{"id":22828,"date":"2022-12-09T21:10:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=22828"},"modified":"2023-03-21T21:11:24","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T21:11:24","slug":"gordon-browns-new-report-and-the-supreme-court-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2022\/12\/09\/gordon-browns-new-report-and-the-supreme-court-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Gordon Brown’s new report and the Supreme Court ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Small of bella caledonia<\/a> has written this response to\u00a0Gordon Brown\u2019s report \u2018A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy\u2019. He argues that this report collapses under the weight of its own incoherence. Instead of viewing this as a set of solutions for Scotland, it should be seen as Labour\u2019s attempt to create a populist sovereignty for England. This is Labour\u2019s Brexit. Allan Armstrong spoke for the Radical Independence Campaign at the demonstration called outside Holyrood, in response to the Supreme Court ruling. This article was also posted by \u00a0bella caledonia<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. GORDON BROWN’S NEW REPORT – THE SOLUTION?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gordon and Arlene<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two new fronts have emerged in the past couple of weeks to quell the possibility of Scottish independence and quash the vile separatists. On the one hand (let\u2019s say the right) Arlene Foster launched the \u201cTogether UK Foundation\u201d in the Democratic Unionist stronghold of Kensington. Foster had the support of The Conservative Woman\u2019s editor Kathy Gyngell who wrote (\u2018Arlene Foster\u2019s inspirational move to keep the Kingdom United\u2019<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Arlene Foster – the new face of the Union<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBaroness Foster is a forceful woman but she is also a people person and diplomat. She stressed the \u2018explicitly non-party political\u2019 approach of the foundation \u2013 she almost didn\u2019t have to. It was self-evident that she has already attracted a wide range of support from the range of guests present. White, Indian or black, they had one thing in common \u2013 they were pro-Union and felt and were proud to be British. They neither wanted to see that identity taken away from them, or their country diminished in the world and dropping to a third-rating state as must be the case were the United Kingdom broken up.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her article covering the launch\u00a0Kathy Gyngell explained<\/a>\u00a0that Foster was said to hold a \u201cparticular brief against the Scottish National Party which she described as being just about anti-everything \u2013 anti-English, antisemitic, and anti-Indian\u201d. The bizarre comments were never explained (and later deleted), though the presence of Neil LaL, chairman of the Indian Council of Scotland, may have something to do with it.<\/p>\n

Baroness Foster\u2019s imitative had previously been billed to be bolstered by a tour with Colonel Davidson. Back in August the Scottish Daily Express announced \u2018Arlene Foster and Ruth Davidson to go on tour to battle Nicola Sturgeon and protect the union<\/a>\u2018), explaining: \u201cSources close to the tour claimed that they were undertaking it in order to shift the limelight away from Scotland\u2019s First Minister\u00a0Nicola Sturgeon\u00a0<\/a>who has been courting media attention for the last month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly these plans failed to materialise. You can follow the Together UK Foundation\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n

A New Britain<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the other hand, the hotly awaited plans for constitutional reform by Gordon Brown have been announced. The grandly titled:\u00a0\u2018A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy, Report of the Commission on the UK\u2019s Future\u2019<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>landed with a big clunky-fisted thump on Monday morning.\u00a0Read it here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Gordon Brown has been handing-down these chunky top-down sort of \u2018commission\/reports\u2019 all of his life. It\u2019s what he does.<\/p>\n

The report is lengthy, design-lite, and has all the hallmarks of a New Labour re-tread, an attempt to sprinkle some Blair-Years magic onto Starmer\u2019s uninspiring non-vision.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very strange document.<\/p>\n

Before going into the detail of the actual proposals three oddities are worth noting. The first is the step-change for Labour. For years the message to those advocating constitutional change has been a variation of: \u201cNobody\u2019s actually interested in the constitution .., what people really want to hear about is bread and butter issues \u2026\u201d (bla bla bla). Now, out of the blue, what\u2019s REALLY of Number One importance is \u2026 the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Second it\u2019s really difficult to follow the democratic logic of this whole project. It\u2019s a report that\u2019s been squirreled away by Brown (and his team?) for years. It\u2019s not \u2013 as far as we know \u2013 had any interaction with, you know, people. To this end it is the perfect Brown-Blair democracy project, handed-down from on high with all its Paternalistic Magnificence. It is Devolution from Above. It also seems very strange that it will be enacted via an election. So Labour utterly condemns the SNP\u2019s proposed\u00a0de facto referendum for constitutional change,<\/em>\u00a0but their counter is \u2026 a\u00a0de facto referendum for constitutional change.\u00a0<\/em>These plans will go ahead even if utterly rejected by the Scottish people at the next election. This is astonishing brazen and completely undemocratic.<\/p>\n

In some ways this follows the descent of Labour since the 1990s. 90s Labour under the doomed-duo of Blair and Brown were a highly electable force who rode the wave of popular constitutional change and shaped and nurtured it into a manageable project. Or so they thought. But these proposals do not have an underpinning of popular will, they do not have decades of campaigning for Home Rule, they do not have a cross-party Constitutional Convention, they do not have a mass civil-society consensus.\u00a0Ian Murray<\/a>\u00a0is not Donald Dewar.<\/p>\n

Starmer-Brown will be imagining one (or both of them) striding down the High Street, past St Gile\u2019s surrounded by Meg Ryan-style\u00a0Yes! Yes! Yes!<\/em>\u00a0banners as the masses reach a crescendo of approval for their reforms. This dear reader, is unlikely.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The New Britain document, indeed the entire project, is the dewy-eyed reminiscence of Brown in his twilight years, except in his dotage he\u2019s forgotten the \u2018democracy\u2019 bit about democracy. It is like an echo of Brecht\u2019s famous poem, The Solution:<\/p>\n

After the uprising of the 17th June<\/em>
\nThe Secretary of the Writers Union<\/em>
\nHad leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee<\/em>
\nStating that the people<\/em>
\nHad forfeited the confidence of the government<\/em>
\nAnd could win it back only<\/em>
\nBy redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier<\/em>
\nIn that case for the government<\/em>
\nTo dissolve the people<\/em>
\nAnd elect another?<\/em><\/p>\n

Third, despite all of the bluster from Labour\u2019s solo MP, this isn\u2019t really about Scotland at all. This is Labour\u2019s Brexit. While the report scatters scraps of odd powers to the \u2018nations and regions\u2019 it has a strange absence at its very heart. The nation for which this document has really been prepared doesn\u2019t appear in its pages. As Kirsty Hughes writes: \u201cSomewhere missing in this is England as a whole. Brown\u2019s report talks of a \u2018Union of Nations\u2019 but the strangely absent England remains the heart of power & dominance where Westminster still effectively acts as the UK and England\u2019s government. It\u2019s the shadowy elephant in the room\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, much of the report is aimed at English voters and based on English political innovations. In this respect it pretends that devolution hasn\u2019t really happened, and certainly that the Better together campaign never did.<\/p>\n

Chapter Eight: \u2018Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in a Reformed United Kingdom\u2019 doesn\u2019t even mention England. It states: \u201cScotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each has its own unique position in the UK reflecting the different history and aspirations of each.\u201d England just doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason for that, and there\u2019s a reason for Brown\u2019s forgetfulness about the \u2018democracy bit\u2019 of democracy. The reason is that there is no mandate for any of this, and his own leader has explicitly, and immediately explained that even if Scottish voters overwhelmingly reject these ideas they\u2019ll get them anyway. I told you it was Labour\u2019s Brexit.<\/p>\n

Take. Back, Fucking. Control.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reason England is the Macbeth\/Voldemort of the drama is because to name such an entity would demand that you explain and confront some of the absurdities of Brown\u2019s Federalism 3.0 \u2013 its asymmetry \u2013 its lack of democracy \u2013 its weird imposition of Mayoral style devolution \u2013 its doublespeak.<\/p>\n

Some of the logic is torturous:\u00a0Recommendation 19: Enhanced Local Control: There is a strong case for pushing power as close as possible to people in Scotland, and consideration should be given to establishing new forms of local and regional leadership, such as directly elected Mayors.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There is no mandate, political discussion of any of this in Scotland. Nor indeed, really in England. As Iain Macwhirter, appropriately re-located to\u00a0The Spectator<\/a>\u00a0has it: \u201cEnglish voters are rightly suspicious of constitutional change. They have never supported federalism or even regional devolution. Labour abandoned it in 2004 after regional assemblies were decisively rejected by a referendum in the north east of England. It is not clear whether the English regions would be given another say though one suspects not. That would only fuel SNP demands for a repeat referendum.\u201d<\/p>\n

English nationalists also baulk at the prospect of devolution which they see as a form of balkanisation, an effort to undermine a nascent English state\/nation. Of course Starmer-Brown & Co don\u2019t mean to suppress that, they just endlessly conflate and confuse England-Britain which just emerges as the default setting, a universal and unexplained nation that sometimes pretends to be a Union.<\/p>\n

Dispute all of the fanfare, the ridiculous build-up, when you look at the actual detail of \u2018new powers for Scotland\u2019, there\u2019s very little there. As Adam Ramsay points out (\u2018Labour knows our democracy is broken. So why are its \u2018reforms\u2019 so weak?<\/a>\u2018):<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report proposes only limited new powers for Holyrood, mainly \u201ca consultation over updating Scottish capital borrowing ceilings to account for changing economic circumstances. Any changes should retain the limits on what borrowing can be used for and be consistent with UK-wide fiscal rules\u201d. But this is offset by a proposed new legal obligation for different UK governments to co-operate \u2013 potentially meaning Westminster could use the courts to force Holyrood to collaborate with whatever daft Daily Mail scheme it\u2019s chasing after today, and fundamentally undermining the autonomy of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliaments.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, the massively hyped \u2018abolition of the House of Lords\u2019 turns out to be no such thing.<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s reports thunders: \u201cThe House of Lords in its present form is indefensible in principle. It still contains the last vestiges of the mediaeval estates of the realm, notably 92 hereditary peers representing the landowning classes. No justification can be made for their role in making the laws of the land. That is not however the most serious concern about the Lords. It has also become excessively large, having swollen in recent years to around 800 Peers \u2013 and now ranks as the second biggest parliamentary chamber in the world, after the National Peoples\u2019 Congress in China.\u201d<\/p>\n

But their proposals for a second chamber are deeply problematic. As Macwhirter notes: \u201cThe Assembly of Nations and Regions would also install a raft of nationalist assembly persons in the upper house, which the SNP currently boycotts. English voters loathe the idea of Scots meddling in Westminster, which is why the Tories will no doubt seek to spin the Brown plan as providing a new platform for separatism.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Brown\u2019s report states: \u201cThe present House of Lords is not geographically representative, and, despite the efforts of some members, does not look at issues from the perspective of the nations and regions of the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean, that\u2019s kind of The Point. The UK is a deeply centralised state. It is Anglo-Britain. To be \u2018geographically representative\u2019 is to bring into the heart of the beast the very characters and issues that this report studiously avoids and ignores. You want to systematically deny a democratic vote in Scotland, then you want to say \u2018come and join an \u2018Assembly of Nations and Regions\u2019 where you think those issues are juist going to melt away?<\/p>\n

Asymmetry Inaction<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the very heart of this project is the same dilemma and contradiction that was pointed out by the Kilbrandon Commission in 1973. It\u2019s repeated here. As\u00a0Believe in Scotland<\/a>\u00a0notes: \u201cThis report once again presents federalism\/devolution as an alternative to Scottish independence but this is a pipe dream. England has\u00a084% of the UK population<\/a>\u00a0and federalism cannot work under these conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevermind England, as Plaid Cymru point out does it even map as something that has coherence across the other parts of the UK:<\/p>\n

But the real reason none of this is landing well, is that Brown\u2019s convenient constitutional dementia has consequences. Yesterday Brown was quoted saying:\u00a0\u201cThe status quo is off the agenda, as far as Labour is concerned, we are the party of change in Scotland\u201d.<\/p>\n

But this party of change has one MP. One. And Sir Keir Starmer has already explained faithfully that these plans will be imposed on Scotland even if we reject them. That\u2019s a grand plan for the Party of Change.<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s report is excellent in outlining some of the key structural failures of Broken Britain. But its plans remain incoherent at best. They are what Tom Nairn would call \u2018redemptive convulsions of that sort: new uniforms for the cadaver, as it were, preserving the tradition and spirit of congenital non-revolution.\u2018<\/p>\n

The photograph that Starmer and Brown should be focusing on is not the ones of Brown and Blair resplendent as they bask in the glow of their 1990s devolution moment on the streets of the Old Town. The image they should be focusing on is the statue of Donald Dewar surrounded by protestors after the Supreme Court ruling. For Labour Scotland is the Land that Time Forgot. Their political amnesia has them forget the political price they have paid for their role in Better Together and allows them to assume good-faith, trust and belief in them. That doesn\u2019t exist anymore, and neither does the Britain they are trying to resurrect.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Demo in Glasgow in response to the Supreme Court ruling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

2. LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Edinburgh demo at Holyrood after the Supreme Court ruling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Radical Independence Campaign organised a demonstration outside the Supreme Court in London on October 11th.\u00a0 It was well covered by the media, including The National <\/i>and Daily Record<\/i> in Scotland.\u00a0 We did not go down to London to press the Supreme Court to take a favourable stance on a new Scottish independence referendum.\u00a0 We thought that when it comes to the exercise of self-determination, the Supreme Court had no role to play and we called for \u2018Let the People Decide\u2019.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Supreme Court ruling has unwittingly reinforced this principle.\u00a0 It says only Westminster can decide.\u00a0 This is the political equivalent of telling a woman who wants to separate from her abusive partner that she has to get the permission of the in-laws first.<\/p>\n

I would like to quote Scottish author, George Gunn in yesterday\u2019s B<\/a><\/em>ella Caledonia <\/a><\/em>about the uselessness of depending on the UK state and its institutions to help us.<\/p>\n

\u201cA future for Scotland in a Tory run post-Brexit Britain will mean starving and malnourished children from Caithness to Carlops. Democracy will be reduced and eroded like a sea stack by the relentless surge of reactionary ideology. Corruption will become a way of life and race and gender crimes will increase like a virus. Illiteracy, social decay and destitution will afflict more and more people \u2013 daily, surprisingly, fatally. These are the real and overwhelming legacies of Tory rule. And increasingly it will be ruling as opposed to governing.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The people of Scotland have been slower than the Irish and all peoples of the British empire to appreciate the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of the UK state.\u00a0 Part of this lies in the benefits a Scottish-British elite drew from these connections.\u00a0 But as the empire has gone into decline, so has the Union designed to back it up.\u00a0 The UK is not based on the sovereignty of the people but on the sovereignty of the Crown-in Westminster, backed by a whole host of anti-democratic Crown Powers and an unwritten constitution that allows its rulers to make it up as they go along.\u00a0 That is what we are seeing today with the Supreme Court ruling.\u00a0 And it was a Tory MP, Sir Geoffrey Nabarro, who best described the British legal system \u2013 \u201cthe best that money can buy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Scottish RIC demo outside the Supreme Court in London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

As slow learners we in Scotland have had to assess each of these UK institutions as they have impinged on us.\u00a0 Back in 1999, when the Scottish Parliament was set up, we were told that the UK is now based on the equality of four nations.<\/p>\n

But the British Broadcasting Corporation did not change its name and thinking in 1999 to the 4 Nations Broadcasting Service?\u00a0 No, it remained very British. We saw this during the IndyRef1 campaign. The BBC gave Nigel Farage of UKIP with no councillors, MSPs or Scottish MPs, far more coverage than the Scottish Greens, with elected representatives.\u00a0 It posted regular briefings from the Far Right, whilst virtually ignoring RIC, which held conferences of 800, 1300 and then 3000. And I\u2019m sure Nicola Sturgeon would agree that the way the BBC interviewed SNP spokespersons was very different from how they schmaltzed before Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.\u00a0 And anyone who thinks the BBC is independent of the state needs only to look at its coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth.\u00a0 North Korean TV could hardly have been more supine.<\/p>\n

Back in 2014, The Guardian<\/i> revealed the British High Command plans if Scotland had voted \u2018Yes\u2019. The area around Faslane and Coulport were to be detached from Scotland to form, in effect, the British West Clyde Territories.\u00a0 Another way of looking at this, would be to see these as Scotland\u2019s Guantanamo or Guatanamac Bay.\u00a0 Jackie Baillie would probably have been made governor-general!<\/p>\n

Therefore, following George Gunn\u2019s advice, we should not be waiting for the Supreme Court, future Westminster elections or even Westminster\u2019s devolved branch office, Holyrood.\u00a0 Holyrood cannot organise an independence referendum, because that requires local councils to organise the vote.\u00a0 These are nearly all headed by deeply unionist chief executives who will certainly not break the law.<\/p>\n

Therefore, it falls on us, the people, to devise ways, to withdraw our support from the institutions of the UK state.\u00a0 So, which British institutions do we need to question?\u00a0 Not far from Holyrood is the UK government hub, Queen Elizabeth House.\u00a0 This Hub is not designed to give Scottish citizens any influence on those matters reserved for Westminster.\u00a0 Quite the opposite.\u00a0 It\u2019s a UK government propaganda outlet, with the government wanting to curtail the Scottish Parliament\u2019s powers.\u00a0 It\u2019s BOSS \u2013 British Occupied Subject Scotland.\u00a0 We are capable of imagining and humorous ways of getting this across.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
THE UK Hub off Edinburgh’s High Street – Photo: Martin P. McAdam www.martinmcadam.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next year we have Charlie\u2019s coronation. Back in 2003, the queen, who had hardly been a supporter of Scottish self-determination, even in its limited devolutionary form, was called upon to open the new Scottish Parliament at Holyrood.\u00a0 It would have been far more fitting if those who had campaigned for this parliament, like Lesley Riddoch backed by the Proclaimers, had opened it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Nevertheless, there was a well-attended and colourful protest on Calton Hill that day.\u00a0 And the democratic republican, Declaration of Calton Hill was proclaimed.\u00a0 Next year, on May 6th, Our Republic have booked Calton Hill for another protest event.\u00a0 Accepting any Charles III means accepting all the state\u2019s Crown Powers and their long reach, as the evicted people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean well know.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s no wonder the monarchy is so strongly supported by the Unionist Right. They royal family pay few taxes, can ignore laws covering workers\u2019 pay and conditions, the protection of ethnic minorities and environmental rights, and they can privately lobby not only Westminster, but Holyrood too, to ensure their interests are promoted \u2013 a Brexiteers\u2019 paradise!<\/p>\n

RIC and others aim to make May 6th not just a fun day, but part of the Scottish people\u2019s ongoing withdrawal of support from the institutions of the UK state.\u00a0 However, there is also a role for our elected representatives. Gwynedd council, in the heartland of Welsh-speaking Wales, has voted by 46 to 4, to call for the ending of the Prince of Wales. In Scotland independence supporters may be behind Ireland in challenging the UK state, but we do like to think we are the pacemakers for the Welsh.\u00a0 So, how can we do better than Gwynedd council?<\/p>\n

It is to the credit if the SNP that they refuse to take part in the UK\u2019s House of Lords.\u00a0 But there is another even more anti-democratic and secretive part of the Westminster set-up, and that is the Privy Council.\u00a0 Past and present Scottish First Ministers are members.\u00a0 However, they are banned from telling the Scottish people what goes on there.\u00a0 It was the Privy Council which Boris Johnson used to prorogue Westminster, supposedly the UK\u2019s sovereign body.\u00a0 It has the powers to topple governments.\u00a0 If Nicola Sturgeon was to withdraw her participation, that would be a powerful indicator that Scotland was serious in wanting to create a new democratic order.<\/p>\n

In a democracy, sovereignty lies with people, that is the essence of republicanism, not whether or not there is an unelected head of state.<\/p>\n

There was nothing democratic about the election of Donald Trump in 2016.\u00a0 He came second in the vote.\u00a0 And US corporations are given massive political and legal rights, as if they are people. There is nothing democratic about Putin\u2019s Russian Federation that is run for the benefit of an oligarchy of kleptocrats. There is nothing democratic about XI Jinping and his one-party dictatorship in China. These are all republics, but none are based on the democratic principle of the sovereignty of the people.<\/p>\n

The UK state victory in 2014 turned out to be pyrrhic and the Unionists know that.\u00a0 The issue of Scottish independence became mainstreamed, as all subsequent election results have shown.\u00a0 When it came to Brexit, the rules were very different.\u00a0 The overall \u2019No\u2019 result was only achieved by excluding 16-18 year olds and most EU residents, all of whom had been given the vote in IndyRef2. An ethnically-based franchise for British subjects, which bolstered the Hard and Far Right\u2019s \u2018Project Hate\u2019 was their answer to the Scotland\u2019s civic national franchise looking to maximise the number of citizens.\u00a0 In 2019 the Scottish Parliament voted to extend the franchise to even more people.\u00a0 Meanwhile Westminster is looking to ways to further restrict the franchise.\u00a0 Hopefully the bill recognising transgender self-determination will soon go through Holyrood.\u00a0 Meanwhile every form of social reaction \u2013 transphobia, homophobia, misogyny and national chauvinism are growing at Westminster every day.\u00a0 We had an amazing rainbow alliance in 2014 and we need to remain Scots, united in our diversity,<\/p>\n

And lastly, RIC\u2019s \u2018Let the People Decide\u2019 ballot box has Scottish, Welsh and Irish flags on its sides.\u00a0 The former British colonies of Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica., Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda and St Kitts-Nevis are also voting to become republics.\u00a0 Many of their descendants migrated to the UK, where they have recently become victims of such scandals as Windrush and Grenfell Towers.\u00a0 Just as the banksters are being compensated today for their 2008 Crash, which has created millions of victims, so the slaveowners were compensated from 1833 to 2016 for their slaves\u2019 emancipation. \u00a0 Therefore, we are not alone in wanting to challenge the British political and social order.\u00a0 We can unite on the basis of our \u2018Internationalism from Below\u2019 so \u2018Let the Peoples of these Islands Decide\u2019.<\/p>\n

26.11.22<\/strong><\/p>\n

___________<\/p>\n

also see:-<\/p>\n

For a Republican, all-islands, ‘internationalism from below’ coalition: part 2 – Allan Armstrong, RCF<\/a><\/p>\n

For a Republican, all-islands, ‘internationalism form below’ coalition, part 1 – Allan Armstrong, RCF\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Independence in Wales “is an inevitable consequence of the end of Britain’s imperial project” – Tom Anderson , The Canary<\/a><\/p>\n

The reign of Elizabrit – 70 years of imperialist and unionist violence – Allan Armstrong, RCF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Small of bella caledonia has written this response to\u00a0Gordon Brown\u2019s report \u2018A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy\u2019. He argues that this report collapses under the weight of its own incoherence. Instead of viewing this as a set of solutions for Scotland, it should be seen as Labour\u2019s attempt to create…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1861,1867,1873,1846,1874,1868,18,1863,1875],"tags":[9154],"class_list":["post-22828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alienation-self-determination","category-emancipation-liberation-and-self-determination","category-against-unionism","category-british-imperialism","category-republicanism","category-against-imperialism","category-political-campaigns","category-cultural-celebration","category-scotland-against-unionism","tag-authors-mike-small-allan-armstrong"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/mastodon.scot\/@rcfscotland\/109485765946059490","error":""},"views":5142,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22828"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22834,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22828\/revisions\/22834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}