Leigh Wilson, SNP councillor for the Mearns ward in Aberdeenshire, says that he has changed his mind on the question of EU membership for an independent Scotland, and is now convinced joining the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is the best compromise position for the Scottish Government to pursue
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.
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.
As CommonSpace’s Trump Special begins, Ben Wray explores how we should locate Trump in a broader historical context through the lens of professor Mark Blyth’s concept of Global Trumpism – does Trump represent the beginning or end of something in western politics?
THERE’S a million questions you could ask about Donald Trump as he is about to make his first visit to Scotland as US President, but perhaps the most important is – does he represent the beginning of something new, or the end of something old?
Send in your articles/videos to ben@common.scot to give your take on how to defeat Global Trumpism
TO MARK Donald Trump’s first visit to Scotland next week as US President, CommonSpace is going to be running a special week of coverage on Defeating Global Trumpism.
Catalonia Reborn, by Chris Bambery and George Kerevan, was published in May, and is available at Luath Press
COMMONSPACE editor Ben Wray spoke to Chris Bambery, co-author of newly released 'Catalonia Reborn - How Catalonia took on the corrupt Spanish State and the Legacy of Franco' with George Kerevan.
Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says the autonomy movements across Europe are the most promising alternative to the rise of right-wing populism
I SPENT last week in Bilbao at a conference on European autonomy movements, just getting back in time for the Democracy 21 conference in Glasgow on Saturday.
Do I feel more positive or more negative as a result? Not sure. But one thing I feel stronger about (if anything) is the situation in Scotland; here we still have hope, and that's in short supply.
The scuppering of an unlikely populist coalition has not only provoked political chaos in Italy, but may lead to a fresh finance crisis and the potential destabilisation of the European Union.
ITALY, at the time of writing, has no government.