‘..with so much promise offered by new economic democratic agendas such as new municipalism, communities can have a key role as partners with the state against the cosh of market liberalism and declining public services.’
Elections
Sanders: the red scare
‘Both Democrats and Republicans are now engaged in a campaign against Bernie Sanders aimed at frightening voters and preventing change. Ironically, the fear-mongering of the Democratic establishment is even more dangerous than that of Trump and the Republican Party.’
Sinn Fein surge and the border
‘This created the space Sinn Féin needed for an election on its terms – in many respects the party had precisely the kind of election the UK Labour Party wanted and failed to get in 2019.’ Why SF won…
Bitter truths in Brussels
‘…there may well be sympathy for the Scottish case but it is, for now, entirely irrelevant to what’s at stake now. As we know from the last 43 months, that’s even more true of Westminster and Whitehall.’
Ten predictions for #EU2020
As the UK gets set to leave the EU on January 31 2020 after 47 years of membership, we look forward to what’s likely to happen in mainland Europe in 2020…
Exit Poll, BBC Election Night and systemic media bias
‘For the BBC especially, the 2019 election night was a gross failure of the Reithian mission to educate and inform citizens at a critical juncture in political life in an open and multi-variant way.’
GE2019 and #indyref2
‘Surveys have shown that almost half of English voters are content to leave the matter to the Scots, with many of the rest having no opinion. There appears to be little appetite for coercing Scotland, should Scotland really want to leave.’
Strong and stable democracy under PR?
No PR system would have been likely to produce a workable majority for any sustainable coalition, but that is a reflection of the highly fragmented multi-party political system in the UK.
Scottish Labour for Radical Democracy
‘We call on the left across the UK to back our demand for a second referendum on independence and to fight with us to secure a radical democracy for all the peoples of these islands.’
Crack of light in Northern Ireland
As Northern Ireland’s political plates shift, ‘of course, Johnson may not want to concede another independence referendum. But it seems certain that, one way or another, Scotland will not be able to tolerate indefinite Tories. And neither can we.’