The Right Dishonourable

It has become a cliche in British politics to say that Scotland will leave the United Kingdom sometime soon. Such cliches are usually a sign of lazy thinking, but cynics are right to warn that our country is at risk of breaking up. It has been for several years.

Over the weekend the Scottish National Party (SNP) set out its plan to make North Britain independent again. I’d assumed that the party’s attempts to hold a referendum would end with a simple refusal from Westminster, but the nats have other ideas.

Continue reading →

There is always a great deal of squabbling over who the true heir is. Pretenders to a successful leader will always want to inherit legitimacy, while critics will draw unflattering comparisons with less fondly remembered predecessors.

Selectively reading history is thus an inevitable part of politics. But while readers will be familiar with debates over whether Donald Trump is a literally Hitler, a more obscure quarrel has begun in the British press about whether leavers or remainers are the real Whigs.

Continue reading →

Among the key disputes of the Brexit years has been whether the European Union fancies itself as a full sovereign state or merely an international club. Leavers tended to believe that statehood is the ultimate destination, with mainstream remainers arguing such a view is paranoid.

The distinction has been seen in a squabble over whether the EU ambassador to Britain deserves full diplomatic treatment. The Foreign Office has said that the ambassador will only be given the same privileges as representatives of other international organisations, which are more limited than those granted to diplomats from proper countries.

Given this debate, it is interesting to see a recent video tweeted out by Frontex, the bloc’s border agency.

Continue reading →