Categories
Features

Sturgeon – why the time has come. 

It’s 2014. The Glasgow Commonwealth Games have just finished. The independence movement is reeling from its narrow defeat in the referendum, yet support for the Scottish National Party has never been so high.  By the end of the year, Nicola Sturgeon had become First Minister. Her acceptance speech in the Scottish Parliament was all optimism […]

Categories
News

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to resign

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced her resignation after eight years in office. Sturgeon will remain in post until a new candidate is elected. In a televised speech from Bute House late this morning, Scotland’s longest-serving First Minister said she was “a human being as well as a politician.” Explaining the decision, Sturgeon cited the […]

Categories
Features

The Gender Recognition Act has passed – but its future remains uncertain

Following months of protests, legal challenges and more than 100 amendments, the Scottish Parliament voted on Thursday (December 22nd) in favour of the Gender Recognition Act. The Act, which passed by a margin of 86 to 39, removes the requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria for a trans person to acquire a gender […]

Categories
News

Scottish Greens suspend ties with the Green Party of England and Wales over institutional transphobia

On Sunday 16th October, the Scottish Green Party voted overwhelmingly to suspend its ties with the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) over institutional transphobia. At the Scottish Green Party’s conference in Dundee, the party membership voted to suspend this affiliation.  The suspension will continue until ‘effective action’ is taken.  The motion was proposed […]

Categories
Comment

Why I wouldn’t feel guilty voting in IndyRef2

If the referendum goes ahead, I – an English student living and studying in Scotland – would get to vote. And for a long time this was something I felt a tinge of guilt over: as if it wasn’t my place to have a say in this once in a generation – surely not to […]

Categories
Comment

Why are MSPs afraid to comment on some reserved matters but not others?

As a humanitarian, I find myself frustrated by some Scottish politicians’ craven propensity to utilise the parameters of devolution as a pretext to avoid supporting the campaigns of various nonprofit organisations. Specifically those which encourage an increase in the UK’s foreign aid budget – particularly at a time when mass death is occurring because of […]

Categories
Comment

On the nature of nationhood

With the recent celebrations of the Queen’s failure to die in a timely manner, and the lavish parades and parties thrown at massive cost to the public purse, all in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis in living memory, I’m left once more wondering about the state of politics in Britain. Perhaps […]

Categories
Comment

Independence is nigh… but it’s not inevitable

The campaign for indyref 2 is stepping up from the dejected dawdle we’ve endured for the last 7 years to a brisk, brusque step. And it can’t come soon enough. The SNP government has announced its intentions to hold the referendum in late 2023, giving us two years to recover enough from covid for people […]