text:
Miscellaneous • Reports
UK As A National State
by Nigel Biggar
Written by Nigel Biggar
Stronger external security for liberal democracy is one thing that the UK is good for. The second is peace, trust, and solidarity among the four nations in the British Isles. We often forget, especially if we're English, that the UK is a multinational state.
WHAT THE UNITED KINGDOM IS GOOD FOR
SAFER LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
A MODEL OF MULTI-NATIONAL SOLIDARITY
A TRADITION OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR LIBERAL, HUMANE INTERNATIONAL ORDER
THE POSSIBILITY OF JUSTIFIED INDEPENDENCE
WHAT ABOUT IRISH UNIFICATION?
WHAT ABOUT SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE?
AND WHAT ABOUT BREXIT?
ON TELLING THE UNIONIST STORY
by Nigel Biggar first published at www.these-islands.co.uk
One of the most dismaying features of the campaign leading up to the September 2014 referendum on Scottish independence was the faltering inarticulacy of unionists in explaining what the United Kingdom is good for, and therefore why some kinds of independence would be bad for everyone, including the Scots. In retrospect, this was a symptom, not of the Union's intellectual bankruptcy, but rather of the natural difficulty of describing the very ground upon which we have long been standing. One of the benefits of the referendum was that it provoked unionists like me to lift up our feet, look down, and contemplate what it is that supports us. What I discovered is that the UK is good for three things: the greater external security of liberal democracy, a depth of multinational solidarity of which the European Union can still only dream, and the upholding of a humane international order. And all of that will remain true, whether or not Brexit comes to pass.
The United Kingdom is good for the stronger security of political liberty. In 2015 we celebrated the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, when the English Church and barons compelled King John to accept certain limitations on royal power. Partly as a consequence of this, foreign observers in the late medieval period—not least in France—remarked on the extraordinary extent to which English monarchs were held accountable by parliament. And one reason that some Scots in the 16th and 17th centuries hoped for unification with England was that English law might come to constrain the arbitrary feudal powers of the Scottish nobility.[1] After the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, the Scots together with the English, Welsh, and Irish
—that is, the British—pursued a political path that led to increasing constraints upon royal power and increasingly accountable government. This path was not universal: many other countries didn't follow it, and in the 19th and early 20th centuries Britain's constitutional, and increasingly democratic, model was widely admired by liberals throughout Europe. However, after the end of the Second World War in 1945 with the defeat of Nazism in Germany, and especially after the end of the Cold War in 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, liberal democracy became more widespread, not least in Europe. As a consequence the political model that the British had pioneered came to appear less exceptional and more normal. As a Foreign Office official once put it to me, we British had become the victims of our own success.
Sometimes, however, appearances deceive, and they do so here. Recent developments in the world should remind us that the liberal democratic political system that we, the British, have played a leading part in developing is really not so normal. It's not a piece of the cosmic furniture. It's not the natural, default position of human political life. It's contingent and vulnerable and precious. It's an important historical achievement, which cost our forebears much sweat and some blood to build and defend, and which we really could lose. In the light of Russia's recent veering in an autocratic and aggressively nationalist direction, in the light of the rise of an increasingly belligerent China ruled by a Communist Party that is neither liberal nor democratic, and in the light of the atrociously inhumane politics of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and of other jihadist movements in Nigeria and Sudan, it should now be clearer to us that the political liberty, accountability, and humanity that we have achieved in Britain should not be taken for granted. They may not be unique in the world, but nor are they universal or secure.
Of course, if Scotland or Wales were to secede from the Union, or if Northern Ireland were to be absorbed into its southern neighbour, they would most probably continue to maintain the liberal democratic political institutions and customs that the British had developed together. Nevertheless, there's no doubt that a United Kingdom would be stronger both in soft and hard power, and so better able to secure liberal democracy at home and promote it abroad, than would a set of small, vulnerable, independent nations and a diminished English rump. As Mark Lyall Grant, has recently written:
As British ambassador to the UN, I watched with some anxiety from New York the final days of the Scottish referendum campaign in September 2014. My Russian opposite number … sympathised with barely suppressed glee at the prospect of the UK dismembered and its permanent seat on the UN Security Council called into question. It was clear to me that Scottish independence would have had a devastating impact on the UK's standing in the world, much greater than withdrawal from the EU ever would. [2]
Stronger external security for liberal democracy is one thing that the UK is good for. The second is peace, trust, and solidarity among the four nations in the British Isles. We often forget, especially if we're English, that the UK is a multinational state, comprising a union of English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish peoples. Each of those peoples has maintained its own national customs and has either retained or acquired its own institutions. Within the UK, the Scots have always preserved their own law, established Church, and education system, and their culture now thrives; Welsh language flourishes far more strongly in Wales than Irish language does in the independent Republic across the water; and Northern Ireland has enjoyed its own legislative assembly much longer than either Wales or Scotland. So flexibly successful has our union been that the thought of violent conflict erupting (again) between its constituent peoples is almost unimaginable.
Contrary to Alex Salmond's easy reassurances that the extraordinary 'social union' between England and Scotland would happily survive Scottish independence, a 'Yes' vote in 2014 would probably have kindled a degree of mutual hostility that these islands have not witnessed since the 18th century.[3] The negotiation of separation would have been tough and fraught. The separating Scots would not have got all that they wanted, they would have been frustrated, and their traditional resentment of England would only have deepened. For their part the English, having woken up to the costs and risks of the dissolution of the UK, including the permanent weakening of Britain's international prestige and power, would have discovered a general resentment of the Scots that they had never before had reason to feel. Anyone who thinks this speculation unduly pessimistic only has to contemplate the anxious uncertainty, domestic divisiveness, and potential for international alienation of the current process of extracting the UK from the European Union. Britain has been partly integrated into the EU for a mere forty-three years. England and Scotland, on the other hand, have been united for more than three centuries; England and Northern Ireland for more than four centuries; and England and Wales for more than seven centuries.
Maybe the mutual alienation caused by the dissolution of the Union would have lasted only two or three generations—as in the case of Ireland. Maybe, unlike Ireland, no blood would have been shed. But maybe not. One of the nobler intentions of the Union was precisely to end recurrent warfare between Scotland and England, and it has been one of its finest achievements to make bloody conflict so unimaginable as to appear impossible. But appearances deceive here too: imagination is no constraint upon possibility. Anglo-Scottish peace (like European peace) is a fragile historical achievement—not a cosmic fixture. And as we know from the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and, less remotely, from the thirty year-long 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland, history can sometimes roll alarmingly backwards.
Peace, however, can be more than just the absence of violence; it can also be widespread trust and solidarity, and in Britain it has been. In this respect the United Kingdom already is what the European Union can still only dream of becoming. In general, taxpayers in wealthy London no more complain when their taxes are transferred to poorer people in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland than when they're transferred elsewhere in England. That is because, in general, they identify with the Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish, recognising them as their own people—as fellow-Britons. Compare that with the appalled reaction of most Germans to the prospect of having to bail out the crippled economies of Greece or Italy in the wake of the recent financial crisis—and their adamant refusal to countenance the Eurozone becoming a transfer-union. The contrast brings to the surface the extraordinary depth of habitual solidarity among a plurality of nations that we have achieved here in the UK.
These are the terms in which Gordon Brown explained his vision for the future of the UK in his 2014 book, My Scotland, Our Britain: A Future Worth Sharing. [4] The rationale for the Union, according to Brown, is to be found in the common advantages that all Britons enjoy from having an integrated economy, from the pooling of risks, and from the transfer of resources from richer to poorer across the whole territory of the UK. That's why it's vital that the Westminster government continues to insist upon retaining control over such things as national insurance and the state pension, and to refuse dogmatic nationalist demands for full fiscal autonomy. It's vital for the common well-being of all the British peoples.
Stronger external security for liberal democracy and multinational solidarity are two things that the Union is good for. A third is the habit of taking responsibility for upholding a liberal and humane global order, if necessary by deploying hard power. This, of course, is the legacy of empire and manifests itself in Britain's retaining a place among the permanent members of the UN Security Council.
Scottish nationalists (along with left-wing idealists) typically despise this, seeing Scotland's becoming independent, dissolving the United Kingdom, and adopting a more 'Nordic' role in international affairs as an act of repentance from Britain's immoral tradition of imperial aggression and domination. They regard the British policy-elite's hankering after the imperial power and role of global policeman, albeit now with the reduced status of deputy to the US's sheriff, as at once delusory, pathetic, and immoral. It's delusory, because Britain no longer has the power to rule the world as she once did. It's pathetic because it makes the British play poodle to America. And it's immoral, because it involves threatening and dominating other peoples, often by waging war against them, sometimes in violation of international law. Instead, they argue, the UK should shake off its post- imperial hangover, follow Europe rather than America, surrender its nuclear weapons, concentrate on wielding soft power, and limit its military activity to UN peacekeeping operations. And if the UK will not choose to do that, then Scotland will force her—by breaking the Union.
The reasons for refusing that option are several. First, the history of the British empire was not one of relentless aggression and oppression. Yes, it presided over the infamous massacre at Amritsar in 1919 and the outrages of the Black and Tans in Ireland in 1920-22, but it also pioneered the suppression of the slave trade throughout the 19th century and was the only major opponent of European fascism in the field from May 1940 until June 1941. The present fact of the Commonwealth is evidence that the empire's historical record is not simply execrable. Rather, it is morally mixed—as is the record of any nation-state.
Second, it simply isn't true that post-war Britain has always meekly trotted along behind the US. Harold Wilson refused to send British troops to Vietnam; Margaret Thatcher arm-twisted Ronald Reagan into supporting the ejection of the Argentines from the Falkland Islands in 1982; and Tony Blair publicly embarrassed a very reluctant (and resentful) Bill Clinton into deploying US military force in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999.
Third, if the UK is expected to give up the use of hard power, is that because no one should use it at all or because someone else should use it instead and better? Unless we buy into an impossibly sunny view of human being and ignore the obvious lessons of history, we have to acknowledge that intractably malevolent leaders can sometimes move nation-states (like empires) to do atrocious things. And unless we're pacifist, we also have to acknowledge that sometimes atrocious things must be stopped by armed force. Perhaps we think that the UN should do the policing—but the UN has only as many regiments as nation-states choose to loan it. No doubt a thoroughly post-imperial, 'Nordic' Britain would lend its troops for peacekeeping purposes. But who, then, would fight the wars to make the just peace to be kept?
Maybe what the nationalists want is not exactly the UK's abandonment of hard power, so much as its strict submission to the collective will of the UN Security Council. If so, they would be content for the enforcement capacity of the UN to be at the mercy of the threat of veto by Putin's Russia and the Communist Party's China, neither of whose records of humanitarian concern are exactly famous. They would also join Alex Salmond in condemning NATO's 1999 military intervention to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo as a "misguided" policy of "dubious legality and unpardonable folly". [5] Embarrassingly, however, this would align them against the then UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. It would also set them at odds with the majority of international lawyers. Commenting on the Kosovo intervention, the eminent Finnish historian and philosopher of international law, Martti Koskenniemi, has written that "most lawyers—including myself—have taken the ambivalent position that it was both formally illegal and morally necessary". [6]
The truth is that, in the world as we have it, the upholding of international order and the rescue of the innocent from mass atrocity do sometimes require the naked use of armed force. That is a lamentable and tragic fact, but it is a fact nonetheless. Hard power, then, is morally necessary and we need some liberal-democratic states to be ready to exercise it. Very few European ones are willing and able to do so, however: two generations after the end of the Second World War most of them still prefer to free-ride on US power. Understandably, the Americans are getting increasingly fed-up. For Britain to take the nationalists' preferred 'Nordic' option, then, would be a major desertion of international duty and leadership, and it would probably be the last straw that broke the US's already wavering faith in
Europe. The United Kingdom shouldn't kick its post-imperial habit; it should keep it—for the world's sake.
None of this is to deny that there could be a cogent case for the dissolution of the United Kingdom. No nation-state is guaranteed eternal life. Historically it is surely true, as Benedict Anderson and Linda Colley have argued, that nation-states are human constructs, not natural facts. [7] As they have evolved, so they will change and perhaps pass away. The United Kingdom did not exist before 1707. The United States could have ceased to exist in the early 1860s. Czechoslovakia did cease to exist in 1993. And Spain might cease to exist, if today's Catalonian separatists get their way.
It could be, therefore, that membership of the United Kingdom's multinational state continues to inflict some serious and chronic injustice on Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, for which remedy has long been sought but never found. Perhaps one of the constituent nations has been under-represented at Westminster, with the result that its reasonable aspirations have been stifled, its concerns systematically neglected, or its needs unfairly met. However, in order to justify taking the risks that almost invariably attend political divorce, the motivating grievances do need to be serious, not trivial. They also need to be chronic, not temporary, having sought in vain for remedy within the unit. And they need to be current, not merely historic. To enter upon the risks of divorce for grievances that are trivial, temporary, and in the past would be reckless and imprudent and therefore morally wrong.
There are two main, current challenges to the integrity of the United Kingdom: Irish nationalism and Scottish nationalism. After the creation of Northern Ireland in the 1920s, Catholic nationalists north of the border suffered various kinds of unfair discrimination (e.g., in housing and employment). Their grievances erupted into civil protest in the late 1960s and then, on the part of a republican minority, into physical violence in the early 1970s. In response, the British government sought, not only to contain and suppress the violence, but also to address the economic and social grievances. After the I.R.A. had been fought to a standstill, the republican leadership and most of their followers agreed to swap the bullet for the ballot in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. In return, London agreed to cede Dublin a role in upholding the interests of Catholics in Northern Ireland, to establish a power- sharing constitution, to reform the police service, and to respect the result of any future popular referendum on Irish unification.
Whether or not it is right that Northern Ireland should secede from the UK should not be determined by the political exploitation of historic, self-romanticising Irish nationalist hostility to the British. Rather, it should depend on whether the UK government has in fact shown itself willing and able to right the wrongs that Catholic nationalists have suffered, whether the one million-strong Protestant unionist population consent to be absorbed into the Irish republic, and whether that republic is ready to pay the costs of absorbing them. Right now it would be fair to say that London has shown both the willingness and the ability to reform, that the vast majority of Protestants remain opposed to Irish unification, and that Dublin's readiness to absorb a reluctant unionist minority and shoulder the burden of Northern Ireland's £10bn annual fiscal deficit—notwithstanding the Brexit- inspired resurgence of unification-rhetoric—is very much in doubt. [8]
The second main challenge to the integrity of the UK, and still the greater one, is that posed by the Scottish nationalist campaign for Scotland's independence. One of its commonest claims is that national independence is its own justification. As one of his former colleagues observed of Alex Salmond, "when you went through all the arguments you were left with the impression that he didn't know if Scotland would be better or worse off as an independent country. All that mattered was that Scots should rule themselves". [9] But national independence is not its own justification, any more than national existence is. In both cases, the reasonable question arises, 'What's it good for?'
In the 2014 referendum campaign, the blind pursuit of independence for its own sake led Salmond to advocate a position that would actually have diminished Scots' power of self-determination. On the critical issue of the currency, he defiantly asserted what no one actually denied—the right of the Scottish people to exercise their sovereign will in choosing to keep the pound. What he passed over was the equal but awkward truth that the Scots' sovereign will had neither the right nor the power to dictate how the rest of the United Kingdom (rUK) would respond. Salmond argued that it would be in everyone's interests to enter into a formal currency union. However, whether true or not, such a proposal attracted two problems. One was that it would inevitably involve Scotland agreeing to compromise its independence by suffering constraints on its tax and spending policies. The other was that the leaders of the UK's main political parties, backed up by the Canadian Governor of the Bank of England, had all said that it would not be in the rUK's interests to enter into a formal currency union with an independent Scotland, and that they wouldn't agree to it.
Without a formal currency union, the Bank of England would set interest rates to suit the rUK's economy, not Scotland's. Sooner or later the situation would arise where Scotland needs higher rates, say, to calm a property boom, but the rUK needs lower rates, say, to stimulate a sluggish economy. In that case, the Bank of England would look to rUK's needs, not Scotland's. This is exactly what happened in the Republic of Ireland in the run-up to the financial crisis of 2007. The value of property there was rocketing unsustainably, because the European Central Bank, with its eye fixed mainly on Germany, kept interest rates low at 2%. The result: the Irish property bubble burst, with values tumbling by up to 50%—a fall from which they have only recently recovered.
As long as it remains part of the UK, Scotland has a seat at the table of the Bank of England's deliberations, in which its needs will continue to figure. But were it to leave, it wouldn't. Thus an independent Scotland could keep the pound unilaterally, but only at the price of losing all control over its own interest rates. Hence the irony at the heart of the 'Yes' campaign's position in 2014: that its kind of 'independence' would actually have amounted to less national self-determination.
So national 'independence' is not its own justification. It can take a variety of forms. That, then, raises the question, 'Which one should be chosen, and why?' In the Union Scotland has always been somewhat self-governing, possessing its own Kirk, law, and education system. With the establishment of the Scottish parliament in 1999 its autonomy expanded dramatically to include control, for example, of the Scottish NHS. In 2012 the Westminster parliament overcame opposition from the Scottish National Party (SNP) to pass the Scotland Act and increase the Scottish government's tax-raising and borrowing powers. Four years later a new Act gave the Scottish government complete power over all rates and bands of income tax (except that on savings and dividends) and complete power to raise (or lower) a range of welfare benefits. So the question that now poses itself to Scottish nationalists is, 'What further powers do you now want, and for what good purpose?'
Before and after the referendum, Scottish nationalists—like their Catalan and Lombard counterparts—claimed that independence would make their country wealthier. That claim was doubtful in 2014; it is incredible now. During the campaign, nationalists asserted that an independent Scotland would be economically viable on the basis of an oil price of $110 per barrel and wildly optimistic assumptions about production volumes and profitability. Critics warned of the excessive optimism and the vulnerability of an independent Scotland's economy to the volatility of oil prices, but their warnings were breezily dismissed as the 'negative' propaganda of Project Fear. However, a mere four months after the referendum the price of oil plummeted to $50 per barrel, which rudely intruded a £7bn shortfall into the 'Yes' campaign's fiscal forecast for the first year of independence alone. Earlier this year Andrew Wilson, the former SNP Scottish parliamentarian and RBS economist now charged with chairing the SNP's Growth Commission, admitted that the 2014 economic case for independence depended crucially on its oil prospectus, and that it was false. [10] Scotland's fiscal deficit in 2016-17—according to the Scottish Government's own published figures—is estimated to be over £13 bn.11Amounting to 8.3 per cent of GDP, compared to 2.4 per cent for the UK as a whole, this figure is almost twice as high as that of any member state of the EU. The highest reported deficit in the EU is currently Spain's, which stands at 4.5 per cent of GDP. It would therefore be an understatement of heroically polite restraint to observe that the claim that independence would make Scotland wealthier has not been substantiated.
Of course, nationalists don't argue only that independence would make the Scots wealthier; they also argue that it would free them to build a better kind of society. They claim that the Scots as a whole prefer a left-of-centre, social democratic polity with a more generous welfare state, whereas, judging by its propensity to elect Conservative governments, the English electorate's centre of gravity is markedly further to the right and more favourable to the free market. As a consequence, the Scottish people's legitimate aspiration to a fairer, more equal society has been consistently stymied by a neoliberal Westminster.
If this were true, it would certainly be a reason for greater Scottish autonomy and a further devolution of powers from Westminster to Edinburgh, although not necessarily for outright secession from the UK. As it happens, however, the narrative of nationalist politicians doesn't tally with the recent resurgence of Corbynite Labour among the English, even in Tory strongholds like Kensington and Canterbury. Nor does it tally with the hard social scientific data about the Scots. According to analysis of the British Social Attitudes survey of 2010:
It seems that Scotland is not so different after all. Scotland is somewhat more social democratic than England. However, for the most part the difference is one of degree rather than of kind—and is no larger now than it was a decade ago. Moreover, Scotland appears to have experienced something of a drift away from a social democratic outlook during the course of the past decade, in tandem with public opinion in England. [12]
From this the authors—including the doyen of Scottish psephologists, John Curtice
—conclude that "the task of accommodating the policy preferences of people in both England and in Scotland within the framework of the Union is no more difficult now than it was when devolution was first introduced". [13] Awkwardly for those campaigning for independence, the late Stephen Maxwell, nationalist intellectual and founder of the modern SNP, agreed that there is "nothing in Scotland's recent political record to suggest a pent-up demand for radical social and economic change waiting to be released by independence". [14] The fact that the current nationalist government at Holyrood has so far declined to use the Scottish Parliament's powers (since 1998) to raise the rate of income tax upwards, so as to increase funding for public services, suggests that they know that Maxwell spoke the truth.
Nevertheless, in the future should a nationalist government change its mind and decide to increase tax and spending, in order to build a different kind of society in Scotland, it now has ample power to do so. The 2012 and 2016 Scotland Acts give Edinburgh sufficient fiscal autonomy to do something significantly different. All that is possible within the United Kingdom.
If the UK is such a good idea, then isn't the EU an even better one? And if it's good for the UK to leave the EU, wouldn't it also be good for Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland to leave the UK? The answer to both questions is that, yes, it could be. The crucial question is whether it really is or would be.
It's true that all of the good things that the UK serves to promote–the stronger security of liberal democracy, multinational solidarity, and the habits of responsibility for liberal international order—are also promoted by the EU. How well they are promoted is a matter of controversy, however. On the one hand, the accession of former communist countries into the EU seemed to strengthen their development of liberal democratic institutions; on the other hand, that development is now in doubt in Hungary and Poland, and deeper questions remain about the democratic accountability and legitimacy of political and judicial power in the EU as a whole. On the one hand, the EU's 'fourth freedom of movement' has generated a sense of European citizenship and identity; on the other hand, it has provoked nationalist reactions against what are perceived to be excessively high levels of immigration. And on the one hand, the EU has invested heavily in promoting the good of political stability in its near-abroad (the Middle East and North Africa); on the other hand, its leading member, Germany, is still virtually pacifist, and wealthy Europe as a whole continues to depend upon the US for its own defence—three generations after 1945. It may be that what the UK is good for, the EU is more or less good for, too. But that isn't yet to establish that the EU is sufficiently reliable or successful to have the UK dissolve into it.
As for whether the Welsh, Scots, and Northern Irish should decide against the UK's version of stronger liberal democracy, multi-national solidarity, and international responsibility in favour of the EU's version, the implication of the previous paragraph is that they'd be unwise to. What is more, the economic importance to the four British nations of the UK's single market far exceeds that of the EU's: Scotland, for example, still exports four times more to the rest of the UK than it does to the rest of the EU. Further still, the disintegration of the UK would undermine Europe's own external security and international power by dealing a body blow to one of its two leading military powers.
The United Kingdom is good for the stronger external security of liberal democracy, for multi-national solidarity within the British Isles, and for a liberal international order beyond them. The dissolution of the UK would inflict serious damage on each of these, and should be vigorously resisted. But resistance alone is not enough; saying 'No' to Scottish independence or Irish unification will not suffice. Nor will saying 'No' with better economic reasons than 'Yes'.
For sure, it remains important to keep on challenging the sincere naïvetés of separatist nationalists, their inconsistencies, their false claims, and their unfair denigration, for, as penitent Islamists testify, the best way to undermine a political zealot's faith is to sow seeds of doubt and then give time for the penny to drop. [15] But it's always much easier to let go of a political faith, if one has something else to believe in. So unionists need to develop and broadcast a positive story about the Union, articulating the ground beneath our feet and bringing back to common consciousness all the remarkable things it's still good for. And then they need to stimulate a sustained and nationwide public discussion—involving people across the political spectrum—which will let such a story gather momentum, grow wings, and take to the air. That's what These Islands is about.
Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, and author of Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2014). He was born in Scotland, educated in England, and has lived in Dublin.
1 Colin Kidd, Union and Unionisms: Political Thought in Scotland, 1500-2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 8, 145-8.
2 Mark Lyall Grant, "Keep the rest of the world in view while negotiating a Brexit deal", FTWeekend, 16-17 September 2017, p. 14. For some informed speculation about how Scottish independence would weaken the power of both Scotland and the remaining UK to defend their borders against Russian intrusion and criminal trafficking in drugs and people, see Paul Cornish and Kingsley Donaldson, 2020: World of War (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2017), Chapter 8, "A Disunited Kingdom: UK Domestic Security".
3 As the Scottish political scientist Michael Keating has argued in a Catalan current affairs magazine, downplaying the risks of independence is typical of separatist movements throughout Europe ("La cuestión de las nacionalidades", Vanguardia, March 2013, p. 37).
4 Gordon Brown, My Scotland, Our Britain: A Future Worth Sharing (London: Simon & Schuster, 2014).
5 The Scotsman, 30 March 1999.
6 Martti Koskenniemi, "'The Lady Doth Protest Too Much': Kosovo and the Turn to Ethics in International Law", The Modern Law Review, March 2002, p. 163.
7 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London and New York: Verso, 1991), and Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven: Yale, 2005).
8 See Office for National Statistics, Country and regional public sector finances: Financial year ending March 2016 (London: ONS, 23 May 2017), p. 6: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/articles/countryandregionalpublicsectorfinances/2015to2016 (as at 25 September 2017). The Northern Ireland Executive's own Department of Finance effectively endorses the ONS figures here: https://www.finance-ni.gov.uk/topics/statistics-and-research/net-fiscal-balance. The last time the Department itself reported on the province's net fiscal balance, it estimated a fiscal deficit for the financial year 2013-14 of £9.2bn: https://www.finance-ni.gov.uk/publications/northern-ireland-net-fiscal-balance-report-2012-13-and-2013-14 (as at 25 September 2017).
9 David Torrance, Salmond Against the Odds (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2011), p. 88.
10 See the BBC report of 3 March 2017: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39178324 (as at 20 September 2017).
11 See Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland, 2016-17 August 2017 (Edinburgh: Scottish Government, August 2017), p. 5, Table S.6: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0052/00523700.pdf (as at 25 September 2017).
12 British Social Attitudes 28 (London: NatCen Social Research, 2012), pp. 33-4.
14 Stephen Maxwell, Arguing for Independence: Evidence, Risks, and the Wicked Issues (Edinburgh: Luath Press, 2012), p. 108.
15 See Ed Husain, The Islamist (London: Penguin, 2007); Maajid Nawaz, Radical (London: W. H. Allen, 2012); Ian Black, "Confusing the message is the key to disarming Isis, says terrorist", Guardian, 6 June 2015.
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Montreal's first Caspian and Caucasian impressed restaurant opens in Little Italy
By Frank S. Crawford On Jul 6, 2021
Chef Erin Mahoney wanted to open her first restaurant in the spring but, like many others, was sidelined by the pandemic. That weekend, however, after months of preparation (and years of research and recipe review) at its location in northern Little Italy, Restaurant Joon began serving Caspian and South Caucasus-inspired cuisine.
"We pushed the doors open with a special joy that was only stronger after we had to wait because of COVID. We thank everyone who was there on our first weekend! We'll do that again next week, "read a post on the restaurant's Instagram page.
Mahoney previously worked at La Bête à Pain, Le St. Urbain and Impasto, the last of which is owned by well-known Little Italy chefs Michele Forgione and Stefano Faita, who are partners at Joon along with her husband, Marketing Director Ilya Daftari.
In compliance with social distancing guidelines, the 2,100-square-foot space – designed by Ménard Dworkind – can accommodate a decent 30 to 34 people. "I felt a little embarrassed when I started renting it. I thought, 'Wow girl, you've been really lucky for a first restaurant.' And then COVID happened and I was like, 'Wow girl, you're really lucky because we have a lot of room to spread out,' Mahoney told Eater before the opening.
While Joon's seasonal menu changes frequently, Mahoney's opening this weekend is serving pork kebab marinated in pomegranate juice, trout with tarragon and lavash (a traditional thin flatbread), chicken with saffron and yogurt, and some smaller vegetarian dishes that are similarly coated in Herbs and spices characteristic of the Caspian Sea and the South Caucasus.
"It was originally supposed to be an Iranian concept because my partner is Iranian and I wanted to bring something to the Montreal food scene," Mahoney recalls, but admits that there are a few little-known Iranian places that focus on kebabs and Concentrate rice in the Montreal NDG area.
As she delved into the history of Iranian cuisine and that of neighboring countries such as Georgia and Armenia, she came across similarities in taste profiles due to their common terroir.
"I decided I really wanted to combine the different flavors," says Mahoney. "Not belonging to these cultures gave me a bit of freedom to experiment and interpret them, but mostly to pay a great homage, because that's what I'm after. The main thing is to respect these cultures and do them justice. "
Joon is open Wednesday through Sunday from 5:30 pm to 10:00 pm in 7130 St Laurent
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Home / Politics / There is a cartel in the cement and steel industry: Gadkari
There is a cartel in the cement and steel industry: Gadkari
Indianexpressnews January 10, 2021 Politics
Gadkari said that if the cement and steel industries require higher prices, it will affect the implementation of infrastructure projects.
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Saturday that cement and steel mills were exploiting the masses to make a lot of money, and noted the active cartels in both industries.
Jadkari made a speech at the Western Region Sector Meeting of the Indian Builders Association. During the meeting, Gadkari said that if the two industries require higher rates, it will affect the implementation of this number of infrastructure projects.
Cement plants take advantage of the situation. It is not in the national interest. We plan to implement 111 million infrastructure projects over the next five years. "If steel and cement prices continue in this way, it will be very difficult for us," Gadkari told ANI.
He said steel companies did not increase energy and labor costs, but still received higher rates. "There is a cartel in the cement and steel industry. Every steel company has its own iron ore mines, and there is no increase in labor and energy costs, there is a rise in prices," he said.
On Thursday, Gadkari, Land Acquisition and Highways Administration said it aims to travel 40 km a day until March this year. The Indian National Highway Authority (NHAI) has also confirmed that it plans to build 20,000,000 km of highways, including 250,000 km of highways, in the next five years. The plan includes 9,000 km of economic corridors, 2,000 km of buildings each for strategic coastal and border roads. Gadkari confirms that NHAI plans to connect 100 tourist destinations and 45 highways
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The Great Days > News > Trump blasts Jan. 6 report, doubles down on claims that 2020 election was stolen
Trump blasts Jan. 6 report, doubles down on claims that 2020 election was stolen
posted on Dec. 23, 2022 at 6:37 pm
Former President Donald Trump ripped the House Jan. 6 committee's weighty final report by calling the panel's investigation a "witch hunt" and doubling down on his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
In a statement on his social media platform Truth Social, Mr. Trump said the 18-month probe by the Democrat-led House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol failed to address what he said were the true causes of the riot.
"The highly partisan Unselect Committee Report purposely fails to mention the failure of Pelosi to heed my recommendation for troops to be used in D.C., show the "Peacefully and Patrioticly" words I used, or study the reason for the protest, Election Fraud," he wrote. "WITCH HUNT!"
The panel released its highly anticipated, 845-page summation of events leading up to the January 2021 attack on the Capitol late Thursday in its parting shot before the committee is dissolved under a Republican-led House next Congress.
After holding a series of public hearings over the summer, the committee outlined in detail its account of what the lawmakers say was Mr. Trump's plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election and spur a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol as Congress met to certify the results.
The report pins the blame for the Capitol attack squarely on the former president and offers what outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, calls a "clarion call to all Americans: to vigilantly guard our democracy and to give our vote only to those dutiful in their defense of the Constitution."
The findings accuse Mr. Trump of disseminating false allegations of election fraud related to the 2020 presidential contest, pressuring state and local election officials in the wake of the election, summoning his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6, and inciting violence by his supporters at the Capitol.
"None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him," the committee concludes in the report.
Mr. Trump, however, remains unbowed by the report and has signaled he remains unwilling to back down from his claims that the election was stolen.
"The government of the United States changed our Election Result, and it just doesn't get any worse than that," Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday. "Just look at the damage that's been done to our Country, and the World, in the last two years – it's incalculable. TRUMP WON!!!"
Before releasing its report, the panel recommended in its final public proceeding that federal prosecutors pursue charges against the former president for inciting the attack on the Capitol by the pro-Trump mob, obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the government, and making false statements on fake presidential electors.
Mr. Trump said the move was intended to derail his 2024 campaign for the White House, but predicted the move wouldn't harm him.
"What doesn't kill me makes me stronger," Mr. Trump said in a statement. "These folks don't get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me."
He said Democrats "are out to keep me from running for president because they know I'll win and that this whole business of prosecuting me is just like impeachment was — a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party."
Mr. Trump also said Monday that he "pushed for 20,000 troops to prevent violence on Jan. 6 and that I went on television and told everyone to go home."
While Mr. Trump was involved in discussions before Jan. 6 about the National Guard response, he did not issue any orders for troops before or during the rioting. He issued a video statement about three hours after the attack began, urging supporters to go home.
Shirley Allen December 23, 2022
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Whitney ISD board holds April meeting
April 21, 2022 April 21, 2022 by The Lakelander, posted in Local News
Reporter: Ellie Mahan
The Whitney ISD Board of Trustees met Monday, April 11, in a regular session to view 2022 mock STAAR test results, watch a presentation on the ACE Program and hear administrator reports.
During administrator reports, Amber Seely, elementary school principal, reported that the campus enrollment is growing. Four new student packets were passed out on the day of the meeting. With the new students, the elementary enrollment will be at 419, which Seely said is the highest it has been in a long time.
Russell Gauer, intermediate school principal, said that WIS will host its field day soon, an event that hasn't been held in recent years due to COVID.
Kendra Hensley, middle school principal, announced that there is now a culinary class at WMS. Tony Dudik, seventh grade Texas history teacher, started the program and led the first class Saturday, April 9, where he taught students how to make kolaches.
Hensley also shared that Michelle Kaase's middle school art students have been studying the work of Dale Chihuly, a famous glass artist in Seattle. The students replicated his work with art pieces made of colorful plastic. Through this, they learned about recycling, elements of art and heating safety.
Amy Leech, high school principal, said that Algebra One Boot Camp, an event in preparation for the algebra one STAAR test, was set for Thursday, April 14. A company traveled to WHS to help students learn algebra test-taking strategies as well as methods for stress reduction. Also scheduled for the week of the meeting was a Career and Technical Education business luncheon. WHS is hoping to expand its CTE program by adding new practicum classes and opportunities for work study programs. The luncheon was intended to gather input from businesses on how to merge school with community.
When Whitney experienced a power outage following spring break, the school lost many pieces of technology and equipment. According to Kristy Smith, director of technology, items that were lost due to the power outage include card readers, cameras and about 75 desktops and monitors.
Assistant Superintendent Melody Haley reported that Whitney showed lower attendance for the first four six weeks than usual, and Whitney is not the only district struggling with attendance this year. Schools across the state have also reported low attendance. To help schools improve these records, the state has offered to average the attendance of the first four six weeks and apply a percentage rate. Haley said although the rates are low for Whitney, they are not alarming numbers when compared with other districts.
Cynthia Ries provided an update on a program called After School Community Education Center (ACE), which is available in the elementary and intermediate schools. ACE is a program that is funded across the nation and provides daycare, a place to go for homework help and fun, after-school activities.
Enrichment programs held through ACE include cooking, CPR, sewing and games that will help children with vocabulary and other classroom skills. ACE also uses a program called Crazy Eight, which involves games for children that use math concepts. Ries said that she has seen children have so much fun during activities like building catapults that they forget they are using measurements and other math knowledge in the process.
ACE encourages children to have better behavior in the classroom by prohibiting students who are sent to ISS for misbehavior from attending ACE. Ries said, "The more we work with the kids, the more we show them that we care, the more that we're there every day, the more things will improve, grade wise and behavior wise."
ACE also works to build friendships between older intermediate school students and younger elementary school students. The program partnered fourth and fifth graders with younger elementary children so that fourth and fifth graders could supply mentorship and help younger students become comfortable with navigating the school campus. In some cases, Ries has seen the bonds between those students extend beyond the program and into the playground.
She said, "We have that camaraderie. I try to tell them 'We are a family. We take care of each other. We don't call each other names. We help each other out.'"
When Ries came to Whitney, she was originally locked in for a three-year grant with the opportunity to apply for an additional two years. ACE has been in Whitney for four years. After the fifth year comes to a close, Ries hopes to reapply for the $75,000 ACE grant to continue assisting kids with academic and social-emotional needs. The grant buys supplies for the program that are also accessible for teachers to use in classroom instruction.
Laura Hunt, director of curriculum and instruction, then presented this year's mock STAAR data in comparison with last year's mock STAAR data. Mock STAAR tests help students prepare for their real STAAR tests that they will take later in the year. Mock tests are the released STAAR tests from the previous year. Therefore, they evaluate students on not only everything they have learned this year but also the rest of the content for the year that they are set to learn before taking STAAR tests.
One district-wide goal for the mock STAAR tests was to improve the number of students who scored "masters" and "meets," the two highest grade categories for STAAR tests. Whitney saw the largest score increases in one or both of these categories in the following subjects: high school biology, English II, middle school science, seventh grade reading, fifth grade math and fourth grade reading.
In addition, the high school algebra 1 results showed an increase in the number of students who scored "approaches," the third highest grade category. Hunt said, "Another big takeaway is that we've got some work to do in order to meet our district goals for third grade."
Overall, many students showed improvement in their mock test scores when compared with their benchmark scores, which Hunt described as impressive because the mock tests cover more content than benchmarks do. With the results from the mock tests, teachers analyzed the data to consider instructional reasons behind student needs and to plan next steps to score improvement.
Superintendent John McCullough announced four resignations: Nancy Hix, John Halstead, Rexann Bissing and Rex Unruh. The superintendent said that there have been no applicants for the new open positions, but three principals from the district attended the region 12 career fair, where there were 20 applicants for all the open positions throughout the district.
Because there hasn't been a full-time School Resource Officer on a Whitney campus in several months, Whitney is considering starting its own district police force. District administrators are communicating with Police Chief Chris Bentley and researching the matter so that they have a full plan and budget for the police force. The start-up cost will depend on how many officers Whitney will employ, since start-up money will be used for training, equipment and cars for the employees.
The board approved: five White Bluff property bids, the annual allotment and Texas Essential Knowledge And Skills certification and the staff development waiver, which allows for time built into the school calendar for staff development days.
The board accepted the public fund investment officers who are Cody Fitch, business manager, Assistant Superintendent Haley and Superintendent McCullough, who said the officers go to training annually. This year the training had an increased focus on cybersecurity.
The number of continuing education hours for each board member was announced, and all Whitney school board members had completed required continuing education hours.
The board met in closed session and then transitioned back to open session, where members approved all teacher contracts, accepted Sharon Jones to take a teaching position for next school year, accepted the withdraw of Terry Smith's resignation and approved Russell Gauer as the new Director of Operations.
Nominated for WISD's April staff member of the month was Michael Luedke, 8th grade math teacher. Luedke has been a math teacher for 10 years and is now a content leader in the subject. Luedke offers his math knowledge and his time as he regularly tutors both middle school and high school students in math after school hours. He can also be found outside of school working at games and athletic events. He recently held a pizza party for students who met his expectations on a particular math program.
Superintendent McCullough read the nomination statement written by Principal Hensley, "You can find him serving on several campus and district level committees, which is a testament to his colleagues' respect for him, as they have nominated him to represent WMS. He is a resource for all math teachers and has also mentored new teachers both to the profession and to Whitney ISD. What stands out most about Mr.Luedke is his relationships he has built within the WMS community and the community as a whole… Mr.Luedke is an integral part of the WMS staff and is leading and showing others how to move toward the campus vision of being a family."
The board voted to move the next regular school board meeting from June 13 to 6 p.m. Monday, June 20.
Tagged April school board, Hill County, Texas, Whitney, Whitney High School, Whitney school board, Whitney Wildcats, WHS, WISD April Board meeting, WISD Board
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The Final Country (Milo Milodragovitch #2) (Paperback)
By James Crumley
On hand as of Jan 17 10:41am
(FICT:MYSTERY)
This is book number 2 in the Milo Milodragovitch series.
#1: The Wrong Case (Milo Milodragovitch #1) (Paperback): $15.00
#3: Dancing Bear (Milo Milodragovitch #3) (Paperback): $15.95
A NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book
It's business as usual for Milo Milodragovitch, watching a relationship go sour and running a bar whose real business is cleaning some dirty money, until he gets sent off to hunt a drug dealer's killer. Prodded by the twin motivations of his prickly conscience and his tight finances, Milo sets off on a trip to find the promised land. The end of the road will be where he first began: Montana, where a beautiful woman, a dangerous man, and a motherlode of truth are waiting for their favorite son to come home—bringing with him a gun, a plan, and a prayer.
James Crumley was born in Three Rivers, Texas, and spent most of his childhood in South Texas. After serving three years in the U.S. Army and completing college degrees in history (BA, Texas College of Arts and Industries) and creative writing (MFA, University of Iowa), he joined the English faculty at the University of Montana at Missoula. He was also a visiting professor at a number of other institutions around the country, including the University of Texas at El Paso, Colorado State University, Reed College, and Carnegie-Mellon. His works include a novel of Vietnam, One to Count Cadence, and seven detective novels: The Wrong Case, The Last Good Kiss, Dancing Bear, The Mexican Tree Duck, Bordersnakes, The Final Country, and The Right Madness. He died in Missoula in 2008.
"Earthy characters, raw language, and exuberantly violent action. . . . The products of a well-honed—and all too rare—art."—The New York Times
"Road-ready, wry, lyrical, and explosive, this is Crumley at his best, which means it is one of the best books of its kind you will ever read."
—George Pelecanos, author of The Double
"[Milo is] one of literature's more interesting sleuths. . . . Crumley once again is in good form, his strong voice ringing true on every page."
"Crumley . . . is pumped up and writing for his life again. For all his remarkable ease of style, the earthy characters, raw language and exuberantly violent action that distinguish it are the products of a well-honed—and all too rare—art."
"James Crumley is an American poet. Like a true artist, he does not merely reflect our culture, he subverts it. The Final Country is simply one of the best books you can read this year."
"This book is so tight and powerful it could be carved in granite. The plot tends to cruise along with the ease of an Eldorado with a crankcase full of Southern Comfort. . . . He's not the most prolific American crime writer, but crime fiction aficionados have learned that, like good scotch, Crumley's novels take a little more time than the ordinary stuff."
"Reading this book is like drinking exceptional wine after years on cheap stuff. You start to gulp it down, greedy for the buzz, then realize you need to slow down and savor each drop. I pity people who haven't read Crumley. And I envy them, because they still have a chance to discover him."
"The pleasures of Crumley come from the language, the characters and the unexpected depth of emotion. The language is on display everywhere, not as beautiful and rich as that of Crumley's Montana neighbor James Lee Burke, but just as evocative."
"If you like your detective fiction tough and tenacious, you will love James Crumley. . . . No one does it better." —The Houston Chronicle
"James Crumley is a first-rate American writer. . . . pyrotechnically entertaining, sexy, compassionate." —The Village Voice
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Series: Milo Milodragovitch
Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Private Investigators
Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Hard-Boiled
Kobo eBook (July 11th, 2016): $8.99
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Stone Butch Blues
Why Every one Is Referring To china love com…The Simple Fact Revealed
Finding Realistic Solutions For kibin reviews
Agosto 5, 2020	by Chiara Lia	in Blog
Amanda Clay Reviews Femme By Mette Bach
Wanting Like A Butch Lesbian
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When I Grow Up I Wish To Be Butch
Amanda Clay Critiques Femme By Mette Bach
In the intercourse department she is the proper counterpart to the stone butch; she is not likely to break a nail during lovemaking. It would appear that many people can solely cope with women as female and men as masculine. A variety of lesbians I know who're on the butch side have been asked when they are transitioning. Being overtly and proudly butch has now, as DeLaria says, become something that many within the lesbian neighborhood look down on. The veterans of the Gateways club are actually lebanese hot as likely to mix in with the remainder of us than wear a suit, tie and starched shirt. And many straight women are meeting us lesbians someplace within the middle, and are also rejecting female fripperies, now that the punishment for doing so – after 5 many years of feminism – is much less severe. During a latest trip to Sweden, for instance, I thought most girls I saw in the street were lesbians, and the men sitting round in cafes with their babies, gay dads.
Not surprisingly, those exact same people who have an issue with butch-looking women, even have a problem with the way in which flamboyant gay men are represented within the media. Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Lea DeLaria in the 1997 Shakespeare within the Park manufacturing of "On The Town." And as quickly as he said that, Heidi Griffiths and Jordan Thaler, the casting directors on the Public mentioned, "Oh, we've received a lesbian for you." And they pulled me in.
While butch-femme roles had beforehand been the first means of figuring out lesbians and quantifying lesbian relationships in the Forties, 50s, and 60s, lesbian feminist ideology had turned these roles right into a "perversion of lesbian identification". Lesbian feminism was publicly represented though white feminism, and sometimes excluded and alienated working class lesbians and lesbians of shade. In these excluded communities, butch-femme roles continued and grew all through the 1970s.
With any transition or revolution amongst the queer neighborhood, it is crucial that we do not alienate or shut out of us who paved the best way for us to even be able to begin these conversations. Often times, it's not the information that's being shared, but the supply during which it's being shared that is dangerous and threatening. It's a no brainer, that if you belittle or try to erase someone's historical past, journey or identity, it's going to oftentimes be met with anger and pushback. With respect to gender, as consciousness & conversation grows, we should make certain not to invalidate others within the course of. For most of those new breeds, sexual behavior is not tied to their identity. Nor is the label or style they choose indicative of the kind of women they are attracted to. These labels refer primarily to how these women see themselves—the way in which they dress and act and assume.
The easiest interviews I had were with the stone butches and extremely femmes. Their expectations, roles, and style statements haven't changed a lot over the many years. A stone butch wears men's clothes, normally has quick hair, and is the quarterback, not the extensive receiver, in the bedroom—she doesn't prefer to be sexually touched by her associate.
This could be very totally different from the notions of old that dictated that femmes and butches be drawn to their opposites. Even should you had been a "butch in the streets and a femme in the sheets," you would somewhat kiss a boy than admit it. And if you had been a femme who was interested in other femmes, you would have to be very discreet—and lonely.
But you may not have observed that there are additionally lipstick butches.
One of taking cost of any state of affairs, opening doors and expressing different gentlemanly manners and taking care of any male-associated household chores.
They may additionally be women who had a "manly" stroll or mannerisms, or who took on a dominant function in their relationships, straight or gay.
"Butch" described women who wore collared shirts, denims and had DAs or quick cropped hair.
Growing up in a small rural town, "butch" was also used to explain straight women who did not fit into the mould.
The lack of illustration of girls loving women throughout the mainstream has left me feeling that romantic and sexual love between black women isn't necessary sufficient, and that whiteness or maleness at all times has to intervene in our love lives if they're to count. I positively advocate Persistence, even (particularly?) should you're not butch or femme or know very little about butch and femme. It is an important a part of the queer community as an entire at present, and lesbian history as properly. There are quite a couple of contributors that I will now be looking for out in an extended format. It's hard to sum up Persistenceother than using its personal subtitle. It accommodates a huge array of various type of butches and femmes (and a futch, and a few switches, and…), embodied by many different genders and sexualities.
Lesbian gender expressions do not emulate heteropatriarchy, they subvert it. Femme removes femininity from the discursive shadow of masculinity and thereby strips from it any connotation of subordination or inferiority. Butch takes markers of "masculinity" and divests them of their association with maleness or manhood. Butchness works against the gender binary—the masculine/female paradigm—and reclaims for ladies the full breadth of potentialities in terms of gender expression. One of those fat, hairy, angry butch lesbians whom everybody seems to hate. Too "radical" for men and straight folks, too "normative" for some queer folks.
Removing these identities from the context of LGBTQ struggles can have consequences for these already marginalized communities. As black women who love one another, Jane and Mary's relationship offers a contrast to these narratives, but what stands out to me is that these characters don't subscribe to the butch-femme binary. The existence of those characters helps me by way of my own anxieties as a lady who loves women and the various guidelines and expectations from inside and from outside the LGBTQ neighborhood. As a bisexual woman, it's essential for me to see women loving women normalized. It's particularly essential to see black women loving black women. So typically, black, bi+ or lesbian women are paired off with white (or white-passing) lovers, like in the lesbian basic TV sequence, The L Word, or in Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman. In addition, Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey's fictional drama Queen Sugar features a number of episodes where journalist Nova Bordelon dates a black, female activist, solely to have the connection end after a number of episodes, while Bordelon's longest relationships on the show are with cis men.
Many femmes are on the lookout for a butch not another femme. My experience with femmes is that I am a fantastic short-term diversion.
Even with my big butch identification and my lesbian identity, I ended up turning into the darling of New York theatre and certainly one of Broadway's latest main ladies taking part in a straight girl that wanted to get laid yesterday. The fantastic thing about theatre is that they don't put you in the field that film and tv put you in. In theatre I've performed lesbians, I've played straight ladies, I've played men. They simply want the person who serves the play and the story best, and anything else doesn't really matter. I don't know a lot of people out there that have been in a position to cross backwards and forwards and do this.
The novel follows her growing extra and less into herself, in a lyrical and winding narrative. It's an ode to the strength of gender nonconforming folks, to the fact of loneliness, it's about class struggle and lesbian resistance, it's about group and therapeutic and violence.


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The Dream Factory Pair set off on Arctic Challenge
The founder of charity The Dream Factory and a colleague have set off on a 156-mile journey across the Arctic.
Avril Mills, the Epping mother who founded the charity six years ago following the death of her son Oliver from leukaemia, is accompanied by Martin Bye, the charity's dream coordinator, on the Husky Sled Challenge.
The trip will see them cover 156 miles with a team of huskies and is set to raise £11,000 for the charity, which makes dreams come true for children and young adults with life-limiting conditions. The pair set off from Epping on Saturday and flew from Heathrow to Tromso in Norway for the start of the seven-day trek. They will be joined by 13 other fundraisers, who will have to learn how to guide huskies, put up their own tent, cook their own food and get used to sleeping on reindeer skins. The challenge finishes in Sweden. Mrs Mills said: "This will test our physical and mental strength in some of the most extreme conditions known to man. I watched Prince Harry's adventure to give me some sort of idea how it might be! "We will be travelling the distance from London to Torquay in temperatures averaging -20 degrees, so this is no ordinary charity challenge.
"I think I'm the oldest one going, but we've raised so much money and I'm doing this for the children and in memory of Oliver." To support their challenge, visit their JustGiving page at http://www.justgiving.com/huskyartic.
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