Author: caltonjock

Funding The White Helmets

the organisation is funded through the UK Government’s £1bn Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF)

They are used as:

1. A means of supporting and lending credibility to opposition structures within Syria.
2.  A supposedly impartial organisation that corroborates UK government accusations against the Russian and Syrian states.

There has been controversy regarding the CSSF, as details of some of the projects it funds are secret and even senior MPs are not told what they are.

The 2017 Annual Report provides revealing details:

Click to access conflict-stability-security-fund-annual-report-2016-2017.pdf

The Jo Cox Memorial Fund

One million pounds raised in her honour in just three days. The scale and speed of the public response was overwhelming and showed how powerful her story was. Finance raised was to be used to support causes she believed in, including: The White Helmets: Volunteer search and rescue workers in Syria. Unarmed and neutral, these heroes have saved more than 51,000 lives from under the rubble and bring hope to the region. 

Who are the White helmets?

The murder of a rising star in UK politics, Jo Cox, MP  sent shock waves across the world. Within hours of her death, a special fund was established in her name to raise money. One cause supported was the Syrian White Helmets.

But credible allegations soon surfaced that the plea for financial support was a cynical exploitation of Jo Cox’s murder to revive the flagging credibility of a US State Department & UK Foreign Office asset on the ground in Syria.

The alleged “non-governmental” organisation received funding from at least three major NATO governments, including $23 million from the US Government and $29 million (£19.7 million) from the UK Government, $4.5 million (€4 million) from the Dutch Government. In addition, it received material assistance and training funded and run by a variety of other EU Nations.

The White Helmets were established as a crucial component of a US, UK and NATO shadow state operation inside Syria.  The group was essential to the propaganda stream that prosecuted a merciless media and political campaign against the elected Syrian government and permitted the US and NATO to justify their regime of crippling economic and humanitarian sanctions against the Syrian people.

The ‘NGO’ blueprint was successful and might well be deployed in future destabilizing operations providing a direct intra-venus line into the field of battle and acts as a conduit for information, equipment and medical support.

The foregoing matches the projected future of warfare, described as “swarming” and is outlined in a report produced by the RAND Corporation entitled: Swarming and the Future of Conflict.

“The emergence of a military doctrine based on swarming pods and clusters requires that defense policymakers develop new approaches to connectivity and control and achieve a new balance between the two. Far more than traditional approaches to battle, swarming clearly depends upon robust information flows. Securing these flows, therefore, can be seen as a necessary condition for successful swarming.”

Relevant articles and interviews are provided below.  There needs to be a serious public and political re-evauluation of the morality of funding US,UK and NATO groups established to further “regime change” objectives.

White Helmets exposed as US , UK agents embedded with Al Nusra and ISIS

“Behind the Headline,” investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley pulled back the curtain on anti-Assad ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘moderate rebels,’ revealing a carefully calibrated propaganda campaign to drive the US / UK intervention in the war-torn country.” Watch:

Mint Press: US Propaganda War in Syria: Report Ties White Helmets to US Intervention

“White Helmets primary function is propaganda” reported an independent journalist, who tied the group to George Soros and the controversial advocacy group Avaaz.”

Sputnik: Soros Sponsored NGO in Syria Aims at Ousting Assad not Saving Civilians

“One of the largest humanitarian organizations operating in war-torn Syria – the White Helmets – has been accused of being an anti-government propaganda arm that encourages direct foreign intervention.”

21st Century Wire: Syria’s White Helmets, War by Way of Deception Part 1

This piece examines the role of the Syria Civil Defence aka,’The White Helmets’ currently operating in Syria and take a closer look at their financial sources and mainstream media partners in order to better determine if they are indeed “neutral” as media moguls proclaim these “humanitarians” to be.

21st Century Wire: Part II. Syria’s White Helmets, “Moderate” Executioners

The NGO hydra has no more powerful or influential serpentine head in Syria than the Syria Civil Defence aka The White Helmets who, according to their leader and creator, James Le Mesurier, hold greater sway than even ISIS or Al Nusra confabs over the Syrian communities. This article explores the White Helmet involvement in terrorist executions of civilians particularly in Aleppo.

21st Century Wire: Humanitarian Propaganda War Against Syria – Led by Avaaz and the White Helmets

“The White Helmets in their haste to point the finger of blame at Moscow, managed to tweet about Russia’s air strikes several hours before the Russian Parliament actually authorized the use of the Air Force in Syria.” ~ Sott.net

Eva Bartlett: Human Rights Front Groups Warring on Syria

This page will continue to expand as more so-called “Human Rights” groups are outed for propagating anti-Syria war rhetoric and false allegations against the Syrian government and Syrian Arab Army.  As it is, the list of players is quite extensive.  Below, I’ll list the known HR front people and groups (many, if not most, with links to the US State Department and criminals like George Soros).

Ron Paul Institute: Syria the Propaganda Ring

We have demonstrated that the White Helmets are an integral part of the propaganda vanguard that ensures obscurantism of fact and propagation of Human Rights fiction that elicits the well-intentioned and self righteous response from a very cleverly duped public. A priority for these NGOs is to keep pushing the No Fly Zone scenario which has already been seen to have disastrous implications for innocent civilians in Libya, for example.

We will add to the above articles and interviews as they become available.  Vanessa Beeley has just completed a speaking tour of the UK and Iran during which she highlighted the role of the NGO complex in general and the White Helmets in particular as a new breed of predatory humanitarianism being unleashed against target nations. Videos of her talks will be published as soon as they become available from the AV7 conference and Frome Stop War.

Author Vanessa Beeley is a contributor to 21WIRE, and since 2011, she has spent most of her time in the Middle East reporting on events there – as a independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Movement, and a volunteer with the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. See more of her work at her blog The Wall Will Fall.

http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/06/21/who-are-the-syria-white-helmets/

https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/human-rights-front-groups-humanitarian-interventionalists-warring-on-syria/

Mortality age by region

Up to the early 1950’s, Scottish mortality rates were broadly comparable with the rest of the UK. But from that time, attributed to increased levels of deprivation life expectancy, in Scotland hardly increased over a period of 60+ years whereas in England age survival rates increased year on year and there is now a very significant gap in life expectancy between England & Scotland.

England Home Counties & London

Male pensioners, in affluent areas of London & the South East of England enjoy a life expectancy of around 80 years. Female life expectancy is about 84 years.

Scotland

In Scotland, male life expectancy is 72 years. Female life expectancy is 78 years.

Scottish pensioners subsidise their English counterparts in the South of England

Pensions to Scots men before death. £8k x 7 years £56K

Pensions to English men before death. £8K x 15 years £120K

Pensions to Scots women before death. £6k x 13 years £78K

Pensions to English female before death. £6K x 19 years £114K

Conclusion

Scottish pensioners heavily subsidize pension payments to much longer living English pensioners.

The Office of National Statistics recorded age expectancy in the period 2010-2012:

London & SE England: Males 80y Females 84y.

Glasgow & West of Scotland; Males 73y Females 78y.

Percentage of newborns in Glasgow & West of Scotland who reach age 65y; Males 73% Females 79%.

27% of males and 22% of females in Glasgow & West of Scotland will contribute to a pension all of their working lives and get NOTHING in return by way of pension.

So as to be fair, I selected one, (similar in population density) conurbation in each country: Glasgow & West of Scotland & London & S/East England.

Conclusion

Scottish pensioners are badly served by the Westminster government. Our people die much earlier in life than the English. Indeed the life expectancy for 25%+ of Scottish children indicates they may not survive beyond age 65y. A damming indictment of the so called fair and equal distribution of resources in the UK. Time we were out of it.

Pensions were severely eroded when New Labour changed the rules and tied state retirement pension increases to the rate of inflation.

Gordon Brown, with his insider  knowledge was aware that all was not well with the UK economy and the punishing adverse impact his change on pensioners income. In the first year the state pension increased by a miserable 14p.

Bailing out fraudulent bankers and austerity– pensioners driven to despair and early death

The 2008 financial crisis had a negative impact on pensions and pensioner poverty and continues unabated due to Westminster government fiscal policies.

Uk taxpayers, including pensioners are in debt to money lenders to the tune of nearly 3trillion. Interest payments are horrendous and it is doubtful the prime sum  of loans will ever be repaid.

But UK bankers who plunged the nation into financial crisis escaped unpunished. Indeed many bankers and associated politicians have been appointed to high office as peers of the realm and sit in judgement over the many millions of citizens they ripped off.

Bankers who remained in the “bailed out by the taxpayer banking system”  have been and continued to attract bonus payment measured in the hundreds of £millions. The rich have got much richer and old age pensioners and many disadvantaged members of society are dependent on charity being faced with a lack of support from an uncaring welfare state just to remain alive.

Apart from invidious severe cuts in welfare benefits the weapon favoured by successive Westminster governments has been the retention of interest rates at or near zero. The effect has been to reduce the value of pensions by around 35% over the past 10 years resulting in ever increasing numbers of pensioners requiring the assistance of means tested welfare benefits which cannot be guaranteed.

The final straw for pensioners is the removal of the triple lock which resulted in 60,000 of the UK’s least well-off pensioners, with partners of working age losing thousands of pounds a year as a result of benefit changes designed to save £1bn over the next five years.

The Langley Intelligence Group Network (L.I.G.N.E.T.)

Is a fully independent intelligence and forecasting service whose mission is to analyse and report on geopolitical risks.

Langley Report on the British Defence Industry – Trade Over Principles

Relations between London and Moscow may be strained over Ukraine, but that didn’t stop the British defence industry from selling more than £150m in arms to Russia.

Remarkably, at the same time Britain sold armaments to Ukraine it disguised the sale of “sniper rifle parts” by relabelling the shipments “parts for hunting rifles”.

NATO and the Nuclear Umbrella – A View

“One of the ironies in the whole debate about nuclear weapons in the UK is that Scotland, who have them, don’t want them, and England who don’t have them, want Scotland, who don’t want them, to keep them”

George Robertson and the Unionists Scaremongering

Robertson, his Unionist politician colleagues and “better together” campaigners spread their “we’re all doomed” lies and warned that should an independent Scotland instruct an early removal of Trident from the Clyde it would be denied NATO membership.

Absolute piffle!! and they knew it! In 2010, Robertson criticized a German government instruction to remove US long-range nuclear weapons from German territory as damaging not only to Germany but to the NATO alliance as a whole. He said that the proposal was driven more by populist sentiment than any long-term strategic goal. But the weapons were removed and Germany remained its membership of NATO

Tactical Nuclear weapons in Europe

U.S. and Russia bilateral negotiations to reduce long-range weapons did not cover weapons in Europe and it has around 150 tactical nuclear gravity bombs stationed in Belgium, Germany, Holland, Italy, and Turkey.

There is a NATO agreement in place allowing the bombs to be transferred to the control and use by a NATO nation in time of conflict.

In 2001 the Greek air force ordered a new fighter jet and chose a model that could not carry nuclear gravity bombs which forced the U.S. to withdraw its weapons. Greece is still a member of NATO.

The U.S. still stores gravity bombs in Turkey, but the Turkish air force is no longer involved. Turkey is still a member of NATO.

Canada gave up its support of nuclear weapons many years ago. Canada is still a member of NATO.

UK aircraft cannot carry tactical nuclear bombs

The UK decided upon replacing its Tornado, tactical nuclear bomb carrying fleet before the end of 2020. The chosen successor aircraft, the Eurofighter (Typhoon) a joint European venture, is in service in, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and has been sold worldwide in ever-increasing numbers. It is not capable of carrying tactical nuclear bombs. And not one country has been threatened with expulsion from NATO.

A spokesperson for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies commented: “NATO’s hidden nuclear arsenal is unpopular, potentially unsafe and a hindrance to global nonproliferation efforts and it’s time for it to be removed”.

Political opportunists Hilary and Nicola

In her first years in politics, it was evident Hillary Clinton lacked any credible political skills and her political career would be wholly reliant on the support of her husband President Bill Clinton who opened many doors for her. Following her husband’s retirement, she decided on taking her career forward without him and failed badly.

The career of Nicola Sturgeon fits the same pattern. She failed in her chosen career in Law then followed up with nearly 10 years of failure in politics only succeeding when Alex Salmond gave her a political “leg up” mentoring and protecting her from her many inadequacies then handing over to her the leadership of a thriving SNP at the end of 2014. Mirroring the career of Clinton, Sturgeon failed. The SNP membership is despondent and badly divided and there is a great danger it will descend into anarchy.

2003: Hillary and the Whiney women

The “The Hillary Papers.” was a document compiled from the records of Diane Blair, a friend of the Clintons’ who kept journals describing her many conversations with Hillary and their work on the Clinton campaigns.

Blair’s husband donated the papers to the University of Arkansas and although available to the public they had not been examined until the “Arkansas Free Beacon” published extracts from the 1992 Clinton Presidential campaign the bumpy first years of the Clinton Administration and the Monica Lewinsky saga.

In the papers, there is information that is telling and unappealing as repeatedly women’s groups are referred to as bodies to be managed rather than listened to.

Blair often complained about how underappreciated Hillary was, repeating Hillary’s view that much of the blame lay with the press: a bunch of “complete hypocrites” with “big ego’s and no brains.”

Indeed, Hillary seemed to think that a lot of people were just dumb, or annoying and she should be forgiven for calling Lewinsky, the White House intern with whom her husband became sexually involved, a “narcissistic looney tune” who they had tried to “manage” without success.

Blair’s comments on a conversation from December 1993, in which she and Hillary “discussed books, movies, Packwood”. Senator Bob Packwood, was accused of sexual misconduct involving women who worked for him.

Blair noted: Hillary is tired of all those “whiney” women, she needed to back Bob so he would be with her on health care). Serial female abuser Packwood was subsequently forced to resign from the Senate, in 1995.

2016: Hillary and the Ukrainian Oligarch

A word can mean the difference between night and day and the inclusion of the word “family” in the “Clinton Foundation” name provides just that distinction. The “Clinton Family Foundation” is a charitable organisation that has, over many years, given millions of dollars to people in need in Arkansas.

But then there is the “Clinton Foundation” an organisation whose political influence is funded by the financial contributions of oligarchs, corporations, foreign groups and governments, to the tune of many hundreds of millions of dollars. Foreign influencers include the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Brunei and Algeria.

Corporations include American companies such as Coca-Cola and ExxonMobil and Britain’s Barclay’s Bank. The list is not exhaustive and there are many donors who have given millions to be sure of gaining the support of the foundation in their activities.

Some financial donations are suspect, such as those of Victor Pinchuk, a notorious Ukrainian oligarch who contributed between $10m and $25m to the “Foundation”, and loaned his private jet to the Clintons and attended President Clinton’s 65th birthday extravaganza in Los Angeles. He also attended around a dozen private meetings with State Department officials between September 2011 and November 2012.

Public statements in support of Pinchuk, issued through the “Clinton Foundation” closely mirror American foreign policy when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and the American public and Clintons political opponents are keen to gain sight of the Clinton emails which she saved at home onto an illegal server allegedly to deny prying eyes the details of her many intrigues.

Additional information here: https://relayto.com/matt-politicano/clinton-foundation-foreigner-donations-1t8cnvbp

2016: Hillary Clinton and the 2016 Presidential election

The New York Times reported that Clinton and her aides had decided on a strategy making the Trump-Russia allegation a “theme” of the campaign.

The Times wrote. “Even at the height of the Cold War, it was hard to find a presidential campaign willing to charge that its rival was essentially secretly doing the bidding of a key American adversary. But the accusation is emerging as a theme of the Clinton campaign, as part of an attempt to portray Trump not only as an isolationist but also as one who would go soft on confronting Russia.”

The Clinton campaign engaged a political research firm Fusion GPS who, in turn, hired a former MI5 British spy, Christopher Steele, to compile what became known as the Steele dossier in which he claimed there was a “well-developed conspiracy” between Trump and Russia and that a low-level campaign adviser named Carter Page was at the centre of it.

Steele claimed that the Russians had offered Page billions of dollars, to end U.S. sanctions if Trump became president. In a follow-up, Steele said Trump fixer Michael Cohen had secretly met with Russians in Prague to work out the details of the collision.

In conclusion, he included the piece de resistance that became known as the “pee tape.” Thee allegation that, in a Moscow hotel room in 2013, Trump had watched as prostitutes performed a kinky sex act while Russian spy cameras captured the whole scene on video.

It was all rubbish. The supposed master spy Steele had no current sources in Russia and it was revealed later that his many “Russian Contacts” was in fact one man, Igor Danchenko, who worked at liberal Washington think tank the Brookings Institution.

Danchenko simply regurgitated allegations passed to him by a Clinton-related PR man named Charles Dolan, who sent in stuff that he had read in the newspapers claiming it had come to him from people closely linked to Trump. The dossier was an elaborate joke.

Yet incredulously Clinton’s operatives got a willing FBI to take the report seriously. Bureau Director Comey included extracts from the dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment, an ongoing investigation into claims of Russian hacking and the FBI then used the dossier to win court approval to wiretap Trump’s campaign offices.

The FBI’s Deputy Chief in his evidence to Congress stated that without the Steele Dossier the FBI would not have sought the wiretap so it is a fair assumption to conclude that Hillary Clinton played a critical role in pressing the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign.

But coupled with the foregoing Clinton’s real goal was achieved in that she attracted a great deal of public discussion of the allegations just before the election.

Clinton’s tactics finally came unstuck in January 2017, when President-elect Trump was first informed of the “pee tape” allegation.

Hints of the scandal were selectively leaked to the media by Clinton’s campaign team in an attempt to further compromise Trump.

Buzzfeed screwed the Clinton move on Trump by publishing the complete Steele Dossier.

The “sh*t hit the fan” when political conversations throughout the States and other parts of the world derided its scurrilous contents.

A recap:

A special counsel, Robert Mueller, conducted a two-year investigation into the Trump-Russia charge, which came to be known as the “collusion.”

With unlimited financial resources and all the power of U.S. law enforcement, Mueller could not establish any collusion and did not allege that a single American, from Donald Trump down, took part in any such scheme.

The infamous Steele Dossier proved that Clinton had placed false and/or unverified scandals about Trump with a compliant media. Without evidence or corroborating facts, her team roped in the nation’s most powerful intelligence and law enforcement agencies into the Clinton opposition research team.

An effort that continued after the election and by any measure, the dossier was a smashing success. The damage it inflicted on President Trump lasted the entire length of his term of office.

2017: Sturgeon’s tour of the US and her meeting with trailblazer Hillary

A heavily criticised Sturgeon tour of the US was judged by some to be a “selfie Queen” jaunt at the Scottish taxpayer’s expense. Sturgeon insisted the visit had been trade-focused, although without tangible evidence of any deal saying: “there is, I detect, a real desire to strengthen economic links between the United States and Scotland. That’s been the focus of the trip.”

In the course of the grand tour, Sturgeon and Hillary Clinton both addressed the “Women in the World” summit and, prior to meeting “trailblazer” Clinton, Sturgeon exclaimed “I’ve got to be careful I don’t act like a fangirl.” before posing for publicity photos together. Journalist Tina Brown, who founded the event, also shared a photograph of herself with the political “power couple”, calling them “two women I admire most anywhere”. So all bestie friends together.

In conversation with Brown on stage, Sturgeon said: “I look at Hillary and she has been a trailblazer for women. Her sheer resilience I find utterly amazing, she has made it easier for women like me in politics, and I think that I and women across the world really owe Hillary a debt of gratitude.”

2019: LGBTQ Advocate ‘Disappointed’ With How Hillary Clinton Denied Lesbian Rumors

Shock jock Howard Stern pushed more than a few of Hillary’s buttons when he asked rather forthrightly on his radio show if she “Swung for the other team”

“Contrary to what you might hear, I actually like men,” Hillary told Stern.

“Raise your right hand and confirm you’ve never had a lesbian affair” he responded.

A laughing Clinton said “never, never, never! Never even been tempted. I dated a lot of different people, and I liked a lot of them. I was pretty popular. I was OK popular……. boys were not my problem.”

Reporter Trish Bendix, a member of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and winner of the 2015 Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for excellence in LGBT media, said: “I do not appreciate her salacious comments about lesbianism, in particular her use of the word “tempted” It’s so frustrating when public figures like Hillary feel the need to dispel lesbian rumours in a way that equates lesbianism or queerness with salaciousness, and that’s ultimately what I dislike about the way she phrased it. I think there’s a way to refute untrue ideas about one’s own identity without saying something damaging to others.”

Gabriel Hays of the Media Research Center had fun with Hillary getting scolded for not being “woke enough” when talking about her sexuality. with her comment: “Tsk tsk, Hillary. The former presidential candidate is taking heat for her response to old rumours about her being a lesbian,” And while we’re not bashing her for her sexuality, it’s a hilarious predicament for the woman who fancies herself a de facto leader of the LBGTQ agenda.”

Summary:

Sturgeon’s admiration and support for Hillary Clinton are badly misplaced as is her pursuit of the imposition by stealth on Scotland of a minority LGBTQ agenda for change which is totally foreign to the beliefs of the vast majority of Scots.

Her progress is attributable to the apathy of many members of the SNP who have allowed narrow-focused groups to hijack party policies and to the support for the Scottish National Party (SNP) cause of seeking independence from England which has protected Sturgeon from exposure to the more challenging environment of international politics.

Her conduct and that of her supporters in the Party, in Government and the Crown Office, has brought with it a realization within Scotland that she lacks the experience, wisdom and sound judgement necessary to be the leader of an Independent Scotland.

Hillary Clinton

2022 is a midterm election year in the USA. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be up for grabs. The Republican Party is predicted to retake the senate. If affirmed it is likely that efforts will be made to jail Hillary Clinton and others closely associated in their near 5-year false and malicious disinformation campaign accusing President Trump of working with President Putin devising and implementing plans to subvert American voters enabling Trump to defeat Clinton. November 2022 might well be a pivotal period in political history.

1996: President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, (DOMA) a law that defined federal marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

2000: Running for the Senate she said: “Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman.

2004: In a Senate debate she said that she believed that marriage was: “a sacred bond between a man and a woman and she took umbrage at anyone who might suggest that those who worry about amending the Constitution are less committed to the sanctity of marriage, or to the fundamental bedrock principle that exists between a man and a woman.”

2007: Hillary Clinton answered a questionnaire for the Human Rights Campaign. About whether marriage should be made legally available to two committed adults of the same sex she entered that she was “opposed” though she supported civil unions. In a follow-up debate, she was asked “What is at the heart of your opposition to same-sex marriage?” Her reply was: “I prefer to think of it as being very positive about civil unions. You know, it’s a personal position. How we get to full equality is the debate we’re having, and I am absolutely in favour of civil unions with full equality of benefits, rights, and privileges.”

2012: President Obama reversed his previous position and announced his support for same-sex marriage

2013: Announcing she would run for President in 2016 she announced her support for same-sex marriage stating: “LGBT Americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers, our friends, our loved ones. And they are full and equal citizens, and they deserve the right to citizenship. That includes marriage. That’s why I support marriage for lesbian and gay couples. I support it personally and as a matter of policy and law, embedded in a broader effort to advance equality and opportunity for LGBT Americans and all Americans.”

2013: At St. Andrew’s University in Scotland in her first foreign visit since she announced she would run for President in 2016, she received a doctor of laws degree for her work as a politician and diplomat in championing the causes of education, human rights, democracy, civil society and promoting opportunities for women around the world.

2014: She was grilled about her ever-changing positions on gay marriage and was asked: “Would you say your view evolved since the ’90s or that the American public evolved, allowing you to state your real view?” She replied: “I think I’m an American and I think we have all evolved.”

2014: Scottish Independence Referendum: She told the BBC’s Jeremy Paxton: “I would hate to have England lose Scotland. Rebutting her unwelcome interference Alex Salmond said Scotland: “was not England’s property to be lost it is one of the oldest nations in the World deciding its own future.” Sturgeon made no comment.

2015: On the day of the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments about same-sex marriage bans in a handful of states in April, she changed her “H” logo to rainbow-coloured and tweeted the message: “Every loving couple & family deserves to be recognized & treated equally under the law across our nation.”

2016: Her current support of gay marriage and the LGBT community is based on nothing more than political expediency. She had zero interest in supporting gay rights until it was no longer risky to be an LGBT advocate.

2016: It is unusual for political leaders to express their opinion on other country’s elections while campaigning is still underway. Neutrality is usually observed but Nicola Sturgeon broke with political tradition and ‘fervently’ endorsed Clinton’s bid for the American Presidency saying: Hillary Clinton would be “a great president.”

2016: Clinton released a video to the UK media attacking Donald Trump’s credibility at the time he was visiting his newly revamped Turnberry course. The video which was set to bagpipe music featured Sturgeon who said Trump was not welcome in Scotland and Michael Forbes, who challenged Trump’s bid to build his Meanie Estate golf course in Aberdeenshire.

Comments: Ever the political opportunist she opposed same-sex marriage as a candidate for the Senate, while in office as a senator, and while running for president in 2008. She expressed her support for civil unions starting in 2000 and for the rights of states to set their own laws in favour of same-sex marriage in 2006. Then as polls showed that a majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage, Clinton’s views changed, too. She announced her support for same-sex marriage in March 2013.

Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic, in a 2014 blog post wrote: Clinton opposed gay marriage until public opinion shifted in its favour. Supporters have focused on the argument of her having an evolving stance, but as a high-profile Democrat for the past few decades, Clinton played a role in obstructing progress for LGBT rights. In addition to DOMA, her husband Bill Clinton signed the HIV travel ban into law, which disproportionately discriminated against the LGBT community. He also signed the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. “As long as marriage equality hurt the Democrats, they were against it. Now it may even hurt Republicans, they’re for it. So Hillary is for it now.”

She voted for and strongly supported the Iraq War for years until she finally apologized and admitted in 2014 it was a mistake. But she has not learned. An apology isn’t enough when she continued with her war hawk tendencies, invariably pushing for regime change and perpetuating U.S. military conflicts abroad. As one of the most high-profile Democrats in the Senate, Clinton’s Iraq stance played a central role in manufacturing consent for a war we now know was launched from baseless accusations. During her service as secretary of state, Clinton supported every war demanded by the military-industrial complex.

The insidious dogma of hyper-extremist activists is holding Scottish politics to ransom

Scotland is a colony of England and its politicians are permitted to operate only under the strict control of the Westminster government. Faced with this reality the acceptable face of politics within Scotland has become narrow-minded and focused on encouraging the development of pressure groups with narrow agendas who are able to successfully transfer their aims and ambitions across the border to England.

LGBTQ hyper-extremist and fundamentalist activists increasingly exert political influence on society in England and Scotland well in excess of levels warranted by their numbers and mainstream politicians need to be alerted to this since many of the views and demands for change they wish to impose are toxic to the vast bulk of the electorate.

Addressing the issues in Scotland requires an understanding of the modus-operandi of the activists which is to become cuckoos in the nest of the SNP and over time crowd out anyone who failed to accede to their demands.

As of February 2022, the group have grown in numbers and influence and through a process of gerrymandering, internal election processes now dictate and decide SNP policies.

The SNP no longer exists in the form many of its members signed up to yet it strangely continues to promote itself to the Scottish electorate as the party of independence.

The two main LGBTQ activist centres are located in Stirling and Aberdeen and are focussed on the leadership of two SNP MP’s: Alyn Smith and Kirsty Blackman who together with their supporters have done little to progress the cause of Scottish independence and should have the courage of their convictions and leave the SNP too form a new political party and stand for office in a by-election in a new LGBTQ Party.

The Aberdeen faction first raised its head in January 2018 when a small number of LGBTQ activists located in the Grampian Region formed an umbrella organisation the “Aberdeen Independence Movement” (AIM). Its membership comprised:

Co-Chairs:
Fatima Joji: from Westhill, Aberdeenshire, topped the SNP’s North-East regional list for the Scottish Parliament elections.
Kenny Anderson: Longtime SNP supporter. Managing Director and Majority Shareholder, Anderson Buchan Properties Ltd.

Other members
Neil Baillie: SNP Councillor
Vicky Harper: SNP Councillor
Andy Stuart: SNP Convenor Aberdeenshire West

Finance Team:
Virginia Dawod: Manager, Robert Gordon University.

Theo Forbes: Graphics Media And Communications Officer.
2016 2018: Member of the National Executive Committee and National Events and Fundraising Officer, “Young Scots for Independence”.
2017 2021: Employed by the SNP as an intern from September 2020. Attended Aberdeen University studying Politics & International Relations.

Joshua Aaron Mennie: from Aberdeen
2018: 2020: Media Consultant. Intern for Kirsty Blackwood MP.
2019 – 2020: Member National Executive Committee (NEC) and Convener for the official LGBTQ+ wing of the SNP.
2022 – Pres: Communications & Officer Manager to Karen Adam MSP at Holyrood.

Tourette’s Syndrome* sufferer, Mennie is a person to note since his rise to prominence within the Party has been remarkable. In his 3 years of membership, he has been elected as a disabled member of the NEC. Heads the “Out For Indy” group and is the leader of the party within a party, the LGBTQ+ group of the SNP.

• The Equality Act 2010 (‘the Act’) and Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (‘DDA’) defines a disabled person as:

“A person has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment, and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on the person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.” Tourette’s syndrome is not listed in the Social Security Administration’s Blue Book (the guide used to help SSA representatives determine whether a person qualifies for disability based on their condition)

And the Mennie family are well represented in the party. His sister Jessica was elected in 2019, SNP councillor for Donside in Aberdeen (£18k annual salary). She was also the office manager (2015-2019) to Mark McDonald MSP, who was forced to resign from the Party by its leadership who outlandishly accepted an allegation of sexual harassment against him based on a joke about an autocorrect error in a single text message. It is claimed that she also works for party HQ in a new job which was allegedly not advertised and for which nobody else was interviewed.

NEC Meeting hijacked by LGBTQ activists

The LGBTQ group proposed that the SNP’s eight regional lists for the Scottish parliamentary election should include in top place, either a *BAME or a disabled candidate. Four regions would be allocated a BAME person and the other four a disabled person. The proposal carried the rider that disabled status should be by self-identification with no confirmatory checking being carried out.

The proposal was debated at some length since many members believed it would be illegal to adopt the proposal under equalities law. The matter was deferred and referred to the Party’s legal counsel, Jonathan Mitchell QC who warned that the policy was legally dubious and open to challenge in the courts and any case brought by a person disadvantaged by the rule would probably succeed, and cost the SNP tens of thousands of pounds in legal expenses.

But the LGBTQ group insisted the proposal should be decided by the NEC and its LGBTQ Chair, Kirsten Oswald allowed the matter to be put to a vote.
The vote was tied and it was expected that in compliance with accepted practice the Chair would cast her vote for retention of the status quo. She didn’t and passed the motion placing the Party at great risk of legal and costly claims of discrimination.

Three members announced conflicts of interest before the vote.

• Fiona Robertson who declared that she intended to seek the top spot on the North-East list as a disabled candidate who was in attendance as a substitute for an NEC member who was unable to attend. Did not recuse herself from the vote.
• Graham Campbell, a councillor from Glasgow who declared his intention to stand on either the Glasgow or Lothian lists, both of which were to have their top spots reserved for BAME* candidates under the proposal. Campbell, whose partner is SNP MP Anne McLauchlin, did not recuse himself from the vote.
• Greg McCarra from the Association of Nationalist Councillors (who is neither disabled nor BAME) also declared he was seeking nomination. He did recuse himself from the vote.
• Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates. The 2011 census identified, 2.66% of the Scottish population as Asian and 0.5% Black and the SNP policy is unfairly discrimatory against Asians. Not a lot of wisdom in directly transferring and implementing American electoral policies in Scotland

Those subsequently included on the protected list for the North East of Scotland included: Fatima Joji, Christian Allard, Fergus Mutch, William Duff, Julie Bell, Nadia El-Nakla, John Cooke, Lynne Short, Gillian Al-Samarai and Joshua Mennie.

Comments on the North East Scotland list candidates:

Joshua Mennie. See before. Claimed to be disabled suffering from Tourette’s Syndrome

Gillian al-Samari: Councillor for Dyce, Bucksburn and Danestone (salary £18K) also worked for Mark McDonald MSP between 2013-2019. McDonald was forced to resign from the Party by its leadership who outlandishly accepted an allegation of sexual harassment against him based on a joke about an autocorrect error in a single text message. Councillor Samari ceased working for McDonald on 23 March 2019 and transferred her employment to Kirsty Blackman MP on 1 May 2019, taking up a position as a caseworker. Her swift transfer was criticised by opposition party’s who accused her of double-dipping” the taxpayer’s purse.

Fatima Joji: Caseworker for Richard Thomson MP. interests: politics and development advocacy. Holds a postgraduate diploma in ‘International Development (Poverty, Inequality & Development). Chair of AIM. Key political statements:

26 May 2021: Unsuccessful in the Scottish election in the North East regional list she tried to address the issue within the party but felt she now needed to speak out after being “harassed for months” with no support from the Party.

On her experience as a candidate for selection in Aberdeenshire West, she said that as a Black candidate it had been mixed. While the local membership was “largely positive” her name had been included in a tweet claiming that Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf had overturned the decision to fail several BAME candidates at vetting, allowing them to stand.

But Joji insisted she had passed vetting without issue. “But I think it did have an impact,” she said of the tweet.

She urged the SNP to address the under-representation of BAME candidates, particularly in areas with large communities of colour through the list system Saying. “I think there is a real opportunity there to turn rhetoric into reality.”

10 Sep 2021: I am SNP because of its progressive and inclusive policies that are built upon the foundations of equality fairness, dignity and respect.

Mennie attacks Kate Forbes

The SNP’s Finance Secretary, Derek Mackay, fell from grace after revelations in the press that he had made sexual advances toward a 16-year-old boy, inundating him with inappropriate Facebook messages and inviting him to meet up.

Mackay resigned on the day he was supposed to present the SNP Government’s budget and the Government’s Public Finance Minister, Kate Forbes, completed the task. Her presentation was excellent and she became the front runner to replace MacKay as Cabinet Secretary for the Economy. But in Mennie’s mind, her proposed appointment, as opposed to Mackay’s resignation, became controversial.

The zealous monomaniac and ferocious tweeter ignored an actual scandal. Mackay, a 42-year-old minister, was tipped to be the next leader of Scotland being forced to resign for grooming a child, to confront an imaginary one. A church-going minister, tipped to be the next Finance Secretary, who believes, as indeed other non-church going ministers also believe, that the legal definition of male and female ought not to be changed without informed public discussion and agreement. He tweeted: “The last thing our party needs is Kate Forbes climbing the ladder when she has such questionable views on equality.”

As evidence of these “questionable” views, he also tweeted: “I’m always concerned when politicians conflate their personal religious beliefs into their work-life to the detriment of others,” confirming a complete lack of self-awareness. His tweet, (since deleted) was his response to a letter published in the press (https://www.thenational.scot/news/19859777.kate-forbes-calls-tolerance-gra-debate) highlighting concerns over the Scottish government’s proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act (a law that would replace the legal definition of sex with gender self-declaration).

A man who describes himself as an “animal stuck inside a human body” has decided to abandon his wife and children to live the life of a squirrel in the woods.

Alan Meyers, an electrician and father of two from Dyersburg in Tennessee, has always described himself as a squirrel stuck in a man’s body and has been for years a militant of the transspecies movement.

Meyers was diagnosed with a condition called clinical lycanthropy, a rare psychiatric syndrome that involves a delusion that the affected person can transform into has transformed into or is a non-human animal.

Despite his condition, he had always lived a rather normal life until last week, when he decided to abandon his job and family to live naked in the forest.

His wife Johanna says her husband’s decision was spontaneous and unexpected, even if he talked about being a squirrel for years.

“He always said he felt like a squirrel stuck in a human body and kept hiding food around the house, but I never thought he would abandon us!”

She also fears for his health since temperatures are extremely cold at this time of the year.

“He goes around running naked in the woods and chewing bark and frozen fruits… He could really get sick or die!” 

Meyers’ wife and two children are afraid that he could get sick or die if he keeps living naked in the woods.

The transspecies movement has gained in popularity in recent years and an increasing number of cases of people choosing to live as animals have attracted the attention of the media over recent years.

According to experts, only a small portion of those, like Meyers, actually suffer from medical conditions explaining their lifestyle, while others choose to live this way.

A man convinced he was a pelican attracted some attention on the issue last year after he jumped off a 45-story building and died in New Jersey, thinking he could fly.

According to official statistics, between 3,000 and 5,000 Americans consider themselves to be “transspecies”.

Nov 2021: Trans species man who identifies as a squirrel arrested for stealing two 20 ton peanut trucks

A trans-species man who lives in the woods as a squirrel was arrested this morning by deputies of the Bacon County Sheriff’s Department for hijacking two trucks containing more than twenty tons of peanuts each. 49-year old Barry Wilde is a well known trans-species activist who spends most of his time living the life of a squirrel in 460 acres of wooded area that his parents own in central Georgia. Although he claims to live off the land by eating wild fruits, mushrooms and pine nuts, he’s accused of complementing his food supply with more than 42 tons of peanuts, stolen during two violent heists near Macon in Georgia.

Deputy Eric Smith of the Bacon County Sheriff’s Department, said: “We found two huge heaps of peanuts during our search of the property. We believe he may have already buried half of it in his preparation for winter, as a squirrel would. the accused borrowed a car, a rifle and two pistols from his parent’s home without their knowledge, and used them to hijack two trucks filled with peanuts at gunpoint. Everything used in the robbery can be linked to his parents. Even the rope he used to tie up the drivers was bought by his mother for their home’s flagpole just days before the crimes. The stolen trucks have yet to be recovered.”

(worldnewsdailyreport)

https://worldnewsdailyreport.com/trans-species-man-who-identifies-as-a-squirrel-arrested-for-two-20-ton-peanut-truck-heists/

May 2019: Ukraine Anti-Corruption President Elected

Ukraine from the date of its independence in 1991 has had five presidents. The political legacy of all was one of political intrigues, corruption, dancing to the tunes of oligarchs and foreign powers and devoid of any popular support from the long-suffering and impoverished Ukrainian people.

The present incumbent is 41 year old, Jewish born Volodymyr Zelensky, who before taking on the role of President on 20 May 2019 enjoyed a career in the entertainment industry including participation in a popular televised comic student-led quiz show the success of which provided him with public exposure as a comedian, actor and screenwriter.

In his campaign for the Presidency, he declined to align himself with any political policies in preference for popularist addresses to the public in which he said that he represented a fresh start for Ukraine and he would end the graft, criminal influence and power of corrupt politicians and oligarchs who illegally transferred the wealth of the nation to personal off-shore accounts and properties all over the world.

Aug 2019: Stewart McDonald MP for Glasgow South

Stewart McDonald’s interest in Ukraine and Russia is quite remarkable.

Until 2018, he showed little or no interest in the countries, but then, following an opaquely funded and organized jolly to Ukraine, he suddenly transformed into an ardent opponent of Moscow.

He also became a passionate supporter of the British establishment’s position on foreign policy.

Perhaps it was the chicken Kyiv that turned his head. But he was rewarded for his efforts with the presentation of the “Third Class of the Order of Merit of Ukrainian” award from President Zelensky for his significant personal contribution to strengthening the international prestige of Ukraine, the development of interstate cooperation and fruitful public activities.

Oct 2021: President Zelensky and the Pandora Papers

As the avatar of reform, Zelensky promised to take down the oligarchs with their untouchable offshore assets and break their magic walls of influence throughout the country.

But Some things never change in Ukrainian politics, where power brokers with offshore wealth hold the reins. The revelation that Zelensky has his own impregnable offshore assets of ambiguous legality is yet another blow to his already damaged reputation.

The 12 million files analyzed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed, among others, the international financial schemes of 38 highly placed Ukrainians, the most of any country.

The papers show that Zelensky and his friends set up their chain of offshore companies long before they ever considered going into politics.

When Zelensky was about to be elected president in 2019, he handed his share over to his closest adviser, Serhiy Shefir. But the papers revealed that under the arrangement, dividends would keep flowing to a company owned by Zelensky’s wife Olena.

Much of these assets went undeclared. What’s also troubling is that there’s also evidence that Zelensky’s offshore companies received payments from entities connected to Ihor Kolomoisky, the billionaire oligarch that airs Zelensky’s shows. Some of that money may have been stolen by Kolomoisky through PrivatBank from Ukrainians.

Thus far, Kolomoisky has faced no criminal charges in the $5.5 billion bank fraud that forced Ukraine to bail out the nation’s largest bank and take ownership in 2016, although he faces civil lawsuits and at least one criminal investigation in the U.S.

These revelations show that far from being different, Zelensky is a lot like his arch-rival, the oligarch and former President Petro Poroshenko, who was revealed to have a massive offshore network in the previous Panama Papers leak in 2016.

Zelensky is not dissimilar to other oligarchs he vowed to take down.

More here: https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/self-servant-of-the-people-zelenskys-offshore-schemes.html

BBC Journalist Gavin Esler

A Scot living in England Gavin William James Esler was a journalist, television presenter and author. He fronted Newsnight on BBC2 from 2003 until 2014 when he took on the role of Chancellor of the University of Kent. A confirmed Unionist he stood for election for the pro-remain party, Change UK in the 2019 UK General Election

In November 2013, at the University of Kent, he delivered a lecture on the subject of a programme he produced for the BBC. This article is taken from that lecture:

There are those who believe that Britain has had its day. There are now four significant parliaments or assemblies in the United Kingdom: Edinburgh, Belfast, sometimes Cardiff, and London. The monarchy and those other great British institutions – the Military, the Churches, the National Health Service, the BBC, the nationalised industries – have been eroded or forced to change, or they have gone completely. Now we have a prospect of a common European currency and greater power going to Brussels. But is it really UK RIP?

I spent last year trying to find out. I started in the Scottish Highlands and went via Glasgow, Ibrox Stadium, Edinburgh and the new Parliament down to Canterbury and Tunbridge Wells, then over to the Welsh valleys and Northern Ireland. One thing that really struck me was how lucky we are.

‘Brits’ caused quite a stir when, at the beginning of last year, the Home Secretary, Jack Straw told me that in his view, ‘the English are potentially very aggressive, very violent and of course, we have used that propensity to subjugate Ireland, Wales and Scotland and then we used it in Europe and with our Empire.

You have within the UK three small nations under the cosh of the English. These small nations have inevitably sought expression by a very explicit idea of nationhood. You have this very dominant other nation England, ten times bigger than the others, which is self-confident and therefore has no reason to be explicit about it.

I think as we move into this new century,’ Mr Straw went on, ‘people’s sense of Englishness will become more articulate, and that’s partly because of the mirror that devolution provides us and partly because we’re becoming more European’.

Why did these remarks cause such a furore? Jack Straw was born in Essex. He represents a Blackburn constituency, and in many ways seems the quintessential Englishman. Yet he was called anti-English by quite a few newspapers.

It may have been more politically wise to tone down some of the phrasings, but wasn’t Mr Straw merely pointing out the obvious? – that the English didn’t conquer the world just by playing cricket and having cucumber sandwiches. And the Scots or Welsh or Irish have frequently joined in this great enterprise and profited greatly from it. Complaints about the disproportionate number of Scots in the Cabinet have a history going back 200 years!

While making this radio series I would ask English interviewees to tell me the date of St George’s Day. Most people had no idea; I was even assured by one group in Tunbridge Wells that it was 17 March (St Patrick’s Day.) The only two people I met for the series who did know the date for St George’s day were Jack Straw and a columnist for the Daily Mail called Simon Heffer who then wrote articles about why Jack Straw was an idiot!

In North London, I came across a counselling group of intelligent, well-educated, middle-income, left-wing English men and women. They spent some of their time, in this counselling group, discussing problems they had with their English identities.

They all found it easy to think of negative stereotypes of England: the lager lout, foreigner-haters, imperialists. I reminded them that whatever their flaws, the English had, for example, started the RSPCA; they were uniquely tolerant of immigrants, and they had an extraordinary cultural history.

Jack Straw told me, ‘we should stop apologising for being English and celebrate the country’s huge achievements – the industrialisation of the world, the development of institutions, the literature, music and poetry we have brought to the world. At the same time, we should recognise the downside of being English – this aggressive, jingoistic streak – and try to eliminate it.

Some of those English people I interviewed about their sense of identity, strangely to me anyway, spoke of the United Kingdom in the past tense with a sense of loss. Britain or the United Kingdom was dead, they suggested, thanks to the Scots and the Welsh.

This attitude was summed up by Sir Roy Strong who had just completed a book on the cultural history of Britain, ‘In Scotland and Wales, Sir Roy said ‘you have the National Museum of Scotland, the National Gallery of Scotland, the National Museum of Wales, the National Gallery of Wales, but there is no National Gallery of England. You see the word English attached to very little.’

It is worth reminding ourselves of some of the reasons why the historian Norman Davies and others have concluded that Britain is ‘in a terminal phase’. Britain was an invention after the Union of Crowns in 1603 and has been re-invented repeatedly in the Union of Parliament in 1707, after union with Ireland in 1801, when the Irish Free States seceeded in 1922 and then around the Welfare State in the 1940s.

Historian Linda Colley said that what kept us together were three things that don’t seem relevant to most people now: Protestantism, Empire and War. You could add, in this century, the national industries the Coal Board, British Steel, British Rail and the great Unions.

Now the nationalised industries have gone, the Unions have lost much of their power and that other glue, Socialism, which knitted together working-class people from Glasgow to the Welsh valleys has also cracked apart.

There is, as we all know, no shared British football team or football league. There is no common legal system, no national British church, no national anthem. Nonetheless, I am unconvinced of the inevitability of the break-up of the United Kingdom.

Professor of Government at Oxford University Vernon Bogden told me, ‘Britishness is not an artificial construct, but something deeply organic. It would need more than devolution to undermine the attachment to the British state. We are the most Euro-sceptic country in the EU. That’s a sign of the organic sense of Britishness that still survives.’

What else? There is a certain nostalgia. In a British Legion Club in Cardiff a wonderful World War II veteran, Tony Jones, explained to me why he ripped up his exemption papers to fight Hitler, ‘not because I was Welsh,’ Tony Jones said, ‘but because I was British. We were defending this island – Scots, Welsh, English. We were all the same when it came to the last war.’

Britain is not unique in questioning its continuing status as a nation-state. In the case of the former Soviet Union or Indonesia or Yugoslavia, ‘nation state’ means not a lot. But many other nations are re-inventing themselves in ways that do have a parallel for us. A generation ago Spain and Ireland both had appalling images of backwardness with poor, agriculture-based economies. One was a semi-Fascist dictatorship and both were bastions of traditional Catholicism.

Now Ireland, as we all know, has re-invented itself as the ‘Celtic Tiger’ and Spain has obviously thrown off the Franco image. In Barcelona where the Mayor’s office carries three flags; those of the City of Barcelona, the region of Catalonia and the Spanish national flag. The Mayor, educated in Edinburgh, suggested to me that it was a British notion that devolution meant the country would fall apart. He believed that the result would be exactly the opposite.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, one of the most prominent and outspoken Unionists in Labour, put it to me this way. ‘A lot of this debate is based on a misapprehension that without an institutional formula the UK could break up.

But Britain exists because people want it to exist. Gordon Brown and William Hague believe that all kinds of values – fair play, tolerance, self-reliance, decency, inventiveness, enterprise, a sense of personal privacy, love of the eccentric, a sense of humour – somehow keep Britain together.

As I travelled across the country quite often I’d hear the same complaints. Too many Scots in important positions; it was unfair for Scottish and Welsh politicians to vote on issues affecting them in devolved parliaments but also to vote on issues affecting England. Disproportionate amounts of taxpayers’ money were being spent on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Let me point to what I think is more important than all this: something which does keep up altogether and that’s a shared sense of British culture in its wider sense. This has been reflected, it seems to me, by the Tate Gallery, which in March this year split into two: Tate Modern and Tate Britain. I suggested to Stephen Dukar who is the Director of Tate Britain that to some people Tate Britain might seem a daft idea because if Britain really is dead he has named his gallery after the corpse. He responded that it was a perfect moment to engage in a debate about what British art might mean, whether Britain was any longer a valid concept and how it was changing. He saw Tate Britain as contributing to the new debate in the 21st century about the relationships within these islands.

Modern British culture is so diverse and inventive it stretches from John Le Carré to Bryn Terfyll to Dwight York, from the Royal Opera House to your local Balti house, from Glasgow Rangers to Chelsea. Fans from Northern Ireland travel every week to football games in Glasgow, in Manchester, in Liverpool. TV sets in the Irish Republic will tune in to the BBC. Eastenders and Coronation Street, English soap operas, remain British institutions in Glasgow and Cardiff and Belfast. Even the historian Norman Davies, one of those who said that the British state was on its last legs, concedes that British culture, in its widest sense, will remain robust.

What is it that has kept the idea of Scotland as a nation alive for 400 years and does it offer a clue about Britishness? Why do most Scots, including myself (despite the fact I’ve lived outside Scotland for longer than I’ve lived in it), still feel Scottish in one way or another – despite the power of the greatest empire the world has ever known, the British Empire, despite the drift of so many Scots southwards to help run that Empire, and despite the superior cultural power of England.

Each of these three smaller nations was never completely overwhelmed by England or by the British State because in some small corner of our hearts most of us retain the belief that we were still Scots too, or Welsh or Irish even when we were British.

The question for the future it seems to me is whether the idea of being British will continue to reside in some small corner of our hearts. If it does, Britain will somehow be reinvented. If it ceases to be important to us, then no matter what constitutional arrangements we make, Britain will die. https://www.kent.ac.uk/alumni/pdf/kent36.pdf