I’m not going to spend any time responding to the accusation. No one in their right mind believes that. Ibrahim doesn’t either.
As soon as I saw the name, I remembered this from last year:
A new Advisory Council Member for the anti-independence group SBUK has popped up.
Scottish Business UK (SBUK) is an independent, non-party voice for business leaders who want to see Scotland thrive economically as part of the United Kingdom.
It seeks to make a positive case for that future and believes strongly that the campaign to break up the UK offers unacceptable disruption for business and public services, especially as Scotland tries to rebound from the challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic.https://scottish-business.uk/about-us/
Ibrahim popped up in 2013, launching the Scotland Institute with Jackson Carlaw, Jo Swinson and Alistair Darling in 2013.
We ‘caught up with him then’ and wrote:
You could make this up but invite a lot of sniggering. This is all true. It’s not one of my daft spoofs. Seriously!
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim, Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, and Director at the Center for Global Policy in Washington has popped up twice in two days, in the Scotsman, seven years after famously warning Scots, in 2013, that only the Royal Navy could save us from Russian subs penetrating our waters.
Honorary US Army officer, Prof Ibrahim, set-up the anti-independence group, the Scotland Institute, with Jackson Carlaw, Jo Swinson and Alistair Darling in 2013. Was that legal? Well, it turns out he is a Scot with an honorary doctorate from Glasgow Caley and founded a hedge fund. More here:
https://moridura.blogspot.com/2013/06/azeem-ibrahim-defence-of-scotland-and.html
The SI is incredibly unproductive and appears to have published nothing since 2013 until the prof appeared yesterday and today in the Scotsman:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_Institute
Today’s article is mostly a rewarmed version of the one yesterday warning us that:
An independent Scotland would be much more vulnerable to the designs of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
For a research prof, Ibrahim offers little in the way of evidence. Most obviously, he does not tell us why his warnings do not seem to apply to wee Ireland, Norway or Denmark, titchy Iceland or the quite defenceless Faroes. He doesn’t mention the ‘broad shoulders’ of NATO. Wouldn’t we be under the protective umbrella of that organisation, like all the other wee countries?
Here’s his ‘best‘ evidence:
Meanwhile, a newly independent Scotland would already be closer to Russia’s sphere of influence through the various friendships cultivated between Russian influence agents and the SNP (remember the close ties between Alex Salmond and Russia Today, to name but the most well known example)
Talking-up Scotland 
In essence, as the group is FOR Scottish businesses WITHIN the UK, it should be named “UK Businesses in Scotland” (UKBS) or ‘UK BullShit’.
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Its all so predictable trot out all the SNP bad Scotland to small the simple answer is that without Scotland Westminster is gone no more round the big table all power lost just a craven few left longing for the return of the empire while we here in Scotland can hold our heads high and join all the other free nations in the world so come on the undecided vote yes you know it makes sense.
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Leaving aside the puerile comment regards the FM’s hatred of the English ( isn’t she half English) the biggest threat to Scotland’s security isn’t Russia but England. A country we were almost permanently at odds with up to and beyond the Treaty of Union. A country which it and probably most of the rest of the world will consider to be not even a second rate world power. A country which has unlawfully usurped our sovereign rights, plundered our capital and resources, undermined our laws, traditions and languages, engaged in what can only be described as a war of attrition on our industries and attempted cultural genocide against our people. England’s the biggest threat.
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Desperation from the Express. Scottish sales must be really be tanking or is it the recent Polls that are getting to them?
As for Dr. Azeem Ibrahim, he is entitled to his views, same as the pub bores I guess. It sill won’t revive the Express sales or reverse the Polling trends though.
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O/T With the news that nurses who are members of the RCN have rejected the Scottish Government’s improved pay offer, it’s worth reflecting on this from the BBC News website’s Wales section a few days ago: ‘Nurses’ pay: More strikes promised as Drakeford defends offer’.
At the end of my post, the reaction of Labour to the latest RCN news in Scotland is compared and contrasted. But first to Wales.: in the BBC article we learn a lot about the Welsh Government’s current response to the industrial disputes across the NHS. Of course that is the Labour Party in government having to respond within its range of devolved powers. Here are extracts, with my emphasis:
‘WELSH MINISTERS DECIDED AGAINST A BETTER PAY OFFER FOR NURSES to help protect NHS spending, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said. He said his government could have raised taxes or redirected money from its own budget to increase nurses’ pay.
But he argued that would have “meant fewer treatments, fewer nurses, less money for the health service”.
‘THE WELSH GOVERNMENT HAS OFFERED NHS STAFF A PAY RISE OF BETWEEN 4% AND 5.5%, but nurses are seeking a 19% increase.’
BBC Wales helpfully provides readers with important context before expanding on the Welsh FM’s position: ‘THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE WELSH GOVERNMENT’S BUDGET COMES FROM THE UK TREASURY, WITH SPENDING DECISIONS IN AREAS LIKE THE NHS AND EDUCATION IN ENGLAND DIRECTLY AFFECTING THE AMOUNT OF MONEY TRANSFERRED TO WALES.
‘Mr Drakeford said: “It is simply the truth that the amount of money we get for public services and pay in Wales is A CONSEQUENCE OF THE DECISIONS THAT ENGLISH MINISTERS MAKE FOR ENGLAND.”
“That is just the way the system is,” he told BBC Politics Wales. Mr Drakeford was asked if his government was abdicating responsibility for public sector pay in Wales by ARGUING IT COULD NOT MAKE A BETTER OFFER WITHOUT EXTRA CASH FROM WESTMINSTER. “I think we can only be accountable for the decisions that genuinely lie in our hands and we should be held accountable,” he said.
“We could’ve taken the £120m out of the money available to run the health service and to pay nurses that money instead. THAT WOULD’VE MEANT FEWER TREATMENTS, FEWER NURSES, LESS MONEY FOR THE HEALTH SERVICE ITSELF. Now, you could say we should’ve done that. We chose not to, we’re accountable for that decision. We could’ve raised taxes – we chose not to do so,” he added.’
The article then gives an insight into the (misguided IMHO) attitude of the RCN in Wales: ‘Union boss Helen Whyley, from the Royal College of Nursing in Wales, said A WALES-ONLY SOLUTION WAS NEEDED RATHER THAN BLAMING UK GOVERNMENT FUNDING. “This is a Welsh problem,” she told BBC Radio Wales’ Sunday Supplement. “I’m talking about Welsh nurses in Welsh hospitals, in Welsh communities. We need to find a Wales solution to this to move forward.”
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64011170
The Scotland section of the BBC News website has just published a article on rejection of the Scottish Government’s pay offer by the RCN: ‘Nurses in Scotland to strike after rejecting pay deal from NHS’. It includes quotes of unsurprising but still breathtaking hypocrisy from opposition politicians!
Firstly, from the party whose government in Westminster steadfastly refuses to engage in NHS pay negotiations: ‘Scottish Conservative health spokesperson, Dr Sandesh Gulhane, called on Mr Yousaf to “immediately get back round the table” with the RCN to prevent strike action going ahead.’
But if you think that’s bad, recall what is reported above about the Labour government in Wales and then ‘reflect’ on this:
‘… Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said THE HEALTH SECRETARY SHOULD STEP DOWN. She said: “Under the SNP, Scotland’s heroic nursing staff have been pushed to breaking point. We are already in the midst of a full-blown winter crisis, with lives being risked on a daily basis. It’s time that Humza Yousaf does THE RIGHT THING AND RESIGNS.”
We know well from decades of evidence what to expect from Tories. But, candidly, there are now some leading politicians in the Labour Party in Scotland that can no longer disappoint: they just continue to be repellent due to their base political values and tactics.
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Labour and Conservative think they are better together when concocting their Scotland is rubbish and incapable of running itself , these politicians of course make a good living out of lying to their constituents and by the time they get found out and retire from politics they have dredged enough money out of us to disappear into a big mansion somewhere hidden well away in the countryside.
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Another unelected Westmibster paid spokesman. Illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion ruined the world economy. Kept secret under the Official Secrets Act and ‘D’ notices. The Tory porn prawn Express. Pimping to continue tax evasion. The Tories dirty secrets. Bung and illegal frauded monies. Tory spokespeople. Shame on them with their falsehoods and lies. Liars always get found out.
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