THESE ISLANDS PRESS COVERAGE

“The original GERS report may have been “Tory-created” 28 years ago, but after 20 years of devolution and 13 years of SNP control, the way the figures are compiled has changed out of all recognition. To claim the numbers are now “engineered to show a false deficit” is to accuse the SNP Government of talking down Scotland’s economy.” 
Kevin Hague, for The Herald, 4/12/2020 [Read the full article here]

“Yet such advocacy is urgently needed, as demonstrated by a research paper published late last week by the commendable think tank These Islands, based on focus groups of people who voted for the Union in 2014, for Remain in 2016 and have now gravitated towards favouring independence. Since this cohort represents around 20 per cent of the current support for separatism, these voters hold the future of the Union in their hands.” 
Reaction, 4/12/2020 [Read the full article here]

"Even so, there is a simple explanation for Sturgeon’s success: ‘Essentially, it’s because she isn’t Boris.’
 
Focus groups conducted for the pro-Union thinktank These Islands bear this out. Voters who are now curious about independence, though not necessarily yet sold on it, contrast ‘bungling Boris and Brexit’ with ‘competent Nicola and independence’."
The Spectator, 3/12/2020 [Read the full article here]

“If you believe that leaving the EU will be economically damaging, leaving the far older, deeper and closer union that is the UK would be so much worse: two wrongs don’t make a right.” 
Kevin Hague, for The Spectator, 1/12/2020 [Read the full article here]

"He has just published an essay for These Islands, except for its Unionism, a politically neutral collection of papers aiming to represent all the different points of view that might be covered by its title. His own chosen heading is Neil Oliver’s Paean to Britain. It is certainly accurate."
The National, 1/12/2020 [Read the full article here]

"For those of us who want to keep our country together, and who believe it would be a tragedy if Scotland turned its back on part of itself, the need to fight for the union is becoming urgent. Opinion polls suggest the Scottish National Party will win more than 50 per cent of the votes in next year’s Scottish parliament elections, and that more than 50 per cent of people living in Scotland now support independence.
 
Which is why focus group research carried out by These Islands might be important. The pro-union group published its findings last week, which looked at the arguments that might sway Scottish swing voters."
The Independent, 29/11/2020 [Read the full article here]

“Focus groups carried out by These Islands show that support for independence depends on a near-blind faith in Nicola Sturgeon and on voters remaining uninformed about simple facts. It is support built on sand.” 
Kevin Hague, for The Herald, 27/11/2020 [Read the full article here]

“If this is a personality contest between Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon, there is no doubt that Nicola Sturgeon wins. But, people realise that politicians come and go, their popularity waxes and wanes. And to make a decision today, based on today’s politicians, for separation, which would last forever, would be reckless.”
Kevin Hague, on World at One, BBC Radio 4, 27/11/2020 [Listen to the segment here (from 34 mins)]

This cause of the rise in separatist sentiment is borne out by focus groups conducted by the pro-Union think tank These Islands. Its chairman, Kevin Hague, told me: “The affection for Sturgeon — they always refer to her as ‘Nicola’ — and the dislike of Johnson is mentioned much more than anything else when we ask about the reasons for supporting independence.”
The Sunday Times, 18/10/2020 [Read the full article here]

"Unionism in Scotland lacks the political infrastructure of its rival. Organisations like These Islands and Scotland in Union are doing the Lord’s work but they are outmatched by a nationalist movement with superior grassroots and institutional firepower. There are any number of Union-minded philanthropists putting their coin into ideas and policy, but so little of it ever gets out of the capital. Instead of investing in London’s 79th centre-right think tank, how about investing in Glasgow’s first pro-Union think tank?"
The Spectator, 15/10/2020 [Read the full article here]

“So why break up the UK? If addressing inequality is our motive, why prevent funds flowing from wealthier to poorer parts of these islands? If Brexit damages our economy, why react by leaving the market that is objectively more important and the union within which we share a currency? As so often, we grapple with hypothetical problems that only separation would cause. Far from being the cure, it’s a quack doctor’s prescription that would only make us worse.” 
Kevin Hague, for The Times, 1/9/2020 [Read the full article here]

“Reducing public spending as a percentage of GDP is a really bad idea. The problem is, for Andrew [Wilson] and those championing independence, is that it’s the only model they have come up with for getting a stand alone Scotland’s deficit down to less than 3% of GDP.” 
Kevin Hague, on BBC Radio Scotland, 26/8/2020 [Listen to the segment here (from 1hr 16mins)]

“Saturday morning’s Today programme on BBC Radio 4 squeezed in a discussion on the prospects of another referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future. The participants were Kevin Hague, chairman of These Islands and an insightful blogger on the fiscal implications of independence, and Andrew Wilson, an SNP MSP in the first Holyrood parliament and the main architect of the party’s economic case for leaving the UK.”
The Times, 26/8/2020 [Read the full article here]

“What we are seeing, as Andrew [Wilson] quite rightly and reasonably points out, is polling showing increased support for independence. But what we haven't seen is a constructive debate about what independence would mean. People are being given a blank canvas and are able to project onto it.” 
Kevin Hague, on The Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 22/8/2020 [Listen to the segment here (from 1hr 47mins)]

“It is clearly too soon to judge the effectiveness of different nations’ responses to COVID-19, but headlines based on a metric which understates the true extent of COVID-19 deaths in Scotland are fuelling an unwarranted narrative of Scottish exceptionalism. It is troubling that Scottish Government advisers are using their platforms to promote misleading and partial data.” 
Sam Taylor, for The Critic Magazine, 8/8/2020 [Read the full article here]

“But is the image of a Covid death-free Scotland fair? Interesting analysis by Sam Taylor lays bare the accuracy of Sturgeon’s – and other nationalists’ – claims. Most striking is Sturgeon’s figures claiming day after day of zero Covid deaths in Scotland.”
The Spectator, 5/8/2020 [Read the full article here]

“The UK Government states in its White Paper that a UK internal market has existed since the Acts of Union of 1706 and 1707, and this view is supported by some commentators.”
SPICe Spotlight, 28/7/2020 [Read the full article here]

“This echoes an argument from the These Islands think tank that a “single market” was first formed in 1707.”
House of Commons Library, 23/7/2020 [Read the full article here]

“But as Kevin Hague, chair of campaign group ‘These Islands’, pointed out on Twitter recently, there is one word that never passes Sturgeon’s pursed lips. British.“I’m pretty sure Sturgeon has had the word “British” surgically removed from her vocabulary,” he suggested, and he is right.”
The Scotsman, 17/7/2020 [Read the full article here]

“So Scotland is not unusual in receiving a fiscal transfer and in fact Northern Ireland, Wales and the North East all receive substantially higher transfers per head. But what does set Scotland apart is that the transfer it receives is almost entirely explained by higher public spending rather than by poorer tax revenue generation.” 
Kevin Hague, for Reaction, 15/7/2020 [Read the full article here]

“In this podcast, The Critic’s political editor, Graham Stewart, talks to Kevin Hague, Chairman of These Islands, a cross-party pressure group that seeks to play a prominent role in shaping the debate in favour of maintaining the UK in a future referendum. Is all lost, or do the Unionists have a plan?”
The Critic Magazine, 7/7/2020 [Listen to the full podcast here]

“Last month in the northern English city of Newcastle, unionists met to explore how to save the UK. Hosted by These Islands, a forum founded to heal divisions sown in the Indyref and Brexit campaigns, their discussions were imbued with a sense of urgency.” – Sebastian Payne on These Islands’ Newcastle conference
The Financial Times, 11/3/2020 [Read the full article here]

“... this was mostly a reflective, thoughtful gathering in its tone and exchanges. Any partisan party and petty point scoring was kept to a minimum with the exception only coming from the occasional politician.” – Gerry Hassan on These Islands’ Newcastle conference
The National, 1/3/2020 [Read the full article here]

“The challenge is to empower citizens to write the U in the UK, to tell stories of the Union that can resonate in the heart of each and every one of us.” – Professor Katy Shaw speaking at These Islands’ Newcastle conference
The New Statesman, 28/2/2020 [Read the full article here]

“The These Islands group is important to re-energising the pro-Union cause because it seeks to do what few Unionist politicians have achieved – which is to move beyond questions of subsidy and currency and create a compelling narrative of why feeling British is the more optimistic option.” – Graham Stewart on These Islands’ Newcastle conference
The Critic, 26/2/2020 [Read the full article here]

“... it was interesting to read the reports at the weekend from the conference in Newcastle organised by the These Islands think-tank on the future of unionism. The event brought together figures from the worlds of politics, business, media and the arts to look at how the argument might be won for the future of the United Kingdom, and Scotland’s place in it.” – Murdo Fraser on These Islands’ Newcastle conference
The Scotsman, 25/2/2020 [Read the full article here]

“... when These Islands announced its conference in Newcastle over the weekend I thought it was a great opportunity to find out a bit about what the Unionist side was thinking.” – Colin Mackay on These Islands’ Newcastle conference
STV, 24/2/2020 [Read the full  article here]

“... unionism... is a complex and sometimes conflicted state more easily felt than explained. In its better varieties, it rejects exceptionalism and instead embraces a graduated, many-shaded, sense of identity.” – Alex Massie on These Islands’ Newcastle conference
The Times, 23/2/2020 [Read the full article here]

“This weekend, politicians and activists of many parties and none, including Gordon Brown, Andy Burnham and David Lidington, are meeting in Newcastle at a These Islands conference to debate alternatives to some of the forces that are trying to pull the country apart.”
The Guardian, 21/2/2020 [Read the full article here]

“The incoherence is spelled out in “Choose Your Poison: the SNP’s Currency Headache” by These Islands, the forum of Scottish pro-union economists.”
The Daily Telegraph, 18/12/2019 [Read the full article here]

“These Islands, the think tank established by the businessman Kevin Hague and his colleagues, has done a better job analysing the economics of independence than the Westminster government.”
The Times, 17/12/2019 [Read the full article here]

“What the figures show is that Scotland within the UK is able to sustain a level of expenditure on public services that it wouldn’t be able to sustain if it was independent.” Kevin Hague, discussing the GERS figures on BBC Radio Scotland.
Good Morning Scotland, 22/08/2019 [Listen to the segment (from 37 mins) here]

“An analysis this week by These Islands, a group that opposes Scottish independence, argued that the fiscal and current account deficits that would face an independent Scotland in its early days would make the SNP’s sterlingisation plan unsustainable.”
The Financial Times, 27/04/2019 [Read the full article here]

“As befits the fruits of two years of serious thought, the report of the Sustainable Growth Commission continues to provoke rational and reasonable debate on Scotland’s economic future. The need for an exchange of proper arguments, not political theology, was made plain by the authors’ apparent decision to attempt to ignore to death points made by Kevin Hague’s These Islands think tank in its forensic critique.”
The Sunday Times, 12/08/2018 [Read the full article here]

“Across the report’s 70 pages, it becomes clear that Hague reckons the SNP is trying to do for Scotland what Nick Leeson did for Barings. He resolves that what is sensible among the Commission’s findings could more readily be achieved with Scotland part of the UK, so there’s no need for all this silly independence business. The Nationalists, as you might imagine, are none too keen to hear this and have directed much abuse towards their graph-wielding nemesis”
The Spectator, 25/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“It's not for me to adjudicate between these arguments. But having commended Andrew Wilson two months ago for a serious-minded and valuable contribution to debating Scotland's future, I'll do the same for Kevin Hague.”
BBC Scotland Business/Economy Editor, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“Today the pro-UK think tank These Islands publishes a peer-reviewed paper that forensically dissects the SNP’s Sustainable Growth Commission Report and its “optimistic” assessment of the prospects for the Scottish economy under independence. For all but the most fanatical, blue paint-daubed separatists it should induce a pause for reflection.”
Reaction, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“This is the context within which These Islands, the pro-UK think tank I chair, has published a response paper which objectively and rigorously critiques the Growth Commission’s report. We recognise that the case for maintaining the union must be about much more than narrow economic arguments, but also know that if we are to have an informed and constructive debate about our future then any economic arguments must be fairly and honestly presented.”
Kevin Hague, for the New Statesman, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“The commission claimed in May that an independent Scotland could emulate successful small countries such as New Zealand, Finland or the Netherlands. It also set out proposals to bring Scotland’s deficit, estimated at more than 8 per cent of GDP, to 3 per cent within a decade of leaving the UK. The new analysis, led by Kevin Hague, a businessman and chairman of These Islands, a pro-UK think tank, says that the commission relied on optimistic assertions and modelling.”
The Times (Scotland), 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“These Islands said the commission tried to justify its conclusions by cherry-picking the figures recorded by better-performing small countries then setting a target to outperform their growth by one per cent annually for 15 years.”
The Daily Telegraph, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“These Islands chairman Kevin Hague said: ‘The Growth Commission’s report contains highly misleading analysis, fails to address the key economic questions and – we presume unintentionally – actually strengthens the economic case for Scotland remaining in the UK.’”
The Scotsman, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“The paper, which has been peer-reviewed by the These Islands' advisory council and a number of economists, says that far from being realistic as the Commission claimed it is actually more optimistic than Alex Salmond's 2014 White Paper.”
Business Insider, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“These Islands, a pro-UK think tank, insisted the party’s Growth Commission actually strengthened the economic case for Scotland remaining in the union. Its findings have drawn support from a range of leading economists including Glasgow University professors Ronald MacDonald and Jim Gallagher, Strathclyde’s Professor Brian Ashcroft and Brian Quinn, the former acting deputy governor of the Bank of England.”
The Herald, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“In a debate clouded by smoke and mirrors, the Hague report is a valiant attempt to give hard-pressed voters some much-needed clarity.”
The Daily Record, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“The These Islands Response to the Sustainable Growth Commission report, published today, found that by failing to compare independence with any other scenarios, the SNP report fails to make a case for independence.”
The Daily Record, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“Tory Murdo Fraser said These Islands’ findings were ‘damning’. Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie added: ‘It shows an independent Scotland would take an axe to services we rely on.’”
The Scottish Sun, 23/07/2018 [Read the full article here]

“In an essay for the These Islands think tank, the French football commentator and musician Philippe Auclair looks at how he and so many others have come to feel like aliens in a land they took to be their home. I say Auclair is ‘French’ and he is. But you get an idea of the scale of the challenge Brexit has raised when you learn that he has lived in Britain for decades, and has a British wife and child. He writes in English better than half the journalists on the national press, quotes Larkin, and signed up to a lifetime of pain by electing to support the England cricket team.”
The Spectator, 12/02/2018 [Read the full article here]

“All this is much more easily said than done. The idea that all the parts can be thrown up in the air and then relaid in some perfectly constructed logical way is a fantasy. But there are many things that form part of the answer that can be begun, often in quite small grassroots ways as opposed to grand Napoleonic ones. These Islands, a group that launched in 2017, is one promising approach, based on the crucial recognition that this is an issue that civil society should engage and reason with across borders.”
The Guardian, 01/01/2018 [Read the full article here]

“Brexit will put “considerable strains” on relations between the nations of the UK and may lead to fragmentation of the Union, according to an adviser to Prince Charles. However, Michael Jary, chairman of Duchy Originals and of the commercial committee of the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation, also said the complexities around Brexit show how damaging Scottish independence would be. In a new essay for These Islands, a pro-UK think tank, Jary, who also chairs the board of trustees at the Fairtrade Foundation, writes: “The experience provides a real-life example of soft power being drained during a complex divorce.””
The Sunday Times, 03/12/2017 [Read the full article here]

"This week's New European features a powerful essay on how we can still be a force for good in the world - if we can end the neurosis and introspection. Michael Jary makes the compelling argument that Britain is neither a fading power nor a chauvinistic example of historical exceptionalism. The essay can be read in this week's New European, on sale until Wednesday, or at www.these-islands.co.uk"
The New European, 27/11/2017 [Essay appeared in full in print edition]

"These Islands is the child of two referendums — the 2014 poll on Scottish independence and the 2016 Brexit vote. These served as “lightning rods” for existential concerns about Britain’s identity: the one put the very integrity of the UK up for grabs, the other has raised profound questions about how the various bits of the union will relate to each other after leaving the EU. [...] These Islands believes that a positive, emotional case needs to be made for a united kingdom, one that goes beyond the sometimes bloodless pocketbook arguments of the referendums. Brexit, says Mr Holland, means that relationships between the constituent nations will need to be clarified. Too much has changed over the past 40-plus years for the UK to simply revert to 1973 when it joined the European Economic Community. He does not expect a happy ride. The polarisation of politics means that consensus is no longer a factor. But it will be a necessary and healthy process. “The UK is the most democratically vital country in Europe right now,” he says."
The Financial Times, 08/11/2017 [Read the full article here]

"To help launch These Islands, a pro-UK think tank advancing “the moral, multicultural and economic case” for the Union in the 21st century, Oxford don Nigel Biggar warned against Scottish independence as a solution for those north of the border opposed to Brexit. The regius professor of moral and pastoral theology said: “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. [...] 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 EU can still only dream, and the upholding of a humane international order. All of that will remain true, whether or not Brexit comes to pass."
The Sunday Times, 29/10/2017 [Read the full article here]

"Listening to the participants at the launch of These Islands, I was struck, like others there, by how little of this kind of conversation had gone on before the European referendum, and by how unprepared we had been for the bitter social division left in its wake. Alex Salmond used to talk confidently of how the social union between England and Scotland would survive undamaged by Scottish independence, but post-Brexit England suggests an angrier and more contested outcome, with (to quote Biggar) tough and fraught negotiations awakening old resentments on both sides. England and Scotland, after all, have been far more deeply integrated than the UK and the EU, and for seven times as long."
The Guardian, 28/10/2017 [Read the full article here]

"What I like about These Islands is that it’s about something more than just shouting “YOU’LL HAVE A £15 BILLION DEFICIT!“ at Scots and will attempt to draw out the deeper value and indeed values of the Union. Most of our institutions – including the EU – would have benefited from a similar duty of care."
The New Statesman, 27/10/2017 [Read the full article here]

"I attended the launch of These Islands, a long-overdue forum for debate on the benefits of the Union. The inaugural paper by Professor Nigel Biggar, entitled What the United Kingdom Is Good For, should be memorised by every No voter seeking good historic, moral, political and economic arguments and information in favour of the UK"
The Herald (letters), 26/10/2017 [Read the full letter here]

"A group aiming to articulate a positive case for the UK has been backed by leading academics, business figures and broadcasters. These Islands, which was formally launched in Edinburgh last night, will attempt to provide a counterargument to a characterisation of England as a “country of knuckle-dragging racists” and the UK as an “evil force” on the world stage, the group’s founders said. It will start out by publishing academic papers and fact sheets but hopes to expand by launching social media campaigns and events that will reach a wider audience."
The Times (Scotland), 26/10/2017 [Read the full article here]

"... it remains the case that a vague concept of Britain — of the peoples of these islands being connected — predates pretty much every other surviving sense of identity we recognise today. It is certainly older than any coherent ideas of either Scotland or England. [...] It is in this imaginative realm that a new think tank, named These Islands, is launched in London and Edinburgh this week. It seeks to make a case for the relevance of unionism in the 21st century. Gratifyingly, it recognises that the economic argument for Union is not enough, not least since that case, besides being grubbily narrow, will crumble if the numbers change to show an independent Scotland materially better off than a Scotland within the Union."
The Times, 24/10/2017 [Read the full article here]

“These Islands” [...] boasts an impressive advisory panel and a mission statement standing “unabashedly for the view that more unites the three nations of Great Britain than divides them”. This, frankly, is long overdue. While the “No” side won the 2014 referendum, it was clear at the time that having been unstated for so long, the Unionist argument was strong in utilitarian terms but existentially weak, a sort of mirror image of a Yes campaign that lacked a credible economic rationale but owned the crucial narrative of what constituted “Scottishness”. These Islands is not only politically ecumenical, but appears to be keeping its distance from the UK Government and Unionist parties (one minister I spoke to had no idea what it was). This makes sense. Unionist arguments, much like Nationalist ones, often end up stymied by too close an association with a particular political party.
The Herald, 23/10/2017 [Read full article here]

"As the UK re-assesses its relationship with Europe—and the rest of the world—politicians must focus on the civic as well as the national aspect of British identity. [..] Britishness itself is an identity which views pluralism as a source of strength. It is an identity resolute in its internationalism, defined and redefined over three centuries by men and women looking outward, seeking to understand the place their island should take in the wider world."
Prospect Magazine, 22/10/2017 [Read full article here]

Some earlier (pre launch) press mentions

"Holland, who said the advisory council held “very eminent” figures, wants the passion seen in the Yes Scotland campaign of 2014 to apply equally to unionism. He believes the Union is a cause worth promoting given the benefits of its single market, the peace it has brought to the UK and its ability to distribute taxes to the areas most in need."
The Times, 09/04/2017 [Read full article here]

"Mr Hague told The Herald the group was not a campaign outfit, but a thinktank backed by academics, business people and peers aimed at influencing public debate and legislation. He said: “It’s a not-for-profit organisation. We’re trying to do is avoid being defined by the Scottish independence question and take a wider UK perspective."
The Herald, 10/04/2017 [Read full article here]

"Mr Hague also told a newspaper that “We’re trying to avoid being defined by the Scottish independence question and take a wider perspective. The one thing that we are unashamed about is the belief that more unites us than divides us"
The Scotsman, 10/04/2017 [Read full article here]