Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

It appeared as national news very shortly after she went missing. I know because I recall asking my husband why this case should be national news.

I mean we are a smaller country with a comparatively low murder rate

Looking at the timeline 3 February is when her partner spoke to the BBC - so I wonder if part of the reason why it got into the nationals was police strategy working with the press to try and raise the profile of the case/get more information.

Sadly it seems like a lot of the profile raising was with content creators - and as Hinsliff says the wider questions about the investigation tap into broad social/national stories: misogyny in the police force, police failures, plus now anxiety about social media.

[garbon]

It appeared as national news very shortly after she went missing. I know because I recall asking my husband why this case should be national news.

I mean we are a smaller country with a comparatively low murder rate

Looking at the timeline 3 February is when her partner spoke to the BBC - so I wonder if part of the reason why it got into the nationals was police strategy working with the press to try and raise the profile of the case/get more information.

Sadly it seems like a lot of the profile raising was with content creators - and as Hinsliff says the wider questions about the investigation tap into broad social/national stories: misogyny in the police force, police failures, plus now anxiety about social media.

Except that they never started with anyone thinking she had been murdered.

And as I noted Guardian has been covering it non-stop since 3 days after it happened. The article from the 30th does highlight statements from police so could be they played a role in trying to get more coverage...though I'm not sure importance of national coverage for a local matter.

Those narratives you highlighted from social media only started featuring in the need the past week or so. That can't then be rationale for with has got regular coverage for 3 weeks.

[Sheilbh]

Fair - but as I say we are a small country. Within an hour or hour and a half from where she disappeared and she could be in any of four different BBC news regions with different local news. That's probably true of almost anywhere in the country. So I can see why from a police and family perspective you'd want to go national with a missing person case.

Plus it is an interesting story even aside from the very contemporary issues it highlights that Hinsliff's pointed out.

[Sheilbh]

If only there'd been a sign:

David Smith: Berlin embassy spy jailed for leaking secrets to Russia
Security guard who sympathised with Putin carried out espionage for three years
David Brown, Marc Horne
Friday February 17 2023, 12.40pm, The Times

A British embassy security officer has been jailed for more than 13 years after admitting spying for Russia because he supported President Putin's war in Ukraine.

The case will raise concerns about security vetting and the extent of the leaks because the former RAF serviceman was able to spy for at least three years despite publicly backing Putin.

David Smith, 58, from Paisley, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to eight charges under the Official Secrets Act.
Russian spy jailed for more than 13 years

Mr Justice Wall, jailing Smith for 13 years and two months, said he had "decidedly anti-British" feelings and gave the impression to colleagues that he was "more sympathetic to Russia, in particular President Putin". The judge added: "You were paid by the Russians for your treachery."

His actions were likened by one legal observer to a John le Carré spy thriller. Smith appeared to be an unlikely traitor. Although he has lost weight during the 18 months in jail since his arrest in Germany, he retains a paunch. He sat in the dock wearing his usual zipped-up top, ill-fitting jeans and trainers.

Smith's Russian social media accounts show he has been supporting Kremlin-backed separatists in Ukraine since at least 2014 and he is even pictured in combat fatigues featuring their insignia.

Friends on VK, the Russian version of Facebook, include Graham Phillips, 44, a Dundee-born social media "journalist" who has been criticised for his favourable coverage of the Russian invasion.


Smith's wife, Svetlana Makogonova, is from a pro-Russia part of Ukraine

Smith is also linked to Patrick Lancaster, a former US navy technician who is a pro-Kremlin social media influencer, and Russell Bentley, a former US soldier who fought alongside the Russian-backed separatists.

Shortly after the separatists seized the city of Donetsk in 2014, Smith posted a photograph of the city flag with a slogan stating it was Russian. The areas under the separatists' control were named Novorossiya by supporters.

He also posted a photograph of himself holding a paper with the words: "Save Donbass People From Ukrainian Nazi Army" along with his British passport. The caption read: "I am a Scotsman living in Germany and this photo is in support of Donbass! F*** the European Union, Glory Novorossiya, Glory Russia."

Within weeks he posed outside the Russian embassy in Berlin, then alongside a Soviet-era tank while wearing a T-shirt with a slogan "Russia". He also posted a photoshopped image of Putin showing his middle finger and the words "F*** NATO" with a link to a Kremlin propaganda website.


A toy rottweiler wears a Russian military cap in Smith's dining room

The following year his pro-Russian posts included a Soviet cartoon character in military uniform with the slogan: "Ukrops [a derogatory term for Ukrainians], get ready, the time has come." He was photographed wearing the top of FC Dnipro, the football team of his wife's native city in eastern Ukraine, with the slogan "Novorossiya".

Smith was employed as a security officer at the Berlin embassy in 2016. After joining the embassy his social media posts included a photograph of Russia's imperial flag with a tribute to Arsen Sergeyevich Pavlov, the Russian leader of the Sparta battalion, which is fighting the Ukrainian army. He also posted an image of the flag of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic with a slogan reading: "Donetsk-Russia".

Smith said he did not trust the mainstream press so instead followed online conspiracy theorists including David Icke, the former BBC sports presenter, and the US radio host Alex Jones. In May 2020 he posted a photograph of himself wearing military fatigues with the emblem of the Somalia battalion, a Russian-backed paramilitary group in Donbas.

At the time of his arrest following an undercover sting operation by MI5 in August 2021, Smith described himself on social media as "Anti Nato. Anti EU. Anti American".


Pro-Russia books and souvenirs were found in Smith's flat

His Ford Fiesta had the registration plate RU1801: the first two letters of "Russia" followed by the year Alexander I became tsar.

Smith lived with his Ukrainian wife, Svetlana Makogonova, in a ground-floor flat in a postwar block in the fashionable Berlin suburb of Potsdam. He had a Russian flag in the corner of their living room, a life-sized rottweiler dog toy wearing a Russian hat, a Soviet-era military cap, various books about young female Russian snipers and a Le Carré novel.

Smith was born in Paisley and lived with his parents in Doonfoot, Ayrshire. He joined the RAF and served for two years as a steward in the officers' mess at Bentley Priory in north London.

He left the RAF briefly but returned to serve a total of 12 years. He was married in 1989 and had a daughter that year. After leaving the RAF he worked at Gatwick airport, including as an air steward for Caledonian airline.

In 2002 Smith married Makogonova. The couple had a home in Crawley, West Sussex, then lived with Smith's mother in Scotland for a short while before moving to Germany. He became a member of the Germany Guard Service and was hired by the Ministry of Defence to patrol the Bielefeld military garrison.

That led to his staff job at the British embassy. His defence for his betrayal was that he suffered loneliness when his wife returned to Ukraine in 2018, he was mistreated by snobbish diplomats and that he drank seven pints of beer every day.

Despite embassy colleagues saying he expressed anti-British and pro-Putin views, he did not come under suspicion until German police intercepted his letter to General Major Sergey Chukhrov, a military attaché at the Russian embassy, in November 2020. This led to a sting operation that included Smith filming the visit of an undercover MI5 agent who was posing as a Russian diplomatic mole.

The full extent of the material he leaked to the Russians will never be known. Smith claimed he sent only two letters, but Wall said the security officer was in "regular contact with someone at the Russian embassy" in 2020.

Smith's role as a security officer gave him access to every part of the embassy, enabling him to copy documents relating to the military strategy, the roles of intelligence officers and the UK's position in trade negotiations.

He also filmed secure areas of the embassy and identified the offices of particular staff, their family and friends, making them easier to target by surveillance. The case highlights Berlin's central role in the intelligence war with Russia, which is at its most intense since the Cold War.

Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, tweeted: "David Smith is a traitor. He betrayed us all and put our embassy and our country at risk. I'm grateful to MI5 and their amazing officers, the police and our German partners for seeing him put on trial and sentenced."

Commander Richard Smith, head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism command, described Smith's actions as "reckless and dangerous . . . and could have put individuals linked to the embassy at risk".

If Smith agrees to be jailed in the UK he will serve half his sentence but under an extradition deal he could request to be transferred to Germany where he will serve two thirds of it.

I think failing to spot blindingly obvious traitors is a tradition we should probably try to ditch

[Valmy]

That's amazing. He clearly was terrified of being caught 

[Josquius]

"Somebody is passing secrets to the Russians. The alcoholic security guard who openly proclaims to hate the west and love Russia?... Nah. Too obvious. Keep an eye on that secretary who never talks about much other than her cats. That's suspicious."

[Sheilbh]

Rumours that Angus Robertson won't stand in the SNP leadership, Keith Brown, the Depute Leader, has also said he won't stand.

The two confirmed candidates are Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan. Yousaf is Scottish Health Minister and deeply unpopular. He's had a few jobs in government and generally hasn't done well in any of them. I said earlier but it seems like, say, Matt Hancock's Tory leadership run. He's always been mentioned as a potential candidate but is, from everything I've read, deeply unpopular - but he is very much the continuity candidate.

Ash Regan was a junior minister until the end of last year when she resigned to vote against the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. She had previously opposed it and /called for it to be postponed and I think something that went through a citizens' assembly process. That would almost certainly mean the end of the coalition with the Greens.

The other likely candidate is Kate Forbes who's the Finance Minister and currently on maternity leave. The reaction to her from other parties is really interesting. The Tories are basically very afraid of her and think should could be even more effective than Sturgeon on independence; Labour are very sanguine and think she would implode as leader pretty quickly. I think the difference is because of her faith. She is a devout member of the Free Church of Scotland which is a very conservative church traditionally in the Highlands. She has voted to limit abortion, against gay marriage and abstained on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

In British politics lots of the divisive social issues in the US like abortion, capital punishment, gay marriage - are traditionally free votes where each MP/MSP etc votes with their conscience and where there is no party line. That means you can have party leaders or cabinet with very different views on those issues but the party will not push them. Generally there is a vote on abortion, capital punishment etc through a private member's bill fairly regularly. I think the Tory view is that approach still applies - so she has very socially conservative views for Scotland (especially given the SNP has recently liked to position itself 1 degree to the left of England and declare Scotland secretly Nordic), but she will be able to park that as private, conscience based views. In every other respect she is very impressive so a real risk.

I think Labour's sense is that the traditional British model doesn't really work any more because people don't necessarily make that distinction between an MP's private views and their party. So, if you are leading a party that identifies as progressive you won't be able to get around those issues in that way. A bit like Tim Farron who was leader of the Lib Dems and also a devout Christian who had actually generally for gay rights, for example. But he was regularly asked questions for example about whether he thought gay sex was a sin - and his answers which were trying to make that personal belief/politics distinction I don't think worked. It was a huge problem for his leadership.

My instinct is that Labour are right on this and I don't think an MP who has beliefs against abortion and gay rights or for the death penalty can plausibly lead Labour, Lib Dems, SNP or Greens. That might not be a good thing because I'm not sure it's a great idea to have party lines on social issues but I think we're probably heading in that direction - the Tories might still get away with a leader who has a socially conservative voting record on free votes by drawing that distinction and I don't think it would animate the Tory membership in the same way.

But in any event I'm not sure a very unpopular guy who's been minister for most of the last decade or two (relative) social conservatives is necessarily an appealing choice for the SNP - so if Robertson runs I think it will be his.

Assuming the police investigation doesn't develop against Sturgeon or her husband this might end up being like Alex Salmond who stepped down in 2000 having achieved a Scottish Parliament and then returning to the leadership in 2004 in the Scottish Parliament as John Swinney had failed as leader.

[Gups]

I think your comparison between Forbes and Farron is spot on.

[Sheilbh]

Kate Forbes has announced her leadership bid. Looks like the other candidates are already coming out and stating that it is misogynist and inappropriate to question her based on her faith. And I think it's true that she is not going to try to implement a socially conservative set of policies on Scotland - the party and nation wouldn't have it. But I'm not sure if you can hold these views in senior politics any more even if they are privately held at least in the "progressive" parties:

Kate Forbes' religious beliefs could stall her bid to succeed Sturgeon
Despite her rise through Scotland's political ranks, her views on abortion and same-sex marriage could be problematic for the SNP

Forbes has brushed off questions about whether her faith conflicts with SNP policies. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA
Aubrey Allegretti
@breeallegretti
Thu 16 Feb 2023 19.09 GMT
Last modified on Thu 16 Feb 2023 21.37 GMT

Nicola Sturgeon's departure has left a wide-open field for potential successors. One of the favourites to replace her is finance secretary Kate Forbes, an articulate and ambitious cabinet member, but one whose staunch religious beliefs risk placing her at odds with the SNP's socially liberal policies and imperilling relations with its governing partner, the Scottish Greens.

Forbes was catapulted on to the political scene. Less than two years after joining the frontbench, she was promoted from public finance minister and told to deliver the Scottish government's pre-Covid budget with six-and-a-half hours' notice when her predecessor was sacked in disgrace.

Aged 29 at the time, Forbes later reflected that she felt like a "sole ranger". She had to swallow any fears and get on with cramming every tax rise and cut to deliver the speech and field any questions with total confidence. "If you crash and burn spectacularly, that's the last gig you're going to be asked to do," she told the Guardian's

Her political awakening came during commonplace heated debates around the dinner table with family, first in Dingwall, where she was born, and then India, after her father moved there to work with Christian charities. The poverty of slums, and seeing children younger than her building the school she was being educated in, left a lasting impression.

With a keen interest in history, Forbes graduated from the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh before becoming a chartered accountant.

Though she was elected an MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch two years after the independence movement was defeated in the 2014 referendum, Forbes kept the faith. She believed that the longer the UK government resisted allowing another independence referendum, the bigger the "wall of support" for one would become.

Given her meteoric rise, she was often asked about her interest in one day replacing Sturgeon. "Certainly not right now," she shrugged to the Spectator's Women with Balls podcast in May 2020. "If you rise too fast without the experience, the skillset, then you're more likely to sink and burn quicker," she told the Guardian when asked about a year later.

Though in principle Forbes might appear a natural successor, she has made no secret about the strength of her religious beliefs. She is a member of the Free Church of Scotland, which takes a strongly conservative position on women's reproductive rights and same-sex marriage. It has been suggested the Scottish government's gender recognition reform bill was rushed through while Forbes was on maternity leave.

It was revealed that in 2018, while still a backbencher but already tipped as a "rising star", she told an audience at a prayer breakfast that politicians should recognise that the treatment of the "unborn" was a "measure of true progress".

Forbes has brushed off questions about whether her faith conflicts with SNP policies – such as establishing buffer zones around abortion clinics – by saying she stands by collective responsibility. But during a leadership contest, her own views would come under greater scrutiny given she would be the one ultimately making decisions.

"Politics will pass," Forbes told the BBC's Political Thinking podcast in May 2021. "I am a person before I was a politician and that person will continue to believe that I am made in the image of God."

The SNP, which only has a majority due to its 64 seats in Holyrood being bolstered by a further seven from the Scottish Greens, would probably find itself struggling to keep the agreement in place if its socially liberal stances began to be abandoned.

Forbes's religious beliefs could also prove problematic with SNP members.

The appearance of unity and message discipline has been a key hallmark of the success of Sturgeon's tenure. But that risks falling apart if there are bigger, protracted battles over social issues.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, says SNP members are "by no means cultural conservatives in the main".

For those who support policies like the SNP's recent gender recognition reforms, Bale believes "it could be difficult for them to swallow somebody with very strong Christian beliefs, particularly if those bleed into trying to change the policies of the SNP".

While politicians can try to put aside their own religious beliefs – Alastair Campbell famously interrupted an interview with Tony Blair to tell a journalist who asked about them "we don't do God" – the former Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, found it difficult to escape questions about his own faith and whether he believed gay sex was wrong.

Forbes signalled she does not, for instance, adhere to the Free Church's interpretation of the Westminster Confession and its bruising attitudes towards Roman Catholics. "I make my own decisions on the basis of what decision is right and wrong, according to my faith, not according to the diktat of any church," she has said.

I think there is something to the point that there is a bit of a double standard for Christians v non-Christians - I don't think we've seen similar questioning of, for example, Sunak or Braverman over their personal beliefs. Or, more relevantly, Humza Yousaf's who is one of the other candidates. That might be fair enough given that, especially in the case of Yousaf, there's good reason not to pry into/raise fears over the private beliefs of a Muslim politician and it's often just a cover for thingly veiled Islamophobia. It would be less extreme than for Yousaf but I'm not convinced that the press could really get into a Hindu or Buddhist's private beliefs either without sliding into some problematic stuff.

Really glad he raised the point on Catholics though - because that's something I'd thought at the back of my head. The Free Church are very conservative Calvinists with a very negative view of Popery. Until the late 90s/early 00s (so when I was growing up in Scotland) there was very much a perception that the SNP were not a party for Catholics - Labour was. The SNP were seen as very Presbyterian and there was a bit of a fear factor about what an independent Scotland would look like (worth remembering Protestantism in Northern Ireland is largely of the Scottish variety, not the English). Alex Salmond fixed that - he got on with Cardinal Winning who was Archbishop of Glasgow and Catholic concerns about the SNP abated. Right up to now when Glasgow is a largely SNP city and the SNP don't seem to do any worse on the West v the East coast - but I wonder if a believing Free Church leader might reactivate those fears a bit?

[Sheilbh]

On Northern Ireland - The Times are reporting the government's increasingly confident they'll get the DUP on board.

I don't think the UUP have come out in favour of the deal yet, but it looks like they will and are increasing the pressure on the DUP. That will be significant because it would be the first time there's been any crack in unified unionist opposition to the NIP:


Separately Humza Yousaf has launched his campaign. I'm not sure why you'd have those placards but not have supporters to hold them behind you. "I'm with Humza" especially looks weird on an empty table at the back of an empty stage Also is any political party as resolutely determined to bring back three piece suits as the SNP.

[Admiral Yi]

I think there is something to the point that there is a bit of a double standard for Christians v non-Christians - I don't think we've seen similar questioning of, for example, Sunak or Braverman over their personal beliefs. Or, more relevantly, Humza Yousaf's who is one of the other candidates.

Interesting point.

I think it would become fair game if Muslims became as vocal as Christians about same sex marriage and abortion, which to me they clearly are not.

[Sheilbh]

Although not sure how relevant that is in the UK.

Kate Forbes has been described as "setting fire" to her leadership campaign because the first question was about gay marriage and she said that personally she would have voted against it as a "matter of conscience". Personally I don't think that matters if as First Minister she would have brought a vote forward and let the majority vote with their conscience.

Similarly Philip Cowley posted about how this played out for Tim Farron. Apparently the Daily Mail had a two page spread with assorted comments from people in Farron's church and excerpts from sermons (as one Lib Dem staffer put it: "it's a bit like Obama and his preacher. The only problem is: we've not got Obama" ). He'd also done an interview with the Salvation Army magazine eight years before in which he said abortion was "wrong" which led to a spate of headlines about whether the Lib Dems were anti-abortion. During debate prep there was a question on whether abortion was morally wrong and the Lib Dem advisor who was playing the UKIP leader (at the time, Paul Nuttall), broke character when Farron started hesitating and "exploded: 'for fuck's sake, you just say no - it's not fucking wrong.'"

I'm just not sure the Christians are on the offence or vocal here.

[Admiral Yi]

Fair enough.

[The Larch]

Didn't know if this thread is the right one for this piece of news or some other, so feel free to split it if necessary.

Anglicans reject Justin Welby as head of global church amid anger at same-sex blessings
Church leaders of some developing countries say C of E has disqualified itself as 'mother church'

The leaders of Anglican churches in some developing countries, including South Sudan, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have said they no longer recognise Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, as the head of the global church.

Their decision stems from the decision this month of the Church of England's governing body, the General Synod, to allow clergy to bless couples in same-sex marriages.

The conservative Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA), which claims to speak for 75% of Anglicans worldwide, said in a statement on Monday that the C of E had "departed from the historic faith" and disqualified itself as the "mother church" of the Anglican communion.

The statement, signed by 10 primates, said: "The GFSA is no longer able to recognise the present archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt Hon & Most Revd Justin Welby, as the 'first among equals' leader of the global communion."

Welby had led his bishops in recommending that clergy be allowed to bless couples in same-sex marriages, knowing that it was "contrary to the faith and order of the orthodox provinces of the communion whose people constitute the majority in the global flock".

The C of E and other churches, including those in Scotland, Wales, the US and New Zealand, that allow same-sex marriage or blessings had "taken the path of false teaching", said the statement. "This breaks our hearts."

The recommendation put forward by C of E bishops to endorse optional blessings, but continue to prohibit same-sex marriages in church, was intended to be a compromise that would end decades of painful divisions on sexuality.

But progressives were furious that, in their view, the C of E would continue to treat same-sex couples as "second class", and conservatives were angry that the church appeared to be turning its back on traditional teaching on marriage and sexuality.

Welby welcomed the new position but said he would not personally offer same-sex blessings for the sake of unity in the global Anglican church. He also reportedly told MPs that he would rather see the C of E disestablished than for the global church to split over sexuality.

Immediately after the synod meeting in London, Welby flew to Accra, the capital of Ghana, to meet global church leaders. He told them: "I was summoned twice to parliament and threatened with parliamentary action to force same-sex marriage on us."

After the synod vote, Henry Ndukuba, the archbishop of the Church of Nigeria, which represents about a third of Anglicans worldwide, said the change of stance was "deviant" and it explained the C of E's "terrible decline, loss and irrelevance in the secular and post-Christian western world".

Jackson Ole Sapit, the archbishop of Kenya, criticised the "powerful secular voices that have captured the C of E" and said he was "saddened by the departure of our mother church from the true gospel".

Stephen Kaziimba, the archbishop of Uganda, said: "The C of E has departed from the Anglican faith and are now false teachers."

Since becoming archbishop of Canterbury 10 years ago, Welby has sought to hold the global church together in the face of bitter disagreements over sexuality. His approach has been to try to persuade ��bishops, clergy and parishioners to "walk together" despite apparently irreconcilable differences.

Last summer, the Lambeth conference, a once-a-decade meeting of Anglican bishops from all over the world, was boycotted by the primates of Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda, who jointly represent about 30 million Anglicans, over the issue of sexuality.

The statement on Monday from the GSFA said their withdrawal of support for Welby as leader of the global church should be received by him as "an admonishment in love".

A Lambeth Palace spokesperson said: "Deep disagreements that exist across the Anglican communion on sexuality and marriage are not new."

In relation to the statement, they said "we fully appreciate their position", but "no changes to the formal structures of the Anglican communion can be made unless they are agreed upon" by all the body's leaders and councils.

However, the spokesperson added, Welby had told last week's meeting in Ghana that "these structures are always able to change with the times".

So, Anglican split incoming between Western nations on one side and developing nations on the other?

[Sheilbh]

So, Anglican split incoming between Western nations on one side and developing nations on the other?

This happens fairly regularly - I think it happened over ordination of women priests and bishops too. Breakaways normally end up swimming the Tiber.