When I first arrived in Scotland, from Northern Ireland in 1993, I looked forward to voting for politics not poisoned by what Church your family went to. John Smith was the leader of the Labour Party and seemed to be a man who
was leading the party in a more pragmatic centre, but leftward direction. Then came Blair. I was a mature student at Stirling Uni. The floor I stayed on in Andrew Stewart Halls was perhaps, quite unusual, as it was very political and a melting pot of class... but
vastly working class. Represented there were SWP radical lefties, Militant Tendency left, centre left Labour Party, centre right Labour Party, SNP and Tory. I was definitely more attuned to the radical left, but selling papers, shouting slogans on the Link Bridge seemed
futile to me. I wanted radical change, but real change. Not just words.
Debate raged on the left then and in our kitchen, and student bars. The Tory stayed in his room, afraid. The left was represented by Scots, Northern England and Ireland. The centre left by South East
and South England. The Tory was from a Scottish family who had settled in Norwich.
And the blairites began to win the argument in the media... and I had nowhere to go.
During that time, I had a friend who lived in Sighthill. I saw there and across the Glasgow I got to
know, experience that United the working class... a need for change from years of Thatcher and Major. Communities wrecked with poverty and drug and alcohol addiction, violence, and hopelessness. An experience that played out throughout the Central Belt,
the North of Ireland, England and Wales. It was in Sighthill in 1994 that I realised that Scottish Independence was the only way around the neglect (or more correctly, was explained by my friend and her friends and family).
I voted Labour
in 1997, but flirted with Charles Kennedy's social Democratic Liberal Party while I studied for my teaching post grad in Bath (in Bath at the time, there really was little hope for change other than voting Lib Dem). During a holiday back in
Scotland at that time, I went to a local Lib Dem meeting in East Dunbartonshire. At the meeting, one of the Committee members asked for a debate on Section 28. I knew I was in the wrong place and got my coat and left. Human rights are not up for debate (as the
brilliant singer songwriter, @samfendermusic sings in "Aye," "I'm not a funking Liberal anymore...")
When I finished my Post Grad, my politics had no outlet (and I had no time as I had a young son), but in 1999 we bought our first
Internet enabled computer and I got involved in political Yahoo Groups and through one of those, I was invited to the annual celebration of the Declaration of Arbroath. Speaking at it was a woman my wife knew
from working in Childline- Rosie Kane. What I heard there was a message of hope... but also a pragmatic one with policies that could change lives in an independent Scotland (and in the devolved Scotland we were getting used to). I went to
meetings of the new and vibrant Scottish Socialist Party (Sheridan had up until then put me off joining...his insincerity flooded the rooms he shouted in) and listened to amazing working class speakers like Richie Venton, Rosie Kane, Carolyn Leckie, Alan Green,
Alan McCombes, Donald Anderson, and met and spoke with many, many more people who had with the same working class experience as me, and the want for a better, equal world. I joined, and in 2003, the Party returned six MSP's (and we had a superb
West Dunbartonshire Councillor, Jim Bollan).
I'll not go through the history of the SSP, and why I left in 2015. But it was in the SSP I solidified my determination to fight to bring democracy closer to the people of Scotland. I had been a member of @CNDuk from
the age of 14, so I saw independence as a first step to rid the world of nukes- @ScottishCND in an independent Scotland really could create the circumstances in which Trident would be totally withdrawn from the UK and perhaps Europe.
I saw
independence as the only way to ensure wealth was redistributed in a way that made poverty history and in 2005 we enthusiastically and in a large bloc, added a red section to Bob Geldoff and Tony Blair's White shirted Make Poverty History parade
through Edinburgh. The clown army held up G8 delegates and we swarmed and surrounded Faslane, Dungaval and took over the streets and roads of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Auchterarder. Rosie and the new SSP MSPs protested outside the Parliament, disrupted and injected
real poverty busting ideas into that Parliament that had begun much in the way Strathclyde Council had been, with Labour politicians more interested in keeping their privileges and supporting the centrist Blair.
My votes were for a radical, socially just
independence. The SSP campaigned to "turn the Labour Party to the left" if people voted for us, and returned us on the list. People were urged to vote Labour 1,SSP 2. I voted SNP 1, SSP 2.
The SSP were a party who stood for the working class, minorities, feminism and
firmly against Tories and Fascists and took the lead in the fight against the Blair wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We took socialism to the Parliament and onto the streets again.
I was proud to March with my wife and son to the SECC on the day millions across the world
did to urge Blair and Bush NOT to murder Iraqis and Afghanis. And with us were disillusioned Labour members and many, many SNP and Green members. That, in my opinion, was the day the Labour Party in Scotland was dealt a blow that shook it to its foundations and
eventually brought it tumbling to the ground.
Nowadays I am not a member of any party. But my vote goes to SNP and to Greens (the SSP haven't stood in my area for quite some time). And I am proud to see that both of these parties leaderships are fighting to
redistribute the money we are allocated from petite Fascist run Westminster, into our greatest asset the NHS, and to housing, free prescriptions, free dentistry, and housing amongst many other things that really have radically changed Scotland, and
set us apart from Tory wrecked England. I really hope that English voters cast off their irons soon. As we will in the next couple of years. Of course, equity cannot be delivered with what the SNP/Green administration can do with the incomplete lever set the Scottish
Last section attached in tweet above as screenshots (Twitter would allow me to add anymore when I was first posting).
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It's no longer Scottish Independence Bampotless Tuesday.
So here is a bampot.
It's really difficult to avoid thinking conspiracy theories about Mel and the accounts agreeing with her.
But let's come from the pov that she believes this shite. I'm not totally familiar
with Mel's history. I do remember engaging with her when I ran the SSP social media between late 2011- mid 2015. She was always a bit hyped up about things. Took weird angles. I took it to be that she was a recent Scot and had not lived in Scotland, or North of Watford, during
the Thatcher/Major Tory decimation of the North of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, or the total neglect of the Labour Party during their almost total control of our councils and the early days of the Scottish Parliament. She never experienced the poverty and
Guest Ungagger here in solidarity with prolific tweeter Neil, who gave us live coverage of the latest roaster spectacular 'Failure in Freedum Square'...so that we didn't have to. Thanks Neil 👌. On a serious note though, how sad is the place where we find ourselves now (thread)
How many of us looking on remembered 19th September 2014, the invasion of the unionist fash and their violent victory outing in that same square, then the resignation of Salmond as FM and we felt really hammered, bur there was a strong sense of solidarity..
Those post 18the Sept days were the absolute pits, but we bashed on best we could. Found our own activism; our voice in an online forum, or joined a party or pressure group. Now look at the betrayal by those absolute charlatans who profess to speak for us as a movement and weep..
1 feel listened to
2 grow a community
3 bring people together
4 sow discord amongst alienated people
5 pull alienated people together in cultist, right wing anger
6 create angry community
It is an incredible space to manipulate.
"Thought Reform" is on display on social media, constantly, injected in to movements in order to create discord and splits. To do this, the bad actors need to control the narrative and make people believe sometimes what was the opposite of what they once believed. Edward Hunter
came up with eight criteria to describe how totalitarian regimes/cults go about this.
1 Milieu control. The leader, or a select band, has complete control of information. Isolate people from outside information. People are taught to trust only the internal publications
Wings is also berating ordinary people for having a bit of wit. The grifters Sheridan etc al have leeched off movements now to tge point most people understand their grift. And grassroots really are not transphobic.
These people went out to build a socially Conservative movement
and found out that Scotland really isn't as socially right wing as they thought.
What Wings failed to notice was the actual movement flooding the streets on Saturday, giving out well researched and put together literature.
Wings, Salmond, Sheridan Findlay etc al are more
than yesterday's people. They are bigoted dinosaurs who thought they could be dream twisters and inject their nastiness into something that was colourful, inclusive, positive.
What you hear from them isn't the sound of indy butterfly
The good thing is, that Sheridan and Salmond have exhausted the new following they got post 2014. There is nothing so exhausting than during each time Sheridan (and the everpresent swp) inserts himself into an organisation/movement/campaign, trying to explain to good people
just how divisive and awful this man is. Today's debacle on George Square has at last, shown good people who were caught in his gravity have managed to see through him and moved on.
The Indy movement really does not need misogynists or handsy men. It really is rejecting them
and seeing through their claims to unity and past victories.
We really must ensure these people can't wreck our movement, or aspects if it.
It really shouldn't be surprising that they have picked up transphobes (SNP hating Denise Findlay is an example of one) and rape