Latin America

Colombia, fuck yeah!

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Gary Dunion | No Comments

Over on the MSNBC photoblog there are some enlightening shots from the frontline of the war on drugs. But they tell us the opposite of what they’re meant to.

Look at this first one. A high-explosive mushroom cloud billows up above the palm trees, rending the powder-blue, tropical sky with a fist of heat and smoke. Another secret jungle cocaine lab is out of business for good. COLOMBIA, FUCK YEAH!

A jungle cocaine lab is blown up by Colombian forces

But two shots later we find out what a cocaine lab actually looks like. And it is, well, underwhelming.

A jungle cocaine lab in Meta, Colombia

As you can see, the truth is that a “cocaine lab” is a tent with half a dozen billy cans in it. The ammunition used to blow one up costs much more that it costs to build a new one, possibly hundreds of times over. Facilities like the one destroyed in the first picture probably exist in their thousands, and that one will have been replaced within days, if not hours.

When the enemy’s infrastructure can all be bought at Wal-Mart for a hundred dollars, there is no way that blowing it up at colossal expense and risk to life can have any significant effect on supply.

What we learn from these pictures is not what a vital job the counternarcotics police are doing in the jungles of Colombia, but how futile their operation is.

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Democracy

Time to take Britain out of our greatness

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Admin | 4 Comments

This guest post from Anthony Barnett was first on Our Kingdom

Alex Salmond’s Hugo Young lecture, delivered yesterday evening in King’s Place, the Guardian’s headquarters, was an enjoyable affair. It was also, thanks to Tory policy and IPPR’s research, a potentially important moment – a turning point, even, in what can legitimately be called ‘this island’s story’.

From what I could make out, most of the pro-Labour remnants of the Westminster political class present expressed disappointment as Salmond brushed aside their objections with his easygoing reasonableness. What did they want? Are they still longing for a rousing call for a “New Britain” like Blair’s? Do they hunger for a Scot demanding freedom and a New Scotland whom they can admire and deride…? At least Liz Forgan, who heads the Guardian’s Scott Trust and chaired the event, recognised Salmond’s approach as possibly historic.

It isn’t just because of what he said or – as always with Salmond – the way he said it. By accepting the invitation some time ago he had decided to bring his argument to England. However, in the New Year, Cameron and Osborne decided to play the Scottish card, ‘take’ the initiative and set the terms and timing of the independence referendum. This transformed yesterday’s London speech from being a sortie by an outsider pitching his case into a reply to the Prime Minister.

It therefore mattered what he said. It was a first round that Salmond won with embarrassing ease. So much so that the government will surely have to hurry on and pretend that it never tried to set the terms at all. With his perfectly calibrated matter-of-fact way, Salmond simply said that when and how the referendum would be conducted was for the Scottish people. His government would lead the consultation on it thank-you (it is being launched today). As for the timing, he was elected on a commitment that a referendum would be held in the second half of the current Scottish parliament’s term and this decision by the Scottish voters was “binding”.

It was said with such a lack of aggression or parliamentary bluster that an outsider who was unaware of the Prime Minister’s initiative could have missed the fact that the highest power in the land was being told to get lost.

However Salmond did not tell the English to get lost. On the contrary, he told us that he loved us and he wanted us to find ourselves together with the Scots, Welsh and Irish. What we all need, and what he, Salmond, wants, is “a social union” with all of the affiliations that bind us and none of the destructive politics, or querulous rows about money. If the Queen (or her speechwriters) can tell the Irish, as she did just last year in Dublin, that England’s ties with the Irish “make us so much more than just neighbours, they make us firm friends and equal partners” then surely this will apply to Scotland and England too – “firm friends and equal partners” – Salmond repeated the phrase as if it was a sweet in his mouth.

Salmond’s strategy and his entire independence politics is based on this simple insight. That it is “a normal and natural state” for a historic country with ample resources to be self-governing.

Independence is normal! Indeed, it does not need an exclamation mark. It is reasonable and healthy. The closest Salmond gets to boasting about its qualities is that independence might be glowing (as in a “beacon” – the only Blairite note of the evening). In the questions he emphasised that he has “never argued we are superior or better, just that we are capable of running our own affairs” and no disaster will follow from it if they do. It isn’t a threat. All the difficulties that people raise can be settled by reasonable people.

He opened his speech saying he is an optimist and making the optimistic case for what his government has achieved in Scotland. In the questions he told us that positive campaigns always beat negative campaigns (and that negative campaigns only won when they were up against other negative campaigns, in which case the most negative campaign won).

Watching and listening to him I think I understood the relationship he has to the Scottish public that helps explain why he is an exceptionally successful politician. He treats the Scots (and now the English) in a way that’s akin to a coach. Not leading from the front like a Thatcher or a ‘Braveheart’ but rather encouraging folk to do the best they can. His government seeks to provide security, he told us, as this brings out people’s “confidence”, hence their full capability, enabling the economy to grow through cooperation not competition. Whether this consensual, progressive image of Scotland is true or not is beside the point. As is the fact that Alex Salmond remains a politician – not just a coach but also a manager who makes dirty deals behind the scenes (most notably with Murdoch who is always promiscuous when it comes to winners).

The point is this: he does not bang the table and demand independence while insisting that his own people rise to the occasion, in the ‘Braveheart’ style that the English want as it would provide the kind of fight they can win. Salmond leads from the side. I have my views, he says, I myself want independence but if the Scottish people want something less, I’m their leader too and I’ll take them to where they are comfortable with being.

And at the moment most Scots seem to prefer, not independence, but ‘devo-max’, meaning complete financial self-government but within the Union. Therefore Salmond will offer them this option in the referendum. It may indeed muddy the waters and even make independence harder to argue for and win. But Salmond isn’t going to turn against his own people. He won’t join the chorus saying that they must vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (unless that is what a clear majority of them prefer). For this way lies negativity. His approach is “If devo-max is the most you want, fine, but why not go further?’

Built into this strategy is the hope that Westminster Britain, feeling control slipping away, will start to bully and bluster, allowing Salmond to oppose the politics of “fear-mongering” while provoking Scots into a defiant embrace of independence. The Telegraph’s Deputy Editor Benedict Brogan sees the danger and is trying to squash any such tactics in advance. Cameron, he says, in an important column designed to influence Tory strategy, must not deploy the “brutal tactics” used to such good effect in the AV referendum. Instead he must show,

“discretion, courtesy and a disciplined avoidance of any language that amounts to questioning Scotland’s capacity for self-government, its ability to prosper, or its willingness to reason. That Scotland could be a successful, moderately well-off independent nation is not in doubt and should not be misrepresented…. Mr Cameron must avoid being lured into any comment that will allow him to be portrayed as an evidently English prime minister.

“His reticence is required not because it will deprive Mr Salmond of something to complain about, but because he must reserve himself for the consequences of the vote. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, there will have to be a renegotiation of the terms between Scotland and the rest of the Union. Whether Scotland chooses independence or opts to remain, there must follow a detailed re-balancing of the political and financial relationship. Be it the “devo-max” Mr Salmond speaks of, or some other arrangement, Mr Cameron must be in a position to negotiate as a respected equal after Scotland has decided.”

This is so wise and far-sighted as to be implausible. If everyone agrees that the potential of Scottish self-government is not in doubt, neither is England’s. In which case Alex Salmond’s “social union” beckons just as much to the English.

The hard, commanding thrust of the Telegraph’s long-range editorial intelligence can be felt in the words I’ve highlighted. The British Prime Minister must not just win the referendum, he must win it in such a way that, “he must reserve himself for the consequences of the vote”. Why? Because this won’t be like the AV referendum. (Indeed, a point Brogan didn’t make but I reflected on at the time, the AV campaign was defeated on the same day in May 2010 that the SNP won its astounding majority.) A referendum won’t mean Scotland goes away. It there will still be here with its history and voice and no Tory MPs in Westminster… the cost of winning narrowly after a “brutal” campaign of fear-mongering with the younger generation in Scotland (who mostly favour independence) feeling their birthright has been refused them by their elders, is not going to put an end to the matter. Brogan has identified an enormously important point.

Yet the strategy he advocates will almost certainly self-destruct. If the opposition by the British government takes the form of saying calmly that of course Scotland can be a well-off independent nation and of course it can keep the Queen like Canada, then the same applies to England too. In which case the campaign for Britain and Britishness has to be a campaign for… Britain and Britishness as such.

This is the line that Peter Oborne explores in a brave column also in the Telegraph. What were the English and Scots before we became Britain? His answer, “piffling little places on the edge of the world”. Hmm, was the brilliantly educated, cosmopolitan Elizabeth Ist, who inspired the defeat of an Armada sent by the greatest Empire of the time, piffle? Or Shakespeare?

Peter also does not want to defend the Union if the price is a descent into mean squabbles and brutal negativity. There has to be an attractive political case, he argues, for a shared ‘Britain’ above all the piffling nations. Together we are greater than the sum of our parts – and surely that added greatness is Britain. The United Kingdom, he argues, “richly deserves to survive – but only if it can conjure up its own poetry and romance, and embrace the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish on equal terms”.

This implies there is a British culture and poetry separate from the constituent nations. But there isn’t, is there? Before the lecture I discussed with Ian McEwan whether there are any ‘British’ poets, poetry being especially important as the expression of the inner voice and spirit. He agrees that there are not, in part because Scottish poets have such a distinctive and powerful voice. He made a further spiritual comparison: “There aren’t any ‘British’ poets. Football and poetry here are one”.

Doubtless this literary argument has been debated elsewhere. In a sentence, the point I am trying to make is that Britishness does not exist on its own or as a separate nationality. Appealing to it as such, to ‘save the Union’ in fact releases the English genie which is the main threat to the Union.

For Britishness is the creation of English expansion and the English recruited into their British project other nations to make it genuinely a multi-national and imperial identity. While for the Scots, Welsh and Irish there was always a dual identity within it, for the English who are so much the more numerous it was a ‘fused identity’. It is a point I first made in Iron Britannia thirty years ago. Back them if you asked the English-British as I did, whether they were British first and English second they could not understand the question. The two identities were simply two sides of the same coin. The British side faced outwards: The British navy, the British Empire. The English side faced inwards, the English Countryside and English literature (it is never the British countryside). Heads I win, tails you lose: two identity impressions on one currency.

This is why, if you have followed me this far, the political project of defending Britain as a political entity fails if Englishness is separated from it. But once those who want the British Union concede that Scotland can indeed enjoy self-government, as Brogan argues, how can England also be denied the possibility of its distinct independence? But once this is granted, even in abstract, the fusion of England with Britain starts to come apart.

Then Britain and Britishness have to stand on their own – politically. Can they withstand scrutiny today? What is the politics of Britishness? It is the sandpit of the Westminster political class. Why should we, the peoples, want this? Far from expressing a popular self-government or even ‘sovereignty’, our Britishness ensures that we are ruled by a political class who are not like us, don’t feel for our interests and prefer those of the City and the global market.

It is not Salmond’s political dexterity that puts official Westminster politics in this bind. The fashionable trope is to praise his canniness as if what he has achieved is nothing but mere personal skill. Though he has this in full, the reason it works so well is that there is a well-judged analysis behind his charm. He has seen that if his enemies bully Scotland they will be rebuffed but if they grant Scotland’s right and capacity to govern itself they lose the capacity to deprive England of the same right. Hence his decision to appeal directly to the people of England, “who have not spoken yet”. It is making him one of the most popular politicians in England! (Which must be galling to Scots like Gordon Brown).

And his judgement is good also in seeing that of course there is a “social union” He wants a Britain of “firm friends and equal partners”.

This is where IPPR’s report, The dog that finally barked: England as an emerging political community put together mainly by Guy Lodge, has helped transform the political landscape. Its sweeping research and perfect timing along with the range of responses to it across the media is bringing fresh English politics into the stale marketplace of official British discourse. What once was marginalised – as maverick opinion (Billy Bragg), websites like OurKingdom, or Powellite longings for a white country – has become, at last, a mainstream political issue.

Labour can’t be re-elected if it ignores the English question – but what should it call for once it does stop ignoring it?

Thirty years ago, Thatcher claimed that with her Falkland’s victory she “Put the great back into Britain”. I argued at the time that we should on the contrary “Take the great out of Britain”. Returning to this argument after thirty years, as the Falklands anniversary looms, it is no longer plausible to argue for a different kind of British state, one that could offer a framework for a shared, generous, multinational constitutional democracy. What we need to do now – and by ‘we’ I mean all the different peoples of the different nations of the UK – is take Britain out of our greatness.

 

 

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Culture

Is there for honest poverty? – happy Burns’ night

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Adam Ramsay | No Comments

- Sheena Wellington sings at the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. “The Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on March 25, 1707, is hereby reconvened”

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an’ a’ that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that.
Our toils obscure an’ a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an’ a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man’s a Man for a’ that:
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that;
The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that;
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that:
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
His ribband, star, an’ a’ that:
The man o’ independent mind
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that;
But an honest man’s abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Their dignities an’ a’ that;
The pith o’ sense, an’ pride o’ worth,
Are higher rank than a’ that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a’ that,)
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.

(words from http://www.robertburns.org/)

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Scotland

Scottish Independence: the no campaign and how to deal with it

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Adam Ramsay | 11 Comments

It is becoming clear what the strategy of the ‘no’ to independence campaign will be: confusion.

So far, we’ve had a few opening shots: lines which the UK nationalists presumably hope will ricochet down the next couple of years: what will currency be? What about the Scottish army? Even, ‘who will own Rockall‘?

OK, maybe that last one is about something else, but you get the idea.

Of course, at one level, these questions are facetious. They are an attempt to generate confusions. Of course a country the size of Scotland can have a viable army, currency, foreign office etc. Scotland has a bigger population than the median country on earth (which is Georgia). They are facetious because those who ask them aren’t really looking for answers. They are mongering in fear.

But at another level, they are all serious questions.

(Apart from yesterday’s attempted amendment to the 1972 Rockall Act from Malcolm Ian Sinclair, 20th Earl of Caithness. Rockall, if it is a part of Britain, rather than Iceland, Ireland or Denmark, is so by dint of international law of the sea, and the proximity of St Kilda.)

These questions leave the SNP with a dilemma. On the one hand, it is not just for those who support independence to answer these questions. It is for the people of Scotland. There are Tories in Scotland, and they should have a say on Scottish foreign policy as much as the next person. Anti-independence Labour supporters, too, should have a say. But these people are unlikely to engage in these questions before any referendum.

If people did engage seriously in these debates, the lack of consensus would cause another problem. Take, for example, Scottish regiments. Alex Salmond could say “of course Scotland would have a powerful army – a significant majority of the SAS are Scots. We already make up more than our share of Britain’s armed forces. We would of course remain in NATO and be powerful allies working closely with out friends south of the border”. Or he could say “Scotland would withdraw from NATO (as is SNP policy). We will follow the lead of Costa Rica, and abolish our military – there is no need for it in the modern world”. Or, more likely, something somewhere between those positions.

If he went for the former, he would anger the left, peacenik potential independence vote – perhaps to the point of losing their support. If he went for the latter, he would lose support across the SNP heartland of the North East – Blackwatch country.

On the other hand, this fear of the unknown will be key to the no campaign. It allows them to make voters feel like they are being asked to jump into an abyss.

And so, here’s my question. With some of these issues, is there a middle ground? Is the answer a next step process?

So, for example, there is a legitimate question to be asked about what an independent Scotland’s constitution will look like. Should it continue to have a unicameral chamber? Salmond has decided that we will keep the Queen, but does that genuinely mean Royal Ascent will remain too? The SNP has no right to answer these questions alone, and any answer they gave now would likely hive off one corner or other of the yes vote.

But they could say what the process will be. Iceland, for example, recently had a constitutional written by a mixture of ‘crowdsourcing‘, and sort of sortition. Given the SNP would be in power for most of a year post referendum, they are well within their rights to say ‘we would launch, immediately after a yes vote, a constitutional convention along these lines…’.

Similarly, there are serious questions about the army. Obviously the government of England, Wales and Northern Ireland would be as keen to hang onto the Trident missiles at Faslane as the Scottish government would be to get rid of them, but what about the rest of the hardware? 10% of it is paid for by Scots. Do we get to keep 10% of it? Do we want it? These questions can’t be answered until post independence negotiations have taken place. But knowing the process envisioned by the SNP by which they would be decided would help ease the nerves somewhat, whilst reducing the risk of irking one side or other of the debate about the desired outcomes of the process.

Similarly, there are reasonable questions around justice systems, interaction with Europe, a federation of the British isles, and so on, and so on. With all of these, it is not for the SNP government alone to make a decisions: these will be matters for the people of Scotland. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be reassuring to know how the post referendum SNP government would facilitate these conversations in the immediate aftermath of a yes vote.

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Education, Equality, Political Strategy

The bill is gone but the fight is on

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Edd Bauer | No Comments

We need to step up our game on the White Paper; the government is no longer going to do the work of defeating it for us. They were about to put its proposed regressive changes to higher education into the cold light of day where it stood a fair chance of withering and dying. We have just lost the best chance we were going to get to attack the coalition at one of its weakest points.

Despite this we have reasons to be hopeful as the NUS is making good calls, calling for a “week of action” between March 12th and 16th and proposing a “national student walkout” for later in the term. However we can’t just count on the NUS to organise these weeks of action and walkouts, the NUS leadership and many student unions are far too detached from their activist bases. Whilst the NUS and Liam Burns may call the days for these walkouts, it is going to have to be us who will have to mobilise to make them happen.

If we don’t get in gear and organise actions ourselves we are going to be left with glow stick vigils. A good tactic for students now is to call and start organising good events now on campus and then attempt to get your student unions on board with them on the grounds that the NUS are supporting it. Leaving it for your student union to organise themselves will not produce good enough results.

We need to get it fixed in people’s minds that the White Paper is not being scrapped or shelved. It was never originally proposed to go as bill to parliament and many were surprised when it looked like it would; only for a brief period did it mutate into this now dropped bill. We should be very wary about describing the dropping of the bill as a “victory”, the NUS and others are right to declare that “the fight goes on”.

An issue with the White Paper’s proposals is that while they are rotten to the core, they have none of the certainty of implication that the scrapping of Education Maintenance Allowance or £9,000 in fees had. The problem facing the national student movement with the White Paper was nationalising a narrative to build a movement against the government plans.

The White Paper means that universities all across the country are readying themselves for the “market” in higher education; overpaid university executives are pushing rapid changes to their universities to prepare for this fundamental change in our higher education system. These changes mean anything from cutting perfectly good departments because they don’t fit with the universities “research profile” to raising student fees and cutting staff pay to make universities more “competitive”. In the near future it will mean a dramatic shift of university demographics as open bidding for “top quality” students begins, making our elite universities more inaccessible than they have been in generations.

These changes, set to happen despite the withdrawal of the bill, will naturally generate anger and resentment towards university executives, but not the government or the white paper. The difficulty for our movement is explaining and relating these; changes, cuts, closures and fee hikes to the ideological waffle spouted by the government. In terms of mobilising none of them are as immediate to people lives as “they’re going to put fees up to £9,000 and they are going to vote on it in Parliament on December 9th;” they are also different in every university, making the national narrative hard to build. The White Paper bill was this chance to nationalise this narrative and its withdrawal should be seen as a canny move by a government knowing it will face serious opposition.

With the NUS now finally getting ready for a fight for education we have a chance to organise actions that capture the public imagination and this time with the full weight of the NUS and the student movement behind us.

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International, United States

On Newt and Saul

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Adam Ramsay | 1 Comment

A couple of things have struck me about Newt Gingrich’s string of recent speeches. One is that he speaks in reasonably consistent iambic tetrameter.

The other is stranger. Why does he keep talking about Saul Alinsky? I spotted it in his post South Carolina speech and asked about it on twitter. Someone pointed out that it wasn’t the first time, and this morning, the Guardian had a blog on the subject. A quick google reveals various people have been asking the same question.

For those who don’t know, Saul Alinsky was an American community organiser from the 1930s to the 1970s. He made his name organising the people living in the slums of Chicago, and later, across the States. If you haven’t read his book ‘Rules for Radicals’, then do. The guy was a legend.

But the operative word there is ‘was’. He died of a heart attack in 1972. How many Americans have heard of him now?

Well, until Newt started mouthing off about him, not that many. A quick Google trend search shows that Americans were more likely to enquire about Slovenian communist Slavoj Zizek than they were about Alinsky.

Also, he seems a strange target. While Sarah Palin hammered Obama for ‘palling around with terrorists’ over his relationship with former Weatherman Bill Ayers, it’s harder to label Alinsky – a man who worked peacefully with the poorest Americans – as evil. For example, watch how CNN answered the ‘who is this guy Gingrich keeps banging on about’ question:

This is no savaging of Obama – comparing him to someone who wrote a book in 1971 on how the have-nots can take power away from the haves. For those who didn’t know who he was, he hardly sounds mad. For those who did know who he was talking about, it just makes Gingrich look like an old man with a 40 year old axe to grind.

So, why does Newt keep hammering this? Well first, there is an extent to which it is sort of true. Obama is nothing like as radical as Alinsky. But he did work as a community organiser in the same Chicago neighbourhoods that Alinsky had organised decades before, and there is some suggestion that he, Obama, taught the theories of Alinsky when he was a professor.

But that it’s true isn’t enough – Gingrich has repeated this line – that the election will be a debate between ‘American exceptionalism and the radicalism of Saul Alinsky’ – often enough for it to be thought through. And it seems to me that it offers a window into the kind of campaign he is planning on running. He’s no Palin, he’s saying. He isn’t dismissing Obama as an idiot and a terrorist. He’s bigging him up. The comparison to a serious and respected – and obscureish – figure of the radical left is Gingrich’s way of saying ‘these are serious ideas. This is a serious debate about the future of America – American exceptionalism vs the radicalism of Saul Alinsky. And so you want and ideas man – an intellectual heavyweight, who is familiar with these ideologies, ready to debate them.’

To emphasise his point, Gingrich has said that, if he is the Republican nominee, he will challenge Obama to seven debates, each three hours long.

There is, of course, an irony to all of this. Alinsky himself wasn’t really an ideas man. There isn’t so much a ‘radical vision of Saul Alinsky’ as ‘tactics of Saul Alinsky’. He was an organiser, a tactician, a cynic. He was disdainful of ideology. And if we look to Newt’s great weaknesses, perhaps he could begin to learn lessons. Despite what he says, Gingrich’s campaign hasn’t exactly demonstrated “people power”. He wasn’t even organised enough to get on the ballot in Virginia. As one political analyst put it to Roanoak’s NBC affiliate:

“There’s never this kind of problem that I can recall and in my memory of people (having problems) getting on the ballot,” he said. “You just need the staff and to follow the rules. Clearly Newt didn’t have the organization or the proper staff to do so.”

If Obama has learnt anything from Alinsky, it is not radical politics. It is about organising people. His 2008 election campaign was famous for its doorstep operation, its Get Out The Vote drive. As Saul’s son, David, wrote:

“Obama learned his lesson well. I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.”

So, come the Autumn, if Newt really wants to take on ‘the radicalism of Saul Alinsky’, then what would this mean? Not bothering to engage people? Not bothering to engage face to face with communities on their terms? Not trying to get out the vote? Relying in his campaign against the greatest election street fighter in history on the idea that people will watch 21 hours of televised debate – delivered in careful iambic tetrameter? It would be a fitting challenge to Alinsky to see Gingrich attempt just that…

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Scotland

The Scottish Independence Debate and England

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Mark Ballard | 12 Comments

I’ve just finished listening to a particularly unenlightening discussion of the UK’s constitutional future on BBC Radio 4 and, once again, I’m left despairing at the shallowness of the analysis. For a start, this is not just a debate about Scotland and England. There are two other nations in the United Kingdom which the BBC seems to conveniently forget. Beyond this, once the discussion turns to the old clichés around the hundreds of years of history the people of these islands share, it seems that the fact that several million people living in these isles happen to live in a state outside the United Kingdom called Ireland is forgotten.

However, the biggest failure of almost all the discussion I’ve heard so far is the lack of understanding that the current constitutional settlement with the UK is unworkable and that, in many ways, it is England, the only nation in the UK without a Parliament or Assembly, that will have to change the most in resolving this.

So the fact that Henry McLeish recently spoke out and put the case very strongly from a Labour perspective that the union is broken was really important. His advice to those campaigning against independence was that they shouldn’t simply seek to defend the status quo: “Instead of saving the Union, the key objective must be to change it because, in my view, the Union is not fit for purpose.” Simon Hughes then made a similar call for an English Parliament but was quickly slapped down by Nick Clegg.

So, particularly for the benefit of readers in England or elsewhere who may be unfamiliar with the details, why does the current model of devolved parliaments and assemblies in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales not work? Back in 1977 Tam Dalyell, former Labour MP for West Lothian and former Rector of Edinburgh University asked his famous question: “For how long will English constituencies and English Honourable Members tolerate … at least 119 Honourable Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland exercising an important, and probably often decisive, effect on English politics while they themselves have no say in the same matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?”.

The example he gave was that, as an MP for West Lothian he would be able to vote on matters affecting the English town of Blackburn, Lancashire, which would not be allowed to vote on things affecting Blackburn, West Lothian, in his own constituency under devolution. The practical consequences of this were seen in the last UK Labour Government where, despite being Health Minister, John Reid had no say in the health services provided to his constituents. This was less of a problem when the corresponding Scottish Health Minister was a Labour Party colleague like Malcolm Chisholm MSP, but becomes much more problematic when different parties are in charge.

Equally the financial arrangements, workable in the good times, are now a huge source of friction. The key is the Barnett formula, used to allocate money to Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland when new funding is announced in England (or England and Wales as appropriate). So when a Westminster Health Minister announces £350m new spending on children with disabilities in England, approximately £35m will be given to Scottish ministers (‘the Barnett consequential’).

Not only is the formula inherently opaque, it is also part of a wider pattern of financial decision-making where Westminster raises the cash, decides how to spend it in England and then thinks about other nations. This kind of ‘England plus’ model can also be seen in Scotland’s current tax powers, which are based on variations of the income tax rate set by Westminster. The other side of the lack of clarity is the English grievance about subsidies to whingeing Celts, and the moral hazard of spending without having to worry where the cash comes from.

All of these issues are in turn reflections of the underlying problem – Westminster’s dual role as the UK Parliament and English Assembly. It makes sense for Westminster to devise a new law or spending programme for England, and then think about other nations, because there is nowhere else to discuss England-only measures. This will, in practice, often be a poor fit for the other nations. While it is true that England is 85 percent of the UK by population, pointing this out to the other three nations will also cause irritation.

So what could be done to fix these interrelated problems of asymmetry, whether in representation or finance?

I would suggest that there are four options – full union, full devolution, full federalism and full independence (and I will leave it to Ali Thompson to make the case for full communism).

‘Full union’ would go beyond what you might call the partial unions of 1535/42, 1707 and 1922 and create a truly United Kingdom by doing away with anything that institutionalises separate national identities in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Everyone and everything would become British. No more separate sports teams, separate flags, separate established churches or separate legal or education systems. Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast would stop being capitals. St Patrick’s Day celebrations would be outlawed, as would Burns night, English country dancing and the Eisteddfod.

Of course none of this could ever happen, the public outrage would be too great – but it would solve the West Lothian question! It isn’t completely without historical precedent – in many ways this is how General Franco tried to deal with Catalan, Basque and other national movements in Spain after he took power. However, the point of mentioning this possible arrangement is that unless you choose this option, you will end up having to work with, at the very least, parliaments or assemblies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Given that, what arrangement might make the parliaments/assemblies work better?

My second option of ‘full devolution’ solves the problem of asymmetrical devolution by creating regional assemblies in England, perhaps with similar powers to the Greater London Assembly. This way everyone gets a tier of government under Westminster, dealing at least partially with the West Lothian question. However, this was tried under Blair, and there simply wasn’t the popular support. Crucially, although England does regional identities, they don’t create a neat list of similar sized bodies that can be given an assembly. While Yorkshire (and Humberside) is about the right size and has enough of an identity to possibly make it work, as Tony Blair found out, somewhere like the North East actually contains a mixture of Geordies, Wearsiders, Teesiders and Northumbrians. Cornwall has an identity, but is generally subsumed into a rather amorphous South West England. So, while this model has a great deal of apparent logic, it simply lacks the popular resonance to be sustainable in England.

The next option is currently trading as devo-max in Scotland, but I think in reality it would only be workable if it was adopted across the whole UK – creating ‘full federalism’. Devo-max is normally described as the Scottish Parliament taking responsibility for everything except foreign affairs, defence, national borders and the currency. But these issues would have to be decided somewhere – and could Scottish MPs really continue to attend Westminster on the current basis when so little of what was being discussed was relevant to their constituencies? Virtually every question would be a West Lothian question! However, without Scottish representation, how could a question, for example, about going to war be decided for the whole UK by Westminster?

I would argue devo-max would only work with a federal parliament for the federal issues (like defence) and four separate national parliaments. This would deal with most of the questions around symmetry, and it seems to me that there would be much more acceptance in England, though for many people on the left the idea of ‘England’ is an anathema. However, if you still want a United Kingdom of any sort this may be the only option that both has any internal logic and is likely to gain popular acceptance.

And then we come to independence. Apparently simple – after all, since 1990, 35 countries have become independent. However, the practicalities of disentangling the UK would be massive (but not insurmountable). How, for example, would the different nations cope with pension liabilities? Would payment of the majority of your National Insurance in Scotland entitle you to claim a pension in England, if that was where you happened to be working when you retired? Could Wales and England have separate asylum polices? What would the economy of an independent Northern Ireland look like? Regardless of any coherence brought by being (presumably) all part of the EU, something like the Nordic Council (perhaps based on the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly would be required.

But as I said at the start, the national conversations in Scotland and Wales have been going on for a long time. The twists and turns of the national question in Ireland are well understood by the people of that island. But it is in England that the hardest thinking now has to take place: what do people in England want their constitutional future to be – and how is this to be negotiated? One thing is clear – England is going to have some kind of parliament (or regional assemblies) over the next few years.

The progressive left in England needs to engage with this reality now, to think through how any new bodies can ensure progressive voices are heard. But for many on the left the very idea of England seems inherently reactionary. The fear is that English independence, or even an English Parliament in a federal state, will lead to political domination by the right. But by not participating in and helping shape the debate about a post-Union future they make that future more likely. Rather than the progressive left in England throwing its collective hands up in horror at the thought of losing the votes of Scottish Labour MPs, they should be thinking about the ways in which this constitutional debate creates the opportunity to press for greater democracy and civic partipation. As Alex Salmond pointed out it might just be the propect of future elections to an English Parliament that convinces the Labour Party of the merits of proportional representation…

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Civil Liberties, Democracy, Justice

Why I am taking my university to court.

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Admin | 6 Comments

First year biological science student Sam Weaver is taking the university of Birmingham to court over its widely publicised “ban” on protests, he explains here in his own words what has lead him to take this extraordinary  step.

Since starting university last Autumn one thing has really shocked me and that is the draconian measures taken by the University of Birmingham, in response to any form of student protest, with heavy handed security staff following every movement students make, taping every moment on handheld video cameras and reacting with hostility to the slightest action, especially when it comes to occupations on campus.

 
For this reason it came as no surprise to me that as a group of students from the Defend Education group occupied the north gate house on the night of the 22nd of November, security staff, under orders from the heads of the university, closed off access to the building and restricted supplies of food, only allowing the Guild of Students president to have direct access to the occupation. When other members of the group did manage to gain entry to the occupation on the night of the 23rd, security reacted to the occupiers with aggression and anger, punching one particular occupier in the face repeatedly.

 
However, I think that everyone was shocked and appalled when, on the evening of the 24th, the university released news that they had obtained a High Court injunction, which not only shut down the occupation immediately, but also effectively illegalised all further “occupational protest action” on the campus. Criticism quickly spread, from the friends and members of the Defend Education campaign, to the whole student body and even on to a national level when the Guardian online published an article heavily criticising the university’s injunction.

 
Despite this high level of negative press and a general consensus among the students that the injunction is wrong, the university still shows no signs of backing out and in fact stand firmly behind the injunction. For this reason I have taken the only route I feel the university will listen to, (as they seem to show little consideration for the wishes and demands of the student body), and have signed up to legal aid with Public Interest Lawyers, to officially challenge the university over its injunction, with the aim to have it removed entirely. This injunction is an attack on the rights of students to protest on campus, not only because a major part of university life is to express ourselves and to freely speak our minds, but more fundamentally by breaching human rights, a matter which was brought to the attention of the university, soon after the injunction was put in place, by Amnesty International and Liberty.

 
I feel that this injunction is a matter of great importance and if the university are allowed to hold it in place without being challenged, then it sends the message that this is a perfectly justified means of squashing student actions, given that annoyance is hardly a just reason to oppress students in this way, and is not acceptable. The actions of the university constantly receive criticism from across the country, as well as from the students at Birmingham, and the message this time should not be one of obedience and acceptance that the VC and management wish for, but one of disgust and defiance, over this new extreme that the university has gone to.

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Environment

Ministerial Optimism sees Fracking Stumble Ahead onto Uncharted Paths

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Ric Lander | 1 Comment

In a letter regarding the controversial drilling process Sarah Boyack MSP says regarding the Scottish Government’s position “I am sure that you share my hope that the Minister’s optimism is well-placed” [1].

I do share Sarah’s hope, but optimism is a frivolous commodity when dealing with the regulation of heavy industry. Gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing, known as ‘fracking’, with its highly dubious record of negative health and environmental impacts, demands a more serious attitude.

Onshore gas extraction has hit set-backs in the in the UK in the last six months, with Vale of Glamorgan Council rejecting plans for exploration in September and in October gas drilling company ‘Cuadrilla Resources’ published a report saying it was “highly probable” that their operations triggered earth tremors near Blackpool. These events could spell further trouble ahead for the on-shore gas industry as increased public awareness of its impacts affects policy making.

Rally against Fracking in Ohio, United States. Image by ProgressOhio.

However, reliable information on these impacts is desperately lacking. Anecdotal reports of cancer rates and neurological conditions increasing in areas of gas development in the US have caused considerable stir, but there are only a couple of governmental studies and their results are inconclusive. A county in Colorado state investigated potential adverse health effects of a proposed 200-well operation and concluded that nearbye residents might experience chemical exposures, accidents resulting from industry operations, and psychological impacts such as depression, anxiety, and stress, but their study was never been finalised due to disputes with the gas companies and local residents. Bernard Goldstein, a professor in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, says published epidemiological studies relating shale gas production to health are “virtually non-existent”.

US journal Environmental Health Perspectives reports vastly increased levels of methane in ground-water near fracking sites, but there information about the effect of dissolved methane on human health is limited.

It is claimed that toxic chemicals from the fracking process, as well as enormous amounts of salt, some radionuclides, heavy metals, and other contaminants are entering the water supply from ponds of waste water from the extraction process. Although this impact is better understood, it is not well quantified.

This lack of data from the US is crucial because it is the only country with any active fracking operations.

Yet all of this might be brushed aside if there was a clear view on the impacts on energy policy.

Scottish Government Minister Furgus Ewing [1], the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, and the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change all believe that shale gas can help in the transition to a low-carbon economy. But their view is opposed by scientific groups including the Tynadall Centre. In a report for the Cooperative they concluded that gas from fracking will increase global greenhouse gas emissions.

For fracking to be permitted in Scotland, a company needs a drilling licence from the UK Government Department for Energy and Climate Change, planning permission is required from the local authority, and authorisation from the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. So far these conditions have been met by only one operation in Scotland, in Canonbie, Dumfries and Galloway. However the operator, Greenpark Energy, says it has not yet decided whether it will use the technology. Another firm, Dart Energy, is developing a site for extracting coal-bed methane on Airth, Falkirk. The fate of this site is unclear, with Furgus Ewing denying knowledge of the company’s intent stated in the Scotsman that they may apply for a licence to frack.

Fracking is on the cusp of going big on the British mainland without any reliable data on its likely health and environmental impacts.

It is not clear that this technology is a mistake but concerned citizens should ask for more than poorly-informed optimism from their decision makers.

References

  1. Letter from Sarah Boyack MSP enclosing note from Fergus Ewing MSP
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Culture

Internet yet again highlights depressing state of humanity

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Mairi Campbell Jack | No Comments

I’m sure that many of you will have read recently about the Official Gary Glitter twitter account. For those of you who haven’t a “social experiment” was conducted by a private individual who was unwilling to divulge his/her identity. The experiment consisted of this person opening a Twitter account in the name of Gary Glitter and using it to highlight the dangers of the internet to children. The tumblr explanation is available here. I have several problems with this so-called “experiment”.

  1. It has been reported by other Twitter users, that when the account started there were several obviously jokey tweets from it which were later deleted. This calls into question if the user was originally intending to conduct the “experiment” or if they used it to cover themselves after the inevitable backlash.
  2. The user continues to remain anonymous, which means that they are not willing to be open about or questioned on their “experiment”. Plus in my own humble opinion remaining anonymous while lecturing others on morality is the act of a coward.
  3. The experiment was apparently constructed to highlight the dangers of social networking to parents. If this was in fact the original intent it is laudable although misguided. The internet can be a dangerous place for children. The user then calls for legislation to be enacted to ban all people on the Sex Offenders Register from using digital communications unsupervised. That’s all 29000 people on the Sex Offenders Register. A clearly unenforceable, highly expensive and ludicrous law, which would require vast armies of Social Workers or Police to watch every sex offender round the clock to make sure they didn’t access a computer or phone which can connect to the World Wide Web.
  4. The user criticises several papers for “promoting” Glitter, while obviously oblivious to his own part in promoting the same man and creating an internet furore around him. Although I have not read all the articles that the user refers to I did at least check out the NME one. You don’t need a degree in semiotic analysis to see that it is written in a very neutral tone and is basic factual reporting rather than promotion.

What the man or woman who conducted this “experiment” did highlight was the disgusting jokes made by some people about Mr Glitters crimes. I strongly dislike rape jokes, no matter if they are about children or adults. There are very good reasons to not make or condone them. Mainly that people who rape assume that rape is normal. Every time you make or laugh at a rape joke you are confirming to rapists that their crime is normal, ok, that all men rape, etc. This in my book, is not ok. However I leave it up to you to consider this issue and if you wish to unfollow on twitter anyone who jokes about this serious crime.

Other than that the Glitter Twitter account is a troubling story, which does little to highlight the dangers to children on the internet, less to help children to stay safe, and even less for the children who have already been victims.

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