Opinion
Does Scottish gov’t turmoil signal the end of the ‘green’ agenda’s stranglehold on Europe?
Former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf
From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
‘Green’ politics is now understood as a campaign for electoral and national suicide. With the coming European elections the writing is on the wall for globalist ‘progressives’ across the continent.
The First Minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, quit on live television on April 29, following the collapse of his left/Green Party coalition government. A power sharing agreement between his bizarrely named Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Greens was broken over the SNP’s retreat on Net Zero commitments.
Despite his camera savvy assertions, Yousaf’s departure has nothing to do with either duty or principle, which he stressed in the speech announcing his resignation. It is the result of a feared public backlash against higher taxes, over-regulation, and the madness of progressive “green” policies which prefigures a European political realignment.
READ: Net Zero’s days are numbered? Why Europeans are souring on the climate agenda
Yousaf’s coalition with the Greens fell apart because his SNP had recognized that the extreme Net Zero agenda was unrealistic, and could deliver only electoral suicide. The SNP under Yousaf had abandoned its “decarbonization targets” in early April, with Green co-leaders Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie describing Yousaf’s attempts to ditch extremely unpopular policies as “an act of political cowardice” and a “betrayal.”
As a result, the Greens withdrew support from the SNP, which fell one seat short of a majority in 2021. A new deal with a new leader is unlikely, and the chaos spells doom for the SNP with an election coming this year. The SNP remains in power – for the time being – albeit in a minority government.
Wider lessons for globalist ‘greens’
The lesson from Scotland is that the liberal parties of Europe face electoral meltdown. A recent report from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) warned of a “sharp right turn” following EU elections in June:
Inside the European Parliament, a populist right coalition of Christian democrats, conservatives, and radical right MEPs could emerge with a majority for the first time.
The future spells doom for the doomsayers, it seems, with the globalist agenda under severe threat. The existence of the globalist EU itself may be threatened, with Unherd saying in December that this decade may be the EU’s last.
The ECFR report continued:
This ‘sharp right turn’ is likely to have significant consequences for European-level policies, which will affect the foreign policy choices that the EU can make, particularly on environmental issues, where the new majority is likely to oppose ambitious EU action to tackle climate change.
The attempt of the SNP to avoid electoral oblivion has only made it fall faster. It is an example which will be nervously observed from the once-dominant power in Europe.
Germany next?
The SNP’s partnership in power with the “green” zealots mirrors that of the government of Europe’s former economic and industrial powerhouse, Germany.
The crisis-hit Scholz administration relies on the support of a Green party whose policies have not only devastated the economy with deindustrialization, lockdown debt, and soaring energy prices, but have also, as in Scotland, advanced a raft of extremist “progressive” issues, such as the promotion of the “trans” movement, opposition to border and immigration control, with both Green parties pursuing policies strongly resented by the public.
Scotland’s Greens sought to ban wood-burning stoves, and Germany’s Greens were met with similar outrage with their decision to ban gas-fired central heating, and mandate the use of heat pumps. Yet the money for the subsidies required has run out – as “green” policies have helped to destroy the economy.
The Greens succeeded in closing the last of Germany’s nuclear power stations in August 2023, but the policy of replacing home heating which works with an expensive alternative that does not, was met with widespread opposition.
As a result, it is not just heat pump sales that have plummeted in Germany, but the sales pitch of the international “green” lobby.
Faced with defeat in the European elections, which the ECFR blames on “national parties start[ing] to respond to the changing opinions of their voters,” many parties of the liberal establishment are rowing back on Net Zero commitments – as well as on other issues beloved of the shock-haired shock troops of “progress.”
The face of globalist progressives
The co-leader of the Scottish Greens is Patrick Harvie, whose social media accounts notify readers that his pronouns are he/him.
The causes he supports are an object lesson in how Net Zero is not the only crazy agenda aggressively pushed by the Greens, whose policy platform is increasingly seen as electorally toxic. He is a self-described member of the so-called “LGBTQ+ community,” identifying as “bisexual.”
Like many progressive fanatics, he strongly supports the futile and avoidable destruction of the population and nation of Ukraine.
Here he is in 2020, championing the prescription of hormones and surgery to sexualized children as “trans healthcare.”
I wish I could say it was shocking that an MSP today called on the First Minister to instruct the NHS to withdraw trans healthcare from young people.
Trans healthcare already suffers from unacceptably long waits, even for referral. Greens will continue to push for improvement. https://t.co/9iXwQ8zmUz
— Patrick Harvie 🇪🇺🌈 (@patrickharvie) December 10, 2020
Naturally, he repeatedly describes Christians with disdain, labelling the Christian Institute as a “hate group.” The institute “campaigns for “the furtherance and promotion of the Christian religion in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.”
The NSS recently agreed that after his latest outburst the racist historian David Starkey had to be removed as an Honorary Associate. They accepted that his racism was a red line. Why should homophobia, transphobia and misogyny be treated any differently?
— Patrick Harvie 🇪🇺🌈 (@patrickharvie) July 31, 2020
As Britain’s Telegraph reported, explaining the background to the collapse of Yousaf’s SNP-Green coalition:
Harvie’s determination to indulge his permanently-angry purple-haired activists even at the expense of the Scottish Government’s credibility was probably the last straw for many senior SNP ministers, if not for Yousaf himself.
Harvie is a strong advocate of abortion. He and his party describe the reminder that the lives of unborn children have value as “misinformation and intimidation,” as they seek to afford “dignity and privacy” to women killing their children, “as they are at every other medical procedure.”
SPUC, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, pointed out that the measure to legally enforce “buffer zones” around abortion facilities was “opposed by 70 percent” of the Scottish public.
The Greens in Scotland, as in Germany, vehemently oppose any attempt to control mass migration – however weak and belated.
The Greens have also refused to alter their stance on the now discredited notion of “gender affirming care” for children.
Against scientific advice, the Greens prefer to support the views of the “trans community,” saying “lived experience” is a better guide to reality than the clinical evidence that prescribing hormones and surgery to confused children is wrong, and causes irreversible harm.
The U.K.’s Cass Review, published in mid-April, cited a lack of “evidence based guidelines,” noting that pro-transgender organizations such as WPATH had exerted considerable influence in the adoption of the Dutch Pathway – a template which resulted in rapid access to hormones and surgery including for children.
Cass said in her introduction, “Although some think the clinical approach should be based on a social justice model, the NHS works in an evidence-based way.”
The rejection of the fast track to “puberty blockers” mirrors a similar preference for evidence-based decisions in Western electorates.
The Godless, nation-wrecking policies of national suicide have produced enough evidence of the motives, methods, and monumental disaster of the globalist Green agenda. It is anti-natalist, pro-open borders, anti-family, and seeks to promote the sexual distortion of the lives of what few children we still have. In a final irony, is also destroying the economic prosperity on whose subsidies it relies for its own survival.
Happily, “green” politics is now understood as a campaign for electoral as well as national suicide. This realization has spelled the end of the appalling Scottish coalition government, and with the coming European elections the writing is on the wall for globalist “progressives” across the continent.
Humza Yousaf’s left/Green government was just the first Green-backed coalition which has ended in disaster. It will not be the last. For the reality based community, the best news is yet to come.
armed forces
Top Brass Is On The Run Ahead Of Trump’s Return
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Morgan Murphy
With less than a month to go before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the top brass are already running for cover. This week the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, pledged to cut approximately a dozen general officers from the U.S. Army.
It is a start.
But given the Army is authorized 219 general officers, cutting just 12 is using a scalpel when a machete is in order. At present, the ratio of officers to enlisted personnel stands at an all-time high. During World War II, we had one general for every 6,000 troops. Today, we have one for every 1,600.
Right now, the United States has 1.3 million active-duty service members according to the Defense Manpower Data Center. Of those, 885 are flag officers (fun fact: you get your own flag when you make general or admiral, hence the term “flag officer” and “flagship”). In the reserve world, the ratio is even worse. There are 925 general and flag officers and a total reserve force of just 760,499 personnel. That is a flag for every 674 enlisted troops.
The hallways at the Pentagon are filled with a constellation of stars and the legions of staffers who support them. I’ve worked in both the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Starting around 2011, the Joint Staff began to surge in scope and power. Though the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not in the chain of command and simply serves as an advisor to the president, there are a staggering 4,409 people working for the Joint Staff, including 1,400 civilians with an average salary of $196,800 (yes, you read that correctly). The Joint Staff budget for 2025 is estimated by the Department of Defense’s comptroller to be $1.3 billion.
In contrast, the Secretary of Defense — the civilian in charge of running our nation’s military — has a staff of 2,646 civilians and uniformed personnel. The disparity between the two staffs threatens the longstanding American principle of civilian control of the military.
Just look at what happens when civilians in the White House or the Senate dare question the ranks of America’s general class. “Politicizing the military!” critics cry, as if the Commander-in-Chief has no right to question the judgement of generals who botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan, bought into the woke ideology of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or oversaw over-budget and behind-schedule weapons systems. Introducing accountability to the general class is not politicizing our nation’s military — it is called leadership.
What most Americans don’t understand is that our top brass is already very political. On any given day in our nation’s Capitol, a casual visitor is likely to run into multiple generals and admirals visiting our elected representatives and their staff. Ostensibly, these “briefs” are about various strategic threats and weapons systems — but everyone on the Hill knows our military leaders are also jockeying for their next assignment or promotion. It’s classic politics
The country witnessed this firsthand with now-retired Gen. Mark Milley. Most Americans were put off by what they saw. Milley brazenly played the Washington spin game, bragging in a Senate Armed Services hearing that he had interviewed with Bob Woodward and a host of other Washington, D.C. reporters.
Woodward later admitted in an interview with CNN that he was flabbergasted by Milley, recalling the chairman hadn’t just said “[Trump] is a problem or we can’t trust him,” but took it to the point of saying, “he is a danger to the country. He is the most dangerous person I know.” Woodward said that Milley’s attitude felt like an assignment editor ordering him, “Do something about this.”
Think on that a moment — an active-duty four star general spoke on the record, disparaging the Commander-in-Chief. Not only did it show rank insubordination and a breach of Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 88, but Milley’s actions represented a grave threat against the Constitution and civilian oversight of the military.
How will it play out now that Trump has returned? Old political hands know that what goes around comes around. Milley’s ham-handed political meddling may very well pave the way for a massive reorganization of flag officers similar to Gen. George C. Marshall’s “plucking board” of 1940. Marshall forced 500 colonels into retirement saying, “You give a good leader very little and he will succeed; you give mediocrity a great deal and they will fail.”
Marshall’s efforts to reorient the War Department to a meritocracy proved prescient when the United States entered World War II less than two years later.
Perhaps it’s time for another plucking board to remind the military brass that it is their civilian bosses who sit at the top of the U.S. chain of command.
Morgan Murphy is military thought leader, former press secretary to the Secretary of Defense and national security advisor in the U.S. Senate.
Business
For the record—former finance minister did not keep Canada’s ‘fiscal powder dry’
From the Fraser Institute
By Ben Eisen
In case you haven’t heard, Chrystia Freeland resigned from cabinet on Monday. Reportedly, the straw that broke the camel’s back was Prime Minister Trudeau’s plan to send all Canadians earning up to $150,000 a onetime $250 tax “rebate.” In her resignation letter, Freeland seemingly took aim at this ill-advised waste of money by noting “costly political gimmicks.” She could not have been more right, as my colleagues and I have written here, here and elsewhere.
Indeed, Freeland was right to excoriate the government for a onetime rebate cheque that would do nothing to help Canada’s long-term economic growth prospects, but her reasoning was curious given her record in office. She wrote that such gimmicks were unwise because Canada must keep its “fiscal powder dry” given the possibility of trade disputes with the United States.
Again, to a large extent Freeland’s logic is sound. Emergencies come up from time to time, and governments should be particularly frugal with public dollars during non-emergency periods so money is available when hard times come.
For example, the federal government’s generally restrained approach to spending during the 1990s and 2000s was an important reason Canada went into the pandemic with its books in better shape than most other countries. This is an example of how keeping “fiscal powder dry” can help a government be ready when emergencies strike.
However, much of the sentiment in Freeland’s resignation letter does not match her record as finance minister.
Of course, during the pandemic and its immediate aftermath, it’s understandable that the federal government ran large deficits. However, several years have now past and the Trudeau government has run large continuous deficits. This year, the government forecasts a $48.3 billion deficit, which is larger than the $40 billion target the government had previously set.
A finance minister committed to keeping Canada’s fiscal powder dry would have pushed for balanced budgets so Ottawa could start shrinking the massive debt burden accumulated during COVID. Instead, deficits persisted and debt has continued to climb. As a result, federal debt may spike beyond levels reached during the pandemic if another emergency strikes.
Minister Freeland’s reported decision to oppose the planned $250 onetime tax rebates is commendable. But we should be cautious not to rewrite history. Despite Freeland’s stated desire to keep Canada’s “fiscal powder dry,” this was not the story of her tenure as finance minister. Instead, the story is one of continuous deficits and growing debt, which have hurt Canada’s capacity to withstand the next fiscal emergency whenever it does arrive.
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