SNP antisemitism
Above: modern antisemitism
By Dale Street
“Unfortunately, a comment on this thread has been deleted and the user banned for repeated antisemitic comments. Bigotry or any form of racial or religious discrimination, be it Islamophobia or antisemitism, simply will not be tolerated on this page.”
That was the commitment given by the SNP Friends of Palestine (FoP) on its public Facebook page in December of last year. It is a commitment that the campaign has spectacularly failed to implement.
Over the past ten months its Facebook page has carried a plethora of textbook examples of how traditional antisemitic tropes are incorporated into what passes for criticism of Israel and Zionism.
One of the most common of those tropes is that of wealthy, powerful Jews who, behind the scenes, control politicians and the policies of elected governments.
According to one contributor to the Facebook page, it is “the American Jewish Lobby” which bears the historical blame for the current “ghastly situation”:
“I was there while there was still a country called Palestine, although the poor Russian Jews chucked out of their own country were already infiltrating (Tel Aviv and Nablus at the foot of the Sea of Galilee) by courtesy of the American Jewish Lobby. Those are the people we have to thank for this ghastly situation.” (17/05/16).
Another contributor saw Rothschild money in play in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when the British Foreign Secretary backed the creation of “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine:
“Jewish and Arabs had lived side-by-side for decades until Arthur Balfour was probably provided financial security by the Rothschild scum to enforce this on their behalf.” (22/02/16)
“Zionists” have continued to exercise a decisive political influence down to the present, and do so at a global level:
“Just confirms who is actually running world politics, make up rules only to suit themselves. We all know that Zionists have hijacked the Jewish religion for their own gains. Next law to come in will [make it] antisemitic to say anything against the Zionists.” (28/04/16)
Like Balfour, contemporary British politicians continue to be bought off by “Zionists”. (SNP MPs and MSPs are doubtless an exception.) This explains their supposed reluctance to criticise Israel, and their loyalty to Israel rather than Britain:
“Politicians are bought by Zionists and do more for Israel than they do for the UK. Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel need to be banned. (UK politicians silent about Palestinian deaths.)” (17/04/16)
“We all know that the US and UK governments and their allies have been bribed by those Zionist supporters because they are part of the status quo. They have blood on their hands! The Israel state itself is a big lie!” (05/03/16)
“And of course the pro-Israel politicians will just go along with whatever any pro-Israel lobby group tells them. About time to kick Jewish/Israeli lobbyists out of British politics.” (25/02/16)
The expression “Jewish/Israeli lobbyists” is defended on the basis that one lobby is merely the new version of an older one. This is certainly true – in the sense that the contemporary trope of the powerful Israeli lobby is used as the direct successor of the older trope of the powerful Jewish lobby:
“It used to be called the Jewish lobby, now called the Israeli lobby. Same lobbyists and same people. So, yes, the two are the same. Politicians that are friends of Israel do what they can for Israel no matter what is against them. Sometimes it seems they do more for Israel than the UK, yet they are British politicians.” (25/02/16)
Accusations of antisemitism trigger particular indignation in posts on the SNP FoP Facebook page. Such accusations are denounced as further evidence of the behind-the-scenes power wielded by Jews.
The expression itself (first used by Wilhelm Marr in the 1870s, during the German-nationalist period of his political evolution) is dismissed as a Zionist invention which should now be dispensed with:
“The term ‘antisemitism’, coined in the 1880s by the Zionist movement to raise the perception of persecution among Europe’s Jews and so encourage them to make ‘Aliyah’, should now be consigned to its true position, merely a facet of racial and religious bigotry, and, as such, abhorred.” (18/02/16)
Accusations of antisemitism are used to cover up Israeli crimes by browbeating and intimidating opponents of Israel:
“The birth name of the new Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, was Freedland, the same as the apologist commentator of the ‘Guardian’. Different continents perhaps but …. Jonathan Freedland’s contrived argument is just that – a contorted apology for an apartheid state.” (03/05/16)
“Why does the world tolerate this? Because they’re terrified of being branded antisemites and bombarded with quite unnecessary warnings, like the one at the top of this page.” (23/05/16)
“It’s getting to the point in the UK to be scared to express a long-held sincere opinion in case there is a knock on the door at 3.00am.” (28/04/16)
Such views are not confined to contributors to the Facebook page. In April of this year the page administrators themselves posted a link to an article by SNP FoP member Craig Murray entitled “The New McCarthyism – The ‘Anti-Semitism’ Hysteria Gripping the UK”. According to the article:
“The attack on new NUS President Malia Bouattia is a truly horrible piece of witch-hunting. But it is useful in one thing. It makes the witch-hunt’s primary method, the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, absolutely explicit.
That is the entire intellectual basis of the current witch-hunt, which operates solely on conflating the anti-Zionism of Tony Greenstein with antisemitism. … I have yet to encounter any (antisemitism) in Scotland.”
Antisemitism can even be justified, provided that its proponents hate Jews for the ‘right’ reasons:
“If antisemitism is hating Jews for being born Jewish, then, of course, that kind of hatred must be opposed because it is utterly vile. However, if you oppose the support of many Jews for Israel, that is an entirely different matter.
Everyone should read ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’ by Professor Ilan Pappe of Exeter University, himself an Israeli Jew. It is clear from his research that violent ethnic cleansing and racism were absolutely integral and necessary for the creation of a Jewish state. So, if you are a supporter of Israel, you condone racism and violent ethnic cleansing.” (23/04/16)
In fact, for some contributors to the SNP FoP Facebook page anyone who supports Israel’s right to exist is automatically deemed to be a racist:
“I’m afraid to say that the British Political and Media establishment (including leading members of the Labour Party and the ‘Guardian’) condone racism.
If you ‘support Israel’s right to exist’, if you support the ‘right of the Jewish People to self-determination’ you must also support the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 human beings in 1948. It is as simple as that.” (18/04/16)
Equating support for Israel’s right to exist with racism is a ‘logical’ consequence of the way in which Israel is portrayed and defined as uniquely evil in contributions to the SNP FoP Facebook page.
That portrayal and that definition go well beyond the parameters of ‘robust criticism’:
“Our only home has been made into a trap, prison and concentration camp, complete with seven decades of rampant barbaric extermination and torture upon the innocent natives by the blood-stained hands of Israel.” (27/04/16)
“Britain and America support Israel. This shower of shit are worse than ISIS. They murder and torture Palestinians and they have been at it for longer.” (06/09/16)
“Israhell is a state run by apartheid gangsters. How can the Zionist illegal occupiers act like the landowners? Go back to Europe where you belong, Israhell! … Shame on you, the filthiest state on this planet!” (01/05/16)
A comment posted on the occasion of a visit to Israel by a delegation of Scottish Tories (“Scottish Zionists, shameless and abhorrent”) made clear that such hostility is directed not just at Israel’s state policies but at its population as well:
“All the people I despise will be in one place then.” (06/08/16)
The antisemitic dissolution of the distinction between the perpetrators and the victims of the Holocaust is also a regular feature of contributions to the SNP FoP Facebook page:
“The Zionists are building up for more slaughter to be unleashed upon the Palestinian race. Disgusting immoral acts carried out by evil savages. Their desire to obliterate Palestinians cannot be denied, no matter how many times they say the opposite. The world needs to waken up to the new Nazis.” (06/09/16)
“They learned their tactics from the Nazis, but have forgotten that the ultimate result was defeat.” (01/09/16)
“Their paranoia about young children and torturing them and imprisoning them for longer than the evil Zionist bastard who incinerated a young boy’s parents and baby brother says it all about these modern-day Nazis.” (04/08/16)
“I’ve just been to Berlin and quite rightly seen so many images and read lots of text about the history of what happened to the innocent Jewish people. Sadly, when I was in Palestine. I witnessed many things from history repeating itself.” (19/04/16)
A comprehensive programme of boycott, disinvestments and sanctions against Israel is promoted by posts on the Facebook page as the appropriate political response to “the filthiest state on this planet”:
“Jews all over the world need to know that their murderous project in Israel is unacceptable. They have the best chance of reigning in Natty’s death squads. For the rest of us, we have BDS.” (28/04/16)
“Don’t listen to Israhell, keep on boycotting, disinvesting, condemning Israhell!” (04/03/16)
“Buy nothing from these apartheid murdering scum!” (25/02/16)
“Bargepoles at the ready, and take your reading glasses to the shops.” (25/02/16)
The SNP FoP is not a fringe organisation. Launched in mid-2015, it has the support of 29 of the SNP’s 54 MPs. Two MPs and two MSPs are members of its National Executive Committee. Its Facebook page is peppered with pictures of MPs and MSPs signing its statement “I’m a Friend of Palestine”.
The campaign can argue that not all the offending posts come from actual members of the SNP FoP. This is true. In fact, some of the worst posts appear to come from ‘Palestine solidarity’ activists outside of the SNP who have ‘discovered’ the SNP FoP Facebook page.
The SNP FoP might escape criticism for hosting some of these posts on its Facebook page if it used the less repellent ones as an opportunity to open up an argument about what is wrong with their politics.
But the campaign does not do that. And even such challenges as there are to the contents of some of the posts are given short shrift: “Take yer Zionist-fascist shit elsewhere.” (04/08/16)
As a result, the SNP FoP Facebook page ends up as an echo chamber for a collection of antisemitic tropes masquerading as ‘legitimate criticism’ of Israel:
Rich and powerful Jews; behind-the-scenes control of politicians and governments by the Jewish/Israeli lobby; equations of Israel with Nazi Germany; a denial of Israel’s right to exist, and a blanket dismissal of the bona fides of allegations of antisemitism.
According to SNP MP Stewart McDonald, a founder member of the SNP FoP:
“These worst excesses (of ‘naked antisemitism emerging in its vilest form’) have not been seen in the SNP Friends of Palestine but we must be constantly vigilant. Most antisemitism is not overt, relying on ancient tropes which are easily recycled into the modern age of memes and viral media.”
McDonald is someone who does not counterpose Palestinian national rights to Israeli national rights. In fact, he is currently being denounced by some of his erstwhile allies for supporting the creation of SNP Friends of a Two-States Solution.
But there certainly seems to have been a shortfall in the “constant vigilance” which he rightly advocates.
The Dream may Never Die … but SNP election promises do
Above: Chris Law: yet another SNP’er under police inverstigation
By Dale Street
Last week saw Chris Law become the third of the SNP’s 2015 intake of MPs – elected on a promise of a “new politics”, free from traditional Westminster sleaze – to be investigated by the police about their financial dealings.
Law, who owns a £140,000 Aston Martin and has just put in a bid for an “offers over £620,000” castle, spent the 2014 referendum campaign touring Scotland in a 1950s Green Goddess fire engine painted in the colours of the saltire.
It was his own personal “Spirit of Independence” campaign. Allegations of embezzlement concerning donations made to the campaign are reported as the reason for Law being questioning by the police.
Last week also saw Natalie McGarry – elected as an SNP MP but no longer holding the SNP whip – charged with embezzlement of funds from Women for Independence and her local SNP Association. A report has been sent to the Procurator Fiscal.
The third SNP MP under police investigation, Michelle Thomson, who likewise no longer holds the SNP whip, is still awaiting the outcome of the ongoing investigation into a number of property deals which she and her husband were involved in.
There were plenty of other broken SNP promises in the news last week.
Scottish Government accounts revealed that student loans are the government’s largest financial asset. They had increased by 11% over the past year and now amount to nearly £3 billions.
This was bad news for the SNP because it came to power with a promise to wipe out student debt. So, steady progress backwards on that promise.
A SNP promise of loans to farmers as a way of providing a financial cushion pending the payment of EU financial support collapsed into chaos after the SNP Government admitted that it had miscalculated loans for hundreds of farmers.
This was particularly bad news for the SNP. The loans scheme had been introduced because of an earlier SNP failure to pay out EU support on time – the result of a malfunctioning computer system bought by the SNP Government which has already gone 74% over budget.
So, two broken promises there for the (over-budget) price of one.
Other figures released last week showed an almost ten-fold increase in spending by Scottish MPs on Scotland-to-London business-class flights in 2015/16 compared with the previous year: up from £61,000 to nearly £600,000.
The explanation: Unlike their predecessors, and two of three remaining non-SNP MPs in Scotland, SNP MPs fly business-class. (The one non-SNP MP who keeps the SNP MPs company on their business-class flights is, of course, a Tory.)
In 2015 SNP candidates had promised to “stand up for Scotland” if elected to Westminster. Clearly, what they actually meant was: Sit down for Scotland in the comfiest seats.
The same figures showed that nine of the ten MPs with the highest expenses claims were SNP MPs. Highest claimer of all was Michelle Thomson (£106,000). But SNP MP Steven Paterson, coming in at number five (£99,000), merits particular mention: He claimed £40 to pay for looking after a dog.
Another 2015 election promise from the SNP was: “The SNP will never stop doing our best to make Scotland’s NHS the very best. Under the SNP Scotland’s NHS has been protected and improved.”
Whoops!
Figures released last week revealed: just over 28% of GP posts are currently vacant; the number of posts unfilled for more than six months has nearly doubled over the past year; waiting times for cancer treatment are at their worst level since records began; and over the last five years the number of radiologists has increased by 3% but their workload by 55%.
The SNP had a chance at Holyrood last week to deliver on its promise to “protect and improve the NHS”, by voting for a Labour motion demanding that the Scottish Government “call in” for ministerial decision a series of cuts in services being proposed by local NHS Boards.
Instead, the SNP moved a wrecking amendment to the Labour motion. When that was defeated, the SNP abstained on the final vote.
The SNP, being the SNP, didn’t just make election promises to look after the sick. It also promised “security in retirement” and “better support for the most vulnerable in society and protection of pensioner benefits”.
But figures released last week showed that the SNP Holyrood government has cut £500 millions from the social care budget of Scottish local authorities, resulting in 12% of the elderly suffering a cut in the services they receive.
Sturgeon blamed the social care budget cuts on a Tory cut of 5% in funding to Holyrood. She must have attended the same accountancy course as Chris Law and Natalie McGarry: The SNP government’s cut to social care spending (11%) is more than double that.
Another promise which the SNP may come to regret was one made last week by SNP Glasgow councillor Jahangir Hanif. Speaking at a public meeting in his ward, Hanif promised that he would bring Sturgeon to see the appalling housing conditions in the Govanhill district.
But Hanif was then exposed as the landlord of a flat in one of the worst streets. According to the Daily Record:
“Hanif’s flat is at the top of a dilapidated close. It is infested with flies and has a shooting gallery for heroin addicts on the ground floor. The bannister is broken and on the verge of collapse. There is a strong stench of urine throughout the building. The walls are filthy and the stairs are caked in grime.”
Hanif, who lives in a £700,000 house in Newton Mearns, charges a family of five adults £500 a month for his two-bedroomed flat. And why Sturgeon needs an invite from Hanif is a mystery: Sturgeon is the constituency MSP.
Mary Poppins and pro-Nazi MacDairmid: the Scot Nat connection!
From Dale Street:
Just a quick reminder about the quality of Scottish-nationalist politics and journalism.
“Now when London is threatened
With devastation from the air
I realise, horror atrophying me,
That I hardly care.
“The leprous swine in London town
And their Anglo-Scots accomplices
Are, as they have always been
Scotland’s only enemies.”
(On The Imminent Destruction Of London, June 1940)
Scotland: for Labour movement unity, not separatism!
Voting Remain best for Indyref2, Sturgeon tells Yes supporters
By Dale Street (this article is also published at the Workers Liberty website and in the current issue of Solidarity)
Will there be another referendum on independence for Scotland after the EU referendum? That is now a central focus of mainstream political debate in Scotland. And that spells bad news for socialists and the broader Labour and trade union movement.
At a UK level the EU referendum saw a 51.9% majority in favour of “Leave” on a 72% turnout. In England 53.4% backed “Leave” on a 73% turnout. But in Scotland 62% backed “Remain” on a 67% turnout.
The day after the referendum former SNP leader Alex Salmond responded to the different voting patterns in England and Scotland by touring television studios bullishly predicting another referendum on Scottish independence within two years. The same day SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon struck a more cautious note.
Relying on a clause in the SNP Holyrood election manifesto that a change in “material circumstances”, such as Scotland voting to remain in the EU but Britain voting to leave, would justify a second referendum, Sturgeon said that a second referendum was “highly likely”. Unlike Salmond, Sturgeon recognises the problems confronting what would be, for the SNP, a make-or-break second referendum. Turnout in the EU referendum in Scotland was not only lower than in England but also markedly lower than in the independence referendum of 2014 — 67%, compared with 85%.
1,700,000 people in Scotland voted last week in favour of the UK remaining in the EU — compared with just over two million who voted in favour of Scotland remaining in the UK in 2014. (But the electorate in 2014 was larger, as 16 and 17-year-olds had a vote.) Support for Scottish independence does not equate with support for “Remain” in the EU, the avowed trigger for another referendum.
In the run-up to the EU referendum opinion polls found that one in three SNP voters backed “Leave”. Exit polling on the day of the referendum came up with the same figure. In fact, in an article in the Sunday Herald prior to the EU referendum Sturgeon’s sales pitch to “Yes” voters was not the merits of EU membership but the prospect of another referendum on Scottish independence: “Sturgeon tells Yes supporters: Voting Remain is best hope for second independence referendum.”
There are also political problems in staging a second referendum on independence, and economic problems in winning a majority to vote “Yes”. The decision to call such a referendum is a reserved power. The Westminster Parliament would have to agree to it.
Sturgeon’s counter-argument is that the SNP and Greens will vote together in Holyrood in September on “legislation” for a second referendum, and that it would be “inconceivable” for Westminster to refuse authority for another referendum.
The economic problems which would confront an independent Scotland remain unchanged, if not worse, than in 2014. Scotland has a structural deficit of £15 billions (9.7% of its GDP). Public spending in Scotland is higher than in the UK, with the gap of some £9 billions a year funded by the Barnett Formula. The slump in the price of oil and a weak economy on the brink of recession (even before the EU referendum) have added to the economic problems, as well as exposing the hollowness of the economic predictions contained in the 2014 White Paper on Independence.
And then there is the question of the currency in an independent Scotland. In the space of the last fortnight the SNP has come up with four varieties of what the currency would, or might, be: the pound; the euro; a new currency linked to the pound; an independent Scottish floating currency.
On the other hand, the SNP might find it easier to sell the idea of an independent Scotland in the event of a second independence referendum. With the UK heading out of the EU anyway, an independent Scotland would not be at risk of losing membership of the EU. The EU would be portrayed as a milch cow which would make up for the losses incurred by exit from the UK. And a “Yes” vote would be presented as the expression of an outward-looking pan-Europeanism.
Why is or any or all of this bad news for socialists and the labour movement? Read the rest of this entry »
Compass loses its bearings in Scotland
By Dale Street (also at the Workers Liberty website)
Well, it probably seemed a good idea at the time.
On 31 May Neal Lawson – chairperson of the “influential left-wing think tank” Compass – penned an open letter to the SNP calling for a “progressive alliance” with the Labour Party.
The letter might best be described as obsequious (synonyms: servile, ingratiating, unctuous, toadying, oily, greasy, grovelling and oleaginous). Its tone evokes that of someone fallen on hard times trying to tap a loan:
“Most esteemed Sirs! Mindful of your legendary munificence, I turn to you in my hour of need. Struck down by the vagaries of fate, I would humbly request a modest contribution from your financial largesse, to see me through until payday. I remain, your obedient servant, Neal.”
Lawson thinks he knows which buttons to press in his letter to the “progressive” (sic) SNP.
He writes “as a Londoner”. (You can smell the sackcloth and ashes as he typed that phrase.) He refers to “your country”. (Even though, as confirmed by the 2014 referendum, Lawson inhabits the same country as the SNP.)
Adopting the language of the SNP – Look! I’m really one of you! – he denounces the unholy trinity of “English Tory rule, the Daily Mail and the City of London”. (As chairperson of a think tank, Lawson probably found it too vulgar to go the whole hog and inveigh against “Westmonster” rule.)
Lawson professes to being “jealous of the political conversation you had as a nation over independence” and the consequent “rise in political consciousness”. But, Lawson continues, it’s time to move on. It cannot be a matter of independence or nothing.
“We have a duty to go around and beyond tribalism,” he writes. Another referendum is off the agenda for at least a decade. In Scotland and the rest of the UK “Labour knows they can’t win outright.” And trade unions are “shifting to embrace pluralism”.
(Momentum member Rhea Wolfson was recently denounced for supposedly having dismissed the importance of Labour winning in 2020. Labour Party member Neal Lawson goes a step further and writes off Labour’s chances completely. But maybe that’s what it takes to run an “influential” think tank.)
Ever so gently, Lawson mumbles in passing a couple of secondary concerns.
The SNP seems to have “shifted” from seeing independence as “a pragmatic tactic to build a good society” to seeing it as “an end in itself”. And SNP “party discipline” is transforming the SNP into a “machine” inappropriate for the fluidity of 21st century politics.
The solution to all this is a “progressive alliance” between the Labour Party and the SNP. “As ever,” concludes Lawson, “you must be bold and take the lead in forging a new politics. Compass is here to help.”
Lawson’s open letter achieves the rare feat of being even more ridiculous than the ritualistic calls for left unity periodically issued by the SWP.
The SWP knows that their open letters don’t deserve to be taken seriously. But Lawson – being the chairperson of an “influential” think tank – probably really does believe that his open letter constitutes the pinnacle of political acumen.
Lawson’s basic problem is simple ignorance.
The SNP is a nationalist party for which independence has always been an end in itself. To achieve that goal it wants to destroy the Scottish Labour Party and deprive trade unions of an organised political voice by securing their disaffiliation from the Labour Party.
This is something very different from trade unions “shifting to embrace pluralism”.
The referendum of 2014 saw class politics overwhelmed by nationalist grievance-mongering, nationalist scapegoating, nationalist tribalism, and nationalist irrationality. Lawson has a strange idea of what constitutes a “political conversation” worthy of envy.
The SNP is intolerant of dissent. Its MPs and MSPs are banned from making public criticism of SNP policies. Critical motions submitted to party conferences have been ruled out of order. And criticism from outwith the ranks of the SNP is denounced as “talking Scotland down”.
The reason for this intolerance is not to be found in the answer suggested by Lawson’s rhetorical question: “Is all this part of your (the SNP’s) incredible rise tapering off?” It has everything to do with the inherent nature of the SNP as a political project.
In power at Holyrood for nine years, the SNP’s policies have seen a slump in levels of educational achievement, increased class inequalities in education, cuts in NHS standards and increased waiting times, massive cuts in funding for local authorities, and subsidies for the middle classes at the price of cuts in jobs and services.
In its 2007-11 term of office the SNP relied on Tory votes when it suited them. In its referendum White Paper the only tax change promised by the SNP was a cut in corporation tax. In recent months the SNP has repeatedly voted with the Tories against a 50p tax rate for the richest.
All this – and much more – undermines Lawson’s claim that “something like Denmark on the English border” would have been the outcome of a ‘Yes’ vote in 2014.
(Yes, it’s true that Denmark has a hereditary monarchy, is a member of NATO, has seen a recent upsurge in support for populist nationalism, and is surrounded by water on three sides. But that probably isn’t what Lawson meant.)
Lawson is also blissfully unaware of the absurdity of his invocation of a “duty” to go “around and beyond tribalism”.
When the Lib-Dems won nearly 70% of the vote in the Orkney and Shetland constituencies in last month’s Holyrood elections, cybernats suggested that the islands be handed over to Norway.
Tory and Labour victories in Edinburgh in last month’s elections triggered demands by cybernats that the city’s English inhabitants be sent back to England.
And the cybernat response to the Tory victories in in Dumfries, Galloway and the Scottish Borders was to propose that the ‘border’ be redrawn so that the south of Scotland became part of England.
But there is hope on the horizon. Lawson’s letter may yet prove to be the start of a belated learning curve for its author. And the source of that potential education lies in the responses to the letter.
Lawson holds out the hand of friendship. But this is the response he gets:
“For us, it IS independence or nothing. … Why would the SNP form an alliance with a party that despises Scots? … Labour doesn’t only despise Scots. It despises everyone that is not Labour.”
“The biggest problem a progressive alliance faces in the UK is that the UK most of the time votes Tory. … Labour in Scotland is an ex-party. It has gone from dominating Scotland for 60 years to being an irrelevance on the way to total extinction.”
“I use the term ‘British Labour’ advisedly. Because it is necessary to constantly remind people that it is a British political party. A party of the British establishment.”
“There is no possibility of an alliance between British Labour and the SNP because they exist for entirely different and quite irreconcilable purposes. The SNP exists to serve the people of Scotland. British Labour exists to serve the ruling elites of the British state.”
“(Lawson wrote): It can’t just be about independence … Yes it can, if we decide that. What it can’t be is what anyone other than Scots decide it is. … Like most unionists, Lawson’s reaction can be reduced to a mixture of pique, resentment, confusion, loss, sadness and rejection.”
Lawson should also bear in mind that his article was published on Commonspace. That’s read by the ‘left wing’ of the Scottish-nationalist political spectrum. If that’s the response from the ‘left’, what would the more ‘mainstream’ nationalist response look like?
Meet John “The Baptist” Mason: MSP and creationist
By Dale Street (also published on the Workers Liberty website):
Above: Mason
In January of 2015 Glasgow Shettleston’s SNP MSP John Mason tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament advocating that creationism be taught in schools. According to the motion, which was backed by two other SNP MSPs:
“Some people believe that God created the world in six days, some people believe that God created the world over a longer period of time and some people believe that the world came about without anyone creating it.
None of these positions can be proved or disproved by science and all are valid beliefs for people to hold. … Children in Scotland’s schools should be aware of all of these different belief systems.”1
There was nothing surprising about Mason’s decision to table a pro-creationism motion. He had already expressed his belief in creationism in an earlier debate In Holyrood:
“We believe that when God made the world he had a close relationship with human beings, that that relationship was broken, and that the reason why Jesus came was to restore that relationship.”2
In fact, according to Mason, creationism is a defining tenet of Christianity, Islam and Judaism:
“The idea of a God that creates the world is a very central belief to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. … Christianity would unravel if creationism was proved wrong. I don’t see how you could be a Christian, Muslim or Jew and not believe that God created the world.”3
And just as the Bible provides Mason with an ‘explanation’ of the origins of the universe, so too it dictates his views on gay sex and gay relationships:
“I am a member of Easterhouse Baptist Church. I believe that the Bible is the word of God and its teachings are God’s direction as to how I should live my life. … The Bible’s teaching is that a follower of Jesus should not have a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex.
I see it as very much secondary whether the relationship is called a civil partnership, marriage, or anything else. … As someone seeking to follow Jesus Christ, I can say that I am clear that people following Him should not be in same-sex marriages.”4
When legislation on gay marriages was progressing through Holyrood (2011-14), Mason claimed – some would say: dishonestly and hypocritically – that he was “relaxed” about such marriages and that his only concern was ‘discrimination’ against opponents of same-sex marriages:
“[My concern is] the legal protections that can be given to those in positions like ministers or priests as well as to public and private sector employees, the third sector, and even volunteers. I am still not sure whether these protections can be guaranteed.”5
The high point of this tactic of counterposing possible ‘discrimination’ against opponents of same-sex marriages to support for LGBT equality came in a letter sent by Mason to constituents who backed gay marriages.6
It began: “I also support full equality for LGBT people in Scotland.” It ended: “I also want a fairer and more equal Scotland and for that reason I plan to vote against the Bill.” The leap in ‘logic’ from professed support for equality to voting against actual equality was the argument:
“This Bill introduces the likelihood of further discrimination against religious people. Amendments were introduced which might have given some comfort for Christians and those of other religions.
Unfortunately, the Government and the [Equal Opportunities] Committee refused to accept any of these amendments. So we are left in the position that discrimination may well switch from LGBT people to religious people.”
Although Mason has written that “church and state are separate and neither should control the other,”7 he has repeatedly used Holyrood as a platform to promote his religious beliefs and the politics which flow from them.
His pro-creationism motion and his parliamentary campaign against gay marriages legislation are two instances of this. And there are plenty of other examples. Read the rest of this entry »
The Great SNP Quiz
Steve Bell’s If ? 13.11.2014 Illustration: Copyright Steve Bell 2014
By Dale Street
1) When Michelle Thomson MP (SNP whip resigned) twice bought properties in 2010 and sold them to her husband later the same day, by how much did their price increase between purchase and re-sale?
a) £50,000
b) £54,400
c) £60,000
2) When Michelle Thomson MP (SNP whip resigned) paid her business partner £95,000 for a property he had bought for £64,000 from a 77-year-old cancer-sufferer earlier the same day, how much did she receive as a “cashback” from her partner as part of the deal?
a) £25,000
b) £28,180.80
c) £30,000
3) During the 2014 referendum campaign, who was the director of the pro-independence “Business for Scotland” organisation (“The business network with a conscience. We will promote the values that can build a more equal and fairer Scotland.”)?
a) John Paul Getty III
b) Nelson Rockefeller Jnr.
c) Michelle Thomson
4) What happened in 2014 to the solicitor who had represented MP Michelle Thomson (SNP whip resigned) and/or her husband and/or her business partner in 13 different property deals?
a) He was named Solicitor of the Year by the Law Society of Scotland.
b) He was appointed as a judge in the Inner House of the Court of Session.
c) He was struck off by a Law Society Discipline Tribunal for 13 counts of professional misconduct.
5) Who was SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon referring to in the 2015 general election campaign when she said “Michelle knows what’s she’s doing, knows her area and knows about fairness, equality and prosperity. I say: Bring it on, Michelle!”?
a) Michelle Pfeiffer
b) Michelle Obama
c) Michelle Thomson
6) What is the current value of the seven properties in SNP MP Lisa Cameron’s property portfolio?
a) £618,000
b) £628,000
c) £638,000
7) What is the difference between the monthly rent charged for one of five former council flats owned by SNP MP Lisa Cameron and the monthly rent charged by the council for a council flat in the same area?
a) Higher by £140 a month.
b) Higher by £150 a month.
c) Higher by £160 a month.
8) Last September SNP MP Phil Boswell tabled a Parliamentary Question calling for a crackdown on tax avoidance. How much was the interest-free loan which Boswell himself received as part of a tax-avoidance scheme when working for a US energy company?
a) £16,000
b) £18,000
c) £20,000
9) SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has condemned tax avoidance as “obscene, immoral and despicable.” What did she say on learning of SNP MP Phil Boswell’s involvement in a tax-avoidance scheme?
a) This is obscene, immoral and despicable.
b) This is what happens when Scotland is governed by Westminster.
c) Nothing.
10) Including the discount secured for the venue (Stirling Castle’s Great Hall), how much did the SNP Holyrood government donate to the launch event of the Scottish Asian Women’s Association (founder: Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, now an SNP MP) in 2012?
a) £15,160
b) £16,160
c) £17,160
11) At its launch event, attended by 160 guests including Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh’s Scottish Asian Women’s Association spent £4,500 on canapes and £400 on flowers. Over the next three years how much did the charity donate to worthy causes?
a) £600
b) £700
c) £800
12) In the run-up to the 2014 Euro-elections the Facebook page of which organisation appealed to its readers: “Remember to vote SNP on Thursday to get Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh elected and keep UKIP out of Scotland”?
a) A political party: the SNP.
b) An anti-racist campaign: Hope Not Hate.
c) A registered charity: the Scottish Asian Women’s Association.
13) Natalie McGarry MP (SNP whip resigned) is currently under police investigation for the unaccounted disappearance of how much money from donations made to Women for Independence?
a) £25,000
b) £30,000
c) £35,000
14) Who reported the disappearance of the £30,000 to the police, resulting in the investigation into Natalie McGarry MP (SNP whip resigned)?
a) Red Tories who always talk Scotland down.
b) Real Tories who always talk Scotland down.
c) 20 members of the Women for Independence National Committee, including seven SNP Holyrood candidates, one SNP branch convenor, the vice-chair of the British Association of Social Workers, and the Chief Executive of Scottish Women’s Aid.
15) Who did Natalie McGarry MP (SNP whip resigned) recently accuse of tweeting in support of “a misogynist and abusive Twitter troll”?
a) Tommy Sheridan
b) Comrade Delta
c) J.K. Rowling
16) Which song has Natalie McGarry MP (SNP whip resigned) described as “banter”?
a) Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
b) Bohemian Rhapsody.
c) The Famine Song.
17) In the 2015 general election campaign the SNP told voters: “The only way to lock the Tories out of 10 Downing Street is to vote SNP.” The SNP won 56 out of Scotland’s 59 seats. What was the result?
a) The Tories were locked out of 10 Downing Street.
b) The Tories returned to 10 Downing Street in a coalition with the Lib-Dems.
c) The Tories won an absolute majority of seats.
18) Which party did the SNP not call for a vote for anywhere in the UK in the 2015 general election campaign, while simultaneously listing what it would demand of it as the next Westminster government?
a) Green Party
b) Plaid Cymru
c) Labour Party
19) Which organisation adopted the following rule at its 2015 annual conference: “That no member shall within, or outwith, the Parliament publicly criticise a Group decision, policy, or another member of the Group”?
a) The Mafia (as an extension of the code of Omerta).
b) The Vatican (as an extension of the Bull of Papal Infallibility).
c) The SNP (because it’s the SNP).
20) 20 SNP branches have submitted motions to the party’s 2016 annual conference calling for a ban on fracking. What is likely to happen to the motions at the conference?
a) They will be passed.
b) They will not be passed.
c) Nothing – because they have all been ruled out of order and will not appear on the agenda.
21) What did the then SNP First Minister Alex Salmond prophesy in March of 2013?
a) The end of the world.
b) The second coming of Christ.
c) A second oil boom, beginning that year, which would generate tax revenues three times higher than official estimates.
22) What did the then SNP First Minister Alex Salmond, speaking in September of 2013, say was the value of North Sea oil and gas reserves?
a) Peanuts – it’s just something we dip into now and again when there’s a glut of shortbread on the world market.
b) Make up your own figure, provided that it has a lot of zeros at the end.
c) 1.5 trillions – twelve times higher than official estimates – “worth £300,000 for every man woman and child” in an independent Scotland.
23) What did SNP MP Alex Salmond have to say about the North Sea oil industry two years later?
a) The second oil boom is underway!
b) Hold out your hands for the first tranche of your £300,000!
c) The industry is suffering from tough low-oil-price conditions and needs every single market it can get.
24) Which piece of writing prophesised that the average price of a barrel of oil in the period 2014 to 2019 would be at least $113?
a) The Predictions of Nostradamus.
b) Mystic Meg’s horoscope for Leo in the “Sun” last week.
c) The SNP’s 2013 White Paper on Independence, “Scotland’s Future”.
25) What was the price of a barrel of oil in mid-January of 2016?
a) $113
b) $226
c) $27 (i.e. less than the cost of the barrel containing it).
26) According to “Scotland’s Future”, in the financial year 2015/16 North Sea oil revenues would amount to £8.3 billions. What is current estimate of North Sea oil revenues for 2015/16?
a) £8.3 billions
b) £16.6 billions
c) £130 millions
27) In January of this year SNP MP Dennis Robertson (Aberdeenshire West) said: “There is no crisis in the … … industry. We have just extracted more … than ever before. The industry is booming.” What industry was he talking about?
a) Dentistry.
b) Brain tumour surgery.
c) The North Sea oil industry.
28) How many jobs dependent on the North Sea oil industry had been lost in the twelve months prior to SNP MP Dennis Robertson’s statement?
a) 60,000
b) 70,000
c) 80,000
29) How did the daily rate of oil and gas extraction from the North Sea in the twelve months prior to SNP MP Dennis Robertson’s statement (“… just extracted more oil than ever before …”) compare with the daily rate of extraction in 1999?
a) Down by 2.5 million barrels a day.
b) Down by 3 million barrels a day.
c) Down by 3.5 million barrels a day.
30) In the 2014 referendum campaign which of the following did the SNP promise would always be lower in an independent Scotland than in England?
a) Levels of poverty.
b) Levels of social inequality.
c) Corporation tax.
31) What do the following have in common?
a) Air Passenger Duty.
b) Corporation Tax.
c) Taxation of the oil and gas industry.
32) Which of the following has SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon promised will never be cut?
a) Holyrood’s funding for Glasgow City Council.
b) Holyrood’s funding for maintenance of the Forth Road Bridge.
c) Holyrood’s annual contribution to the Sovereign Grant paid to the Queen.
33) When the SNP Holyrood government cut spending on its “non-profit distributing programme” from £353 millions to £20 millions in the financial year 2013/14, how did the then SNP Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon describe the cut?
a) A savage cut.
b) An unacceptably savage cut.
c) Reprofiling.
34) When the SNP Holyrood government cut spending on its green energy budget in the financial year 2014/15, how did the SNP Finance Secretary John Swinney describe the cut?
a) A savage cut.
b) An unacceptably savage cut.
c) Reprofiling.
35) When the SNP Holyrood government announced a cut of over £350 millions in funding for local authorities for the financial year 2016/17, at a cost of 15,000 jobs, how did SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon describe the cut?
a) A savage cut.
b) An unacceptably savage cut.
c) Reprofiling.
36) SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that it was “absolutely” not true that maintenance budget cuts led to the closure of the Forth Road Bridge last December. When the former Chief Engineer subsequently gave evidence to MSPs, what did he blame for the closure?
a) The San Andreas Fault.
b) Mars being in conjunction with Saturn.
c) A 58% cut in the bridge’s maintenance budget by the SNP government in 2011.
37) Between the financial years 2010/11 and 2014/15, by how much did the SNP Holyrood government cut spending on pre-school education places, primary school pupils, and secondary school pupils?
a) 7%, 10% and 3% respectively.
b) 8%, 11% and 4% respectively.
c) 9%, 12% and 5% respectively.
38) By how much did the SNP Holyrood government cut Further Education funding in real terms between 2010 and 2015?
a) 15%
b) 20%
c) 25%
39) What was the fall in the number of students at Further Education colleges in Scotland between 2010 and 2013?
a) 100,000
b) 108,000
c) 116,000
40) What was the fall in the number of teaching staff in Further Education colleges in Scotland over the same period?
a) 6,000
b) 7,000
c) 8,000
41) The poorest 20% of youth in England are 2.5 times less likely than the wealthiest 20% to go to university. What is the figure for the poorest 20% of youth in Scotland, compared to the wealthiest 20% of youth in Scotland?
a) 3 times less likely to go to university.
b) 3.5 times less likely to go to university.
c) 4 times less likely to go to university.
42) In England the proportion of university students from non-professional backgrounds is 33%. What is the equivalent figure for Scotland?
a) 26%
b) 27%
c) 28%
43) How much have owners of band ‘G’ and ‘H’ properties ‘saved’ in the period 2008-2016 as a result of the SNP’s council tax freeze?
a) £250 millions.
b) £300 millions.
c) £350 millions.
44) On average, a low-paid worker living in a Band ‘A’ property ‘saves’ £60 a year (0.3% of income) as a result of the SNP’s council tax freeze. On average, how much does someone living in a Band ‘H’ property ‘save’ each year as a result of the freeze?
a) £324 (0.7% of income).
b) £370 (0.8% of income).
c) £394 (0.9% of income).
45) What did SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh say on her return from a visit to Iran as part of an official SNP delegation last December?
a) A reactionary, homophobic, misogynist regime.
b) So that’s John Mason’s vision for Shettleston!
c) While Iran clearly has a distance to travel on gender equality, so too does Holyrood Westminster.
46) Which one of the following is not boycotted by all true Scots?
a) B&Q
b) Sainsbury’s
c) Iran
47) And which one of the following is not boycotted by all true Scots either?
a) Tunnock’s Teacakes
b) USDAW
c) North Korea
48) With which of the following countries does SNP MP Alex Salmond look forward to Scotland developing a “productive and enduring relationship”?
a) England
b) Israel
c) Iran
49) After 30 years of opposition, what did the SNP annual conference in 2012 vote in favour of membership of?
a) The United Kingdom.
b) The Russian Federation.
c) NATO
50) The Facebook page of the Scottish Resistance carries a video clip of one of their members wielding a sledgehammer. What is he doing with the sledgehammer?
a) Repairing the Forth Road Bridge.
b) Laying the foundations of an independent Scotland.
c) Crushing a pack of Tunnock’s teacakes, with the words “This is a wee message to every c**t who is still a f***king secret teacake eater. F**k Tunnock’s.”
51) Which books did North Lanarkshire SNP councillor Rosa Zambonini tweet that she would ban her children from reading?
a) Books containing lots of violence.
b) Books containing lots of sex.
c) Books by J.K. Rowling.
52) Dundee SNP councillor Craig Melville was suspended from the SNP for having allegedly tweeted which of the following messages to a female Muslim SNP member?
a) Scottish nationalism is different from all other nationalisms – it’s a civic nationalism.
b) That Man to Man the warld o’er shall brithers be for a’ that.
c) It’s not personal, I just f****** hate your religion and I’ll do all in my life do defeat your filth. We live in an uneducated loopy left-wing society which is more interested in claiming benefits. … Horrible murdering Islamic c***s.
53) Which of the following has North Airdrie SNP councillor and Central Scotland SNP list candidate Sophia Coyle said should be banned from fostering and adopting children?
a) Members of ISIS.
b) Members of al Qaeda.
c) Gay couples.
54) According to cybernat Shelley Detlefsen, what was the cause of the cancer which killed David Bowie?
a) Smoking.
b) Poor diet.
c) Supporting a ‘No’ vote in the 2014 referendum.
55) The Tories have recently promised to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with the SNP. But “stand shoulder to shoulder” with them doing what?
a) Repairing the Forth Road Bridge.
b) Fracking.
c) Opposing Labour’s proposal for a 1% income tax rise.
56) On 28th January this year SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: “I’m standing up for a fair deal for Scotland – Labour should try it some time, instead of always backing the Tories.” What happened six days later, when Labour proposed a 1p increase in income tax?
a) Labour voted with the Tories.
b) Labour voted with the SNP.
c) The SNP voted with the Tories.
57) What did the SNP support in 1999 but oppose in 2016?
a) Membership of NATO.
b) Membership of the European Union.
c) Increasing income tax in Scotland by 1p.
58) According to SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, nurses would be hit harder by Labour’s proposal for a 1% income tax increase than she herself would be. What is the explanation for this claim?
a) Nurses in Scotland are paid over £136,000 a year.
b) Nicola Sturgeon is paid her salary through a tax haven.
c) Nicola Sturgeon can’t count.
59) Which of the following politicians is the highest paid?
a) The President of France.
b) The Prime Minister of Spain.
c) SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
60) What did the by then former SNP First Minister Alex Salmond cancel after the referendum of September 2014?
a) His coronation as Supreme Leader and Great Helmsman.
b) Renaming the Royal Mile the Alex Salmond Mile.
c) His television licence.
d) All of the above.
Answers on a postcard to:
Nicola Sturgeon, Bute House (absent a commercial transaction with Michelle Thomson and her husband in the meantime), 6 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, EH2 4DR.
How many questions do you think you answered correctly?
0-20: You should join the SNP. Because they all say “But we never knew about that!” as well.
21-40: You should join RISE. Because you have some (modest) criticisms of the SNP, but not so many that you can’t approach SNP supporters to beg for their list vote in May.
41-60: You are an anti-Scottish Red-Tory traitor who is always talking Scotland down.
Syria airstrikes vote exposes SNP’s parallel political universe: a permanent nationalist delirium
Steve Bell’s If …
By Dale Street (also posted at the Workers Liberty website)
“SNP independence has become the cocaine of the politically active. Fun to join in, but dulling the senses, jabbering on at a hundred words per minute while disconnected from self-awareness.”
In a recent article admitting that the SNP’s economic arguments for independence never stacked up, this is how Alex Bell summed up the delirious nature of the pro-independence political mindset. (Bell was SNP Head of Policy under Salmond.)
But the response of the SNP to the launch of airstrikes against Daesh has exposed the inaccuracy of Bell’s statement: he was being too charitable by half.
Labour Party policy was to oppose the bombing. The overwhelming majority of Labour MPs – and a majority of the Shadow Cabinet – voted against the bombing. Some 75% of Labour Party members were against the bombing. The lead speaker in Westminster against the bombing was the Labour Party leader.
But all these basic facts were blotted out of reality in the parallel political universe inhabited – and created – by Scottish nationalism.
SNP MP John Nicolson summed up the political essence of the SNP response to the launch of airstrikes when he created the hashtag: “Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems #BombingTogether.”
Challenged about the accuracy of this hashtag, Nicolson responded that bombing was backed by the vast majority of Tories (true), by all Lib Dems (wrong), and by most of the Shadow Cabinet (wrong).
And the 152 Labour MPs who voted against bombing? Or Labour Party policy against bombing? Nicolson simply ignored them.
SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson likewise ignored how most Labour MPs actually voted. Harking back to the SNP’s exploitation of the Labour-Tory “Better Together” referendum campaign, he tweeted:
“Syria vote: Want to join opposition to Labour/Tory ‘better together’ majority. Join the SNP.”
The Tories had a majority even without the votes of Labour MPs. And the majority of the Labour MPs voted against bombing. But this did not prevent Robertson from performing the political conjuring trick of pulling a “Labour/Tory ‘better together’ majority” out of his hat.
The SNP was equally silent about anti-war speeches by Labour MPs. Instead, on planet SNP, the intervention by Labour MPs was reduced to Hilary Benn’s closing pro-bombing speech. Read the rest of this entry »
SNP’s model of independence “is broken beyond repair”
…writes a former adviser to Alex Salmond, Alex Bell:
The SNP’s model of independence is broken beyond repair. The party should either build a new one or stop offering it as an alternative to Tory cuts …
There is a strange moment in the TV coverage of the 2015 UK general election. Nicola Sturgeon is in a debate and a member of the audience admits to liking the new SNP leader but not supporting independence. She asks if she should join the party. Sturgeon listens and answers in what seems like perfect modern politicalese – you are welcome, she says. The audience in the studio and at home are comforted by the generosity, the non-tribalism of Nicola. It seems like a perfect example of our political leaders mending fences after a divisive campaign.
Consider what actually happened in that exchange. The leader of a party whose first tenet is independence is asking a person who openly admits she doesn’t want independence not just to vote for her, but to join the party. She is saying, implying at least, that the SNP is for people who are for Scotland – and that alone. There is no prescription to sign up for independence – just sign up for the SNP and its success. (Watch from 0930 onwards)
This shift in the party’s purpose from independence to being ‘Scotland’s party’ is often read as a simple tactic. The leadership are disguising their main aim, sovereignty, until a referendum victory looks likely. In fact something else is at work. The SNP is shifting its emphasis because the leadership can find no way of achieving the core aim safely.
Cut Nicola and no doubt she still bleeds independence, but what she means by that is far less clear than before the referendum. The doubt arises because the campaign towards the 2014 vote, and the economic information since, has kicked the old model to death. The idea that you could have a Scotland with high public spending, low taxes, a stable economy and reasonable government debt was wishful a year ago – now it is deluded.
***************
A lesson of the referendum is that many arguments around independence are simply redundant. We can all agree you can have a nation of any size, governed in any way, seeking to do whatever it wants within the tolerance of the international community. Tranches of what occupied both sides up to September 2014 are simply distractions.
The only thing that matters in Scotland’s argument is this – what will be the likely economic health in the short to medium term, and what will that mean for government spending and borrowing? Dull, but it determines everything else.
2014 was an economic sweetspot for two reasons. It was a good year for oil, and it came after thirty good years. Thus the Scottish economy looked healthy and was able to boast that it had chipped in more to the UK treasury than it had got back over recent times.
That is not the same as being able to say the Scottish economy could afford British levels of spending, which was a significant plank of the Yes promise. That debatable point could be obscured by lots of noise, and the SNP is accomplished at shouting.
But Nicola Sturgeon knows the SNP is good at misdirection. The party’s success has been built on hard work and spin. Behind the scenes she isn’t gullible. It may work in public to rubbish claims by the Institute of Fiscal Studies that there is a gap between what Scots pay into government and what they get out in services, but only fools believe their own propaganda. The fact is a gap exists – Scotland does not earn enough to pay for its current level of spending.
Once you accept that, you acknowledge that the SNP’s model is broken. That model, as expressed in the White Paper and numerous speeches, is that it was possible to move from the UK to an independent Scotland and keep services at the same level, without either borrowing a lot more or raising taxes. It isn’t.
As sure as death and taxes, there will be an economic jolt in the road to independence. Scotland will have to pay to either increase borrowing, raise taxes or cut services to bridge the gap between revenue and spending. And that’s not the only bump.
The second shock to the system will be the cost of borrowing. A new state will inevitably attract higher borrowing costs. Thus the price of the debt we inherit from the UK will go up on independence day. There’s more.
The appeal of the SNP is that it resists austerity. It promised to reduce budgets by (fractionally) less during the 2015 election. In other words, it would borrow more. So on top of the higher cost of borrowing, you would have more borrowing to pay for. It doesn’t end there.
SNP fine print makes it crystal clear that it will not reverse the dastardly Tory cuts on independence. It will not reverse the privatisations or the anti-union legislation of Thatcher and nor will it repair the cuts of Cameron and Osborne. However, it does give the impression that, come sovereignty, it will restore things to what they were. Its central message in Westminster is that the state need not be dismantled. It is therefore reasonable to expect, voters certainly will, that spending goes up on independence. Which will add even further to borrowing.
However, Scotland may not be allowed to borrow that much. A currency Union, either Sterling or the Euro, would come with limits. A brand new currency may not be trusted by lenders. So taxes would have to go up to meet the spending gap and the extra money it takes to ‘repair’ the state.
But there is of course one more bump to overcome – the cost of transferring to an independent state in the first place. Recall all the problems associated with merging eight police forces into one and multiply this by a hundred. What price the transfer to sovereignty? £1 billion, maybe £2 billion.
Thus an economy which couldn’t afford existing spending will be hit by several significant new demands on the Treasury. Without a thorough, independent understanding of those additional charges, you can make no promises on what independence will be like. It is reasonable to assume that all these obstacles can be overcome, but it is stupid to deny they exist. Read the rest of this entry »
Sandra White MSP and First Minister Sturgeon issue apologies for antisemitic cartoon
Sandra White’s tweet: the Murdoch image may be OK, but the Rothschild ‘war pig’ image is plainly antisemitic
By Mark Gardiner (Community Security Trust – CST)
Lessons in community relations
Yesterday (11/11/15), CST Blog featured an article stating the need for politicians and their political parties to adequately apologise, in words and actions, for antisemitic behaviours on their watch.
The article was highly critical of Sir Gerald Kaufman MP and the Labour Party; and Sandra White MSP (Member of Scottish Parliament) and the Scottish National Party. CST welcomes the fact that White and her party leader First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP have now moved swiftly, and directly, to try and allay Jewish communal concerns. Regrettably, the situation concerning Kaufman remains unchanged. Both White and Sturgeon’s behaviour and communications show how things could have been done better: not perfectly, but certainly better.
The publication of yesterday’s Blog came shortly before Sandra White MSP and First Minister Sturgeon MSP issued separate, further, lengthier apologies, for the grotesque antisemitic cartoon that White had retweeted. The new apologies were not related to CST’s posting and were sent in letters directly to SCoJeC, the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, a group with which CST has long worked.
The apologies are now public. (See SCoJeC here, the Glasgow Herald here, the letter of apology from Sandra White here and First Minister Sturgeon’s letter here.)
Above: the original version of the “Rothschild” half of White’s image
Sandra White’s letter describes the antisemitic cartoon as “repellent and offensive” and includes:
“…I had not intended to retweet this picture, and was horrified to learn that I had done so. As soon as this was brought to my attention, I deleted the tweet…There is nothing that happens in Israel or Palestine that can be justification for any racial or religious hatred. I truly believe that Scots of all backgrounds are welcoming and inclusive and this is something I have always been proud of…”.
Nicola Sturgeon’s letter explains that she has spoken directly to Sandra White and states:
“Regarding the original tweet itself, I find it and the image it contains abhorrent. As I stated at Giffnock [Synagogue], I will not tolerate anti-Semitism or religious or racial hatred of any kind at any level in our society.”
Both individuals have moved quickly to try and rectify the damage that has been done, writing in swift and direct response to SCoJeC as the representatives of Scottish Jewry. Ideally, both letters should have explicitly called the cartoon antisemitic, but they are not overly formulaic, and appear sincere and heartfelt, which is of paramount importance in such matters. Also of considerable importance is that SCoJeC (and CST) noted that White should have tweeted the apology, given that this was where the offence occurred. She has speedily done so.
This sorry episode may actually be of long term benefit to both Scottish Jews and the SNP. It has demonstrated antisemitism to a leading political party, that is clear in its opposition to antisemitism, but perhaps understandably does not grasp or recognise it as instinctively as Jews do. Furthermore, the First Minister, and one of the party’s most prominent pro-Palestinian voices, now know why Scottish Jews fear the potential for anti-Israel activism to lead to antisemitic ways of thinking.
Of course, the controversy will only benefit Scottish Jews and the SNP if both parties actually want a constructive and trusting relationship. The fact that both parties want (and largely have) this relationship is shown by the quick and effective communications between the SNP and SCoJeC.
This final lesson is reinforced by the conclusion of Nicola Sturgeon’s letter, from which others would do well to learn. This is it:
“I look forward to working further with you [SCoJeC] and further strengthening the links between the Scottish Government and the Jewish community in Scotland, which is and always will be an integral and highly valued part of Scottish society.”
This should be the response of all political parties, universities, trade unions, churches etc to Jewish concerns about antisemitism in pro-Palestinian spaces. It should be a willingness to learn from mistakes, a drawing closer to those who have been hurt and a recognition that British Jews fear antisemitism because they fear antisemitism: not because they are some kind of hostile political entity, seeking opportunistic points scoring on behalf of the Israeli government, or a mythical Global Zionism.
(For further views on this closing point, see David Hirsh at Fathom, here.)
