A Westminster Promise Is No Promise At All

Only in Ireland can we get away with saying that we might have told our Scottish neighbours so. Almost exactly one hundred years ago the whole island of Ireland secured the British promise of Home Rule. This was stalled so that young Irishmen could be sent out to trenches in their droves to fight and die for a country they had already decided to leave. That was 1914. Home Rule did come for Ireland, but not before England had torn the country to pieces. In 2014 only part of Ireland has secured its independence, and still Irish men and women from the ‘British part’ in the north are being used for target practice in British foreign wars. Now Scotland is discovering, or being reminded, of the true meaning of a Westminster promise. For good reason the ancient Irish coined the proverb: Beware of the hoof of the horse, the horn of the bull, and the smile of the Saxon. London promised the Scots, and they delivered… nothing, but they did deliver.

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on the eve of its independence referendum, set before Scotland a sweeping array of promises that would guarantee Scotland more powers over its own affairs; so many powers that the terms of Federalism and Home Rule became currency. At the eleventh hour the British government gave Scotland the ‘Devo Max’ option first refused to the voters, and this was just enough to sway just enough of the electorate to remain in the union. What maximum devolution meant to Scotland and what it meant to Westminster were two completely different things, only no one in Westminster felt the need to spell this out to the Scots. In Scotland this was Home Rule, but they have been shocked to discover that what Westminster meant was increased powers over royal fishing rights and independence on matters of road signage.

The Heartbeat of British Politics Reveals an Inevitable Lurch to the Far-Right

Britain’s BBC has unashamedly promoted the British Far-Right UKIP Party to the end that whichever Party seeks power in the 2015 general election will have to bend to their will to form another coalition government. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats’ alliance with the Conservatives to keep the union together in Scotland has sent both into decline, and the Liberal Democrats have paid the predictable added price for their coalition with the same. It now seems all but decided that the next British government will be a coalition formed by the weakening Conservatives and the ascending Fascists. What we have learned from the two most recent by-elections in England is that the Tory Party is crumbling from the inside with defections to UKIP, that PM Cameron is losing his grip on confidence of his party, and that Boris Johnson is gearing up to take the leadership.

What few are saying, least of all the BBC, is that both the Conservatives and UKIP are backed by the same corporate interests and institutions which want to see the further expansion of a liberalised economic agenda in the UK. This is a system that has pushed for further privatisation and the complete sell off of the National Health Service. Under the next coalition government things do not look good for the working poor, the sick and disabled, the unemployed and – least of all – the immigrants who have kept much of the lowest paid sectors of the service economy alive. At present in Britain there is no viable alternative to this right-leaning trend, a political situation that is likely to worsen a deepening social crisis for another five years.

Scapegoating Immigrants to Divert Attention from Bigger Problems

Britain has a long tradition of economic migration. Over the past five hundred years England led the world in the colonial project by resettling people from the British Isles in far-flung parts of the world in the formation of the British Empire. In more recent times Britons have continued to migrate for economic and other reasons. For many of the same reasons people from the other countries migrate, and some of those come and settle in Britain. This is nothing new. French Huguenots, Eastern European Jews, people from Ireland, Italians and a whole host of others have come to live in Britain, and as a result have made Britain a richer, more diverse collection of nations. In the past twenty years, however, this time-honoured and routine process has been labelled ‘a problem’ by politicians and a media seeking to make political capital and create a smoke screen to cover other, more serious issues.

In the past twenty years, the same period in which public attitudes to migrants have taken a rapid shift to the far-right, the highest earners in Britain have more than doubled their income, while the wealth of the bottom ten percent has halved. This is never reported by the BBC, and yet they speak of migration in highly emotive terms with words like floodgates and crisis. There is no immigration crisis in Britain, and there never has been. What has changed in the last number of decades is the ethnic profile of those coming to Britain. In terms of pure statistics the evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of recent immigrants to Britain are in gainful employment and pay their taxes. It is simply absurd to blame an employment shortage or a housing crisis on these people. We all pay our taxes, and it is with this tax money that we all employ the government to create employment and build houses. Neither of which is being done. What is happening is that more and more of the wealth of the country is being gathered to the top, and the top is doing its best to give native Britons somewhere else to lay the blame.

Britain has a long tradition of economic migration. Over the past five hundred years England led the world in the colonial project by resettling people from the British Isles in far-flung parts of the world in the formation of the British Empire. In more recent times Britons have continued to migrate for economic and other […]

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Britain has a long tradition of economic migration. Over the past five hundred years England led the world in the colonial project by resettling people from the British Isles in far-flung parts of the world in the formation of the British Empire. In more recent times Britons have continued to migrate for economic and other […]

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Only in Ireland can we get away with saying that we might have told our Scottish neighbours so. Almost exactly one hundred years ago the whole island of Ireland secured the British promise of Home Rule. This was stalled so that young Irishmen could be sent out to trenches in their droves to fight and […]

Former Chair of Labour Friends of Israel set to Lead Scottish Labour

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