BY EFFIE DEANS While support for the SNP remains high and while many Scots support independence at least in theory, there is no question now that both face an intellectual challenge over EU membership. For this reason, the independence movement has become divided over how to overcome the challenges caused by Brexit. While the UK was an EU member it was possible to argue that … Continue reading The Hard Border Checkmate
BY EFFIE DEANS The racist abuse suffered by the English football players who missed penalties was peculiarly stupid. The English football team is picked on merit. It so happens that a large number of those players are black. The manager’s judgement must be that these players deserve to be in the squad. If they underperformed other players would be picked in their place. It follows … Continue reading Anti-English Hatred not Racism?
BY EFFIE DEANS I have been writing less since the Scottish Parliament election. The mood has changed. It is partly because it is summer. I have been more interested in using the sunshine to travel around Scotland than write about Scottish politics. But it’s not just me. Both sides of the constitutional divide spent the year or so before the election building up to the … Continue reading Summer Stasis
BY EFFIE DEANS Last week there was a minor incident in the Black Sea when a Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender sailed close to the Crimean shoreline and was warned by the Russian coastguard to keep away. Some shots were fired, but no one was hurt and it is likely that no one was in danger of being hurt. The waters around Crimea and Crimea … Continue reading Crimea & Scotland
BY EFFIE DEANS An acquaintance of mine called John Bull moved to Scotland as a student from Bulford in Wiltshire. He loved Scotland so much he decided to stay. He met a Scottish woman and because she was an SNP supporter, he began to move in Scottish nationalist circles. He campaigned for Scottish independence in 2014 and has voted SNP since. Like many English people … Continue reading Scots’ Anglophobia Stirred by SNP
BY EFFIE DEANS France is a rather odd place. It is not merely the chunk of the European continent across the Channel. It also includes two islands in the Caribbean, Guadeloupe and Martinique, a little bit of South America, French Guiana, and two islands in the Indian Ocean, Réunion and Mayotte. These are part of France in just the same way as Picardy and Normandy. … Continue reading Macron’s Geography Lesson
BY EFFIE DEANS An organisation called The Social Justice and Fairness Commission recently published a report dated March 2021. We didn’t see it in March however, but rather it was only revealed after the Scottish Parliament Election. Of course, the organisation is another of the SNP’s front organisations. The authors of the report are SNP politicians and supporters. Like every other SNP report, it concludes that independence kills … Continue reading Brits, Move to Scotland
BY EFFIE DEANS The current Pro UK electoral strategy amounts to the Scottish Conservatives continually banging on about independence to scare the Pro UK vote into voting for them. Labour meanwhile tries to ignore independence in the hope that former Labour voters forget that it is still officially a Pro UK party. The Lib Dems hang on in the North, but are now a dismal … Continue reading A Common Strategy
BY EFFIE DEANS A woman studying at Abertay University has been disciplined for saying that women were born with female genitals and that it was a fact that women were generally less strong than men. This means that she has been disciplined for telling the truth. It would be interesting to find out about the political views of those who complained and those who judged … Continue reading Punished For Truth Telling
BY EFFIE DEANS I have been asked to help decolonise the curriculum where I work. I take this to mean I must remove all subjects that benefitted from colonisers or colonialism, all writers who were involved in or benefited from the slave trade or indeed all books that nice people in 2021 should disapprove of. My first task is to remove all books in Latin, … Continue reading Decolonising the Curriculum
BY EFFIE DEANS I have no interest in going abroad so long as I might have to follow Covid regulations in a language I understand poorly if at all. I don’t see the point in going to a Spanish café while I have to wear a face mask. I don’t want to have to find whoever might give me a Covid test before I fly … Continue reading Dependent Independence
BY EFFIE DEANS I haven’t been writing much about the Scottish Parliament election lately. This is for a number of reasons. I am not very interested in election campaigning. I’m better at political argument. I have minimal interest in the peculiarities of the electoral system where we have one vote for the constituency and one vote for the list. It strikes me as overly complex … Continue reading How to Beat the SNP on Thursday
BY EFFIE DEANS It’s 2025 and I’m about to begin my latest journey to Berwick upon Tweed. Every month or so since independence I’ve had to get up early so that I can get to a giant hypermarket that has been built just over the border. But it would be unfair to suggest that the hard border between England and Scotland has only created jobs … Continue reading The Boon of Independence
BY EFFIE DEANS Since coming to power, the SNP have been continually giving us free things. We got free prescriptions, then free university tuition. Now the SNP is promising us a four-day week, a universal basic income whether we work or not and even free bicycles. But these things that are free in Scotland are not free in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland. Perhaps this … Continue reading The SNP’s False Promises
BY EFFIE DEANS Alex Salmond apparently wants the Scottish Government to begin immediate negotiations for independence with the British Government if his Alba Party helps Scottish nationalists to gain a super majority. It would be amusing if Boris Johnson replied, there’s no need for negotiations you can have your independence immediately starting today. The conditions for separation could be remarkably simple. Scotland would receive a … Continue reading An IMF-Run Scotland?
