Common Weal director Robin McAlpine argues that yet to be released public attitude research on Scottish independence has convinced him that the messages coming out from the top of the Yes movement are way out of kilter with what needs to be done and said to win converts to independence

THE interminable game of armchair indy strategy continues apace – all you need is an anecdote or two, a half-remembered statistic and a couple of untested assumptions and you too can talk confidently about how to win Scottish independence.

Calum Martin, national co-chair of the Scottish Socialist Party, highlights a new trade deal between Japan and the EU which will increase the power of corporations over our lives, and says it’s wrong to think of ‘free trade’ as anti-Trump, as the US President’s plan is simply seeking to bully countries into acquiescing to US corporate power

Alyn Smith MEP says independence referendum will be Scotland’s vote on Brexit deal 

SNP MEP Alyn Smith has cautioned that a second EU referendum could drive “resentment” amongst Leave voters in England and boost support for the far-right.

Speaking to CommonSpace, the staunchly pro-EU MEP said he wasn’t convinced that calls for another EU referendum would resolve the issue and warned that there could be “dangerous” side effects.

Theresa May pushed to take action on government Leavers implicated in Electoral Commission investigation

SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT Brexit minister Mike Russell has said another Brexit vote is now “essential” in light of findings by the Electoral Commission that the Vote Leave campaign breached electoral law by overspending.

The watchdog’s conclusions, published today (17 July) found that Vote Leave, the official campaign for the UK to leave the EU, exceeded the legal spending limit of £7m by almost £500,000.

With radical right wing politics gaining record levels of support in Europe and the US, CommonSpace asks: how did we get here, what role has the political establishment played, and what can the left do to turn the tide?

“CRIME IN Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”

This was the ‘analysis’ of United States President Donald Trump on migration in Europe last month.

Bill proposes to prohibit “the import and sales of goods, services and natural resources originating in illegal settlements in occupied territories.”

THE Irish Parliament Upper House has passed a bill to ban Israeli settlement goods on Wednesday [11 June], the first parliament chamber in the EU to do so.

The Bill, proposed by independent Senator Francis Black, was put forward in January but was delayed by the Irish parliament indefinitely after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu applied pressure on to the Irish Government to stop the Bill

CommonSpace considers the responses of pro-EU politicians and activists to the UK’s Brexit chaos

WITH PRIME Minister Theresa May’s government in turmoil over Brexit and its ability to agree a deal which both the EU and MPs can get behind, what options remain for Scotland to avoid what SNP MP Angus MacNeil described as a “cluster-mess”?

David Jamieson, CommonSpace columnist on culture and ideology, explores Scottish attitudes towards the international order and its institutions in the age of Trump

“STOP THE WORLD, SCOTLAND WANTS TO GET ON” – this is the famous utterance of Winnie Ewing after her 1967 Hamilton by-election victory that established the SNP on the political scene.