A Federal Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (FUGB&NI)?

The United Kingdom has never looked so frail.

For the first time, there is the very real possibility that it may even come to an end in the foreseeable future. The Scottish National Party (SNP) is in power with an overall majority at Hollyrood, and a referendum is planned for either 2013 or 2014 on whether the Kingdom of Scotland wishes to remain united with the Kingdom of England, a union that has lasted for over 300 years. The largest party in the Coalition government in London, the Conservative and Unionist Party, is actively despised in Scotland and the Liberal Democrats, their coalition partners, have seen a sharp fall in their vote from being the second most popular Scottish party at the 2010 general election.   

However, the United Kingdom has never been stagnant, far from it: it is a country that has evolved in its composition throughout its existence, And now, more than ever, it needs to change once again to move with the political reality. It was in 1536 that the foundations of the current State were created with the bringing together of England and Cymru (Wales) during the Tudor era of Henry VIII. This was then followed by the the Union of the Crowns and then the Act of Union in 1707 between England, Cymru and Scotland when James VI, King of the Scots became King of England, and subsequently the entire United Kingdom of Great Britain. 

Less than 100 years later, in 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland merged to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. And then we only really finally arrived with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as we know it in 1922.                                                                 

This very brief overview of the history of our current state is evidence that the union of constituent nations of the British Isles has been very fluid during its existence and open to change. It is facing another hurdle now, faced with the SNP, and is going to need courage to take the next step on its journey.  

So, what needs to be done? 

Well, it seems that a Federal Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (FUGB&NI) is the natural solution. This new structure would resolve many of the current strains being put on the union by the re-emergence of strong regional identities in the face of globalisation, and a trend towards nations wanting to distinguish themselves from each other. It would be following the direction of many other European states that had to reconstitute themselves after the Second World War - including the Federal Republic of Germany. 

The new FUGB&NI would be an almost complete break from the current composition and running of the United Kingdom. It would include highly devolved regional parliaments, with the creation of a new English parliament, and the contuation of those in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. These regional parliaments would deal with all issues apart from foreign, federal-level taxation,defence and immigration policies. These policies would be reserved for the revamped House of Parliament, which would go from a bicameral to a unicameral system. The retained chamber would be dramatically reduced - to represent its changed status as an overview - upper house - chamber. The chamber would operate along almost the same principle as the Bundesrat in Germany, with a quota of seats for each constituent nation relative to its population. The seats would be decided through the results of the elections in each of the 4 constituent nations.  The top 4 parties by percentage of the vote from each nation would be allocated their preset quota of seats: each of these parties from the respective nations would receive a quarter of the seats for that nation .The role of the chamber would be to debate, make sure regional laws do not confict,  and in most instances to rubber stamp policies of the regional governments and to debate policy originating from the Federal executive regarding retained powers.   

A federal executive would run in much the same way as the Swiss Confederacy, with an equal balance of members from each of the 5 main parties by share of the vote for the entire United Kingdom. Each of the five main parties would be allocated 4 members creating an executive of 20 members. The presidency of the executive would rotate every 6 months ensuring that every party had the opportunity to express their policies within a 5 year period. The executive would be designed in order to foster positive cooperation as opposed to division between the major parties. The intension would be make sure that parties work in the national interest not party interest. The voting system for the federal executive would use the idea of a fixed quota system for each party. Voting in the federal executive would be through unanimity and in the upper chamber through qualified majority voting. A written constitution would be adopted expressing the basic guiding principles of the state and there would be an increased use of direct democracy through referendums. 

The United Kingdom needs to take the next step in its evolutionary process. The current system has created too many antagonisms, creating a feeling of 'special treatment', and fails badly to represent each nation equally. A more equal system of governance could be used to help foster a stronger sense of unity following the principle of from many come one. Britain can continue with its successful principle of unity but only if it is willing to adapt: the United Kingdom needs to become a Federal Union!       

      

Eurasian Treaty on economic and civil-military cooperation

Recently Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia, has proposed  that a Eurasian Union, a collection of former Soviet satellite states and Russia, should be formed. This Eurasian Union would be modeled on the European Union with a Eurasian Commission aiming towards the creation of a zone of free trade in Northern Asia and the Eastern flanks of the European continent. A number of states that border the Russian Federation have already expressed an interest in joining the proposed organisation which Russia's Foreign Minister hopes could be set up by 2015.

With a resurgent Russia showing the potential of becoming a global economic and military powerhouse, this concept makes sense. The project is in line with Russian attempts to expand its influence to its near-abroad and regain some pride after the humiliation of the collapse of the Soviet Union. But perhaps a new type of integration would be more useful, and better armed to taper the power, militarily and economically, of Russia at the same time: a collective security organisation.                                                                   

With America receding from the military scene after just over a decade of self-defeating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the other developed nations of the world need to make sure America does not make the same mistake in the future. Any country with the sort of military primacy the United States has had post-Cold War will almost inevitably be attracted to grand theories like selective engagement - which works well with primacy-acting as a  sort of global police officer and moraliser. A Eurasian Treaty on economic and civil-military cooperation could potentially bring a sense of calm during the transition period between periods of hegemony, those of the United States and China. It would also make the NATO more cautious and, perhaps, less likely to trot off on a misadventure: the number of small conflicts seems to have increased in the post-Soviet due to the collapse of the relatively stable two superpower model.   

A Eurasian Treaty on economic and civil-military cooperation would be able to use a neo-functionalist model to integrate military and economic means amongst the growing powers in Asia, and established powers in Europe into a strictly intergovernmental organisation. As the BRIC economies start to catch up with America economically, the hegemonic stability theory (HTC) will be strained even further. By integrating militarily and economically, Asia and Europe can ensure that there is a peaceful transition to a more multi-polar economic and military world. A civil-military alliance between Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belerus, Finland, Bulgaria, Mongolia, Azerbaijan and Turkey would lay firm foundations for the creation of a zone of  peace. If successful, the project of coordination could eventually expand and try to build diplomatic bridges between avowed enemies such as those that exist between India and Pakistan and North and South Korea: by creating a stable civil-military treaty pooling resources in a collective security regime. It would allow these enemies to work together within a wider framework that could inforce agreements and reduce insecurity. The structure of any cooperation could be akin to ESFP, including battlegroups and peacekeeping forces enforcing collective security and assistance to troubled countries in the Asian and European spheres.   

A key aim of economic and civil-military cooperation could be a real attempt at collective disarmament.making the region more stable. By bringing avowed enemies into a treaty, it would be easier to negociate bilateral military reductions- especially at flashpoints along the Pakistan-India border, Kashmir and along the 38 parrallel between North and South Korea. In the same way that the ECSC made war in Europe impossible by merging resources under a common command, perhaps a pooling military resources and increasing awareness of other countries might permit a structured demilitarization of the borders between North and South Korea and Pakistan and India - to the benefit of the entire world.      

In conclusion, it may be premature to completely discredit Putin's idea of greater regional cooperation. In many respects, as has been witnessed in Europe, cooperation could be a source of peace and stability and help resolve conflicts of interest in Asia and Europe. Whilst civil-military cooperation has not been discussed as part of Eurasian Union tallks by Russia, it perhaps should be considered. The potential benefits of doing so could be considerable.

Sources
 BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15172519   
 Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Union

The not quite so United Kingdom

And so the inevitable is happening-
Over three hundred years after the Act of Union in 1707, Southern Britain and Northern Ireland and Scotland look likely to go their own separate ways again. It is rather ironic that it should happen in an epoch where governance is becoming broader, and political units are getting bigger - as with the ever expanding European Union,with its increasing influence over the lives of Europeans.

However, with devolution the break-up of the United Kingdom was always going to happen sooner or later. Devolution is a one way street: it is rare that - in the neo-functionalist sense - you get 'spill-back'. So it looks likely that Scotland will be having a referendum in 2014 - if Alex Salmond gets his way, and I see no reason why he should not -  to decide whether it wishes to remain a constituent and equal nation of the United Kingdom.        

The United Kingdom that Salmond wants Scotland to leave is one that led a global wave of industrialisation, held sway over a quarter of the world's population, the largest empire the world has ever known, fought two world wars, English, Welsh/Cymraeg, Irish/ Northern Irish and Scottish service men and women fighting and working alongside each other in the two biggest conventional interstate wars the world has ever borne witness, and continues to have a large influence over the world. On a daily basis, British service personnel are giving their lives in Afghanistan to keep these islands, perched on the European continent's north west flank, safe - regardless of nation of origin.

And even if Scotland was to vote to become an independant nation, lots of problems and hurdles would still remain.

-What currency would an independant Scotland use? 
The two options that have been put forward by Alex Salmond in the last few weeks both look rather dubious. The idea of Scotland keeping the Pound Sterling as an independent country - whilst theoretically not impossible - would leave the Scottish economy's fiscal and monetary policy split. This eventuality is akin to Zimbabwe adopting the US dollar a few years ago because its own currency became worthless as pointed out by Alistair Darling last week.  Scotland would be in the bizarre position of having an independent fiscal policy whilst being in monetary union with what would remain of Great Britain. The difficulties in the Eurozone can be explained in the same way: the countries that have the Euro can indeed share the same currency, the difficulty is that each state runs a separate fiscal policy. This leads to stronger Eurozone countries metaphorically 'dragging weaker, less financially stable, countries through a bush backwards'- enforcing their economic model on other states.

The other option would be for Scotland to join the Euro. Although for the arguments stated above, this seems a self-defeating and stupid policy. In all likelyhood, Scotland - when its portion of the UK's debt is repatriated to Edinburgh, despite receiving income for North Sea oil- will not reach the entry requirements of a 3% or less budget deficit and 60% debt to GDP ratio required to join the single currency. This then seems another pie in the sky option given current economic circumstances. Not to mention that not so long ago Salmond's economic policy for an independent Scotland included creating an 'arch of prosperity' including the Republic of Ireland and Iceland - two countries that no longer appear to be examples of fine economic governance. On the back of shouldering more debt, Scotland would have to get a credit rating in order to borrow money. It would appear unlikely that an independent Scotland would be awarded a prestigious triple A rating.

-The nuclear detterent based at HMNB Clyde and Scottish industry
Another issue that would of course have to be resolved if Scotland was to become an independent nation is the UK nuclear detterent which is currently based at HMNB Clyde, near Glasgow. Who would take command of the detterent? It has been payed for out of taxpayer's money from across the UK and with Salmond's SNP determined not to enter NATO and to oversee a pullout from Afghanistan what would happen to it is in doubt. Post independence, if Scotland were to maintain the nuclear detterent for a brief period of time, and was viewed as signature of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT), given its previous link to the United Kingdom which ratified the treaty in 1968, than it would be in breach of Article 2 of the treaty. The portion of Great Britain that remained united - viewed as the primary successor state - could also conceivably be in breach of Article 1, even if Scotland did not maintain nuclear weapons. States now party to the treaty but that were still part of the British Empire when the treaty came into force have since had to ratify as non-nuclear weapon states in accordance with the treaty .

So with these two difficulties that would have to be overcome and the common sense of unity that has existed for over three hundred years between Scotland and England, it would appear that independence is not going to quite as simple as Alex Salmond wants it to be. Nevertheless, with an overall majority in Edinburgh and the Unionist parties in complete disarray, it looks as if the we may well see the breakup of the United Kingdom into its contituent ethnic groupings. The largest party in the current government, the Conservative Party, is almost an irrelevance in Scottish politics holding only one out of a possible fifty nine seats and winning less than 20% of the votes in the 2010 General Election in Scotland, and with Labour's current general confusion - the Unionists are not in a very strong position.

The next two years will decide the fate of the United Kingdom. Once one country goes, I think the entire union will likely disintegrate into its constituent chunks. Devolution was always going to lead to a looser union between the four countries that comprise it. We have now arrived at the inevitable: the time when the United Kingdom has to choose its future. Does it want to continue united - as it has successfully done for the past three hundred years - or break up. It will be sad if it chooses the later, considering what the United Kingdom has achieved in the last three centuries and can continue to achieve in the future. Devolution means that from many come one. It should represent that fact that the United Kingdom is a patchwork quilt of various cultures and languages. It does not - as Alex Salmond wants - mean that we should all go our separate ways.  Together the United Kingdom is stronger than divided for all its citizens lest Alex Salmond forget.  

   


  

An appraisal of Vladimir Putin

When the Chinese offered Vladimir Putin their equivalent of a Nobel peace prize at the end of last year, many commentators seemed confused. How could a leader who is increasingly seen as dictatorial receive such an accolade. Many assumed it was just another attempt by China to snub the Western Human Rights agenda and culture. However, have China got it right on this one. Peace prizes are presumably meant to be awarded to those who try and avoid war or military confrontation, and condemn them when they occur.

Russia under Putin has taken a very pragmatic approach to foreign affairs: getting involved in countries that border it but rarely venturing much further. It has learnt, in large part, the lessons of the Soviet misadventures, like in Afghanistan.

Russia has never functioned as a liberal democracy: it experienced the autocratic Tsars monarchy followed almost immediately by a Communist revolution that installed a dictatorial regime in Moscow. Russia is a country that is used to having a strong leader - whether that is a Tsar, Lenin, Stalin or Putin. Autocratic powerful leaders are all many russians have known. And the two times that Russia has had a system almost equating to democracy, just before the 1917 revolution and in the years after the Soviet collapse, it has failed them in a big way. The first because it was ineffective, and then with the return to democracy after the Soviet collapse- during Boris Yeltsin's leadership - Russia was ridiculed on the World stage.      

No wonder then that Putin's more autocratic style is popular amongst Russian: as far as many are concerned it is the only system that has worked for them. Putin has succeeded because he has put some pride back into Russian society. After the collapse of communism, many Russians felt humiliated. Under the Soviet system, Russia had a sense of pride in competing against America: after its collapse they had nothing, they were a defeated nation entering a period of military hegemony by a state they had once competed against for global influence. 

Putin is seen as a leader that is willing to defend Russia's national interest once again. A bulwark against attempts by the west to spread normative values. He has succeeded on the economic front as well. Russia has experienced 9 years of continous economic growth: GDP has risen by 63%, poverty has halved and average monthly incomes have increased from $80 to $640 under Putin's stewardship of the economy. 

Like him or hate him, Putin has been a successful leader of the Russian Federation. And as he mentioned in an interview, and I paraphrase, "of course Russia has freedom of speech, otherwise there would not  have been any protests in the first place". 

Occupy movement complaining against centre-leftist corporatism not capitalism



Above: the OWS protest in Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street,
New York City
(Source:  http://www.city-analysis.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/zuccotti-park-ows.jpg)

This blog is a bit late because events were moving rapidly. It is about the Occupy movements that sprung up in America and around the world. It has been repeatedly claimed that the movement is entirely opposed to capitalism as a entity. However, it seems that a slight re-evaluation of this statement would perhaps be helpful.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, and its syndicates in various other nation states around the world, is primarily focused on a perceived greed of 'bankers' given the massive bailouts that nation states supplied to them during the economic crisis of 2008-2009. But that is exactly where a misinterpretation has taken place: the Occupy movement seems opposed to the bailouts themselves, and perhaps with some reason, rather then the principle of banking institutions. The bailout of banks, and in Britain's case the effective nationalisation of the banking system, increased national Government debts aroound the world massively. As Benito Mussolini once said:       

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power"1      



Above: The Rt Hon Gordon Brown, former 
PM of the United Kingdom
(Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/grahamstewart/gordon_brown_portrait.jpg)

 What many in the Occupy movement are opposed to is the use of public funds to bail out large, "capitalist", banking corporations. In effect, they want free market capitalism to work as it should do, not in its state-collaborating  current form. Capitalism, fundamentally, is not about propping up failed companies, banks or otherwise. The difficulty is that the way that the system was allowed to function, especially throughout the Brown Chancellorship in the United Kingdom. encouraged undue risks to be taken - and for banks to expand to become too big for any one state to control properly. 

It is now states that have borrowed too much who are forcing Banks into difficulty. Banks and Governments have become far too interlinked. There is now a realisation that the debt accrued by Banks lending to sub prime borrowers never really disappeared: it was merely transferred from Bank balance sheets to those of respective governments. The truth is that the corporate relationship between Banks and States - highlighted by acts taken by the previous centre-left government in the UK to prop up banks as a face saver after years of mismanagement of the sector - is going to be very hard to dissolve.  It is obvious that big was not best when it comes to the banking sector. Governments that now try to spend their way out of trouble are stuck: by spending they increase the debts held by Banks and end up back at square one or in a worse position.

The lesson, as pointed out by the Occupy movement, is that corporations have to be able to fail. Capitalism functions by creative destruction ('schöpferische zerstörung')2 as mentioned in The Communist Manifesto, but in a different context: out of the ashes of disaster arises success. The correct response to the global credit crunch would have been for governments to have allowed national banks to collapse into central banks, with central banks effectively taking over ownership. In this manner, debts owed to the Bank could have been removed, central banks would have actioned their responsibility as lender of last resort, and the crisis would have been contained to adlanticist countries.
 

Mao Zedong, Guerrilla Warfare, Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda




 Osama Bin Laden, former head
of terrorist network Al Qaeda

There seems to be a link that nobody is making - well, at least not until a lecturer of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, mentioned it in one of my recent lectures after I had already started this blog.                  

The idea, at least to me, seems very obvious indeed. Since the end of the Cold War, interstate relationships have improved markedly. Since 1990 we have moved from an era of duopolistic military power to having a hegomonic international system with one state, the United States of America having more control over the Westphalian state-system than any other, and trying to shape the world in its image of free-market liberal capitalism. It has become the status-quo, at least for the time being and the immediate future. No other state in the system can yet question America's military pre-dominance.

However, in much the same way as there were military rules of the game during the Cold War era, so there are a new - or a reinstatement of the old, depending on how you see it -set of rules under the new circumstances. States and non-governmental actors have realised that they cannot realistically compete with the United States through military means: in a conventional war, any ideological terrorist group, like Al Qaeda, that formed an army or state would be - metaphorically - flattened.  

Hence, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda have adopted a new method - guerrilla warfare. It is the only way that any NGO terrorist organisations can take on the United States's "force de frappe". Al Qaeda are using the same techniques against the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq as Mao Zedong used against the Japanese and nationalist government after the Second World War. What is even more embarrasing is that 

Mao Zedong, leader of the
Communist Revolutionaries
against Japan and the nationalist
government 


we were the ones who inadvertantly enlightened them as to how to fight this kind of war. During the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980's, Western powers spearheaded by the United States aided the Muhajadeen in agitating for a Soviet withdrawal. They achieved their aim but at a price for the West. Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Centres of the Twin Towers in September 2001, must have been overjoyed when then President George W. Bush steped into the trap of declaring a War on Terror'. Declaring war on an a concept rather than a physical object, a nation state or even a single enemy. 


Mao-Zedong commented that his political goal was 'the complete emancipation of the Chinese people'. The concept of emancipation strikes an accord with the expressed aims of Bin Laden's organisation: they wish to remove Westerners, who they accuse of cooperating with 'zionist forces', from lands in the Middle and near East. They wish to create a Islamic calaphite under sharia law in the region. The organisation has become a franchise, a bit like a terrorist Macdonalds, or split into 'units' as Mao termed them, of guerrilla fighters.

An example of an Al Qaeda training camp
in the lawless tribal border lands of Afghanistan
Pakistan 

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Mao in 1930s China are both in countries which are , in the words of Mao, 'politically, militarily and economically [deficient]  ' They are both following the principle of 'dispersion, concentration, constant change of position' in order to outwit their foreign adversary - the United States and NATO or the Japanese.   

The way to combat this kind of guerrilla warfare (or terrorism, if you prefer) will require an embellishment of current military tactics, a revolution in military affairs, which is woefully lacking at present. Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, has been fantastically enlightening in pointing out that America is experiencing a déjà vu of their adventure in Vietnam and the Soviet misadventure into Afghanistan in the 1980s. By killing one terrorist you create a thousand new recruits. Osama Bin Laden used textbook Mao,  of dispersing 'in order to promote mass movements over a wide area' and using the principle of 'the people are the water, our armies are the fish'. The west has not and obviously ugently  needs to find a cure for this type of warfare.
    

Legalise currently illegal narcotics and prostitution



Is there any logic behind keeping drugs illegal?

This article will look at the issue of illegal narcotics and prostitution in the United Kingdom and ask the question: is it really beneficial to maintain the ban on these two aspects of society? Does keeping drugs and prostitution illegal make us safer as citizens in the United Kingdom or create more problems than it solves?

There is an immense cost to the taxpayer in trying to police and punish those who carry drugs. This uses up valuable resources, especially in a time of economic hardship and fiscal retrenchment, which could be better used funding other more constructive projects in society, such as more funding for schooling and higher education or schemes to get unemployed people skilled and back into the workplace.

The battle against illegal drugs is one that simply cannot be won. It drains a lot of money and time with no perceivable benefit. By criminalising possession of drugs you make otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals. Instead of dealing with the harmful effects that drugs have on communities, you are dealing with the consequences.                                                                                                                                      

Many who take drugs are forced into crime, which transcribes into a social cost for everyone, and makes neighbourhoods more dangerous. This acts as a vicious cycle. It can destroy already less advantaged areas of the UK, areas such as Hackney in London, Motherwell, Govan, in Glasgow, Small Heath and Sparkbrook in Birmingham and the Guernos, near Merthyr Tydfil. These areas do not need higher crime rates. From an economics perspective, restricting supply (adding an element of risk to the supply of drugs), puts the black market price for drugs above the natural market clearing price and increases the difference between the price of supply and the price that can be demanded. Consequently, this means that the drugs cartels can harbour artificially high profits, which then go into committing crime and adding an even larger social cost. .

Legalising drugs would allow the government to have more control over the industry. The government could regulate the sector through taxation: the social cost would become more socialised. It would put drug barons out of business: buy safe legal drugs from a high street shop or some dodgy stuff off a street corner at an exuberant cost?                 

Also, by legalising the sector, it can help those who find themselves wanting to give up but prevented from doing so for fear of being labelled a criminal, or facing a penal sentence. The government would be able to offer support to people that would be more compelled to come forward for help and advice. If the government legalised currently illegal drugs, it could ensure that minimum standards are complied with, making it safer for those who are addicted.

The argument that by legalising drugs more people would be attracting to drugs seems 'non-sensical'. Just because a product becomes legal does not mean the populace will suddenly start buying it?



Above: The Red Light district of Amsterdam,
the Netherlands

The second consideration is whether prostitution should be completely legalised in the United Kingdom (referring to English and Cymraeg/Welsh law, and not Scots law). In much the same vein as the previous argument, it seems that the government cannot help those who find themselves trapped in this profession without knowing who they are.

In completely legalising the profession, the government could do more for the women and men who are compelled into prostitution as a form of income. Instead of pushing the problem into the dark alleyways and background of society and forgetting it exists - effectively turning a blind eye - it would be more constructive to do much the opposite. By completely legalising the practise, the government could encourage these people to seek advice on retraining for a profession which offers more dignity and workers rights for the employee.

By making the profession illegal, it forces the abuse of rights, without the possibility of the vulnerable seeking help. Even for those who willingly partake in the profession, the illegal nature of the profession makes it dangerous, with a plethora of harmful consequences on wider society. Legalisation would allow government intervention to divert people from the industry.

This article, as I mentioned at the beginning, has been attempting to answer the question as to whether keeping drugs and prostitution illegal has any benefits for the nation. As I hope this article shows, it would appear evident that keeping these two aspects of society illegal has few benefits for either the citizenry at large or those directly involved.