Britain's falling apart: some revelation at hand? - Brexit and Sinn Fein’s success boost talk of Irish unification

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Is some revelation at hand? - Brexit and Sinn Fein’s success boost talk of Irish unification | Briefing | The Economist

EU-Scotland relations: Scotland asks EU to 'leave a light on' in Brussels after Brexit

Many in Scotland have an eye on independence from the UK, a move they see as opening a path to joining the European Union.

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https://www.euronews.com/2020/01/31/scotland-asks-eu-to-leave-a-light-on-in-brussels-after-brexit

Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon: Parliament suspension may make Scottish independence 'inevitable'

Boris Johnson‘s controversial decision to suspend Parliament in the build up to Brexit may be the moment that Scottish independence became “completely inevitable”, Nicola Sturgeon has said. 

The Scottish First Minister claimed that support for leaving the UK was growing with each passing day, accusing the Prime Minister of acting like “some kind of tinpot dictator”.

She also said the suspension proved Mr Johnson would be willing to shut down the Scottish Parliament to achieve his political aims, a suggestion she had previously regarded as “silly”.

But the Scottish Conservatives backed the move, arguing there would still be “ample” time for MPs to debate Brexit and describing the SNP‘s reaction as “predictably hysterical”.

Read more: Nicola Sturgeon: Parliament suspension may make Scottish independence 'inevitable'

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Scotland - Independence beckons: Scottish independence now neck-and-neck, new post-Brexit poll shows – by Matthew Tempes

Support for Scottish independence in the wake of the Brexit referendum is now effectively neck-and-neck, according to a new poll released Wednesday (8 February).

The survey, for the Herald newspaper in Glasgow, puts support for independence at 49% and for the status quo at 51%, excluding don’t knows.

It comes against a backdrop of British Prime Minister successfully getting through a parliament a bill allowing MPs to vote on a final Brexit deal – but with very little consultation or safeguards against a so-called ‘Hard Brexit.’

Whilst still showing a theoretical victory for the status quo, it is within a statistical margin of error – and compares with the 2014 referendum result of 45% for independence and 55% against.

The seismic vote by the UK as a whole – but not Scotland, Northern Ireland or Gibraltar – to leave the EU  last year has brought fresh pressure on the Scottish National party minority government in Edinburgh to hold a fresh referendum.

That has increased with confirmation from Theresa May that Brexit will mean leaving the single market, and – as yet – no deal on the rights of EU workers in the UK, and vice-versa.

Alex Salmond, the SNP’s former leader, first minister, and foreign affairs spokesman for the party at the Westminster parliament, tweeted the result with the words “Game On.”

Read M<ore: Scottish independence now neck-and-neck, new post-Brexit poll shows – EurActiv.com

Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon Appoints Scottish Brexit Minister

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has appointed a Brexit minister to manage negotiations with the European Union as Britain begins the process of leaving.

Mike Russell, a former education secretary, was appointed, Sturgeon said, to make sure Scotland’s voice is heard “loudly and clearly” during talks.

When Britain as a whole voted to leave the European Union on June 23, Scotland as a country voted to remain, by a margin of 62 to 38, with all 32 council areas backing continued membership.

Sturgeon has secured assurances from Prime Minister Theresa May that Scotland is to be fully involved in Brexit discussions, and that May will listen to any proposals for a new arrangement for Scotland brought to her.

Scotland is seeking to establish how it could maintain the closest possible relationship with the EU while Britain leaves, with some even hopeful that a new federal arrangement could see Scotland remain a member of the bloc and part of the United Kingdom.

Such an arrangement is likely to be politically tricky, however, and the strong possibility that Scotland will leave the EU despite its citizens having voted to remain has led Sturgeon to say that a second referendum on Scottish independence is “highly likely.”

Read more: Nicola Sturgeon Appoints Scottish Brexit Minister

The US Presidency:A Psychologist Analyzes Donald Trump’s Personality - by Dan P. McAdams

The Next US President ?

In 2006 Donald Trump  made plans to purchase the Menie Estate, near Aberdeen, Scotland, aiming to convert the dunes and grassland into a luxury golf resort.

He and the estate’s owner, Tom Griffin, sat down to discuss the transaction at the Cock & Bull restaurant. Griffin recalls that Trump was a hard-nosed negotiator, reluctant to give in on even the tiniest details.

But, as Michael D’Antonio writes in his recent biography of Trump, Never Enough, Griffin’s most vivid recollection of the evening pertains to the theatrics. It was as if the golden-haired guest sitting across the table were an actor playing a part on the London stage.
 
“It was Donald Trump playing Donald Trump,” Griffin observed. There was something unreal about it.

The same feeling perplexed Mark Singer in the late 1990s when he was working on a profile of Trump for The New Yorker. Singer wondered what went through his mind when he was not playing the public role of Donald Trump. What are you thinking about, Singer asked him, when you are shaving in front of the mirror in the morning? Trump, Singer writes, appeared baffled. Hoping to uncover the man behind the actor’s mask, Singer tried a different tack: “O.K., I guess I’m asking, do you consider yourself ideal company?”

“You really want to know what I consider ideal company?,” Trump replied. “A total piece of ass.”

I might have phrased Singer’s question this way: Who are you, Mr. Trump, when you are alone? Singer never got an answer, leaving him to conclude that the real-estate mogul who would become a reality-TV star and, after that, a leading candidate for president of the United States had managed to achieve something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”

Is Singer’s assessment too harsh? Perhaps it is, in at least one sense. As brainy social animals, human beings evolved to be consummate actors whose survival and ability to reproduce depend on the quality of our performances. We enter the world prepared to perform roles and manage the impressions of others, with the ultimate evolutionary aim of getting along and getting ahead in the social groups that define who we are.

More than even Ronald Reagan, Trump seems supremely cognizant of the fact that he is always acting. He moves through life like a man who knows he is always being observed. If all human beings are, by their very nature, social actors, then Donald Trump seems to be more so—superhuman, in this one primal sense.

Many questions have arisen about Trump during this campaign season—about his platform, his knowledge of issues, his inflammatory language, his level of comfort with political violence. This article touches on some of that. But its central aim is to create a psychological portrait of the man. Who is he, really? How does his mind work? How might he go about making decisions in office, were he to become president? And what does all that suggest about the sort of president he’d be?

Trump’s personality is certainly extreme by any standard, and particularly rare for a presidential candidate; many people who encounter the man—in negotiations or in interviews or on a debate stage or watching that debate on television—seem to find him flummoxing. In this essay, I will seek to uncover the key dispositions, cognitive styles, motivations, and self-conceptions that together comprise his unique psychological makeup.

Trump declined to be interviewed for this story, but his life history has been well documented in his own books and speeches, in biographical sources, and in the press. My aim is to develop a dispassionate and analytical perspective on Trump, drawing upon some of the most important ideas and research findings in psychological science today.
 
Read the full report : A Psychologist Analyzes Donald Trump’s Personality - The Atlan

Brexit: Britons Will Be Poorer if They Leave E.U., Government Asserts - by Stephen Castle

Great Britain or Poor Britain?

The British government outlined the central argument on Monday it hopes will persuade voters to stay in the European Union, publishing a detailed economic analysis finding that Britons will be poorer if they quit.

The release of the publication by the Treasury, complete with complex algebraic calculations, is an important moment before a referendum, to take place June 23, on whether Britain should end more than four decades of integration and quit the 28-nation bloc.

Those who oppose a British withdrawal from the European Union, known as “Brexit,” say that it would inevitably lead to economic uncertainty and deter investment, and that it could complicate ties with the bloc, the country’s biggest trade partner.

On Monday, the government put a number on that claim, asserting that, under one midrange situation, annual economic output would be 4,300 pounds, around $6,100, lower per household if Britain left than if it stayed in the bloc.

.In any event, the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said at a speech in Bristol, England, that the country “would be permanently poorer if it left the European Union” because “we’d trade less, do less business and receive less investment.”

Mr. Osborne, who with Prime Minister David Cameron is campaigning for Britons to vote to remain, added: “The price would be paid by British families. Wages would be lower, and prices would be higher.”

Those advocating an exit, including dissenters in the governing Conservative Party, quickly dismissed the analysis. Andrea Leadsom, a government minister who used to work in the Treasury, called it “extraordinarily biased.”

The release of the document highlights the quickening tempo of the referendum campaign, which officially began last week.

And it precedes a visit to Britain this week by President Obama, who is expected, if asked, to endorse continued British membership in the bloc but to note that it is a decision for British voters.

Note EU-Digest: the other disaster that looms for Britain in case they leave the EU, is that Scotland has indicated they want to remain in the EU and will secede from the United Kingdam if they leave the EU.

Read more: Britons Will Be Poorer if They Leave E.U., Government Asserts - The New York Times

International Banking Fraud: Six top banks fined for forex, Libor abuses

US and British regulators have slapped massive fines on six major global banks for rigging the foreign exchange market and Libor interest rates. They called the banks' frauds 'brazen schemes' to harm clients.

In a settlement announced by the US Justice Department on Wednesday, the banks agreed to pay close to $6 billion (5.3 billion euros) in fines for their manipulations.

The deal included guilty pleas from UK-based Barclays Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, as well as US banks JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. They admitted to conspiring to manipulate the massive currency market.

Switzerland's UBS also pleaded guilty - in its case for one count of wire fraud in connection with Libor interest rate manipulations. However, the Justice Department granted the Swiss bank conditional immunity for cooperating with the investigation.

Together, the five banks agreed to a record $2.5 billion in criminal penalties, the largest set of antitrust fines ever obtained by the Department of Justice.

In addition, these five banks, plus the Bank of America, will pay more than $1.8 billion in fines to the US Federal Reserve over "unsafe and unsound practices" in forex markets.

Note EU-Digest: If someone steals a bar of chocolate in a grocery store, he or she can go to prison for a week including paying a fine. These banker crooks just pay a fine out of the billions they already stole from you and me and continue their life.
 
Read more: Six top banks fined for forex, Libor abuses | Business | DW.DE | 20.05.2015

Scottish referendum on a knife edge: Two polls put No at 52% - with undicided at 14%

Scotland is heading for a cliffhanger result in Thursday's independence referendum, two eve-of-vote surveys are indicating.

Both opinion polls put the No campaign on 52 per cent, with support for Yes on 48 per cent, setting the scene for a highly-charged final 24 hours of campaigning.

The final result could lie in the hands of voters who are yet to make up their minds.

An ICM poll for the Scotsman put the undecided vote at 14 per cent, but suggested the Yes campaign was gaining ground.
 
Read more: Scottish referendum on a knife edge: Two polls put No at 52% - Scottish independence - UK - The Independent