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by coffin_dodger » Sun Dec 22, 2013 6:45 pm
by conniption » Mon Feb 10, 2014 6:54 am
The Guardian
David Cameron sets out 'emotional, patriotic' case to keep Scotland in UK
Prime minister uses speech at Olympic Park to make personal plea in runup to Scottish independence referendum
Patrick Wintour, political editor
Friday 7 February 2014
Jump to comments (1165)
The prime minister, David Cameron, told people in the rest of the UK to lobby their friends and family in Scotland with one message: 'We want you to stay.' Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
continued
by semper occultus » Mon Feb 10, 2014 7:22 am
England must reject currency union with Scotland
It would be folly for the rest of the UK to enter such an arrangement voluntarily
By Martin Wolf
January 30, 2014 6:52 pm
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/891e4db2-88fe-11e3-bb5f-00144feab7de.html#axzz2susCWonp
Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, delivered home truths in Edinburgh this week. The desire of the Scottish government to remain in the sterling area would, he stressed, sharply curtail Scotland’s fiscal and financial independence. What Mr Carney did not note was that the rest of the UK must also have a say in any union.
As the governor stated, arrangements “would be a matter for the Scottish and UK parliaments”. But, as the person responsible for monetary stability, he has a duty to advise on the implications. The BoE would have to operate the union. In considering the idea, we must also learn not just from “optimal currency area” theory but from the recent painful experience of the eurozone. That has brought out two conditions for success.
The first is a banking union: common supervisory standards; access to central bank liquidity and lender-of-last-resort facilities; common mechanisms for “resolving” banks in difficulty; and a credible deposit guarantee scheme.
The second condition is shared fiscal resources and arrangements. The former are needed to back the banking union’s resolution and deposit guarantee regimes, and also to provide insurance against macroeconomic shocks. The latter are needed to contain the “moral hazard” from spillover effects from any fiscal crisis in one member, which is deemed likely to force other members to offer a rescue. The answer is explicit fiscal rules. But as Mr Carney adds: “There is an obvious tension between using robust fiscal rules to solve this problem, and allowing national fiscal policy to act as a shock absorber. This reinforces the need for fiscal risk-sharing between nations.”
I would add another key lesson: a central bank responsible to several governments is accountable to none.
Mr Carney failed to bring out two differences between the eurozone and a currency union between Scotland and the rest of the UK. One is that the rest of the UK generates 90 per cent of UK gross domestic product. The other is that the UK is already a fiscal and financial union. A move towards currency union would reduce the pooling of resources.
The first point means that insurance would go one way: the rest of the UK could insure Scotland, but Scotland could not insure the rest of the UK. The rest of the UK would know it was on its own. Scotland would not. The need for external fiscal and financial discipline would go one way. This could not be a relationship among sovereign equals.
The second point means that the post-independence travel would be towards making the currency union less effective: smaller fiscal risk-sharing; less certainty about the handling of crisis situations; and, not least, less certainty over where the accountability of the BoE would lie.
Amazingly, Scotland’s Future , released by the Scottish government last November, stated: “An independent Scotland will be able to decide our currency and the arrangements for monetary policy.” This is nonsense. Scotland would have to negotiate any union.
Indeed, it is doubtful whether a union would be in the interests of the rest of the UK. The gains from the shared currency would certainly be far smaller for the rest of UK than for Scotland, since the latter represents a 10th of the shared market.
It would be necessary to impose fiscal discipline on Scotland. But the rest of the UK would need to retain the ability to use fiscal policy in crises, as it did in 2008 and 2009. Sharing financial regulation would also be difficult, as Brian Quinn, former deputy governor of the Bank of England, argues. Yet the size of Scotland’s financial sector would make it essential. Scotland might also want a representative on the Monetary Policy Committee. But the point of the MPC is that it rules out sectional and regional interests.
An independent Scotland would be free to keep the pound, without a currency union, or to peg any new currency to the pound. But currency union would be problematic. It would be folly for the rest of the UK to enter a union with an independent Scotland voluntarily, having seen what has happened inside the eurozone. But, if it did indeed agree to do so, it would have to be on the basis of a view of its own interests.
It must be an asymmetrical union. The BoE would remain subject to the law of the rest of the UK. It would not contain regional representatives. It would have sole responsibility for prudential regulation. Above all, the rules of the union would impose fiscal discipline upon Scotland. But such discipline would essentially be voluntary for the rest of the UK.
If I were Scottish, I would not dream of accepting such an arrangement because it would be far more unequal than the present one. But it is the only arrangement the rest of the UK should accept in return for participating in a worse monetary union than today’s. Mr Carney could not say anything like this. But the Scottish people should not be allowed to believe they can have whatever kind of currency union they want. It would find another and far bigger partner on the other side of the table.
by coffin_dodger » Mon Feb 10, 2014 8:15 am
UK urges Spanish press to censure Scotland independence
Sun Feb 9 PressTV
Britain’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) has asked Spanish press to publish criticisms of Scottish independence.
The UK Embassy in the Spanish capital, Madrid, has asked Spanish paper Tenerife News to print a memo about the “challenges” if Scotland leaves the UK.
The request, by the embassy’s director of communications, Simon Montague, has been made in a letter published by the English-language paper.
The Scottish government said the letter proves that London is trying to stir hostility overseas to Scotland’s independence, despite UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s claim that the decision is purely “a debate between Scots.”
cont - http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/09 ... -scotland/
by MacCruiskeen » Thu Mar 13, 2014 9:46 am
Dismantling Great Britain: An Interview with Tariq Ali on Why Scottish Independence Matters
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/12/ ... e-matters/
by JAMES FOLEY
JF: Scottish Labour politicians claim they speak for internationalism, and often accuse independence supporters of parochialism and petty nationalism. As an internationalist living in London, why are you supporting independence?
TA: Because I don’t accept the claims of New Labour or their coalition lookalikes that they are the internationalists. Their internationalism essentially means subordinating the entire British state to the interests of the United States. They have made Britain into a vassal state: on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on various other things. This isn’t even a big secret.
So I would challenge very strongly any idea that the governments within the British state have been internationalist. They haven’t been, for a very long time. That is something that needs to be squashed.
The second point is this: an independent Scotland, a small state, has far more possibilities of real, genuine internationalism. That means establishing direct links with many countries and peoples in the world. The Norwegians, for instance, both in their media and in their culture, are attuned to countries all over the world. I was in Norway last week at a conference on the Middle East, chaired by a Norwegian diplomat. And she said she’d just come back from two years in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, and she knew all about it. So the fact that you’re going to be small doesn’t mean you’re going to be parochial. On the contrary, it can have exactly the opposite impact.
JF: Many Labour politicians will also deride the SNP as neoliberal populists, as anti-working class, and so on. What’s your views on Scottish nationalism?
TA: The Scottish National Party has been transformed. When it was first set up, it was small-C conservative, and a bit archaic. But that was changed by the ’79 Group. Although many of its members were initially expelled, including Alex Salmond, they are now in government. Also, the SNP have been recruiting a lot of people, including Labour supporters and former members of far-Left groups. I personally do not agree with their social and economic program, I think it’s too weak. On many other things, I would also have criticisms.
But I think I would definitely support a Yes vote, purely for the reason that the Scottish people have a democratic right to determine their own future. This is the first time they’ve been asked to actually vote on that. The Union that was pushed through opportunism, corruption, and bribery in 1707 was not the result of a democratic vote, as we know full well. Which is why they had to fight the battle of Culloden. That was a decisive episode of Scottish history, because that defeat at Culloden imposed the Union as we know it, something totally dominated by Britain.
The SNP is now trying to break with that tradition, and effectively to ask the Scottish people to declare the independence that they once had. And I think it would be better for Scotland, and I think it would be better for England. New Labour have become totally corrupt, in my opinion, on every social, political, and economic front. New Labour are the new Tartan Tories.
This doesn’t mean the SNP should not be argued with, debated with, and I’m sure people within its ranks will do that. And the Radical Independence alliance is a massive factor in this. I’ve been invited to speak to a Yes meeting organized by the SNP in Kirkcaldy in June, which I will do.
I’m very, very strongly in favor of Scottish independence, and always have been, despite disagreements with the SNP. The idea that one can’t disagree with the SNP if one supports independence is just absurd.
JF: Could you talk a little about the potential global implications of a break up of Britain?
TA: I think, in particular, it would be very positive for England, which has always been the dominant factor in the Union. It will open up new political space. It may not benefit progressives initially, but it will at least allow politics to be discussed afresh and anew. That’s the first thing: it will be good for English democracy, which is in a very sad state.
The second thing is that it will help even the most rabid unionists in Britain to understand that the game is over, and that they have to move towards abandoning imperial pretensions. Those pretensions persist even though they’re a joke in the system, and they’re only a courtesy of the United States. And who knows? It may open up space for British independence again. I mean genuine British independence, which hasn’t happened since at least 1956.
We shall see what happens, but I doubt the effects will be negative. And I think an independent Scotland, playing an independent role in world politics and in Europe, would have an impact in Britain.
The other thing that’s worth saying is that this can only be done with the consent of the Scottish people. No one can force it. So there can be no argument that arms were twisted. If anything, the campaign of fear and intimidation that has been waged by London is utterly pathetic, and I hope Scottish people will fight against it.
I remember when Tony Blair came on his last tour of Scotland, and he said, If you vote for independence, every family will lose £5,000 a year. Who dreamed up that figure? Some bureaucrat in Whitehall who wants something to frighten the Scots. And then I read, just a few days ago, that Danny Alexander is repeating these absurd figures. They do this because they want to frighten people, by saying your living standards will decline. But there’s no reason they should decline if the economy is properly handled.
JF: Do you think British elites are worried about the prospect of independence?
TA: Sections of them probably are, because they will see it as a blow to British pretensions. But I think there may well be a section of the elite that might well say, Fine, it will save us money, it will stop the subsidies, etc, and Scotland doesn’t make much money anyway. This is the section of the elite which believes that the only way forward is effectively to sell the British economy and the cities of the South to the rich, to oligarchs from various nationalities, Ukrainian, Russian, Arab, etc, who dominate large parts of the financial markets in London today. That section of the elite, which thinks this is the future, won’t care at all, whatever they say in public.
JF: Do you think the Unionists are bluffing over the question of currency union?
TA: I think they are largely bluffing. But I think Alex Salmond should call the bluff by saying, If you are going to behave in such a mean-spirited and petty-minded way, then Scotland will have no alternative but to create its own currency. As it is, Scottish currency looks different from the currency in Britain. Scotland prints that money. And we will print our own currency, if you bar us from influence, we will seek other ways. I think Salmond should be sharp on this, and call their bluff. He shouldn’t be frightened.
JF: Can I ask a little bit about the historical element. Why do you think the neoliberal counter-revolution was so successful in Britain?
TA: Well, I would challenge the view that it’s been successful. Or if has been successful, it’s largely because the trade unions and the Labour Party didn’t put up any struggle or fight against it. If you look at South America, even small countries in that continent who challenged neoliberalism, and have broken from it to various degrees, have done so with the help of huge social movements that erupted. Unfortunately, the British trade union movement was so defeated after the Miners’ Strike that they just gave up. They didn’t struggle, they didn’t fight, and once the Labour Party had effectively killed itself by becoming New Labour, then you had in Tony Blair a hardcore Thatcherite leader. And he carried on in the same old Thatcherite way.
So in terms of providing any alternative to these people, New Labour and the Conservatives collaborated in saying there was no alternative. And it’s not that people support it, especially after the Wall Street crash in 2008. It is effectively that they have not been presented alternatives.
If Scotland gains independence, and its leadership has the guts, it could break with neoliberalism. In Britain, there was no force from below to challenge it. People felt defeated, they felt demoralized, and they felt that the institutions and leaders they had trusted for a long time had betrayed them completely. And the way people challenge this is from the right. The growing support for UKIP, in particular, is a way of opposing the games played by the elite. It’s foolish, because Farage and company offer absolutely nil. But that is the scale of the desperation. And nothing exists on the Left to challenge that.
In other parts of Europe, there are challenges from the Left. But not in Britain. I would not say people accept it, I would say they have been shown no alternative by any group of people.
JF: You’re going to speak this week about “dismantling” the British state. Some people have asked you mean by this.
TA: I mean that the British state, created by the Union in the 18th century, has effectively been unchallenged. The only written aspect of the British constitution is the so-called Treaty of Union of 1707. Now, what the Scottish people are voting for, if, as I hope, they do vote yes, then the British state as it exists is dismantled, full stop. The vote for Scottish independence is the end of the British state as we know it. How it will develop after that remains to be seen. But, certainly, Scotland breaking away dismantles the British state.
JF: A lot of socialists would deny that there is something particularly toxic about the British state, and would say that all capitalist states are bad. Of course, we know that rivals like France, Germany, and Italy have their problems as well. Do you think there is a distinctiveness to the state of British? And does this mean we have to challenge it in a special way?
TA: On one level, it can be said that the capitalist economy of these states is more or less the same. But these states do have peculiarities. In the case of Britain, as my old friend Tom Nairn has pointed out, these peculiarities are in the realm of satire. The preservation of a monarchy, kept going largely through the monarchic internationalism of the House of Hanover, which found rulers for Britain when it ran out of natural ones. Creating and maintaining this monarchy is a farce.
The House of Lords is also totally undemocratic. All of this gives the British state an archaic character. The fact that the absurd soap opera Downton Abbey is incredibly popular is an indication of what that means. All this has bred within Britain a deference to the ruler, a doffing of the cap, and all that, which is transferred to Scotland in the same way, in the sense that the same Royal family has a house in Balmoral when it comes to Scotland and so on.
The modernisation of Britain has been impeded by this. So the British state has its distinctive features. And I think it’s something that needs to be broken with. But it’s been impossible to break with them in any other way, so Scottish independence would be a good place to start. And by the way, when Norway decided to break from Sweden in 1905, they did so for similar reasons, that they wanted their own country, and they were fed up of being dominated by Stockholm. And it happened relatively amicably. So these things can happen.
Of course, you can argue that since capitalism is now dominant everywhere, then one shouldn’t do anything. But that would be a retreat into total passivity and fatalism.
JF: Britain lost its Empire generations ago, but is Britain still imperialist?
TA: Well, it is a sub-imperialism, contracted to the only Empire which exists today, which is United States of America. But other countries still have imperial pretensions. Some try to revive their past, as Putin is doing in the Ukraine. Others try and pretend, and in fact do box above their weight-class, because they’re attached to the coat-tails of an existing Empire. If you look at all the big Empires that existed, the Japanese, the German, the French, the British, what are they now? They’re effectively contracted to the United States of America. There is absolutely nothing they can do without getting Washington’s permission. The United States that is the only Empire today.
JF: You mentioned the poor state of English democracy. How worried are you by the rise of populist right-wing politics in England? Why do you think this is so successful in England right now?
TA: Well, it’s successful because there’s nothing else. Effectively, the two issues on which UKIP campaigns are the European Union and immigration. Those are linked, because the immigration they attack, largely, is immigration from the European Union. Unfortunately, these are popular demands in the whole of Europe at the moment because of the economic crisis.
Also, in my opinion, the Left has been very weak in not putting forward strong critiques of the European Union and how it functions today, because they’re scared of being considered anti-Europe. But it is not anti-Europe to argue that the European Union is totally corrupt, bureaucratic, undemocratic, run by the elites, and is, effectively, a bankers’ union. That’s just a fact. But the Left hasn’t been campaigning like that, except in France, by the way.
So you have a situation where a party emerges from the bowels of the old Tory Party, and comes up with all this stuff, and fascist groups starting doing entry work in it, and it’s become a political force, whose main aim is to put pressure on the Conservatives and break them from Europe. And they have certainly succeeded in pushing all the Westminster parties to the right on immigration. So that is why they have arisen.
But I think there’s a deeper problem, which is argued by the late Peter Mair, a fine political scientist, in his posthumous book, Ruling the Void. It effectively argues, correctly in my opinion, that what we have now in the advanced capitalist world is a situation where the political class does not represent the needs or the views of the bulk of the population. This is leading to growing alienation from politics as such.
So the democracy deficit in Britain is huge. And this is also a reason why the Scottish people should take this opportunity and break out of the prison that is the United Kingdom, and develop their own policies, and discuss openly ways to go forward. They shouldn’t accept a smaller version of neoliberal Britain as their aim in life.
JF: A lot of people are worried about the implications, if Scotland leaves, about the future for centre-left Labour governments in the remaining UK. In the context of UKIP, rising populism, the Collins Review, and so on, what is the future for British social democracy?
TA: My opinion on this has been openly expressed since the launch of New Labour. It is now generally accepted that there is no fundamental difference between centre-left and centre-right, in British politics, or for that matter in French or German politics. Effectively what we have is an extreme centre. Extreme because it backs wars and occupations. Extreme because it declares wars on its own people, tries to blame the victims for the crimes committed by the elites. Extreme because it is prepared to dismantle fundamental democratic rights in order to prevent dissent in discussions of the secret state.
This extreme centre encompasses both centre-left and centre-right. They make a few cosmetic noises when each is in opposition, but by and large, when they are in power, they do the same thing. To this day, the New Labour front bench has not even been able to say that they will break from the coalition’s fundamental policies on the economy. They can’t say it, because these are their policies. They are no different.
So all this talk about weakening Left forces in what will be left of the United Kingdom is a cover. A cover for what? For nothing. It bears no relationship to reality. The trade unions are weak, the last General Strike was in 1926, so the notion that one is somehow betraying the unity of the Scottish and English working class is nonsense. In any case, that unity can be exercised behind independent frontiers. Socialists always used to argue for unity of the international working class, until the First World War showed the strength of nationalism of the retrograde sort, which gripped the workers as well.
So none of these arguments are serious arguments, in my opinion. The hardcore unionists have a serious argument saying, God, church, monarchy are the uniting factors of our Union, and have been since 1707, and we shouldn’t break with them, and woe betide the Scots who want to do it. That’s at least a consistent view, but completely anachronistic.
JF: Some people also argue that Scotland and England will get dragged into a race to the bottom after independence. They also talk about corporate taxes and so on. Do you think things will really improve if Scotland gets independence?
TA: Well, I think the basis has been created for things to improve. Whether they improve or not will depend on two things: whether the leaders of the SNP are prepared to go further in terms of creating a social democratic Scotland or not. I hope to God they are. Secondly, and most importantly, whether in an independent Scotland there will be the desire of people to participate more actively in politics on every level. Not just through existing institutions, but through the creation of institutions to supervise and watch the new Scottish democracy. They need to participate in it, and speak up when things aren’t going right. In a smaller country, it is much easier to do that. I think that probably will be the effect. And the Left in Scotland has to play its part.
JF: What’s your views on the Nordic model and other varieties of capitalism? Can Scotland draw on these ideas?
TA: Well, we’re talking about a period in which the capitalist system has triumphed, and the ideas of socialism have suffered a huge defeat globally. So we’re living in a very strange transition period, which may well last until the end of the century. One shouldn’t exclude that. So one has to operate with what exists, and see how capital in its worst aspects can be regulated, how a state can be regulated that works for the benefit of working people…I mean, this was an aim of Labour in 1945, and that program was a good one, by the way. It actually did change living conditions for people, and even today, I don’t live in Scotland, but people tell me that the education system in Scotland is better, from that point of view, than the English education system.
This is where an independent Scotland could make a big difference. If it handles its economy properly, its oil, the lesson to learn is from Norway, which invested its oil wealth very wisely. As a result, it has a social democratic welfare state which is the envy of virtually everyone. When I was there, my Norwegian friends said, I won’t see you until October because I’m going on six months leave. And I said, six months leave?! Why, what’s happened? And he said, my wife is having a baby, and according to Norwegian law, both partners are allowed six months paid leave. I was surprised, because I knew there was something like this, but I didn’t know the details.
So, people feel, in some ways, that they survive better under social democratic governments, or under a consensus which accepts that certain reforms are invaluable. And it’s the privatisation programs of the British elite which have wrecked the country. Now, they’re selling off the health service. New Labour should remember this. There was an article by former health secretary Alan Milburn in the Financial Times last week arguing the case for private health, while pretending that it’s a way of protecting the National Health Service. This is what has created the anger in Britain and in Scotland. It’s New Labour that has done this. And one has to break decisively from those politics and create a better society.
This will not be the socialist society many socialists dream of. But it would open up the space where at least such things can be debated, and reforms implemented that improve the living conditions of Scotland. There is absolutely no reason why an independent Scotland can’t begin to reindustrialise, and build a big shipbuilding industry, with the help of countries outside Europe, who are ready to go. It’s silly just to see Scotland’s future in relation to England or even the rest of Europe. If it’s imaginative, it can go way beyond that.
JF: A lot of people’s big anxiety is that Scotland will be isolated after isolated after independence. How should Scotland prevent that? And what sort of alliances do you think Scotland should build?
TA: But isn’t Scotland isolated now? I would say Scotland is isolated now, by being part of Britain. Britain isn’t, but Scotland certainly is. So this notion that it would become isolated after independence is wrong. The sets of alliances it should build? Initially, the aim should be to construct alliances with the Scandinavian bloc, particularly Norway and Sweden. I think they would be received with open arms, to do economic deals, tourism, political deals, etc. So the Scandinavian bloc is one possibility.
Within the European Union, they should fight for the right of smaller states to have a say. Scotland should also build ties with smaller republics within the European Union, or even those areas within the EU which are not yet independent, like Catalonia.
That’s not to mention the world at large. Why should Scotland be dependent on Britain to mediate its relationships with countries in Asia, or Africa? So I think Scots have to look abroad. The one institution that will have to be created, amongst the new ones, will be a Foreign Office, and overseas trade, that is very important.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/12/ ... e-matters/
by Harvey » Thu Mar 13, 2014 10:09 am
by MacCruiskeen » Thu Mar 13, 2014 3:23 pm
Harvey wrote:What they so fail to realise is that, at present, most of the north of England would happily join Scotland.
Tariq Ali wrote:I think, in particular, it would be very positive for England, which has always been the dominant factor in the Union. It will open up new political space. It may not benefit progressives initially, but it will at least allow politics to be discussed afresh and anew. That’s the first thing: it will be good for English democracy, which is in a very sad state.
Tariq Ali wrote:New Labour have become totally corrupt, in my opinion, on every social, political, and economic front. New Labour are the new Tartan Tories.
by AhabsOtherLeg » Fri Mar 21, 2014 11:21 pm
semper occultus wrote:Salmond is attempting to blackmail his way into a currency union by refusing to take on any share of UK debt
semper occultus wrote:.....a few years back sterling was ..."a millstone around Scotland's neck....." apparently...
...it is doubtful whether a [currency] union would be in the interests of the rest of the UK. The gains from the shared currency would certainly be far smaller for the rest of UK than for Scotland, since the latter represents a 10th of the shared market.
It must be an asymmetrical union. The BoE would remain subject to the law of the rest of the UK. It would not contain regional representatives. It would have sole responsibility for prudential regulation. Above all, the rules of the union would impose fiscal discipline upon Scotland. But such discipline would essentially be voluntary for the rest of the UK.
by AhabsOtherLeg » Fri Mar 21, 2014 11:54 pm
If its geographic share of UK oil and gas output is taken into account, Scotland’s GDP per head is bigger than that of France. Even excluding the North Sea’s hydrocarbon bounty, per capita GDP is higher than that of Italy. Oil, whisky and a broad range of manufactured goods mean an independent Scotland would be one of the world’s top 35 exporters.
An independent Scotland could also expect to start with healthier state finances than the rest of the UK. Although Scotland enjoys public spending well above the UK average – a source of resentment among some in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – the cost to the Treasury is more than outweighed by oil and gas revenues from Scottish waters.
http://archive.is/vcQ78#selection-2101.0-2109.344
Records from 1975, just released, show Government officials admitted that the discovery of oil had transformed the economic case for separation.
They calculated that Scots’ average income would increase by up to 30 per cent per head and it could be “credibly argued” that repealing the Act of Union was to Scotland’s advantage.
by AhabsOtherLeg » Sat Mar 22, 2014 12:46 am
Harvey » Thu Mar 13, 2014 9:09 am wrote:What they so fail to realise is that, at present, most of the north of England would happily join Scotland.
)? by semper occultus » Sat Mar 22, 2014 8:03 am
Lastly, we're told that the currency we've used for three centuries was never ours, we never owned any share in it, and have no entitlement to it's use
) that gleamed like a veritable Thule on the Northern horizon over a time span that is a blink of an eye in the life of a nation ...be careful what you are locking into is all I'm saying - this is a one-way ticket out the door & not taking a car for a test-drive ....
by AhabsOtherLeg » Sun Mar 30, 2014 11:38 pm
semper occultus » Sat Mar 22, 2014 7:03 am wrote:Ahoy Ahab…....'S fhada bho nach fhaca mi sibh !!
I’m delighted you wish to avoid the python-coils of the Euro-dictatorship but that isn’t what’s being offered & Salmond & his mini-me side-kick’s vituperative dummy-spitting reaction to Barroso’s statement on EU entry was actually pretty embarrassing & will have done their image little good amongst neutrals in my opinion
I know the same…for want of a better word…”shit” from unelected tecno/bureaucrats & CEO’s is going to be flying in the unlikely event an EU referendum is offered
be careful what you are locking into is all I'm saying - this is a one-way ticket out the door & not taking a car for a test-drive ....
....in terms of your future as a global trading & economic power-house people need to make sure they don’t burn too may boats with Der Englishe Reich in the divorce-proceedings….
by semper occultus » Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:15 am
by conniption » Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:08 am
by semper occultus » Sat Apr 05, 2014 4:48 pm
Wanted: Scottish spies. Pinstripe suit optional
If Scotland becomes independent, will its intelligence service be home-grown or MI5 'illegals' operating out of a UK embassy?
Kevin McKenna
The Observer, Saturday 5 April 2014 18.30 BST
From an unremarkable property in a dishevelled neighbourhood not far from Glasgow city centre, some spooks of MI5 operate, searching for ripples in Britain's northern approaches. Their permanent presence in Scotland, if not their actual residence, isn't a secret known only to an anointed handful. After all, why wouldn't there be some surveillance operations based in Scotland's busiest city and one of the UK's most turbulent? They have been there for 10 years or so, but whether they remain following a yes vote in September's referendum is at the heart of one of the most vexed and intriguing issues surrounding the independence debate.
There are several nuances in Scotland's political, social and economic landscape that will always separate it from London and the south-east of England. Occasionally, these have required special scrutiny from Britain's intelligence forces, such as the fallout and aftermath of the terror attack on Glasgow airport in 2007.
Scotland's politics in the last 50 years have adopted a permanently reddish hue and the city by the Clyde can justly lay claim to being in the vanguard of early 20th-century radicalism. In another time less than a century ago, tanks appeared in Glasgow's George Square as the British establishment became twitchy at the prospect of a general strike and the danger of Russia exporting its revolution. A statue of La Pasionaria, the republican leader in the Spanish Civil War honouring Scottish radical volunteers who fell in the conflict, stands not far from the MI5 building.
What, though, will be the status of MI5 spies and operatives in an independent Scotland? Will they have to become "illegals" operating under a flag of convenience from a future UK embassy in Scotland? Or will they, in the fond imaginations of the SNP, be welcome here as a crucial part of an independent Scotland's future intelligence arrangements?
An assortment of UK ministers has said that an independent Scotland will be cut off from the UK's world-class intelligence-gathering operation, leaving us naked and vulnerable in an era of geopolitical uncertainty and strife. The home secretary, Theresa May, has repeatedly slapped down SNP claims that, post-independence, Scotland will remain part of the UK's intelligence network simply because of the mutual interest in maintaining the security of the British coastline. Not so, says May. "If Scotland is separate it becomes a separate state. So it is not the same as sharing intelligence across the UK," she said earlier this year.
If an independent Scotland does have to develop its own intelligence network, it will lead to one of the most intriguing questions in the independence debate. Who will pose the biggest threat to the physical and economic security of the state?
The two nations whose activities must concern it most are likely to be England and the USA. One of the characteristics of an independent Scotland most trumpeted by nationalists is that it will be eternally left wing in governance and outlook. What if an independent Scotland were to shift more radically to the left and London, perhaps in a Ukip-influenced coalition, moved inexorably to the extreme right? Therein lie the seeds of mutual distrust and suspicion. In such circumstances, though, Scotland would enjoy a spying advantage.
There are dozens of Scots in the British intelligence community and in the diplomatic corps, some of whom, almost certainly, will harbour nationalist sentiments. They could become tartan double agents "sleeping" within England's agencies but supplying secrets to the motherland as and when their conscience dictates.
The Americans, meanwhile, have for years been alarmed at the behaviour of this disputatious and cussed little land. They were outraged in 2009 when Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice minister, released Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber.
As the rise of the SNP in Scottish politics has gathered pace, so the unease of the Americans has grown. Here, before their very eyes, is the emergence of their worst nightmare: a European Cuba right in the middle of the Nato zone. This is a country that doesn't want their nukes, whose two main political parties make the US Democrats look like Ukip and whose leader seems to have a troubling fascination with China. You can be sure that American spies are highly active in Scotland and will remain so following an independence vote. Perhaps Alex Salmond should soon deploy the services of a cigar tester.
The home secretary's warnings may simply be dismissed as the same sort of phoney rhetoric in which her colleague George Osborne has been indulging over currency union. Perhaps not, though. Will an independent Scotland deploy double agents at the heart of the English establishment, expert in knowing how to dress for dinner and able to differentiate between a grouse and a partridge at 100 metres? Will they be able to guard against replying: "Aye, no' bad" to the seemingly innocent query: "How's it gaun?" designed to out a Jock sleeper? If a future expansionist England ruled by a reactionary coalition of Ukip and traditional Tories decides it wants to take back Scotland, will we have to beware pasty-faced and chinless men in Savile Row pinstripes furtively reading the FT in a station and who want their kedgeree done with freshly flaked cod and a poached egg on top?
The SNP, though, appears not to have attached any great importance to the development of a mature and self-sustaining intelligence network. In the negotiations following a yes vote, it risks being unprepared in negotiations over defence and intelligence. If it insists on merely using Whitehall's security apparatus, Scotland's independence begins to look compromised.
If Scotland is to have a mature intelligence service, then Alex Salmond must surely already have initiated a series of meetings with a confidential group looking at all scenarios. Does a blueprint exist outlining the infrastructure for an independent intelligence apparatus? Has anything been costed? Just as crucially, have any specialist academics, key undercover operatives and even sleepers been tapped on the shoulder and invited for a quiet word?
If none of this has yet occurred and the SNP is seeking simply to piggy-back on the intelligence services of the country it is so desperate to leave, it will look like a sell-out to many of its own supporters.
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