Allan Armstrong was delegated at the RISE National Forum held in Edinburgh on 8th April to be its representative at the LUP conference on May 20th. Due to the General Election this was postponed to June 24th. Attached is the full version of the talk he prepared for the conference held in London. In the…
PADDY BORT – 1954-2017
Allan Armstrong writes about the contribution made by Paddy Bort, who died on February 17th, to our understanding of Scottish and Irish cultural and political links. PADDY BORT – 1954-2017 Eberhard Bort, Germano-Scot and Germano-Irish by choice, “in essence the ultimate European”, and known to most acquaintances in Scotland and Ireland as Paddy, died unexpectedly on…
BEFORE AND AFTER THE ‘RETURN OF THE BRUTE’
As the official celebrations and the unofficial commemorations of the centenary of the First World War continue, many personal accounts, poems and novels written about this period have been published or republished. One novel, not yet republished, is Return of the Brute, written by Liam O’Flaherty. David Trotter, in The Cambridge Companion to The Literature…
BUILDING AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN RISE AND LEFT UNITY
RISE held a national members’ meeting in Glasgow on saturday 3rd December. The leaflet ‘Building an alliance between RISE and Left Unity’ was circulated. Steve Freeman and Allan Armstrong (of the Republican Socialist Alliance – RSA) addressed the meeting. Steve has subsequently written a report for Left Unity. These two anti-Unionist alliance items have been…
WHICH WAY NOW – ‘BREXIT’ OR ‘EX-BRIT’?
Allan Armstrong, of the Campaign for a European Republican Socialist Party, draws some political conclusions from the online discussion (http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2016/11/20/from-farages-brexit-to-trumps-brexit-plus-plus-plus-and-on-to-madame-frexit/) of the political situation in the UK in the aftermath of the Trump vote. _________ WHICH WAY NOW – ‘BREXIT’ OR ‘EX-BRIT’? a) Brexit and the change in British ruling class thinking Since the…
ST. ANDREWS DAY OR JOHN MACLEAN DAY?
Today is St. Andrews Day. It is not yet a full-blown public holiday, although there is some partial observance. The following article was written by Allan Armstrong for the Lothian SSP bulletin in November 2007. It is even more relevant today, when Scottish nationalists try to subsume all of us under the saltire.
MULTI-MILLION £ HOUSING BENEFITS SCAM EXPOSED!
In response to the announcement that we are going to have to pay £369M to refurbish Buckingham Place, Allan Armstrong and John Tummon of the Republican Socialist Alliance wrote the following letters to The National, which were both published. Letter 1 Queen Lizzie is probably being shielded from the concerns of many of her…
FROM FARAGE’S BREXIT TO TRUMP’S “BREXIT PLUS, PLUS, PLUS”, AND ON TO ‘MADAME FREXIT’? – a dialogue
WHAT DOES TRUMP’S VICTORY SIGNIFY? – ALLAN ARMSTRONG IN CONVERSATION WITH ALAN BISSETT, BRIAN HIGGINS, PAUL STEWART AND JOHN TUMMON (see short biogs at end) 1. ALLAN ARMSTRONG – 9.11.16 “An even greater leap into fantasy land is the belief that Brexit will provide a progressive example to other member states wanting to break…
REPORT OF THE REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST ALLIANCE MEETING IN WAKEFIELD – 23rd JULY
Allan Armstrong (acting convenor of RSA-Scotland) attended the RSA meeting in Wakefield on 23rd July. Steve Freeman (RSA-London) has written the following report of this meeting. REPORT OF REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST ALLIANCE MEETING IN THE RED SHED IN WAKEFIELD, 23rd JULY Brexit The meeting had a thorough discussion on future perspectives for republican socialism in…
PEOPLES, NATIONALITIES, NATIONS, NATION STATES, NATIONALISM AND NATIONALISTS
A young comrade after reading the UK State, Britishness and the ‘Racialised’, ‘Ethnicised’ and ‘National’ Outsiders (http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2016/03/02/britishness-the-uk-state-unionism-scotland-and-the-national-outsider/) has asked Allan Armstrong to clarify the differences between Nationalities, Nations and Nation States. Here is a section of Allan’s book, Internationalism from Below, volume 1, which explores these concepts. PEOPLES, NATIONALITIES, NATIONS, NATION STATES, NATIONALISM AND NATIONALISTS…