The coronavirus has claimed its first case in Scotland – although thankfully the individual concerned appears not to have serious symptoms – and new cases are appearing elsewhere in the UK and all across Europe. Yet today the British Government announced that it’s quitting the EU’s pandemic warning system. According to reports, the Department of Health in England wanted to remain a part of the EU’s Early Warning and Response System, but it was vetoed by Number 10. The EWRS is an online platform which allows health authorities across the EU to share information about serious cross-border health threats, but Number 10 has ruled that the UK won’t be a part of it because it’s fixated on a “clean break” from the EU. Given the behaviour of the British Government in Brexit negotiations so far, we can be certain that the health ministers in the devolved administrations were not even…
Once again, a Minister in the SNP administration offers us rousing rhetoric and encouraging noises but nothing of substance. Mike Russell assures us that independence is coming, but says not a word about how. He says a new referendum this year is “perfectly feasible”, but fails to explain how such a hope can be sustained in the face of the First Minister’s commitment to the Section 30 process.
He urges the people of Scotland to campaign and argue for a new referendum as if that wasn’t what most of us have been doing while he and his colleagues were preoccupied with Brexit. What he doesn’t tell us is how all this campaigning and arguing can have any effect on a British political elite which has not the smallest regard for democratic principles and only contempt for Scotland and its people.
Mike Russell proclaims his belief that “faced with the choice of Brexit Britain or an independent membership of the EU” the people of Scotland would choose the latter. But his belief can be no more than a faith position unless and until it is supported by a credible strategy for making it something more. We don’t need belief. We don’t need a faith position. We don’t need mere fine words. What we need is a practical plan to achieve a positive outcome. And we need Mike Russell or someone at least as senior in the Scottish Government to explain how the Section 30 process can be consistent with any credible strategy or practical plan to facilitate the exercise of Scotland’s right of self-determination.
I cannot imagine Mike Russell is unaware of the fact that the administration he serves in has taken the independence project down a blind alley. I do not suppose him to be totally oblivious to Scotland’s true predicament or the growing clamour for action to deal with that predicament. Where are the proposals for such action? Where are the ideas? Where is the sense of urgency?
Is there no-one close to the SNP leadership who is passing on the concerns of those who see the Section 30 process as the trap that it clearly is? Personally, I had hoped Mike Russell would fulfil this role. Perhaps he intends to do so. Perhaps that is why he has given notice of his intention to quit. Maybe he is setting himself up to challenge the First Minister on her stubborn commitment to a process which is wholly dependent on obtaining the willing and honest cooperation of the British government. Maybe he is getting ready to propose a change of approach to the constitutional issue ahead of the SNP’s postponed Spring Conference. Maybe he has decided he has nothing to lose and, by announcing his decision to stand down has neutralised any leverage the First Minister might have had.
Somehow, this doesn’t seem believable. It doesn’t sound much like Mike Russell. And surely if he was about to make some proposals for taking the independence projet forward then he would want to stick around to see it through.
It could, of course, be that Mr Russell has simply had enough and wants to retire. That would be understandable. But he is an astute politician. He must have known that the announcement of his decision to bring his parliamentary career to a close would spark speculation. His motives were always going to be the subject of much conjecture. Some might even suppose that he is anticipating the backlash as more and more people realise how bad the situation is and has decided to remove himself from the scene before the mob arrives armed with a battery of awkward questions. I can only commend the wisdom of such a choice.
The move is threatening to cause a major row within the English Government, with some figures strongly opposed to the country leaving the convention, which was signed after the Second World War to safeguard rights across the continent….
Johnson is preparing to reject EU demands to guarantee that the UK will continue to be bound by European human rights laws
British negotiators will refuse to accept proposed clauses in a post-Brexit trade agreement that would require the UK to remain signed up to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) – leaving the door open to break away from the treaty as soon as next year.
There is a whiff of desperation about Mike Russell’s continuing efforts to provoke the elusive “Brexit Bounce” which was supposed to push the polls high enough to perhaps overcome the inertia which has left the independence campaign in a parlous state and Scotland’s predicament more precarious than ever. Mr Russell does a pretty good job of describing that predicament. But I see nothing here that suggests a plan for rescuing Scotland from the looming threat of British Nationalism, not to mention the latest and most ominous incarnation of the ‘Greater England Project’.
The Scottish Government, it appears, is still pinning all its hopes for the campaign to restore Scotland’s independence on anger at a catastrophic Brexit being imposed on Scotland. The impact of this public outrage on the polls is always just around the corner – except when it’s just over the horizon. It’s been imminent for long enough to…
The liquid waste comes from the reactors that drive the Royal Navy’s submarines and from the processing of Trident nuclear warheads. It will be discharged from Faslane into the Gareloch nearby via a proposed new pipeline.
Increased pollution has been condemned by local authorities as “reckless and unacceptable” because it could contaminate wildlife and local communities with radioactivity. The MoD’s plan has also been criticised as “unwelcome” by a former environmental regulator.
According to the MoD, however, the proposed discharges were within permissible limits, and it was proposing to reduce those limits. “Nuclear safety is our top priority,” it said.
There are four more Astute submarines due to come to the Clyde – though they have been delayed – as well as another old Trafalgar submarine. In the 2030s the UK government also wants to station a fleet of new Dreadnought submarines armed with upgraded Trident missiles there.
In May 2019 the Clyde bases naval commander, Donald Doull, applied to the Scottish Government’s regulator, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), for renewed “approval to dispose of radioactive waste”. Ageing waste management facilities were being replaced with a new “Nuclear Support Hub” at Faslane, he said.
Solid and liquid waste from neighbouring Coulport, where Trident warheads are stored and processed, would be transported to the Faslane hub for treatment, along with wastes from submarine reactors. The resulting liquid radioactive wastes would be discharged “at a point approximately one kilometre north of the current discharge point” in the Gareloch, Doull stated.
He pointed out that proposed annual limits for discharges were being reduced “where practical”. Predicted radiation doses for the most exposed people were “significantly below” the recommended safety limit and there would be “no radiological hazard for any member of the public”, he said.
What Doull didn’t say, however, was that the amounts of radioactivity scheduled to be dumped into the Gareloch are due to rise – in some cases dramatically.
A table on page 34 of the Clyde bases’ detailed 76-page application listed the radioactive wastes expected to be discharged every year from the new Faslane hub. “Activity levels in treated liquid effluent discharged to the Gareloch have been estimated based on the maximum anticipated radionuclide levels,” the application said.
Future annual discharges of cobalt-60 – one of the main radioactive wastes from submarine reactors – were given as 23.4 million units of radioactivity, known as becquerels. This is 52 times higher than the average annual discharges of cobalt-60 over the last six years – 0.45 million becquerels.
Political science knows much about the predictors of political engagement. According to one of the disciplines most prominent models, citizens refrain from engagement with political matters because they cann´t, because they don´t want to or because nobody asked. That people do something only if they want to do it seems trivial first sight. However, that citizens differ in their general motivation to engage with the political domain is an important that reveals a fundamental void in our knowledge about political attitudes and behavior:
Why do some people not other about politics at all, while others find pleasure in reading about, discussing and engaging in political matters and why still others would only reluctantly engage with politics to avoid social sanctions or to comply with an unpleasant civic duty. In particular, we need to better understand seemingly non-instrumental, intrinsically motivated behavior which is done for its own reward like watching a political TV show just for the sake of pleasure.
My dissertation develops a new theoretical framework to explain individual differences in political motivation and tries to explain its origins and behavioral consequences. To meaningfully explain intrinsically and extrinsically motivated political engagement I propose to import from motivation studies the psychological self-determination theory. Political motivation is argued to originate from domain-specific experiences and from the interplay of basic human needs´ satisfaction and innate organismic tendencies for growth and psychic integration. More autonomous types of motivation results are less context-dependent and result in different and more stable behavior that is subjectively experienced as more enjoyable. Analyses of a longitudinal cohort studies on parenting styles confirm the basic notion of need-related experiences early in life to shape political motivation and engagement in adulthood. The behavioral consequences of different types and levels of political motivation is investigated with a novel instrument to measure political motivation. Source:
I note the now standard indignation quotes from Pete Wishart and Mhairi Black. The outrage seems very routine these days. The language has grown dull with overuse. The same stock phrases deployed for every new outrage. Had they not specified the British political elite’s proposal to gerrymander the Scottish Affairs Committee it would have been impossible to tell which iniquity the two SNP big-hitters were talking about. In short, it’s boring! Mind-numbingly boring!
I am an unabashed political anorak and proud keyboard warrior in the battle to restore Scotland’s independence. If I find these rote renderings of scandalised sensibilities ditch-water dismal imagine what effect they might have on a wider public purposefully alienated from politics and disengaged from the democratic process. I’ll tell you what effect it will have. None! Joe and Jane McPublic were switched off before either Pete Wishart or Mhairi Black opened their mouths to speak. And nothing in what was said or the way it was said was going to switch them on. They’ve heard it all before. It’s the magnolia emulsioned woodchip in the unregarded background of their lives.
Mhairi Black and Pete Wishart could be reciting the End User Licence Agreement for some Microsoft product for all the attention they’ll get from the very people who urgently need to be told what is happening.
New Scotland 