Articles by Tom Gallagher

Tom Gallagher is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Bradford University and is researching a book on why Britain’s ability to avoid the internal conflicts which have marked continental Europe is disappearing.

Scotland’s big referendum winners

The SNP remains well ahead in the polls and therefore will be in charge during the rancorous period that is sure to persist after 2014. Will ordinary Scots rein in the party as it flirts with authoritarianism?
by Tom Gallagher - 6 March 2014
Scottish independence and the cult of Alex Salmond

What Salmond is increasingly presiding over is a cult. The SNP is an immature and flimsy party peddling immature and ill thought-out plans for independence
by Tom Gallagher - 28 February 2014
Scots to world: So we’re irrational. Get used to it!

Nationalist group-think is advancing on all sides in Scotland which tragically may rule out a rational debate about the future between now and 18 September
by Tom Gallagher - 21 February 2014
Alex Salmond's attempt to Balkanise Britain

The SNP has run away from serious argument. Prof. Tom Gallagher gives a Glasgow kiss to Alex Salmond's pathetic attempts to Balkanise Britain, without even engaging the Scottish people, who would suffer the most
by Tom Gallagher - 14 February 2014
Floods that endanger the Union?

Climate, natural disaster and the way leaders respond to them can have enormous political ramifications. If Cameron is seen to mess up over the floods, you can bet your wellington boots that Scottish nationalists will be ready to pounce
by Tom Gallagher - 12 February 2014
Time to leave: British Labour grandee informs countryfolk

It is increasingly likely that by 2015 Britain will have a left-wing government with an undiminished appetite for people-harming experiments that are imposed in an arbitrary way. The flooding of Somerset is just the beginning
by Tom Gallagher - 3 February 2014
Disorientated Scots confused on independence

Though a "No" vote still looks highly likely, the polls show preferences for independence are all over the place, partly because a docile Scottish media is scared of getting on the wrong side of the SNP by telling the truth
by Tom Gallagher - 27 January 2014
The Brussels Emperor's telling award for failure

It is entirely fitting that EU Commission President Barroso is now the recipient of a prize invoking one of the greatest European centralizers of all time, Emperor Charles V
by Tom Gallagher - 18 January 2014
Why Westminster separatists won't fight Alex Salmond

It may be that the current English ruling classes find it impossible to hate Salmond and move against him because some of their leading lights, politicians and journalists included, are themselves separatists at heart
by Tom Gallagher - 4 January 2014
SNP blues: Journey from Britain, but to where?

The SNP in the 1970s and 1980s was like UKIP today, struggling to turn a party of dedicated but chippy individualists into a force ready for office. It still has so many unanswered questions on independence
by Tom Gallagher - 24 September 2013
EU's democracy problem goes all the way down

The creation of a bureaucratic European order has become as transcendent a cause as loyalty to the Soviet Union was for many a last century West European Marxist
by Tom Gallagher - 15 September 2013
Why Scotland needs more gypsies

Strangely, compelling Scots to endure aggressive gypsy begging, makes perfect sense for the SNP. Scottish Nationalism has been colonised by an angry far-Left
by Tom Gallagher - 18 August 2013
The abdication of Europe’s centre-Right

Genuine competition eludes the mainstream European Left and Right because they have too much in common. The ultimate consequences could be explosive
by Tom Gallagher - 11 August 2013
Spain's Gibraltar games, and EU folly

The incident is more evidence the EU’s goal of a complicated system of overlapping loyalties arising in Europe from the abolition of borders is flawed and unworkable
by Tom Gallagher - 1 August 2013
Whitehall backs the break-up of Britain?

Britain is an obsolete concept for numerous diplomats who have risen high primarily by advocating a utopian pan-European order
by Tom Gallagher - 27 July 2013