SCOTLAND 3.0

This is the first of a series of extracts from Scotland’s Road to Socialism – Time to Choose, edited by Gregor Gall and published by Scottish Left Review Press. By Continue reading →

In Praise of Uncertainty

By Christopher Silver “On issues such as the costs for establishing a diplomatic network, EU Membership, a currency union and on pensions the unanswered questions are mounting up and they Continue reading →

Poundland

By Daniel Wylie The recent debate over the currency to be used by an independent Scotland has been drearily familiar.  The Yes camp point to the report of the Scottish Continue reading →

Five Books to Save Scotland

By Christopher Silver No one reads books anymore. The idea that literature will play a key role in the coming months of debate and argument seems lamentably laughable. Take for Continue reading →

On the Road

By Jamie Maxwell One of the favourite refrains of the Scottish right is that Scotland’s centre of political gravity does not, as socialists and nationalists like to insist, sit to Continue reading →

RIC Edinburgh April 2013

Cat Boyd @ Radical Independence Conference April 2013 Alison Johnston @ Radical Independence Conference April 2013 Kevin Williamson @ Radical Independence Conference April 2013

CyberBrits and Spectator Sports

By Jamie Maxwell There was something depressingly predictable about the way George Osborne’s intervention in the independence debate last week provoked a spate of Scotland-focused editorials and comment pieces in Continue reading →

Watchmen

By Mike Small “Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended Continue reading →

Had Yer’ Gob, Bonny Lad

Iain Robson interviews Keith Armstrong and Paul Salveson about independence and democracy ‘both sides the Tweed’ (Iain Robson is founder of The Scotland Pages). When Scots go on about ‘the Continue reading →

In Solidarity with National Collective [Part 1]

RESISTANCE CHECKLIST: Resist whatever seems inevitable. Resist people who seem invincible. Resist the embrace of those who have lost. Resist the flattery of those who have won. Resist any idea Continue reading →

Paris Match

By Callum McCormick It’s been another sobering four days for Scottish football fans – the kind of sobering experience, ironically enough, likely to drive vast swathes of the nation to Continue reading →

Watchmen

By Phil Mac Giolla Bháin What do you call a scandal that already has “gate” in the name? “Gallowgategate” doesn’t do it for me, but what happened last Saturday a Continue reading →

Sex and Power

Juliet Swann is a feminist & environmentalist who passionately hopes that the independence debate can change the lives of women in Scotland for the better. International Women’s Day – why Continue reading →

VIDEO: Alan Bissett talk on identity, feminism, and the so-called Scottish cringe

Author Alan Bissett gives a short but wide-ranging talk that ranges over feminism, playing Andrea Dworkin on stage (aye!) and Scottish identity; including film, cultural colonisation and the so-called Scottish Continue reading →

Broken Britain

By Kate Higgins My first ever job on leaving university was as a graduate trainee for a retail company and it involved spending time in different stores around the UK. Continue reading →

MORE BOREALI (Latin: in a northern way)

This is an old editorial from the Edinburgh Review republished with kind permission by Robert Alan Jamieson I’d like the Scottish Nationalists more if they didn’t have word Nationalist in Continue reading →

Europe, the Left and Scottish Independence

By Emily Macintosh When discussing the EU in a Scottish independence context, the Yes campaign line is that a vote for independence is not insular or parochial, it is about Continue reading →

Finding Scottish Art

No country can afford to have its culture devalued in this way, no culture can afford to be defined as ‘out of history’.

The Intransigence of British Nationalism

By Scott Lavery Symbols of British cultural identity were constantly displayed during the Olympics, the Diamond Jubilee and throughout 2012. Alongside the fluttering Union Jacks, the inconvenient signs of economic Continue reading →

No

The UK is not a modern country but one fixated and permanently living in the past; that fossilised, archaic undemocratic political culture and system has allowed successive UK governments to drive through unpopular economic and social transformation in the interests of ‘Britain plc’.

The Democratic Deficit

The United Kingdom is the Democratic Deficit: we are all bound by it, and we will all have to leave it.

1 Billion Rising, Scotland

Join One Billion Rising and take part in a global strike. Join women and men you know in saying enough. Dance and show your solidarity with women all over the world. And let’s all stop accepting violence against women and girls as a given.

We Are Northern Lights

Love this trailer for We Are Northern Lights! which will premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival (Feb 16) The film was created from footage submitted by the general public in Continue reading →

Separatism

By Mike Small Cameron’s ‘Eurovision’ is a fundamental misreading of the mood of the nation (sic). While concerns about democratic deficiency are shared across the continent, there are quite different Continue reading →

Celtic Connections

By Chris Cairns Qualifying Group no. 7 for the 1988 European Championship read as follows: Republic of Ireland Bulgaria Belgium Scotland Luxembourg I bumped into Big Charlie in the office Continue reading →

The Edwin Morgan Memorial Lecture

On Tuesday 27 November 2012 the First Minister Alex Salmond delivered a lecture on the subject of housing and social justice. The lecture took place at the Scottish National Gallery and Continue reading →

Memories of the Future – Boeung Kak Lake and The Cause of Progress

By Darran Anderson And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures. A calamity had come to it, sure enough. The people had Continue reading →

EU 2 Brutus?

So Cameron may walk into and flounce out of more EU meetings, he may renegotiate to his heart’s content, he may grandstand and bluster, he may shout loudly and wave a small stick, but all he can get out of it is what the other 27 states agree to…

Flag Daze

By Mike Small Gerry Hassan wrote recently: “Pro-independence forces cannot just imagine, as Welsh and Sturgeon did, that Britain is dead or beyond reinvention, and that we can seamlessly move Continue reading →

Scotland and the Nexus of Nationhood

By Alastair McIntosh In a recent Scotsman essay Gerry Hassan cited Ernest Renan’s celebrated 1882 lecture to the Sorbonne: Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? “What is a Nation?” (ii) Renan, a Breton, Continue reading →