a desire to tackle totalitarianism, the society is increasingly intolerant, yet some Labour MPs still support it

Share 72 inShare1Email James Bloodworthguardian.co.uk,Monday 20 May 2013 11.12 BSTJump to comments (149)Former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett in 2007. She is one of 11 Labour MPs to sit on the Henry Jackson Society's advisory council. Photograph: Dimitri Messinis/AP

Ever since the Iraq war, and to a lesser extent prior to it, popular perception has had it that humanitarian intervention is a cause célèbre of the right rather than the left.

One might even go so far as to say that, until the 2008 financial crisis hit and reignited the squabble between Keynesians and austerity hawks, the single biggest area of disagreement between left and right was on foreign policy.

"Hawks", "neocons" and "imperialists" were invariably of the right whereas "doves", "peaceniks" and "stoppers" were, with a few exceptions, on the left.

Douglas Murray, the Henry Jackson Society's associate director. Are his politics becoming the politics of the society as a whole? Photograph: Mary Stamm-Clarke/Demotix

As with most attempts at compartmentalising political ideologies there were of course glaring exceptions. While many on the left were instinctively uneasy at the concept of George W Bush's "war on terror", others conceded that, to paraphrase American author Peter Beinart, liberal principles could be threatened by forces other than western conservatism.

In other words, totalitarianism – whether in its Islamist or secular guise – required a firm, and where appropriate, military response.

When it was first created in 2005, the London-based Henry Jackson Society (HJS) appeared to offer a base for those on the centre-left and right who believed in a variant of "muscular liberalism". Much like the senator after whom it was named, the HJS sought to fuse a concern for social justice at home with a hardline approach to totalitarianism and autocracy abroad.

As a result the organisation attracted broad parliamentary support, including 11 Labour MPs, who continue to sit on the organisation's advisory council to this day.

In February, Labour's shadow secretary for defence, Jim Murphy, even gave a speech on policy at an event organised by the HJS.

According to those who've worked behind the scenes at the HJS, however, in recent years the organisation has degenerated into something that is anything but liberal.

The associate director of the HJS is Douglas Murray, a columnist for the Spectator and Standpoint, who joined the organisation in April 2011. In March, Murray wrote an article following the release of the results of the 2011 census in which he bemoaned the fact that in "23 of London's 33 boroughs 'white Britons' are now in a minority".

It wasn't so much integration that Murray wanted to talk about, however, but skin colour:

"We long ago reached the point where the only thing white Britons can do is to remain silent about the change in their country. Ignored for a generation, they are expected to get on, silently but happily, with abolishing themselves, accepting the knocks and respecting the loss of their country. 'Get over it. It's nothing new. You're terrible. You're nothing'."

In 2009 Murray also described Robert Spencer, the leader of a group calling itself "Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA)", as a "very brilliant scholar and writer".

A number of years before Murray saw fit to praise this "brilliant scholar", the latter wrote that there was "no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists".

And just to keep you up to date, this week Murray effectively endorsed Ukip in an article for the Wall Street Journal.

The spirit of intolerance at the HJS appears also to extend to those who have taken issue with Murray's rhetoric.

Marko Attila Hoare, a former senior member of the Henry Jackson Society who left the organisation in 2012, told me that his opposition to Murray's anti-Muslim and anti-immigration views saw him driven out of the organisation.

"It rapidly became clear that Murray had not tamed his politics, and that actually they were becoming the politics of the whole organisation," Hoare told me.

Murray's boss, HJS executive director Alan Mendoza, has form too. In March of this year he claimed that the increasing European Muslim population was to blame for Europe's "anti-Israel feelings", adding that the voices of Muslims "are heard well above the average Europeans".

Eleven Labour MPs are still associated with this organisation. How, one wonders, do the views of the Henry Jackson Society sit with one-nation Labour?

I wrote to all 11 Labour MPs with my concerns about the Henry Jackson Society but none were available for comment.

  BBC Scotlandshire

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An Open Letter to Labour Voters   Rob Connell   National Collective
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May 12, 2013 05:23 pm
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In a scene replicated in many Scottish workplaces I’m sure, I was recently party to a lunchtime conversation on voting intention. One colleague stated that they would always “vote for the red rose, my family always has”. I thought this beautifully stated a very popular position, and that it would be interesting to explore why.

Scottish Labour stands on the great egalitarian tradition of the Labour movement, with their website evoking Keir Hardie’s “new and radical force in Scottish politics” and remembering the first Labour Government in 1924 “legislating for the first major programme of municipal house building”.

It records that Labour administrations “changed the face of Scotland and Britain, introducing the National Insurance Act and the National Health Service Act in 1946; the Town and Country Planning Act in 1947; the Children Act in 1948, establishing a comprehensive childcare service, reforming services providing care to deprived and orphaned children; the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act in 1949; extended the minimum school-leaving age from 14 to 15; and oversaw British withdrawal from India.” In the 1960’s Labour “liberalised the laws on censorship, abortion, divorce, and homosexuality, outlawed capital punishment and created the Open University.”

This is a proud and progressive record for a party which governed for only around a third of the relevant half-century. What is remarkable is that from the early 1970’s until the present day, the only thing that Scottish Labour even lays claim to as progress is devolution. And its support for devolution has been intermittent and essentially reactionary – Labour effectively blocked it in 1979 with the unprecedented and unrepeated ‘40% of Electorate’ qualifier, and it openly only supported devolution in 1997 to “kill nationalism stone dead”. It seems instructive that having painstakingly recorded Labour’s progressive achievements in government in the 50 years up until the 1970’s, the Scottish Labour website lists none since.

When Labour came to power in 1997 it had the pure good fortune to find itself at the beginning of global phenomenon that economists have retrospectively dubbed ‘The N.I.C.E. (Non-Inflationary Constant Expansion) Decade. Essentially, it was boom time – the coffers were full, and Labour had the opportunity to make serious investment for the long-term benefit of Britain, or indeed to build up a substantial rainy-day fund for leaner times to come. So what did Labour, our great hope for a progressive Britain, for prosperity with responsibility, achieve with this unprecedented bounty?

Rather than spending public money on public works, Labour hugely expanded the PFI system of funding public projects initially used in the latter years of the Conservative government. Labour bears responsibility for the vast majority of these 717 completed projects, and for the bills being paid by ordinary taxpayers for them over the next 30 years or so. The capital cost of these projects was £54.7 billion, but they will earn the companies who carried them out more than £300 billion in public money.

It is true that during the good times Labour increased spending on the NHS, but much of this actually went on the huge swathes of the service which Labour sub-contracted out to private firms, much more so than the Conservatives ever felt they could get away with. When Labour is in power, there’s no-one in opposition to cry foul. Labour ‘NHS spending’ includes the £12.7 billion it gave to the private sector to fail to computerise personal health records, and the fees of the management consultancies Labour called in, which were running at £300 million per year.

Labour of course also dragged the country into an illegal and ill-conceived war in Iraq, costing £8.4 billion by conservative estimates, and up to £30 billion by some more inclusive measures. (Before anyone takes exception to the “illegal” description, it is simply a fact in international law. If you think that the invasion of Iraq was justified, that is your right. Your opinion does not make it a legal war.) The human cost is even more staggering, with the figure almost 5,000 coalition forces casualties (including almost 200 UK troops) dwarfed by around 120,000 Iraqi CIVILIAN casualties, just from direct coalition attacks. Estimates of total deaths caused by the conflict range from 500,000 to over 1 million. Justified at the time to us by Labour as necessary to eliminate “chemical and biological…weapons of mass destruction…which could be activated within 45 minutes”, it is only a revisionist history (created in the inevitable absence of made-up WMD) which says we waged this war to remove Saddam Hussein. That false history is repeated constantly, including recently by Johann Lamont, in direct contradiction to her statements from the time.

Unfortunately, this is in keeping with the complete lack of differentiation between Westminster Labour and its counterpart in Scotland. From Peter Mandelson being “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, through Jack McConnell taking ermine as Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale, to Lamont’s horribly divisive and judgemental “something for nothing culture” speech, Labour have long been busily proving the truth in David Cameron’s statement in reference to the political class, that “we are all Thatcherites now”. As the recent slap-down of Johann Lamont by Labour HQ in London over the mere suggestion of further devolution proves, even if Scottish Labour wanted to be progressive it is completely dependent on the will of Westminster Labour, and powerless to effect change without their agreement.

The gap between richest and poorest grew on Labour’s watch, with those in the bottom 20% seeing their incomes stay broadly flat, while the top 20% benefited from an increase of fully one-third. The top 1% could celebrate their incomes almost doubling. These gaps grew faster under Tony Blair than they had under either Margaret Thatcher or John Major. Then Gordon Brown arrived and bailed out the banks in the biggest transfer of money from public to private hands in our history, much of which we will never see again. The banking crisis itself was a direct result of Labour continuing the Conservative’s ‘light touch’ attitude to the banks and financial markets – ask no questions, hear no lies, jobs for the boys and champagne all round.

The UK’s Gini coefficient (the commonly used measure of inequality of income) rose consistently under Labour, to the point where only Mexico, Chile, the United States and Italy among OECD countries have more unequal societies. In the same period, studies consistently found the UK to be have among the worst, or the worst, social mobility of any developed economy, finding that 50% of a British child’s chances of success in life were determined by the income of their parents, compared with less than 20% in countries such as Denmark, Finland and Norway.

What I want to ask of Labour voters is, are you happy with what has been done in your name? What do you hope for when you vote? Is your vote for a progressive society, social mobility, and true equality of opportunity? Has ‘New Labour’ represented your hopes?

Inevitably, there will be a sensible, progressive choice of government in an Independent Scotland. Probably, there will be a few parties offering this, as the political spectrum settles along the norms of Scottish society. So if you usually vote Labour, these are your options: stay in the UK and get the same governments we have had for the best part of 40 years or, become independent and elect a succession of governments which are everything Westminster administrations are not: progressive, what you voted for, and surely even now, not too far removed from Keir Hardie’s vision “to dethrone the brute god Mammon and to lift humanity into its place”.

Incidentally, my colleague who had mentioned that they would always “vote for the red rose” clarified that they would be voting ‘Yes’ in the referendum, and then vote Labour in the “actual elections” thereafter. Her reasoning was simple; she didn’t hold much for the news, but when she listened to the arguments from the parties she thought that it would be better for the people of Scotland to decide Scotland’s governance. Also, Independence would mean that she would probably get broadly what she hoped for when she voted, which she felt didn’t happen at Westminster.

It’s my opinion that only Independence will force Labour in Scotland to reinvent itself (or perhaps to re-find itself) and become a Scottish Labour which is actually progressive, rather than the defensive, conservative shell of a party we see today. But I don’t vote Labour, so it’s not my party to change. Comments are open – what’s your opinion?

Gordon Is Back In Town- Lest We Forget
 Posted by michaelgreenwell on May 14, 2013

I see a certain Mr Brown has reared his head again to add his particular nuances to the Independence debate. This reignites his old pal’s act with Mr Darling.

I wonder what other old friends he would bring along if he could.

If you don’t remember how this story went, then it was with allegations of duplicity.

Gordon Brown and David Miliband were last night drawn directly into the furore over the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing when it emerged that Britain told Tripoli that the prime minister and foreign secretary did not want to see him die in prison.

In a major setback for Downing Street, which has insisted the release was entirely a matter for Edinburgh, it emerged that a Foreign Office minister intervened last February to make clear to Libya that Brown and Miliband hoped Abdelbaset al-Megrahi would not “pass away” in prison.

Expert: Scotland can legally leave the UK and be debt free

Dr Qvortrup says successor states took on liabilities in past break-ups

By ANDREW NICOLL, Scottish Political Editor
Published: 12th May 2013

SCOTLAND can legally walk away from its share of the UK’s debt mountain and start independence with a clean slate, according to a top constitutional expert.

Lawyer Dr Matt Qvortrup says the nation could begin its life outside the union unshackled from a £125BILLION overdraft — equivalent to four years’ spending at Holyrood.

And the world-renowned academic believes his findings, based on studies of historic state separations, could have a massive impact on the independence debate.

He said: “Imagine — ‘vote Yes and send the bill to David Cameron’.

“Of course I am neutral and just an observer, but the world deserves to know the facts. Personally speaking, I think this could be a game changer.”

Dr Qvortrup’s explosive findings are published in a report that looks at national divorces dating from 1830, when Belgium left the Netherlands, until the break-up of Yugoslavia and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the Nineties.

His research found countries that split equally have historically shared the debts built up during their union. But if one partner continues as before as the ‘successor state’ — keeping its position on international bodies such as the United Nations — it shoulders the debts.

Westminster has already claimed that the remainder of the UK would carry on in that role after a Yes vote in the 2014 independence referendum.

It would hold on to its seat in Europe as well as at the UN and military alliance Nato — while Scotland would have to start from scratch and apply for admission to those bodies.

Dr Qvortrup — an academic at Cranfield University near Swindon, Wilts — said that would reduce Holyrood’s UK balance sheet to zero.

He said: “If Alex Salmond doesn’t want to share the debt and is happy to reapply to Europe, the default position in international law is that Scotland would not have to pick up the debt.

“That has to be known to the people before the vote next year so that David Cameron will know we are starting negotiations from the position that UK (remainder of UK) is the successor state. That has consequences. The one that pays the debt is the successor state.

“If you want to be the EU successor state and be in the UN Security Council, you can. You take all the spoils — but you also take the baggage.”

He added: “In Yugoslavia, Serbia Montenegro wanted to be the successor country but they were deemed not to be — which meant they were not landed with the debt. The position Scottish Secretary Michael Moore and Prime Minister David Cameron have is that as long as they are the successor state it’s all good.

“But the understanding about them having to pay the debt could be a good argument for the Yes campaign.

“All other things being equal, Scotland does not have to pay its share of the UK’s debt.”

The findings in the Qvortrup Report tally with the opinion of Professor David Scheffer of the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, US.

He believes Westminster’s reading of the post-indy situation is a “bold presumption that rests on very thin ice”.

And he says that negotiating a slice of the UK’s financial burden after a split would give Scotland bargaining power in talks.

However, the Vienna Convention treaty states: “When part of the territory of a state is transferred to another state, the state debt is to be settled by agreement.”

But only eight countries signed up to the convention — and the UK is not one of them.

A report published by Michael Moore in February said that a new Scotland would have to start from scratch as a new country — loaded with 300 years of UK debt. The analysis pointed to “the overwhelming body of international precedent including Irish independence in 1922”. It said: “In the event of independence, the UK would continue and Scotland would form a separate state. There would be an expectation that an independent Scotland would take on an equitable share of national debt, to be negotiated.

“The continuing UK would need to seek to ensure that a fair settlement applied to assets and liabilities.”

Finance Secretary John Swinney has already hinted he could be ready to walk away from the UK’s monetary liabilities if the SNP wins next year’s referendum.

When Chancellor George Osborne visited Scotland last month, he warned that he was unwilling to keep sharing the Pound with Scotland after independence. But Mr Swinney warned he was “playing with fire”.

He said: “The Chancellor argues that the UK would be the successor state, would hold on to the Pound and we couldn’t get access to that.

“If that’s his position, then the UK is obliged as a successor state to hold on to all of the debt.

“We would be liberated from a population share of the UK’s debt of £125billion.”

 Lesley Riddoch: Blast from the past, welcome or not
Published on 13/05/2013 00:00
Voters may see the former prime minister in a kinder light, or he may bring back too many bad memories. Picture: Reuters
BRUISER Brown is back in business. Labour’s heavyweight enters the ring.
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Clunking fist smashes independence – every tabloid headline and weary cliché about the former prime minister is ready to roll as Gordon Brown prepares to stride the boards in support of the Union and a Labour campaign distinct (best not say separate) from Better Together.

Journalists may already have written the story, but there’s no guarantee the Scottish public will smile upon the former Labour leader after three years of self-imposed near-silence. At long last the notoriously hesitant politician is taking a calculated risk. Will that count in his favour?

Will Scots be reassured to recognise the fundamentally capable, moral man who once ran the United Kingdom? Will we think of the glory days when he stood beside Tony Blair forming a solid New Labour wall that Scots believed the Tories would never breach again? Will his time away from the limelight and hurly-burly have produced a more modest, reflective speaker? Will his smile finally look real?

Or as soon as he speaks, will we remember the former Chancellor’s proud boast about abolishing the cycle of boom and bust? Will Labour voters judge him harshly for the long silence over Iraq and recent revelations that he offered 30 marginal seats to the Lib Dems before the 2010 election in a desperate bid to stop the Tories?

In short, is Gordon Brown like Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek movie – a very welcome blast from the past? Or like David Miliband – a walking reminder of leadership failure and pride before a terrible fall? Until he takes to his feet later today, who can tell?

Yes supporters will be in no doubt – but swithering Labour supporters are the constituency that really matters. It’s been hard to gauge the impact of Alistair Darling at the helm of Better Together. On the one hand, Gordon Brown’s erstwhile colleague had a net approval rating of +1 in February compared to Nicola Sturgeon’s +17. On the other, Ipsos Mori last week recorded a three-point drop in Yes support over the same period.

No-one’s expecting more from ex-chancellor Darling than predictions of doom and gloom on any path that deviates from “steady as we go”.

Expectations of Gordon Brown are different – partly because of his new path since leaving No.10. Well-paid international speeches have netted £1.4 million for the office of Gordon and Sarah Brown to “support his involvement in public life” and a number of children’s charities.

Brown has become a UN ambassador for education and will share a London stage with Beyoncé in June as board member of her charity Chime For Change, which promotes women’s empowerment. Perhaps the spectacle of the reformed clunking fist turned feminist could appeal to women voters – currently twice as doubtful about Scottish independence.

Perhaps – but the slightest hint of insincerity or opportunism could be politically fatal, reminding voters that the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath spends a lot more time rubbing shoulders with the international jet set than MPs (his Commons attendance rate is just 13.6 per cent).

Perhaps, though, we don’t care. Maybe we consider that taking care of constituents, supporting women’s causes and raising money for kids’ charities is a better use of time than sitting belittled with the rest of the cannon-fodder on Labour’s backbenches. Yet, isn’t that what MPs are paid to do – even former prime ministers?

Luckily for Gordon Brown, “Big Man” worship is back in vogue thanks to the surprise departure of Manchester United’s hairdrying, Labour-supporting boss, Sir Alex Ferguson, last week. Suddenly, the tough but fair, hard as nails archetype of the Scottish male is in favour again – even if Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch reruns involuntarily each time a tale of abuse at the “Master’s” hands is fondly recited.

But politics is about more than personality. And the constitutional debate is about more than bashing the other side. Does independence or the Union best serve Scotland’s national interests?

Sooner or later Gordon Brown will have to answer some really hard questions to win more than grudging, and potentially changeable, support.

Might the English public vote to leave the EU whilst the Scots do not? Does that prospect matter?

Does it matter that 1,000 people still own 60 per cent of Scotland or that council elections across Britain encourage only a third of the electorate to vote?

Will Scotland’s future constitutional status make any impact on the poverty, deprivation and appalling health record of Scotland’s poorest communities? If not, why not? Glasgow Centre for Population Health has found deprivation profiles of Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester are almost identical, but premature deaths in Glasgow between 2003-2007 were more than 30 per cent higher. This “excess” mortality runs across almost all ages, males and females and deprived and non-deprived neighbourhoods.

Leading health professionals are bravely looking well beyond their own areas of clinical expertise towards disempowerment, grief and lack of family security in the early years to find explanations.

Can Gordon Brown explain why Scots should pin their hopes for a healthier, more equal society on the re-election of a Westminster Labour government when inequality increased under his watch last time around?

Of course the SNP must tackle the same questions. But today is Gordon Brown’s day and Labour’s opportunity to re-energise an electorate behind an alternative vision for Scotland and Britain. Scots might care greatly about the next Westminster election if Gordon Brown grasps the thistle, abandons tit-for-tat debate and unashamedly espouses the social democratic values which once prompted Peter Shore to say of John Smith: “He was too Nordic to understand southern greed.”

Gordon Brown can be the change he wants to see today by using this “local” speech about Scottish independence to launch a new political vision for the whole UK. Or he can let the SNP grab Keir Hardie’s mantle just as they successfully grabbed cultural Scottishness in the wake of devolution.

Dramatist Kevin Toolis recently observed that Blair sold hope and leadership far better than Gordon Brown – but then Blair was “selling” to a largely English electorate. Can Gordon Brown surprise the home crowd with an unapologetically Scottish rebirth as a progressive feminist socialist?

On past performance, I’m not holding my breath. But despite it all, I am still waiting.

 Tory civil war over European Union is damaging Scotland abroad, SNP claims
11 May 2013 00:01
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Angus Robertson, SNP leader at Westminster, has warned that the Tory obsession with leaving the EU risks damaging our interests abroad.

The Moray MP, who is the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, said fear of UKIP could pull the Tories so far to the right that there is a real danger of the UK leaving the EU.

That would leave Scotland as part of an isolated UK unless voters choose independence in 2014.

Robertson said: “UKIP’s success south of the Border is dragging the whole Westminster agenda further and further to the right – far from what the people of Scotland want.

“Scotland’s interests lie in fighting our corner in the European Union, but we are prevented from doing so by a Tory Government at Westminster that is obsessed with their plans to drag us out of Europe.”

Robertson spoke as Boris Johnson said he will only vote to stay in Europe if there is a substantial improvement in Britain’s relationship with the EU. The London mayor insisted the UK should go into negotiations with other EU leaders with a clear threat to leave the union.

He told the Today programme: “We should be prepared to pull out – that goes without saying.

“You can’t go into a negotiation like that without being willing to walk away.”

Meanwhile, Tory Eurosceptic Philip Hollobone said over 100 of his colleagues could support a Commons amendment expressing anger over lack of a vote on EU membership before 2015.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind also accused former chancellor Lord Lawson of unleashing “a hand grenade into a small building” by calling for Britain to leave the EU.

Robertson said: “Tories are turning on each other out of fear of UKIP. The danger of a No vote in Scotland’s independence referendum is there for all to see – isolated outside Europe under Tory Westminster control.”

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Time for female views to be heard
By NATALIE McGARRY
Published on 15/05/2013 00:00
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FOCUS groups and second guessing, writes Natalie McGarry, are not methods of engaging women in a vital debate

Women are not a minority group. At 52 per cent of the Scottish population women, should be the driving force of social attitudes. However, that influence of simple majority is impeded by a minority in representation; in the media, in political organisations, civic Scotland and elsewhere. Women, quite simply, have poverty of influence.

We are living through a period of intense self-examination and endless discussion of minutiae which will determine the democratic legacy we will leave to future generations, and this is too important to allow the wrangling over dry statistics by pale men in suits to wring the neck of good and proper discourse.

If we want a democratic settlement which best reflects the attitudes of the tapestry that comprises our society, we must ensure that all groups contribute fairly and equally to the debate. There is an onus on both the Yes and No campaigns to seek to redress the lack of minority groups, women and the disenfranchised in crafting that narrative.

For YesScotland and their political and civic partners, the regularity and reinforcement of gender imbalance in attitudes to independence must be galling. If facts are chiels that winnae ding, the Yes campaign must have bats instead of bells in the belfry.

It is only recently – and perhaps as a result of work done by pro-independence campaign groups like Women For Independence – that much cognisance has been given to data imbalance. Lazy psephological – and I use the word advisedly –babble about “Salmond’s women problem” and suggestions that women are desirous of the protective arms of a big burly UK are, frankly, insulting. These have been blown apart by the data in the most recent Social Attitudes Survey. This isn’t a Salmond problem; it is a Yes problem.

We are a long way from the ultimate and definitive poll, but given the existence of YesScotland for almost a year, the failure to make any real impact upon women’s attitudes to independence should prompt a thorough assessment of the relationships and understanding between women and the Yes campaign.

Women have genuine questions about the independence debate and women are not a homogenous group. Women voters are not just important to the Yes or No campaigns simply by their sheer number, we are important because we form the backbone of our families, our communities and societies.

If YesScotland want to offer women the real opportunity to be front and centre in the determination and constitution of our future, they have to be much more proactive. It is simply insufficient to aim simple narratives about childcare and welfare toward women and hope they find a foothold. If the Yes team wants women to engage with the campaign it needs to talk to real women, and they need to do this quickly.

Why women are not currently in favour of independence or as engaged in the debate are questions which only women can answer. Women For Independence is currently doing just that; asking thousands of women across Scotland for their thoughts and concerns on independence, and listening to what they need to hear from the debate.

A concerted effort must be made by the Yes campaign to ditch focus-group led initiatives and instead engage with women across the spectrum; from the impressive women at the forefront of the trades unions movement and business women, to stay-at-home mums and part-time workers.

We need to ditch the lip service and utilise the talented women already engaged with YesScotland to speak to other women. It will be women who convince other women to vote yes, and that will only be achieved if the vision they offer is based on the information that women tell YesScotland that they need to hear.

YesScotland are not ignorant of this; they are have started to really engage with the imbalance. The initial seeds sown show they are taking this very seriously indeed. Much work needs to be done, but it is clear that YesScotland has every intention of ensuring that they too are listening.

Whilst the No campaign must take succour from polling data on women’s attitudes, they should be very wary of their current complacency, because they too have failed to canvass women’s opinions, but seem happy to take them for granted. A vote for a default position is not necessarily a vote of support, and is vulnerable to persuasion. The context of the referendum campaign coinciding with pernicious welfare changes at Westminster, which disproportionately affect women, means that the choice between the two potential futures is increasingly stark.

When this debate finally moves on from the bombastic phoney war typified by bluster and raised voices, and respects the public’s desire for a more mature, respectful and informed debate; women will undoubtedly become more engaged. The suggestion that women are more emotional or scared of independence ignores totally the reality that women are the thinkers, economists and providers.

If many women remain to be convinced of the benefit of independence it is because the argument is not being made or doesn’t contain the information women need. Canniness is no bad thing, and the Yes campaign will have to work very hard to overcome this natural caution.

There is a lot to be done, but If YesScotland and its partners can find the right way to sell that vision, they will win this referendum.

• Natalie McGarry is an SNP activist and co-founder of Women For Independence

Who wants to be part of a xenophobic UK?  Alasdair Galloway  Scottish Review
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I was surprised by Angus Skinner's (9 May) view of Scotland's future 'global engagement' as an independent state, giving that it gave the impression that if independent we would become a sort of North Korea of Europe, when what it would offer Scotland is the capacity to determine our own relations with the wider world, rather than as a minority shareholder of the UK.

He asserts that 'Our future lies in our relationships with others' and I would be among the first to agree with him on the importance of this. Thus I was struck by the article in the same edition by Tessa Ransford (9 May) which suggests a redevelopment of the Auld Alliance – a relationship with France which predates our unification with England in 1707 by a good many centuries. As she notes: 'If the Scots collège founded by Patrick Geddes in Montpellier is also re-established as an international forum, there might be some elliptical exchanges in France, drawing together from Europe and beyond those who seek the kind of interactive dialogue and creative exactitude of thought that has distinguished Scottish scholarship at its best'.

Scotland has a long history of trade and collaboration with other European countries, which is an easily verifiable part of our history, as is Scotland's contribution to world affairs and a willingness to explore future engagements. Independence will allow us to do this again on our own account, as Scotland in Europe and in the world.

No one is denigrating this history of engagement in other countries and in world affairs in any way, as Tessa Ransford's article demonstrates very nicely, both historically as well as looking forward. Indeed, I might suggest that Mr Skinner's concern that we only undertake these relations through the medium of the UK is what is denigrating of Scotland's history and its past successes in relations with other countries.

However, perhaps most ironic of all, is that the trend at Westminster – the link Mr Skinner clearly wants to continue – seems to be, and particularly on the basis of the vote received by UKIP candidates in the recent English local council elections, for the UK to leave the EU and adopt exactly the sort of isolation that Mr Skinner is arguing against. So if isolation is what you want, vote for what Mr Skinner refers to as 'forward'. Paradoxically, since I don't see being part of a UK outwith the EU and significantly influenced by UKIP as any kind of progress at all.

It is a great pity that Mr Skinner considers the independence debate 'silliness', particularly as the kind of progress that he seeks – achievement in the US, in India, China and Africa – seems more likely in an independent and outward-looking Scotland, rather than the inward-looking, and to some extent xenophobic, course that the largest part of the UK seems set upon just now.

(not satire sadly) Recently I wrote a blog post about what happened when I dared to ask a journalist who writes for national newspapers how she managed to 'trace' (her words) the personal phone num...

UKIP: A Scottish irrelevance – a 'Scottish' media obsession
Sunday, 12 May 2013 20:16

  By Campbell Martin
 
Unfortunately, British broadcasters and newspapers don’t make any concessions for Scotland, so you would be forgiven for thinking the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) was now a political force.
 
Over the past week, our so-called ‘national’ news on the BBC, broadcast from London, has been reporting how UKIP produced a seismic shift in politics by securing almost 25% of the votes cast in local government elections.  The fact those local elections only took place in parts of England and had no relevance to Scotland was barely mentioned.

ITV and Sky, also broadcasting ‘national’ news from London, have been telling us the same story.

In every British newspaper - including those that add the word ‘Scottish’ to their mastheads on copies sold north of the border – we have seen almost saturation coverage of UKIP’s advance, accompanied by photos showing a smiling Nigel Farage, the party’s leader.

However, in Scotland, UKIP is rightly ranked alongside the Monster Raving Loony Party.  Even Farage has described Scotland as “a graveyard” for UKIP, but that hasn’t stopped so-called ‘national’ broadcasters and newspapers from completely ignoring the Scottish reality and telling us instead that the far-right party is now a credible political organisation.

Let’s put things in perspective by looking at UKIP’s actual results in Scotland: at the 2009 European Parliament Election they polled just 5% and at the Scottish Parliament Election of 2011 their share of the vote was 1%.  UKIP might have taken almost 25% at last week’s local government elections in England, but at the last comparative poll in Scotland – the 2012 Council Elections – the party received 0.28% of the votes cast.

These are the results of a political party soundly rejected by the people of Scotland, and for good reason.

UKIP was formed by disaffected Tories for whom the Conservatives were not sufficiently right-wing.  A quick glance at what passes for policy within UKIP shows they are borderline racist: the party is anti-immigrants, anti-minorities and ferociously anti-European Union – all those ‘Johnny foreigner’ types mis-spending English tax-payers money (despite the fact the UK is represented at every level within the EU).

In addition to those positions, UKIP ran a campaign for the English local government elections which pandered to other right-wing prejudices, such as anti-gay marriage and branding those on benefits as scroungers living on hand-outs.  If you look at the political spectrum, UKIP sits on the far-right, mid-way between the Tories and the fascist British National Party (BNP).

It was no coincidence that BNP leader Nick Griffin posted a piece on the party’s website following the English local government elections, suggesting his party’s supporters should consider looking to UKIP as a political vehicle to advance their hate-filled far-right ideology.

Most Scots embrace a moderate left-of-centre, social-democratic position, which makes UKIP’s nasty, far-right policies completely anathema in Scotland.  As a result, the party will continue to occupy a berth on the extreme fringe of Scottish politics.

Yet, because British (London-based) mainstream media completely ignore Scotland, news programmes broadcast into our living-rooms will continue to give the far-right party a credibility and position that bears no resemblance to their actual standing north of the border.

Scots should bear in mind this misrepresentation as we progress towards next year’s referendum on independence.  It is not just in relation to UKIP that British print and broadcast media report news from an English perspective as if that also represents the position in Scotland.

British (mainly London-based) media outlets are heavily slanted in favour of the British Union, so don’t expect anything close to impartial news coverage of matters relating to independence.   Even the BBC, which is supposed to be impartial, makes clear in its Editorial Guidelines that impartiality “does not require absolute neutrality on every issue”.

The BBC’s position on independence is clear and the clue is in the name – it is the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation.  There is no such thing as BBC Scotland: what we have is the BBC in Scotland, including non-neutral (or anti-independence) reporting contained in ‘Scottish’ news and current affairs programmes.

The Independence Referendum on September 18 2014 is the most important decision Scots have ever made.  In the 306 year history of the British Union, the people of Scotland have never been allowed our say, until now.  In 1707, just 30 Scots aristocrats sold Scotland into a parliamentary union with England.  They were paid by the English for their actions – in total they received around £3m in today’s money.  Scotland’s National Bard, Robert Burns, described them as “such a parcel o’ rogues in a nation”.

In towns and cities across Scotland, ordinary Scots rioted against the union but their voices were ignored.

From that day to this, spanning three-centuries, no Scot has ever been allowed to say whether or not they want their country to remain in the British Union or once again become a normal independent nation.  We are the first Scots to get that chance.

If British mainstream media, particularly its parts based in Scotland, continue to distort our political and social reality, and continue to report ‘news’ from a pro-British Union perspective, then their role will mirror the “parcel o’ rogues” who sold Scotland 306 years ago.  The reporting of UKIP’s position in England as if it also applied to Scotland is just the latest example of such distortion.

Until there is a fundamental shift in editorial policy, to allow balanced reporting of issues relating to independence, we should be very wary of what we read in ‘national’ newspapers and hear on news bulletins.

Because we’re not sure we can identify any actual policy differences between the Conservatives and Labour. Of course that’s not exactly new, but we thought in the interests of fairness we should probably update our old feature and see where the two parties stood now on all the major issues. Here’s what we got.

The Tories want to be tougher on welfare
Labour want to be tougher on welfare.

The Tories want to be tougher on immigration.
Labour want to be tougher on immigration.

The Tories want to introduce means-testing for more benefits.
Labour want to introduce means-testing for more benefits.

The Tories want to end free tuition in Scotland.
Labour want to end free tuition in Scotland.

The Tories support workfare and want to extend it.
Labour support workfare and want to extend it.

The Tory plan for cutting the deficit is a decade of brutal austerity.
The Labour plan for cutting the deficit is a decade of brutal austerity.

The Tories want to spend tens of billions replacing Trident.
Labour want to spend tens of billions replacing Trident.

The Tories introduced the bedroom tax for social rented tenants.
Labour introduced the bedroom tax for private rented tenants.
(And refuse to say they’ll abolish it.)

The Tories don’t plan to reintroduce the 50p income tax rate.
Labour don’t plan to reintroduce the 50p income tax rate.

The Tories have vague, non-specific, non-committal plans for devolution which offer more responsibilities rather than more powers, and which aren’t supported by the party’s Westminster MPs or leadership.
Labour have vague, non-specific, non-committal plans for devolution which offer more responsibilities rather than more powers, and which aren’t supported by the party’s Westminster MPs or leadership.

That Labour alternative in full, there. (Those, of course, are just the areas where Labour openly ADMIT to having the same policies as the Tories. In others – the privatisation of the NHS and Royal Mail, and the increasing of the pension age – Labour cynically pretends to oppose policies which they themselves set in motion.)