Writer
Duncan Maclaren
Dr Duncan MacLaren was Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis in the Vatican, lectured in International Development Studies and Catholic Social Ethics at Australian Catholic University and began adult life as a researcher for one of the first batches of SNP MPs in the House of Commons.
-
COP26: An observer’s view of the first few days
Duncan MacLaren joined the crowds to attend the first day of COP26. He recounts what he found when he got in. Continue reading »
-
Pro-independence parties heading for a landslide in Scottish elections
While the world’s nations have been struggling to extricate themselves from the pandemic, the Scots have also strengthened their desire to extricate themselves from an increasingly undemocratic Union. After a year of polling showing more than fifty per cent of Scottish voters in favour of self-determination, not even a nasty, public spat between the current Continue reading »
-
Bojo and the undermining of Scottish democracy
The United States is not the only Western country having difficulties with its democratic credentials. Under Boris Johnson’s chaotic regime, the UK has its own particular type of democratic deficit, especially concerning Scotland. Continue reading »
-
Johnson pops in to ‘save the Union’ and to destroy devolution in Scotland.
Scotland was recently graced with a visit from the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, his second since not being elected to his post on a Brexit ticket by the Scots. Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. The Coronavirus and Scottish Independence
During her daily briefings on the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on Scotland’s NHS and people, the First Minister and SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has been articulate, transparent, comprehensible and compassionate. And she hasn’t mentioned the word independence once, except to say that the desired “indyref 2” would not take place this year. Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. Scottish Independence: a new start with a fresh vision
I am currently visiting friends and former colleagues from Australian Catholic University in Australia, having cast my postal vote for the SNP before leaving Scotland. Since then, two excellent articles by George Monbiot and John Carlin have been published in Pearls and Irritations on the disastrous General Election result in England which has given Boris Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. Boris Johnson: the Embattled ‘Hammer of the Scots’
The Scots were largely ignored by English politicians during the Brexit negotiations but they now loom large in the fight to stop a ‘No Deal’ Brexit. Will this urge Boris Johnson to become the embattled ‘Hammer of the Scots’, the moniker given to King Edward I of England in his wars against Scots’ wishes not Continue reading »
-
Will the last PM of the UK please put out the lights?
The dissolution of the United Kingdom is now bruited abroad on a daily basis as a likely outcome of a No Deal Brexit. This applies not just to Scotland, the likeliest candidate to be first to leave, but also to the possibility of Northern Ireland joining with the Republic, and even tiny Wales rethinking its Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. Scotland: Overcoming the Scottish Cringe to Exit Brexit
I was recently in Croatia with representatives of Caritas members mostly from Eastern European countries. I was a speaker and a facilitator for these newer members of the largest aid, development and social service network in the world attending the conference about advocacy and humanitarian action, whether domestic or overseas. There was a European Union Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. Scotland and a Very English Brexit: the looming constitutional crisis
A glance at the increasingly Monty Pythonesque British/English Brexit illustrates the intra-European constitutional crisis of just how difficult it is to leave a multinational partnership of 40 years’ vintage – and how disastrous it will be economically, socially and, since it has a xenophobic tinge in origin, morally. A side effect of Brexit is an Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. Brexit beats pantomime for farce in the festive season.
The pantomime season is upon us in the fabled Kingdom. For farce, Cinderella has moved over to give room on the political, rather than theatrical, stage to the xenophobic pantomime par excellence of “Brexit – Taking Back Control”, featuring your favourite panto characters. But to our tale… Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. Catalonia is not Scotland and Vice Versa
Scotland’s independence referendum campaign, described by an academic, objective source as one of the best examples of participative democracy in Europe, was completely peaceful apart from triumphant Unionists who were followers of the Orange Lodge attacking forlorn “Yes” voters on the day after the referendum which the ‘pro-indy’ side narrowly lost. In Catalonia, before and Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. Scottish Independence: deferred not abandoned
Another referendum on Scottish independence has been deferred but not, to the chagrin of Scottish Unionists, abandoned. The shrieks and howls of protest from the three leaders of Scottish Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament could be heard in their party HQs in London. They wanted their nemesis, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. May’s Folly: the Brexit election result
The people who will suffer most from economic meltdown likely to follow from the UK election will be the country’s poorest and most vulnerable as funds dry up for public services, jobs disappear as firms move to the EU and as the UK’s international reputation for sound, stable government that attracts investors plummets. Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MacLAREN. Brexit: the danger of a no deal and the UK election.
Electioneering in the UK was stopped in homage to the 22 people who died and the many people injured in the bomb attack on a pop concert in Manchester on May 22nd. It didn’t stop the xenophobic call for ending immigration again despite the fact that the perpetrator was born in Manchester and, as the Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MacLAREN. UK General Election: clever cunning or miscalculated folly?
Theresa May’s snap general election decision can be seen as hypocritical in that she ruled this out consistently (and as recently as 20th March) until, the Anglican vicar’s daughter hinted, God told her while hiking in Welsh Snowdonia over Easter to go for it since there was ‘no unity’ in the Westminster Parliament to allow Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MacLAREN. Article 50 triggered: the farce heats up
Are you ready for another dose of Brexititis? This past week, PM May triggered Article 50, meaning negotiations can begin, after due examination by the 27 remaining states, between the exiting UK (or, at least, the parts that survive) and the EU but only as a body. The EU has forbidden the divide and rule Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MacLAREN. ‘Game On’ as UK Split Looms over Brexit
Just as David Cameron’s idiocy in calling for an EU referendum to appease his rabid right-wing has made him the godfather of Brexit, so May, in treating Scotland like a trinket which the UK has to “keep”, to say nothing of her handling of Northern Ireland, could well be the midwife of the break-up of Continue reading »
-
DUNCAN MacLAREN. Scotland, Brexit and the EU.
Brexit: the Constitutional Angle I hate to boast of my prescience but my article in this blog in April 2016 warned, in the case of a successful Brexit vote, of the birth of a “Little England searching for a greatness that is delusional in the current world of alliances”. That nightmare has become true. With Continue reading »
-
Duncan MacLaren. Does Brexit mean a second independence referendum for Scotland?
The algebra goes something like this: EU ref: Brexit – Scotland = indyref2? In other words, if England overwhelmingly votes to leave the European Union while Scotland votes to remain in and the overall result from England, Northern Ireland and Wales, (known since the debate on independence in Scotland as rUK – rest of the Continue reading »
