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.

Duncan's recent articles

COP26: An observer's view of the first few days

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.

Pro-independence parties heading for a landslide in Scottish elections

Pro-independence parties heading for a landslide in Scottish elections

While the worlds 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 SNP leader, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and her predecessor, Alex Salmond, has not forestalled the pro-independence juggernaut.

Bojo and the undermining of Scottish democracy

The United States is not the only Western country having difficulties with its democratic credentials. Under Boris Johnsons chaotic regime, the UK has its own particular type of democratic deficit, especially concerning Scotland.

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.

DUNCAN MACLAREN. The Coronavirus and Scottish Independence

During her daily briefings on the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on Scotlands NHS and people, the First Minister and SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has been articulate, transparent, comprehensible and compassionate. And she hasnt mentioned the word independence once, except to say that the desired indyref 2 would not take place this year.

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 Johnson, branded as a liar, narcissist and racist by those close to him, an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons.

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 to be an English colony like the Welsh in the 13th to 14th centuries? If so, there is something which the unelected UK PM should remember from history.

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 future.

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 flag in front of the podium since the EU had paid for the conference. I made reference to the EU badge I was wearing because, as I said, I was a proud European who came from a country, Scotland, which objected to being dragged out...

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 internal UK constitutional crisis which, internationally, has thus far concentrated on Northern Irelands desire to maintain the Good Friday Agreement which stipulates regulatory harmonisation between the NI and the Republic. Peace between Orange and Green is predicated on maintaining a seamless border which could be...

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

DUNCAN MACLAREN. Catalonia is not Scotland and Vice Versa

Scotlands 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 during the referendum, blood was spilt by police drafted in from the other parts of Spain by the Madrid Government in scenes reminiscent of the repressive tactics used by Franco. The all-seeing social media and even serious TV channels showed elderly women bleeding because of...

DUNCAN MACLAREN. The UK heads towards a cliff.

If Australia were the UK and heading for a suicidal plunge off an economic, social and cultural cliff-face, wouldnt you be worried?

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, to take a second independence referendum completely off the table so that Scots would have to accept the English-negotiated Brexit deal no matter how destructive it would be to Scottish society and the Scottish economy. As we say in Scotland when sarcastically negating something -...

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 UKs international reputation for sound, stable government that attracts investors plummets.

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 didnt stop the xenophobic call for ending immigration again despite the fact that the perpetrator was born in Manchester and, as the Mancunian brother of a young man, Martyn, who died in the blast said, probably talked like him. The brother added that he and Martyn were sons of a Turkish mother and the atrocity should not be used to demonise immigrants and ban migration. A kind...

DUNCAN MacLAREN. UK General Election: clever cunning or miscalculated folly?

Theresa Mays 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 vicars 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 her to obtain the best deal for the UK out of Brexit. No unity? For a Government which hasnt a clue where it is going and is regarded as incompetent by the international community and national political class alike, how can it command unity? That...

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 of the UK pitting one EU member against another, an insidious act by what Guardian journalist, Antony Beevor, called last year the most hated nation in Europe. The terms of Mrs Mays letter didnt win too many friends either.

DUNCAN MacLAREN. Game On as UK Split Looms over Brexit

Just as David Camerons 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 Britain.

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 two acts of political lunacy perpetrated by the English (and I mean English) on one side of the Atlantic and the Americans on the other, we are now facing a global scenario of the absurd you could not make up.

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 UK) is to leave, will this automatically mean a second referendum on Scottish independence? The answer is maybe. Certainly, the Scots are the most pro-European of the four nations of the UK. The Scots have consistently shown over a number of polls that they...

<