Friday 24 August 2018

We must also defend opponents from injustice



Yesterday I was informed that in 2013 I physically assaulted two people at my work. When I asked what I was supposed to have done and to whom, I was told that this was confidential. When I asked whether there was any physical evidence that I had assaulted these people, I was told that there was none. There were no photographs. Neither of the complainants had gone to a doctor. In fact there was no evidence at all that I had done anything wrong apart from their witness statements. When I asked whether there was more than one witness to each of the supposed assaults, I was told that there was only one. In each case someone has accused me of physically assaulting them at some point in 2013, but there was no more evidence than that. How am I to defend myself?


 The problem is that I can only very generally remember 2013. I couldn’t tell you for certain what I was doing on any day in that year. I simply don’t remember. I might be able to look up diaries or check other sources of information, but otherwise if you asked me what I was doing on November 15th 2013 I wouldn’t have a clue. I couldn’t even tell you with certainty that I was in the UK. I might have been on holiday.

So if I don’t know who has accused me and I don’t know what it is I am supposed to have done or when, I have no way of saying I didn’t do that, because I don’t even know what that refers to. I might remember generally that I have never physically assaulting anyone, but I can’t specifically defend myself against an accusation unless I know what it is.

My guess is that if someone accused me of physically assaulting them five years ago, but with no more evidence than their witness statement, no-one would even bother to investigate. Likewise if I said that my house was broken into five years ago, but I have no evidence for this apart from my witness statement, the police are not going to waste any time trying to discover the supposed criminals. If I say that I witnessed a murder, but there is no evidence even that the supposed victim is dead let alone that I saw it, my witness statement will not be taken seriously. I will likely be accused of wasting police time.

I disagree with Alex Salmond politically, but justice ought to transcend political difference. We have rules about evidence for burglary, for murder, for physical assault and for fraud etc. that depend on objectively verifiable facts. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty and in order to be proven guilty there has to be evidence that proves that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I am in no danger of going to jail for burglary unless witnesses can establish that I broke into the house, my fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime, the stolen goods were found in my house or unless I make a confession. No judge is going to send me to prison because of a single witness statement about a burglary that happened five years ago for which there is no other evidence.

But somehow we have established a class of crimes, which must be investigated even if there is only a single witness who states something happened years ago and there is no other evidence at all. This single witness statement which would not be enough to convict someone of burglary, murder, physical assault or fraud, is taken seriously in only one type of case. These cases always involve sex.

Why should there be a special class of crime for which the normal rules of evidence are suspended? Would you feel safe if a single witness could convict you of burglary, murder, physical assault or fraud, even if there was no other evidence? I wouln’t. So why should that single witness be enough to convict someone in a case involving sex?

There is something deeply unjust going on in the world at the moment. People’s reputations are ruined because someone makes a claim, which may or may not be true, but for which there cannot possibly be any other evidence.

Imagine there was a ceilidh in Aberdeen in 2013 and I went to it. Imagine if now in 2018 a man complains that I put my hand up his kilt and sexually assaulted him. How am I supposed to prove whether I did or I didn’t? The only witnesses are me and the man. Who are you supposed to believe? There may be all sorts of reasons why this man wants to ruin my reputation. On the other hand I may have assaulted him. But it is simply impossible for us to find out now.  He should have complained there and then during the ceilidh in 2013. Perhaps then it might have been possible to determine what happened. But there is no point whatsoever waiting five years and then making claims that cannot be verified either way.

I have no idea what Alex Salmond did or didn’t do. But I dislike intensely how people’s reputations are being ruined because of accusations that cannot justly be proved one way or the other. We have already seen how Cliff Richard’s life was shattered by accusations that turned out to be false. Leon Britton died while being accused of abusing children based on evidence that later turned out to be discredited. Other people’s lives have likewise been ruined because of accusations about things that supposedly happened decades ago.

Sexual crimes are as serious as any other crime and people who commit them deserve to be punished severely, but the evidence that convicts must be just as strong as in the case of burglary, murder, physical assault and fraud. This is not least because sexual crimes are so serious, are rightly severely punished and have a more damaging effect on someone’s reputation than most other crimes.

I think Metoo has become a very dangerous witch-hunt, which is leading to great injustice. For this reason it is deeply immoral. The only way to stop it is this. People who make claims of any form of sexual assault must be told that they have to make the claim immediately and provide evidence which corroborates their claim to having been assaulted. Making a statement that you were sexually assaulted five years ago without any other evidence should have no more likelihood of convicting anyone than making such a claim about a physical assault or a burglary.

There is not a special class of witness whose evidence ought automatically to be believed. We do not in Britain think that the witness statement of one man is worth that of two women. It would be equally contrary to justice to suppose that when a woman accuses a man of sexual assault that she ought automatically to be believed.

Women’s lives are being ruined by sexual assault and to make it easier for them to convict those they accuse they are routinely given anonymity. But the lives and reputations of those who are accused are often ruined too. Cliff Richard, I suspect, is at least as damaged because of the false accusations made against him than many victims of sexual assault. For this reason only those actually convicted of sexual assault should have their names revealed in the papers.

Whether innocent or guilty the name of Alex Salmond is liable forever to be associated with whispers about sexual assault. If it turns out that he is innocent, this will be very unjust indeed. It would be far better if none of us knew about this case until and unless Mr Salmond is convicted. But for the sake of justice let him also know what he is accused of, let him have a chance to defend himself and if he is convicted of anything let it require more than just his word against that of someone he perhaps hardly even remembers.

Friday 17 August 2018

Getting out of the wet mush


We have the good fortune to live in a society that for the most part is moderate and tolerant. People might vote Labour, Conservative or Liberal, but they can still get on as friends and colleagues agreeing to differ about such matters. The far-left sold a few newspapers on the street and plotted revolution in bedsits, but they could safely be indulged because we all knew that it wasn’t going to happen. The far-right might snarl from time to time like one of those pitbulls we have to occasionally pass warily on the street its owner strutting, glaring and looking for a fight, but the British electorate always rejected them. But now Labour is run by Marxists and some Jewish people are scared to live in a Britain run by Corbyn, the Lib Dems are nowhere and Brexiteer Conservatives are deeply unhappy with the party leadership. Where next?



The problem I believe goes deeper and further back than merely Brexit. Tony Blair tried to turn Labour into a centrist social democratic party. He rightly took the view that there were a lot of votes to be won in the centre ground. The Conservatives did the same. They too thought there were a lot of votes to be won by ceasing to be quite so Conservative. But the result for the electorate was that we actually ended up with no-choice at all. The difference between New Labour, the Liberals and the Tory Wets was practically speaking nothing. They all supported the EU. None of them really wished to reduce migration to the tens of thousands per year. All of them wanted to use economic growth in order to increase public spending. None of them were willing to try to do anything serious to eliminate the deficit and work towards lowering the national debt. This is the British establishment. It’s tribal politics without distinction and without difference. Tony Blair could equally have led the Conservatives or the Lib Dems, so could Nick Clegg and so could David Cameron. None of them believed in anything very much.

The temptation to always go for the centre ground makes a certain sense. It is necessary to appeal to a wide section of society in order to win an election, but when all parties become centrist do not be surprised when voters who are genuinely left-wing or genuinely right-wing seek another way to bring about change.

New Labour won over the country, but it never won over the party. This is becoming clear now. A large section of Labour voters, quite possibly the majority do not want social democracy. If they did, they would vote for the Lib Dems. Instead they want a chance to build a truly left-wing egalitarian society. If Labour had remained a truly left-wing party, I don’t believe that Corbyn and his friends would ever have had the chance to take it over. I think socialism is a disastrous idea that always leads to poverty and loss of freedom, but many people disagree with me. There has to be someone moderate for these people to vote for. If that someone had been a traditional democratic socialist we might have avoided the revolutionary extremism of Corbyn.

The same goes for the right. Many Conservatives became ever more frustrated with the mush of the “New” Conservative Party. David Cameron promised to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, promised that Britain would once again live within our means and then make a profit, promised that membership of the EU would be reformed. But none of these things happened. It is for this reason that the country as a whole rebelled in 2016. Ordinary people saw Brexit as the only chance to bring about change, because the party system offered no change. In that sense the referendum in 2016 was a referendum not merely about leaving the EU, but about whether we should have more of the same indefinitely or whether we should finally have something different.

The majority of Conservative supporters want proper Conservatism. We don’t want social democracy. If we did we would vote for the Lib Dems. Those Conservatives who do want social democracy, Ruth Davidson, Nicky Morgan, even perhaps Theresa May might be better asking themselves why they wish to be in the Conservative Party. Is it simply because they like the colour blue, because I can’t find many other respects in which they differ from the Lib Dems or Labour moderates?

Conservative supporters overwhelmingly want the UK to completely leave the EU. Moreover there are large numbers of people who are not Conservatives now who also want us to completely leave the EU. Wanting to leave the EU is a huge vote winner. After all we won the referendum. If the Conservatives could get the UK completely out of the EU, we would win the next election by a landslide.

Theresa May’s Brexit in Name Only is the equivalent of Tony Blair’s Socialism in Name Only. It’s an attempt to fool the electorate by pretending that you are bringing about change when really you are not. Blair’s betrayed the core beliefs of the Labour Party membership. It is for this reason he is so hated and it is for this reason we now have an extremist leading the Labour Party. To avoid a similar fate Theresa May, or some subsequent leader must reaffirm core Conservative beliefs and distinguish our party from the social democracy of the centre. Let there be a genuine choice in British politics between Left Right and Centre. Only in this way can we maintain British moderation and trust in our democracy.

Friday 10 August 2018

Tolerance must tolerate even mockery or else be intolerance


Like everyone else I tend to avoid writing about Islam. The events of the past week show why. Many people still care deeply about religion even if Britain is for the most part secular. We live in a country with people from many backgrounds and with very different beliefs. We have to try to get on. The very least that is required is that we should try to be polite and kind. But I believe that honest debate can help us to reach a better understanding and that failure to write openly and self-censorship may lead to an increase in misunderstanding rather than a decrease.


I have only rarely seen someone wearing a niqāb and still more rarely seen a burqa. I’ve seen lots of women wearing head scarfs and quite a few wearing clothing that covers pretty much everything except their hands and face. I must admit that I get a bit of a shock when I see someone covering their face. It may well be irrational, but I also feel a slight sense of fear. I’m sure it requires far more bravery to walk about with a veil. She is more likely to receive nasty comments or worse than I am, so I wouldn’t be surprised if both of us are feeling a bit of fear. I have never asked. I’ve never had the slightest interaction with someone wearing a veil. I don’t suppose I ever will.

Why do some women wear veils? I think in order to understand this we have to go back to the history of the three major monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Judaism is a religion of law. The rules of Jewish life were set forth in books like Leviticus and developed by means of the constant interpretations generations of rabbis made about these books. But Judaism was also a religion that passed onto subsequent generation by means of family rather than by means of conversion. Although the example of Ruth the Moabite showed that it was possible to convert to Judaism, it was never easy. For this reason Judaism tended not to spread and whatever rules it had only applied to its own people. Moreover, because in the history of Judaism Jewish people were rarely the lawmakers, it was usually easy for Jews to cease to follow the rules and become secular.

The essential difference between Christianity and Judaism is that it spread by means of conversion and subsumed the multiplicity of Jewish law into the straightforward and simple “Love God and love your neighbour”. It is for this reason that Christ could pick grain on the Sabbath and in this way demonstrate to his followers that they no longer had to worry about the rules in Leviticus. They could eat what they please, more or less, drink what they please and didn’t have to worry about how to cook things, how to dress or how to wash.

Islam is both a religion of law and a religion that spreads by means of conversion. There are many rules by which Muslims must live. Some of these are derived from the Koran [al-Qurʾān] others from the various writings that came subsequently e.g. Hadith and Sunnah.  Many of these rules are similar to the ones that Jewish people follow such as not eating pork, others are different such as the rules about not drinking alcohol and the rules about praying. The difference however between Judaism and Islam is that whereas Jewish people only wished to apply their rules to other Jews, Muslims owing to their desire to convert others to their faith wished to apply their rules to non-Muslims. For this reason in Muslim countries, there is a tendency to apply Islamic law not merely to Muslims, but to everyone else because Islamic law is universal.

Are Muslim women obliged to wear a veil? This is where things become a little more complex. Muslims differ in their interpretation not so much of the Koran, but of the Hadith and Sunnah and the various other traditions that have developed during the past centuries. The result is that in some Muslim countries women don’t even feel obliged to wear a head scarf, in others they are required to show nothing but their eyes (niqāb), sometimes not even that (burqa).

How should a secular society respond? The crucial point I believe we must make is to say that Islamic law does not apply here. In all of Britain no one is forbidden from drinking alcohol, eating pork or required to cover their face. But anyone who chooses to follow Islamic rules must be free to do so.

But what do we do about people who feel forced by their family or community to follow rules that they otherwise would not wish to. Here we must make clear to everyone that it is the right of every British citizen not to be forced to marry, not to be forced to wear a veil, or anything else for that matter, and not to be forced to have parts of their anatomy mutilated. Even if various traditions and various interpretations of religious law require these things, British law requires that the citizen must not be forced.

For this reason, women from any religious background must be able to tell someone that they are being coerced by their family or community to do something that they don’t want to do and then gain the protection of the British state so as to prevent this coercion.

British Muslims must have the same rights as any other Brits. So long as they wish to follow Islamic law and doing so is compatible with British law they should be free to follow whichever religious rules they please. But if they should choose to cease to believe in Islam or if they should wish to get drunk in a pub or if indeed they should wish to run down the street naked instead of wearing a veil then the full force of UK law should protect them.

We should respect all religions, but that does not mean we have to agree with them or feel unable to criticise aspects that we disagree with. Religions are not all the same.  Some core religious beliefs are incompatible. To believe one to be true is to believe that others are false. Likewise, people must be free to believe that all religions are false.

Just as most British people feel free to criticise aspects of Christianity that they disagree with, so we must all feel free to criticise aspects of Islam that we disagree with. In order to respect someone you have to treat them the same as everyone else. Someone who is willing to criticise the Catholic Church’s attitude to abortion, but unwilling to criticise Muslim practices with regard to veiling obviously thinks that Muslims are less able to debate rationally than Catholics. This strikes me as far more racist than treating British Muslims simply as our equals.

We live in a society where we are free to mock the Book of Mormon, the Spanish Inquisition and the crucifixion itself because we think that Mormons and Christians will probably have a sense of humour and even if they don’t they must tolerate satire and even mockery. We should expect no less of Muslims.



Friday 3 August 2018

The fourth horseman


The two issues that dominate Scottish and UK politics both involve a choice of whether to Leave or Remain. There are four variants. Let's embrace the current apocalyptic metaphors and call them horsemen.


          EU              UK

1.       Leave         Leave    Independent Scotland out of the EU.

2.      Remain      Leave    Independent Scotland inside the EU.

3.      Remain      Remain   United UK inside the EU.

4.      Leave         Remain   United UK outside the EU.



Clearly all of these are possible positions. The SNP officially wants to Remain in the EU, but leave the UK, while many of its supporters would prefer to leave both.

There has been a tendency among some Remain supporters to describe wishing to leave the EU as a form of nationalism. But what do we mean by nationalism?

As I have long argued there are three main senses in which the word nationalism is used in politics.

1. Secession nationalism. 

2. Unification nationalism.

3. Far right nationalism.

Secession and unification nationalism are both perfectly legitimate political goals and there are large numbers of examples from history. Ukraine left the USSR in order to form an independent sovereign state. Likewise Italian and German nationalism were the processes which united various Italian and German speaking territories into single sovereign states. These goals are morally neutral and sensible people can disagree about whether they are desirable or not. When I describe an SNP supporter as a nationalist it is simply a descriptive term that usefully distinguishes this sort of political goal from other political goals.

Far right nationalism is different and it would be better if we had a different word for this. It defines the nation in a narrow usually racist fashion and wishes to exclude others on these grounds. Luckily in Britain far right nationalism wins few votes at elections. When this sense of nationalism is used to describe Brexiteers it is used simply as an insult. We truly are in trouble if 17 million British citizens support the far-right. Likewise calling people who support the unity of the UK British nationalists is an equally unpleasant insult. It is equating us with people who support the BNP. For this reason I have had a long standing policy of blocking people who use such terms on Twitter and I have recently extended it to Remain supporters who use nationalism as a term of abuse or who think it funny to conflate the UK wishing to leave the EU with Scotland wishing to leave the UK. When I discover that someone doesn’t wish to discuss but just wants to insult, I become immediately uninterested in anything else they might have to say.

The first two senses of nationalism should in no way be thought of as insulting for the process of historical development very frequently has involved these unifying and seceding processes.

What has the EU been in the process of doing since its foundation? It is obvious that it has gradually been attempting to unify the various member states into what it hopes will eventually be a single united sovereign state. It is doing what in effect Germany did in the nineteenth century. This therefore is a form of unification nationalism.

From this it can be shown that the first option (Leave Leave) whereby Scottish nationalists wish to both leave the UK and the EU is by far the more coherent position for them to take. These people take the view that it is pointless to leave the UK if Scotland is just going to end up being ruled by Brussels. But while this position is coherent it persuades few Scots who are not already fervent believers in Scottish nationalism. After all, the softest form of independence imaginable was rejected in 2014. This is why the SNP rejects Leave Leave as politically untenable.  This above all is why Pro UK people should support Brexit, because it makes the SNP’s position untenable. Always do what your opponent least wants.

The mainstream SNP position (Remain Leave) involves Scotland in both the secession form of nationalism and the unification form. This looks rather like saying we don’t mind sharing a sovereign state with Europe we just can’t bear sharing it with England. If the EU really is going to become a united nation state then Scotland would have no more independence than does Texas. Scottish nationalists would therefore be the equivalent of nineteenth century Northern Bavarians trying to secede from Bavaria while the whole of Bavaria was uniting into Germany. What would be the point? “Independence within Europe” therefore is going in opposite directions at the same time leading to complete incoherence.

Those who wish a united UK to remain in the EU (Remain Remain) are clearly in effect subscribing to the unification form of nationalism, though few would admit it. The EU has been on a journey towards “ever closer union” from its beginning, just as various German states were in the process of unifying long before they actually unified. The EU is closer to becoming a United States of Europe now than these German states were in 1848, so anyone who doubts where the EU is going needs to read some relatively straightforward history books.

Remain supporters frequently think of themselves as internationalists, but this is a mistake. The relationship between the parts of Germany is not international. It ceased to be international when the parts ceased to be nation states. In order to be an internationalist you have to believe in the maintenance of the sovereign nation state, but work towards cooperation with other sovereign nation states. Internationalism is not about annulling nation states, which is just another word for the unification form of nationalism, but rather it is about maintaining them.

Remain Remain contradicts itself further because in agreeing with mainstream Scottish nationalism about the EU it makes the goal of Scottish nationalism easier to achieve. The condition for the possibility of sub-nation nationalism in Europe is the EU. It is for this reason that independence supporters whether from Catalonia, Flanders or Scotland see the EU as allowing them to maintain the same rights as they have at present, owing to EU membership, even if they became independent. For this reason Remain Remain in the long run leads both to the breakup of the UK (secession nationalism) and to the UK or its parts subsuming itself into the EU whole (unification nationalism). In no sense therefore does Remain Remain in the long run lead to the maintenance of the UK.

Wanting a united UK to leave the EU isn’t nationalism at all. Apart from the insulting far right sense of the word, nationalism is about becoming rather than being. It is about becoming something that you are not. The UK is already united. Wishing to maintain this unity is not nationalism. Every sovereign state in the world wishes to maintain its territorial integrity. If this is nationalism then the word ceases to have any meaning. So trying to avoid the secession form of nationalism is not nationalism, but likewise and for the same reason wishing to avoid the unification form of nationalism is not nationalism either.

In 1866 at the battle of Königgrätz Saxony fought with the Austrian Empire against Prussia and lost. One result of this was that Saxony had to join the North German Confederation and within a few years too part in the final stages of German unification. Saxony’s fight against unification nationalism was not itself nationalistic. Saxony was not seceding, rather it was saying we don’t want to take part. Now that Saxony is a part of a united Germany, it could only achieve independence again by means of secession. This would be nationalism, but in 1866 it was simply trying be what it was rather than become something that it was not.

Brexit supporters who recognise that the EU makes Scottish nationalism easier, are simply using Brexit to defeat both secession nationalism and unification nationalism. Brexit is not about uniting with anyone else, nor is it about seceding from another nation state. The EU is not a nation state, that is what it is becoming. Brexit is about recognising what is happening to the EU and saying we don’t want to take part.

The debate between Remain and Leave is very peculiar for the simple reason that although many people are passionate Remain supporters, very few of them actually want the UK to be subsumed in a United States of Europe. Support for European federalism is vanishingly small in the UK. Some Remain supporters think the UK can keep a sort of semi-detached relationship with the EU (outside the Euro, outside Schengen) indefinitely and somehow we can avoid “ever closer union”, or else they think that the EU will never quite reach the United States of Europe stage.

But the last two years have shown us that the EU is showing ever more signs of the unification nationalism that Germany displayed in the nineteenth century, whereby it was willing to crush all dissent in the name of getting towards its goal of unity. The attempt to punish Brexit in order to either bring us back into the fold or else at least to discourage any other attempts to leave is a strategy worthy of Moltke and Bismarck.

In the end the choice remains the same as it did in 2016. Either you wish the UK to become a region in the EU, subsumed and in the end with no more sovereignty than Texas, or you wish to leave. There might be some advantages in being a part of the United States of Europe, but let us at least be honest about the long term choice that we face. We are going to have to face up to this choice sooner or later, but later might be too late. The process of unification will soon reach a point where leaving isn’t an option. We are almost at that point now. If we let Remain drag us back into the EU prison we won’t get a second chance to escape. 

The fourth Brexit horseman far from being apocalyptic is the only means we have of escaping an eventual fate that few Brits whether Leavers or Remainers actually want. It is the means by which we keep the UK united and a sovereign state rather than submerged in ever closer EU union. Far from being scary the fourth horse is the means by which we avoid something scary. We must let nothing, and certainly not scare stories from sore losers, hinder our journey to freedom. We still have time to jump on the Brexit horse and gallop off into the distance. Only in this way can we evade the EU/Remainer conspiracy to put down a healthy horse on the grounds that "Hell followed with him."

Integration versus disintegration in international relations


In order to understand the issues involved when political parties seek independence it is necessary to look at the topic in terms of its fundamentals. This involves looking at two processes. One is the process by which countries or parts of countries integrate. The other is the way in which they sometimes disintegrate. There are in history examples of unification and examples of secession. These two processes both describe something fundamental in human nature. Only by exploring them will it be possible to understand the essence of the political issue.

Why do we have nation states at all?

It is important to explore the historical issue of how people living in small villages in antiquity gathered together. We moved from tribes, to areas ruled by warlords or chiefs, then to kings. Every European country is made up of places that once were independent. This process of integration is generally called progress.

Looking at a map of Britain at the time of the Romans we find that there were many peoples inhabiting this small island. 



Even the names of these peoples have for the most part been forgotten. Whatever once divided them has ceased. The reason for the division was, no doubt due to problems with communication. Travelling from the south of England to the north in those days was, no doubt a major journey. For this reason rulers were localised. 

Scotland too was just as much a divided territory in Ancient times. There too were numerous tribes with names that have now been forgotten. Later at least four peoples could be found in Scotland and the British Isles. This happened because of migration and also because of the processes of division and integration. Tribes fought and made peace. Territory was won and lost. The whole was in flux. 


The history of the British Isles is the process by which Celtic speaking people, became English speaking people. It was above all language that united these many peoples, but it was also the process by which modern nation states came into existence. Gradually different people found that they had something in common or through conquest and assimilation were made to have something in common. Small weak local rulers were subsumed by larger stronger ones. This began in Roman times, but continued when the Romans left. 

If we move forward a few hundred years we can see that the process of integration has continued. The Celts have been pushed westwards. Germanic/Scandinavian peoples have continued to spread from the East and to the North. There are still quite a large number of kingdoms in Britain, but there are many fewer than when the Romans first arrived. 


Britain is still not united, nor for that matter are England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland. The idea that there was such a thing as an English or a Scottish people in antiquity is refuted by history. There were many different peoples in the various parts of the British Isles, but they had not reached any sort of unity. They were however moving towards unification.

At this point in British history there are still a number of different languages spoken in Britain. People in the north and west tend to speak Celtic languages in the south and east Anglo-Saxon/Scandinavian languages. If this division had continued then so might the division of Britain. But it didn’t. Gradually and with the help of further invasions from the Normans, modern English arose. Within another few hundred years, by 1707, Britain was united into a country that for the most part spoke English.

This process of integration could be illustrated in nearly every European country. Examples can be found in other countries around the world as well. As people develop they tend to come together. We can see the same sort of thing happen today with the rise of multi-national companies and globalisation. There are economies of scale when people come together to form a nation state. There are advantages to being ruled on a national level rather than allowing every small village to have its own chief. Unity allows people to achieve more than when they are separate, both in terms of security and in terms of economics. The story of human development is to a great extent the story of its unification. This is what we mean by progress.

Is there a limit to this progress?

Why should we stop integrating? Why not end up with a world government, like the Federation in science fiction’s Star Trek? If unification is so beneficial why do we stop? Why don’t the world’s present nation states continue the process of joining together that begun in antiquity?

If the EU could succeed in creating a Federal United States of Europe, could this be a model for other continents. Given that Europe is an arbitrary continent why not make it the Eurasian Union? Why not go still further and treat all human beings as citizens of one nation state?

Two models of nationalism

Nationalism can go in two directions. Patriotism, by the way, is not nationalism unless it becomes extremism. Nationalism can be unifying, for example German unification in 1860s and 1870s and Italian nationalism during Risorgimento. Here nationalism describes the process of integrating German and Italian speaking peoples into a nation state. Many independent statelets become one.

The other sort of nationalism is by means of secession: A part of a nation state votes or fights to leave. Poland leaves the Russian Empire. The Austro-Hungarian Empire falls apart, Ukraine leaves USSR. Slovenia leaves Yugoslavia.

There are two factors at play in world politics. One separates the other unifies. These two factors are always present. While there is a tendency towards unification that is connected with human progress, there is also the tendency towards division. These processes are present even today. At almost the same time as West and East Germany united, Czechoslovakia divided. Just as unification is grounded in human nature, so too is secession. In order to look at these processes in more detail it is necessary to explore the reasons why people unite or divide.

The process of unification

Small territories are conquered by larger ones. But this usually occurs only when they already have similarities. For example, the gradual unification of Russia from small territories ruled by warring princes occurred in the context of fighting a common enemy, the Mongols. Only by gradually uniting could they stand up to common enemy. As a consequence of this unification Russia could then move towards expansion, by which it brought other peoples into the ever increasing Russian empire. Without the initial unification Russian power would never have developed in the first place.

However a united country normally has certain key factors. The population is already similar or else it becomes similar.

Typically a country is united because its people speak the same language, have a similar history, culture, ethnicity and religion. They are normally geographically distinct from other countries.

The process of unifying a country frequently irons out difference. In France in the middle ages there were many variants of French. Now there is only French. The process of unification created this common language and common identity.



The process of division

Secession happens most frequently when a nation state includes people who are in some important respect different from their neighbours or where there is a political disagreement that cannot be overcome otherwise than through secession, or where there is a significant geographical divide such as an ocean.

The fundamental reason why the USA split from Britain was geography. The disputes between the American colonists and Britain could have been overcome, but the Atlantic Ocean could not. The difference between an American and a British person even today is quite small. We understand each other quite easily. Culturally we are very similar. But people prefer to be ruled by someone who lives on the same continent as they do. For this reason also Australia and New Zealand although linguistically and culturally almost identical to Britain do not wish to be ruled by someone who lives on the other side of the world.

Identity is crucial to the issue of secession. If people in a nation state feel different in a crucial respect to others living there, then a desire to live in a separate country may arise. For example, the now independent countries of the former USSR now have an identity that is different from that of Russia. Many of them speak a different language, e.g. Armenian, Kazakh. 

Many former Soviet citizens living in the non-Russian republics, no doubt, had a Soviet identity, but this was not enough to prevent the break-up of the Soviet Union. At what point is a common identity not enough to overcome the feeling of difference? Here we see the two processes of integration and disintegration working. There is something in human nature that brings us together, a common identity, but there is also something that splits us apart, a separate identity. The limit of a common identity may turn out to be the limit of unification.

Political disagreement may give rise to secession even when identity is very similar. For example, the southern states (the Confederacy) seceded from the USA because of a potential political disagreement over slavery. In nearly every other respect an American from the south was not very different from someone from the north. Even today there have been instances where some Texans talked about secession because of the election of Obama, while some Californians talked about it due to the election of Trump. In any nation state a part will frequently vote differently from the whole. This is not a fault of democracy, it is a feature. But if a part of a nation state cares deeply enough about a political issue and if they feel that the state as a whole prevents the fulfilment of this political goal, then there may be a tendency toward secession even while identity issues are not really a factor.

If there is a tendency for countries to secede because they speak different languages or have different cultures and religions, how can the process  of unification progress? The issue here gets to the heart of why we have countries and how far disparate peoples can be united. There are, of course, examples of countries which have many different languages, ethnic groups, religions and identities. China, Russia and India contain many different peoples. But what do they share? Are they held together by a common identity? Do most citizens speak a common language as well as their own language? Are such states held together by choice or because they are never allowed a choice. Most nation states in the world do not give parts the right to decide whether they which to leave. The United States would fight to maintain Texas in the Union. Germany would not allow Bavaria a vote on secession, nor would France allow Corsica such a choice. But sometimes as we have seen in recent years nation states like the USSR reach a point where they collapse. What lessons can be drawn from this?

The USSR for all its faults had a common language (Russian) which everyone spoke at least in the workplace. It had a common ideology (communism), similar schooling and a common identity. If the USSR could not succeed even though much of it had centuries of shared history in the Russian Empire, then what hope is there for the EU or other attempts at multi-national unions? Given the choice the peoples of the Soviet Republics voted with their feet. At the point when the USSR was at its weakest it found that what it held in common was not enough. This demonstrated that all along the bonds of the USSR were not the bonds of choice, but rather lack of choice. They were “forced to be free”.

But is it possible then for different peoples to join together to form a new nation state? Yes it is. We have numerous examples of different people in history gradually joining. But what is the lesson from this process for future attempts to join different peoples? If the Soviet Union failed what lessons can be learned for the European Union?

The condition for the possibility of a successful union

What does the EU need to succeed? It needs its people to have a shared identity. East and West Germans were able to come together and unite because they thought of themselves as one people. West Germans were willing to transfer billions of Deutsche Marks to East Germany. But they are not willing to transfer money to Greeks. Why? They don’t think that they are the same people as Greeks. Greeks and Germans are both Europeans, but this common identity is not enough for them to think of themselves as countrymen. They do not feel as if they share a common identity. Without that common identity it is hard to see how the European Union can become a nation state. This after all is the goal. It is the reason that the EU introduced a single currency and border free travel. It is the reason why the rule of Brussels supersedes national rule. But how then can EU political union ever be successful without a common identity?

How is it possible to create a common EU identity? There needs to be a common language and common education. There would have to be a common language like in the USSR (Russian) that is spoken in every EU workplace. The obvious candidate is English.  This massively help free movement of people for everyone. In this case, if I trained to be an accountant I could work just as easily in Germany as in Greece. At present I can’t do this as for linguistic reasons. The United States works as a union because I can live and work in any state without much difficulty. The same was true in the USSR. The reason for this above all else was a common language. Without a common language the attempt to create a state from different countries will lead either to force or failure.

But even here there is no guarantee. Unification didn’t work in the USSR.  There are numerous secession movements in Europe often even when the people involved are very similar, speak more or less the same language and have been part of the same nation state for centuries.


The problem is that as soon as one secession movement succeeds it tends to encourage others. In a very short time Yugoslavia went from being one country to being seven or perhaps eight depending on how you count. If every European secession movement succeeded the number of European countries would more than treble. There are over 185 different ethnic groups in Russia and 22 different Republics. If each of them demanded secession, there would be chaos and war. The same can be said for many other countries. Imagine if India or China attempted to split up along ethnic or linguistic lines. The problem is that all of these people are mixed. There are no clear boundaries dividing one group from another. Anyway if the world’s nations started splitting up where would this stop? It would be a retrograde step taking us eventually back to the warring tribes of the Roman Empire.

Could the USA face fresh secession problems not only over political difference, but also because of the changing ethnic and linguistic makeup of its population? The middle states and coastal states are very different. What would happen if Hispanics became a majority in some western states? Could they ask for reunification with Mexico?

Czechs and Slovaks are so similar that only they can tell that they are in any way different. If even people who are this similar cannot bear to live in the same nation state, how can we expect a nation state called the EU to succeed?

If a successful country like the UK is in danger of falling apart even though the only difference between Scotland and England is an accent, how can we expect Spaniards and Poles to live in the same nation state?

The right of secession versus the nation state’s right to territorial integrity

Under what circumstances is secession justified? There is a difference of opinion about this in various parts of the world. China under no circumstances will allow secession. If Taiwan declared independence there might well be war. Tibet has no choice but to remain a part of China.

Likewise in the USA they moved from the Constitution saying that anyone can throw off a Government they don’t like to the Gettysburg Address, which is about how a democracy can long endure in the face of attempts to break it up. Secession is seen as a threat to democracy by Lincoln. The Gettysburg Address together with the United States Constitution form the foundations of modern western democracy. But they are going in different directions and appear to contradict each other. 

Is it anti-democratic to prevent a part of a country seceding if it wishes to? After all, the majority of voters in the southern states did want secession. There is no question of this. The results of the 1860 Presidential Election show it. By what right were they prevented by force of arms?

The USSR allowed the Republics to secede. But Russia did not allow Chechnya to leave. Was this just because of the chaos in 1991? If given the chance again would Putin, or someone similar, try to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union by force? If he had no-one could complain that Crimea had changed its Republic or that the Donbass had moved from the Ukrainian SSSR to the Russian SSSR. These would have been internal Soviet matters.

If Ukraine has the right to leave the USSR, why doesn’t Crimea have the right to leave Ukraine?

There is a tension between the right of Ukraine to keep its territory intact and the right of Crimea to leave. These rights are balanced rather like the balance between the US Constitution and the Gettysburg Address.  There is a contradiction at the heart of the foundation documents of western democracy. A tension between the American right to independence from Britain, but the lack of the Confederacy’s right to leave the USA. Is it simply a matter of might is right? How are we to balance the rights of unity and the rights of secession? Both involve self-determination of the whole people versus a part of the people.

Most examples of secession take place after political collapse or war

The Russian Revolution led to Finnish, Polish and Baltic States’ independence. The fall of the USSR led to independence for the Soviet Republics. But it went further. Transnistria seceded from Moldova. Nagorno-Karabak seceded from Azerbaijan and over time there were further conflicts. Abkhazia and South Ossetia seceded from Georgia. These secessions are not recognised by most of the world. But what makes one secession justified while another is not? How do we decide which to recognise and which to ignore?

In general it is unusual for secession to happen peacefully with neither political collapse nor war. Few countries in the world would allow a part to democratically vote to leave the whole. Exceptions to this include the UK and Canada. Spain is reluctant to allow Catalonia a vote on secession. But why is it fine for Scotland and Quebec to have a vote but not Catalonia? Why if it is all right for Scotland to have a vote should the USA be justified in preventing secession by force? Would the USA still use force if Texas tried to leave?

Given that there is a right to secession how on earth can the EU have any long term future? The EU is not at present a nation state, for which reason leaving it is not strictly speaking secession. But could it reach a stage where the EU became a nation state that forbade members from leaving, just as Spain forbids Catalonia. Unless the EU forbade members leaving it is hard to see how it can have a long term future. 

But what would such a refusal look like? What if Poland became so thoroughly sick of EU membership that it decided to leave? What if it had a revolt against EU membership which was then crushed by EU troops? This would look awfully like the revolts of 1830 or 1863 against the Tsar.

So long as people have a Polish, or a German or a Greek identity and so long as they don’t share the identity of their fellow EU citizens, for so long the EU project is in danger. Unifying only works when there is a common identity such as was the case with Italian and German unification. But there is no strong European identity. The difference between someone from Portugal and Hungary is just too great for them to share an identity. They don’t even both speak Indo-European languages. They probably know next to nothing about the history or culture of each other’s countries. There is nothing to unify because there is nothing in common.

At some point a political crisis is liable to envelop the EU. If the UK can successfully leave the EU without disaster, it will make it much easier for someone else. At some point a politician will be elected somewhere who realises that leaving the Eurozone and devaluing is a better alternative to years of recession and austerity. Once one goes, another will soon follow.

The EU is trying to unify that which is dissimilar without trying in any way to make it similar. Secession is a threat to any nation state even when the people living in it are similar (see UK, Czechoslovakia). It is hard to see how the EU can avoid eventual secession and following in the footsteps of the USSR for the simple reason that it lacks even those advantages that the USSR had.

People are by nature tribal. We prefer to live with people who are similar to us. This is something that goes back to the time when we first emerged from caves and began tilling the land. It is the desire to live with people who are similar that explains why we have countries where people are broadly from the same tribe. They speak the same language, worship the same God, have the same culture and tastes. This is a deep rooted part of human nature. If it were not, we would not have developed countries at all.

But given that human beings on the whole wish to live in countries where people are similar to us, the idea of a world government falls by the wayside as does the idea of a Federal United States of Europe. It will be contrary to the basic desire of people to live in a nation state with people who are similar to them. In the end Poles mostly prefer to live with Poles, Germans prefer to live with Germans. Until they have the same identity there is no point trying to make them live in the same country. 

History shows Germans and Poles living together for centuries without a common identity emerging. The end of that project happened between 1939 and 1945. If hundreds of years of sharing a territory ended in the expulsion of the Germans from Polish lands, it is hard to see how these people can ever form a common identity owing to the EU. 

The modern experiment of trying to change human nature by making us live in a nation state called the EU, as also making us live with mass migration from other countries and cultures, is going to fail. The USSR tried to change human nature and spent 70 failing to do so. Human nature is deep rooted and goes back 40,000 years. We prefer to live with our own kind and until you make Poles the same as Greeks each of them speaking the same common language and eating much the same food, you will find that they do not think of themselves as compatriots. For this reason they cannot very well live as part of the same country. If people cannot live together it is better that they live separately.