A Revolution of the Possible: Radical Independence Conference 2013
“Look at the forces that stand behind no. Look at the forces that stand behind yes. Choose your side.” Declaration of Radical Independence What if independence does ‘fail to deliver’? Imagine it: the...
View ArticleWhy England needs its own white paper
For those of us used to politics saturated with talk of independence, last week provided a fascinating glimpse of what happens when the debate opens up to include our friends south of the border. In...
View ArticleA Nordic future for Shetland?
I don’t believe the Westminster system of government allows Scots to fully realise their ambitions, to adequately articulate their values or to fulfil their priorities. Ib Hansen, Nordic alliance sets...
View ArticleFive new traditions for a new Scotland
National traditions, though often presented as ancient and hallowed, are usually thought up by someone with an agenda. Often they’ll claim to be reviving some long lost ritual, or will seek to give...
View ArticleRobert Burns: another man who hated Britain
It’s ironic that The Scottish Daily Mail chose 25 January to publish an article entitled FIVE YEARS IN JAIL FOR THE ONLINE BULLIES. This double page splash, focusing on pro-Yes tweeters: “unmasks some...
View ArticleEnter the union
During the week in which George Osborne likened the Scottish Government to ‘an angry party to a messy divorce’ and helpfully informed us that a currency is not like a CD collection, something dramatic...
View ArticleA collective we can choose to belong to
The following is based on a talk given at Voluntary Arts Scotland’s national conference ‘Culture, Creativity and You: Why Making Matters’ on Wednesday 26 February 2014 at Platform, Easterhouse. I’m...
View ArticleState power and party myth: the managed decline of Scottish Labour
George Galloway’s analysis of the referendum, though often so far from the reality on the ground, hits the nail on the end in one respect. New Labour was the handmaiden of Scottish independence The...
View ArticleEmbracing the politics of place: globalisation and independence
Localization, it seems, is not so much “other” to globalization as contained within it, brought into being by it, indeed part of globalization itself. J.K Gibson-Graham, Querying Globalization Every...
View ArticleUnionism and the English Language
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. George Orwell, Politics and the...
View ArticleA Revolution of the Possible: Radical Independence Conference 2013
“Look at the forces that stand behind no. Look at the forces that stand behind yes. Choose your side.” Declaration of Radical Independence What if independence does ‘fail to deliver’? Imagine it: the...
View ArticleWhy England needs its own white paper
For those of us used to politics saturated with talk of independence, last week provided a fascinating glimpse of what happens when the debate opens up to include our friends south of the border. In...
View ArticleTom Paine on Indyref
When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not...
View ArticleIn search of the Scottish summer
In Scotland this summer won’t be all that different from any other: it overflows with promises of package holidays, festivals and marital rites. Of course in the living of it, it’s just as likely to...
View ArticlePlaces of the sunset: independence and World War One
So, lest we shame them, let us believe that the new oppressions and foolish greeds are no more than mists that pass. They died for a world that is past, these men, but they did not die for this that we...
View ArticleReclaiming the referendum
As I grew up Scotland became for me more and more an emotion rather than a country, and I would surrender myself to the emotion with a pleasing melancholy. David Daiches, Two Worlds They’re...
View ArticleScotland is not the problem
Even in the eighteenth century and early nineteenth centuries, there were those who feared that British identity was too dependent on recurrent Protestant wars, commercial success and imperial...
View ArticleOur Only Guarantee is Ourselves
Christopher Silver is the producer of Scotland Yet, a film about the grassroots independence movement. Over the coming days, with the upper echelons of Britain’s governing elite paying us a visit, a...
View ArticleDear Scotland…
Dear Scotland… When you wake up on Friday, don’t change. A lot will have changed by then, obviously. A line will have been crossed, you’ll find yourself thrown into a new space, perhaps a different...
View ArticleDividing Scotland
Scotland is a nation divided. This self-evident point has been loudly proclaimed by senior members of the No campaign. The source of this animosity? Astute commentators might point to the gross...
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