Latest News & Articles
The illegal rendition of asylum seekers signals the UK's values, not Scotland's
It is easy to express outrage at the UK Government's plan to illegally rendition asylum seekers 6,000 miles to a country with a poor human rights record and a recent record of mass genocide.However, you must not discount the possibility that you are supposed to be outraged. It is a possibility that this is all a ruse to distract both...
The cost of living crisis is driven by greed and the Union
WE have all become accustomed to Boris Johnson’s false “bumbling” manner in public appearances and interviews as he tries not to cement his place in history as the PM who made Britain the laughing stock of the world after “getting Brexit done”. However, his and the Chancellor’s woefully inadequate handling of the economy, which has been battered by the pandemic,...
Three Reasons Westminster's Energy Strategy Doesn’t Work for Scotland
The UK Government announced a new energy strategy this week. This concentrates investment in nuclear power. Scots householders will have to pay for that - but Scotland doesn’t need it. The country has more than enough renewables for all its electricity needs and more. Instead, Scotland urgently needs a transformation of the UK's electricity transmission system which does not serve...
Conservative northern branch, Zero to offer Scotland
Murdo Fraser accuses the Scottish Government of being a Potemkin Government but the increasingly Scotiaphobic Tory northern branch has nothing to offer Scotland. Scottish voters know it and Murdo knows it, which is why he was silent about his own party’s record in government. Just three months ago the Conservative northern branch leader Douglas Ross won some plaudits calling...
Scottish TV industry should double following independence
The UK Government's plans to sell off Channel Four, alongside regular hints that they want to scrap the BBC licence fee, reveal their unwillingness to support the idea of public service broadcasting. It also exposes Scotland’s marginal status and lack of decision-making power when it comes to how public sector broadcasting is regulated and funded. Programme-makers like Alan Clements...
Too wee, too poor for independence? Malta didn't think so - lessons for Scotland
Today, Malta is a successful small independent country, the smallest in the EU. But when it sought its independence from Britain, it was told it was too wee and too poor to make a go of it. Sound familiar?
A loss of freedom is the price we pay for Brexit
Brian Monteith tries to defend the indefensible, firstly equating Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion with the UK's 2016 Brexit vote and secondly agreeing with Boris Johnson's characterisation of being a member of the EU family, as slavery. The comparisons could not be more inaccurate. Ukraine is fighting for its survival as an independent state after being invaded by...
An Independent Scotland would be welcomed back into the EU
Guest post from Europe for Scotland is the arm of the Scottish campaign that campaigns across Europe. It is a grassroots movement of Europeans who would like to welcome an independent Scotland back into the EU. We are shining a spotlight on Scotland in continental Europe, rallying support for Scotland’s right to choose its own future, and calling on the...
The answer to Scotland's energy security question is independence
Michael Glackin in the Sunday Times says the Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed UK energy security. The answer, he says, is to drill for more oil and gas, frack and build nuclear power plants. He’s palpably excited about Boris’ new ‘energy supply strategy’ but when have the Conservatives ever come up with a strategy that benefited Scotland and not...
Lacking independence, Scotland's elected Parliament has less power than the shadowy House of Lords
Evgeny Lebedev is a member of the British House of LordsThe latest scandal to hit the House of Lords is the news British security services warned that granting a peerage to Russian Evgeny Lebedev - bankrolled by his oligarch father Alexander - could be a risk to national security. The Sunday Times, which broke the story, reported that...
The Wheels are off the UK Bus
Guy Stenhouse, writing in one of the Herald's regular, 'talking Scotland down' columns, that they gift to unionist campaigners, appears to have only a passing acquaintance with movies or the facts. He uses the analogy about wheels coming off the nationalist bus just as they did in the movie the 'Italian Job' - I can categorically tell you that...
UK Government photo ID plan will disenfranchise 100,000 Scots - and may reduce turnout for Indyref 2
The House of Lords is currently considering the Elections Bill which would disenfranchise about 2.5% of the electorate by requiring everyone to bring a passport, driving licence or similar photo ID to the polling station. This week, the Electoral Commission wrote a strongly-worded public letter to the Government warning that the BIll’s plans for direct Government oversight of political...
What the UK Government have really done to Scotland
In yesterday’s Herald, Tory peer Lord Dunlop wrote the ‘UK Government are doing more for Scotland than the SNP ever will'. Perhaps that explains why Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross didn't meet with Johnson on his latest furtive foray into ‘North Britain.’ The most notable thing that the UK Government have done for Scotland is to forcibly eject it...
Believe in Scotland 2021/22 - Annual Independence Campaign Review
Believe in Scotland is two years old - We reach the undecided and soft No voters and we support local Yes groups across Scotland. Our second year of campaigning got off to a good start with Believe in Scotland being named the Independence Campaigning Group of the year 2020 by the Scottish Independence Foundation and The National Newspaper. It ended with...
Daily Mail Fail: Paper published pensions story it now claims is false
The Daily Mail yesterday ran an article criticising Believe in Scotland as having made a false claim about pensions which Believe in Scotland then thoroughly debunked. We have now discovered that the Daily Mail previously published the same claim about the UK state pension being the worst in the developed world. We, (only half-jokingly) wonder if the...