Christian Allard, upon entering the Scottish Parliament after another MSP resigned in 2013, was sworn in to the Parliament in both English and French. https://twitter.com/leomiklasz/status/841621272484302850 Today a Polish student feels that, while Brexit feels like a rejection, Scotland is holding her hand. Nicola Sturgeon making it clear that EU citizens...
tldr; “…it is easier for an independent Scotland to join the EU, than for the UK to leave it…” – thanks @odtorium on Twitter. But if you do want the detail, read on! Back in 2012, prior to the Scottish Independence Referendum, I wrote a blog post entitled Answering how...
Fast forward to 2017, and somehow David Cameron is still Prime Minister, and the UK (or rUK?) is facing its referendum on remaining in the EU. The polls show a clear lead for keeping the UK in the EU (the NO side), led by Cameron, until Nigel Farage calls upon...
NOTE: this is a piece commissioned by the Norwegian online magazine Vox Publica, and was translated into Norwegian for that purpose. The Norwegian version can be found here: Skottland: Hvorfor uavhengighet etter 300 år? The English original is here with permission from Vox Pubica, but – unlike other posts on...
At the end of the televised Salmond-Darling debate I tweeted the following: https://twitter.com/jonworth/status/496758648266579968 With 77 retweets so far, it seems to have struck a chord with some people. It also is an aspect of the independence debate that was only mentioned in passing in the televised clash, but for me it...
Oh here we go again. It seems the question of how an independent Scotland could work in the EU will never go away. Rather than focusing on the EU’s Nobel Prize, BBC’s Hard Talk asked Barroso about Scotland and the EU in an interview today and, as before, Barroso reiterated...
Whether (and indeed how) Scotland would remain in the EU if it became an independent state has been an issue that has risen up the political agenda over the past few months. Theresa May has weighed into the debate today, stating that border controls would have to be imposed between...
For the last couple of days I’ve been trying to get my head around the proposal from the government to elect Policing and Crime Commissioners. This Guardian piece got me interested in the issue but offered more questions than answers, while a good discussion at Toby Harris’s blog spurred me on. The...
This is not a post about election systems. It is a post about the pattern of election results in the UK general election on 6th May 2010. The thinking here is still rather vague, but I think there’s something to it. The best that UK political commentators ever seem to...