Glasgow City Council are poised to bring in new legislation that could effectively ban public processions and demonstrations from the city centre, among other draconian measures which together form an unashamed attack on democratic rights in the city. As we reported earlier this year, this comes as part of their much trumpeted drive to cut down on the number of the sectarian parades in the city – which is reportedly higher than the annual total in Derry and Belfast combined.
Now the full extent of the council’s plans have been revealed in a consultation document sent this Monday to 29 ‘relevant stakeholders’, including SSY. Among the proposals are:
to ban marches which would ’cause too much disruption or congestion’
to develop ’standard procession routes which minimise disruption and congestion’
to ban marches which ’place an excessive burden on the police’
march organisers will be ‘encouraged to consider alternatives to processions’
no procession will be allowed to ‘become elongated by a formation of fewer than four abreast; a procession will not be allowed to move off until in the correct formation’
all events with more than 1000 participants will ‘be required to assemble in a public park and progress to a public park’
The target of this is, we’re meant to assume, obviously the Orange Order, as well as their Protestant supremacist pals in the Black Institute and the Apprentice Boys of Derry, who together make up well over 200 of the city’s 370 odd marches each year. Certainly, everything in the consultation document points towards this – there’s even a couple of proposals thrown in there which specifically target these organisations, including a ban on carrying swords without prior permission. However, everything we’ve seen over the past year – since GCC initially announced their plans to slash the number of parades in the city ‘by up to ninety percent’ – indicates that this is far from the reality of the planned legislation.
Since this original announcement, several marches in Glasgow have indeed be rerouted. There was the 3000 strong Unison anti-cuts demonstration, forced to take place at 9.30 in the morning and squeezed out of the city centre. There was the EIS teachers’ union demo against cuts, 10,000 strong, again forced out of the city centre and to the earlier time of 10.30am. Then there was the 9000 strong Wave march calling for immediate action on Climate Change, forced despite protestations to take a route which again completely cut out the centre of the city. You might see a pattern developing here – this demo was pushed back to 10.30am too. These three marches, two called by trade unions and one by a grouping of NGOs, were hardly the most provocative, controversial or dangerous to take place in Glasgow over the year, yet all were denied their desired route and time. The council paper does in fact allude to these marches, as examples of ‘groups which are opting for alternatives to having processions through the city centre’. This is taking serious liberties, no pun intended, with the truth. Meanwhile, the Orange Lodge’s biggest event of the year – the ‘Big Walk’ in early July – was allowed to go ahead entirely unhindered, giving drunk, sectarian bigots ownership of the city centre for the whole day and making it an effective no-go area for anyone else. Nor has it stopped permission being granted to at least two provocative Orange marches directly through the Gallowgate over the past twelve months.
It all bears disturbing similarities to current goings-on in Northern Ireland, where the devolved government is currently attempting to push through a swathing attack on the right to protest, the Public Assembles Bill. Similarly, this is being done under the cloak of cutting down on sectarian parades. But as the coalition which has come together to oppose the Bill makes clear, it’s no coincidence that this has arisen at the same time as the worst attack on the working class since the creation of the welfare state: “The two main parties in the Assembly who have already agreed to make these cuts are also the two parties who sat down together and drafted this proposed legislation. The intention could not be clearer. The purpose of the law is to smash any possible opposition to the destruction of the public sector and the sacking of thousands of workers.”
Under the Bill, all public gatherings of more than fifty people will require permission with 37 days notice. Failure to comply will potentially lead to a prison sentence or hefty fine for all participants. Obviously, Glasgow City Council do not possess nearly the same level powers as the NI Assembly – and their consultation document bluntly makes clear that they’re stretching the boundaries of current Scottish, UK and European legislation to their very limits.
However, the document doesn’t shy away from revealing the council’s main agenda in putting forward this new policy on public parades. In fact, a whole section is entitled ‘City Centre Developments: the Changing Face of Glasgow’. Cue a list of major new “improvements” to the city centre over the past few years, among them the £100m extension to the St Enoch’s shopping centre, the planned expansion of the Buchanan Galleries, the “award-winning” financial district at the Broomielaw, and “many other prestigious office developments”. It concludes that the importance of the city centre to ‘Glasgow’s economic prosperity’ rules it out as somewhere suitable for public processions. It might as well read: anyone expressing dissent to the neo-liberal restructuring and gentrification of Glasgow – can fuck off. It’s also worth noting that the paper bizarrely singles out the May Day demo in 2009 for special attention, claiming it was ‘particularly problematic’, involving a ‘day of protest in the city centre against capitalism and globalisation’. Were they on the same demo as us – all I remember is the usual tame procession from George Square to some equally boring rally at the Old Fruitmarket…
The next few years will bring a virtually unprecedented attack on the social wage of the working class. There’s already been broad speculation that cuts of 25% in state spending will bring what’s possible under a democratic system to its absolute limits. In Northern Ireland, the governing parties are doing the ConDem’s dirty work for them, severely limiting the right to express any kind of dissent. The same can now be said, perhaps, of Glasgow’s Labour council.
The placards, headlines and banners have been screaming about cuts, austerity measures and swingeing job cuts for what seems like ages now. We’ve all known that there’s a pending apocalypse coming our way – insert comparison about it being the worst attack on the working class since Thatcher/WWII/THE BEGINNING OF TIME here – for ages, but when it actually comes to visualising it, it can be pretty difficult. There’s so many different facts, figures and quotes being thrown around all over the place, that it can be hard to know what’s mere speculation, what could be a government red herring, and what’s actually going on – so much so, that ‘the cuts’ can actually seem pretty remote and distant at the moment, something we can all hope surely wont be as bad as everyone’s saying it will be, or at least wont affect me personally, right?
Not so any longer for Scotland’s 150,000 council workers, who’ve just been hit with a non-negotiable “deal” by COSLA (consortium of stupid stupid stupid local authorities), the organisation that represents all of Scotland’s councils together, which effectively amounts to three years of pay cuts.
Initially, trade unions had approached COSLA asking for a 3% rise this year. In real terms, this isn’t a pay rise at all – it’s just keeping up with inflation, currently hovering at just over 3%. But full of rhetoric about “tightening their belts” and the need for “public sector pay restraint”, the local authorities got back and offered a 1% rise this year, a pay freeze in 2011, and an 0.5% rise in 2012. The unions put this to their members and it was quite rightly rejected, and with this mandate, they returned to the negotiating table hoping for a better offer.
Alas, COSLA had a better idea, so on Friday they tore up their old offer, and came up with a new one that’s even crappier. And what’s worse is that for the first time ever they’ve made imposed the offer and refused any further negotiations. Local authority workers across Scotland – encompassing cleansing workers, social services, roads, libraries and everyone else except teachers – can now expect an 0.65% increase this year, and a pay freeze in 2011 and 2012. With inflation well above this and liable to rise, this offer effectively amounts to a significant cut in wages, which the ConDems’ VAT rise, coming into effect in February, will only add to.
Wage cuts don’t have to be inevitable though, despite the propaganda of the capitalist press and the government who insist that we’ve “all got to share” the burden of the er, massive bank bail-outs and global recession that we er, didn’t cause. It remains to be seen how much will there is within the local authority trade unions – the main three being Unison, Unite and the GMB – to take action against the cuts. Sources have told Leftfield that in the current climate with huge fears over job security in the public sector, there persists a reluctance among large sections of the workforce to take industrial action. This reluctance only plays into the hands of the bosses though, who can then impose any pay offer they want, as they just have, assured that they wont have to suffer any consequences through industrial action.
There’s an urgent need for a movement to grow to resist the cuts. Above and beyond this latest measure to slash pay for thousands of low paid council workers across Scotland, the Westminster government spending review – revealed in October – will paint a fuller picture of the cuts to come. In an ideal situation, there’d be unofficial walkouts at council offices and depots across the country next week, and official action over the next few months. Whether we can summon more than a demo at the end of October will depend on the ability of activists within the union movement to convince the workforce that they can fight and win on this issue – and whatever they come after next, be it pensions, holiday entitlement or jobs!
Rumours persist that protesters also had tent pegs, bicycles AND EVEN SILLY STRING
DOZENS of misinformed media outlets yesterday went on a hysterical rampage – going head-to-head with FACTS and SCIENCE – and causing chaos across the country as they poured an oily slick of lies across the nation’s front pages.
At the same time, hundreds of idiots wreaked havoc across the internet, using websites as diverse as Twitter and newspaper comments sections to vent their reactionary opinions and stupid world view.
The occasion was, of course, the weekend’s Climate Camp, and the hyped-up ‘day of action’ which took place on Monday. Inevitably, there wasn’t nearly enough ‘action’ to satisfy a media which had been building up this invasion of anarchists intent on violence and disruption for months, but hey, let’s not let the small matter of FACTS get in the way of some good RIOT coverage!!1!211
Faced with this lack of COP15 style scenes of thousands of riot cops and activists facing it down, they had to make do with total lies and some made-up nonsense about ‘weapons’ – all of which the police obligingly did their best to go along with.
Most of the press coverage of Monday has focused on a supposed ‘oil slick’ which was created by activists pouring ‘oil and vegetable oil’ onto two busy roads. This is a blatant lie which has been spread by Lothian and Borders Police in a bid to discredit the protests and any political points they were trying to make. Two roads were indeed shut by the police for several hours on Monday morning, but there’s no evidence to prove that protesters had poured oil anywhere, let alone over busy roads. In a couple of actions on the day, molasses was used, specifically because it has the appearance of oil, but is sticky and doesn’t present any present any great safety risk, as oil would. Somewhere, wires have obviously got crossed, and news about molasses being poured over the offices of Cairn Energy in the city centre has lead to the Climate Camp being blamed for presumably an accidental leak of oil on two Edinburgh roads – hardly a rare occurrence.
Lethal weapons recovered by the police
In another bout of sensationalism, police were able to provide the media with pictures of supposed ‘weapons’ that they’d retrieved from around the campsite. The key word here being campsite, particularly when it’s revealed that these dangerous weapons were in fact a chisel and a mallot. Leftfield can also exclusively reveal that the site had saws, spades and even pick axes. In fact, a whole marquee was dedicated to storing tools which we’d presumed were for site maintenance and construction – how terribly naive of us.
As well as the police, the media were able to rely on a bunch of populist politicians from the mainstream political parties to come out and call on the police to start beating up peaceful activists who were engaged in a “disturbing” protest according to Labour and an “absolutely unacceptable” one according to the Lib Dems, while the Tories added that “it is time that the police sort this out”. The chair of Lothian & Borders Police Board also came out yesterday and called for protesters to foot the bill for the policing of the entire camp, in a startling display of utter contempt for the democratic right to protest.
As it happens, Monday’s actions were highly successful, closing down the offices of two energy companies in the city centre, as well as various RBS buildings and branches. As we’ve already reported, the camp also managed to close down the entire RBS headquarters for the day, with staff being told to stay at home or work elsewhere. Most of the condemnation of the protests – from the media and equally misinformed idiots on the internet – is coming from people with little understanding of the camp, its aims, or what really went down on the day. From what I saw, the only lives that were endangered during the whole camp were those that risked travelling in a shaky siege tower as it took its lengthy journey down to the front lines…
This weekend, Climate Camp is coming to Edinburgh.
Anything up to 1000 people are expected to descend on the capital for five days of discussions, workshops, training and direct action, in the fifth camp of its kind in the UK. Following past camps which have targeted airport expansion and coal power stations, this year the main target will be the ‘oil and gas bank’, the Royal Bank of Scotland, who handily have their huge, James Bond baddie style centre of operations on a site just outside of Edinburgh. RBS have come in for a huge amount of ire recently due to their direct funding of mineral extraction projects that’re hugely damaging to the environment, like the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada. And these are, of course, being funded with our money, given that RBS is now majority owned by the taxpayer following the billions poured into the banks by the Treasury.
The camp kicks off on Thursday, with a ’swoop’ on the site of the camp from four different locations in the city. The site will then be set up and made ready for the Saturday, when most climate campers are expected to arrive, and when the week’s activities properly begin. Over Saturday and Sunday, there’ll be a wide-ranging discussion on the way forward for the radical environmental movement, and how we can halt the onset of devastating climate change across the globe. Much of the debate will focus on the link between capitalism and climate change, posing such questions as whether we need destroy capitalism to destroy climate change, and whether we should ‘green the banks’ or ’smash the banks’. There’s also going to be workshops on stuff like fuel poverty, last year’s radical climate change conference in Bolivia, and the role of workers in fighting climate change. It’s not all talk though – there’s also going to be lots of legal training and direct action training in preparation for Monday’s mass day of action against the RBS HQ. With the RBS-sponsored Edinburgh Festival in full-swing at the moment too, the camp also promises a ‘greenwashing guerillas mission’, deep into the heart of the festival!
System Change not Climate Change!
The camp operates on a non-hierarchical basis of mass participation and consensus decision making. Based on geographical location, it’ll be divided into different ‘neighbourhoods’, each with its own kitchen and other facilities. The whole camp is free, but obviously does incur pretty big costs for the organisers – for young people going they’re recommending a donation of £10/15 for the camp, and a small donation for each meal you have.
SSY are planning on fully participating in the camp this weekend – and you should come too! We’ve heard a rumour that this might be the last really big, national climate camp in the UK, at least for a few years anyway, and seeing as it’s in Scotland, it’s really too good a chance to miss.
The 2010 Camp for Climate Action handbook, containing a full programme of everything that’s happening over the weekend, plus anything else you need to know, is available here.
The past few weeks have seen a noticeable increase in police surveillance of left-wing activism in Glasgow, with blatant attempts to close down meetings, seize newspapers and shut down street activity.
On Monday evening, an initial meeting was held by the Scottish Anti-Fascist Alliance to kick-start organising the opposition to the Scottish Defence League’s proposed march in Glasgow on 18 September. The meeting was well attended and made several concrete steps in organising a protest for the day. However, upon arriving at the venue – one of the main lecture buildings at Glasgow University – activists were confronted by at least four police officers. Many were uneasy about the police presence and until it became clear that police would not be inside the meeting itself, a large group remained outside the building. Meanwhile, however, two officers had ventured upstairs to the room, booked through a sympathetic student society, and started to question those already there about their motives, remaining in the room for around 10 minutes. Others were prevented from going to the room, with allegations made on the night that police had informed several people that the meeting was ‘cancelled’. A complaint has already been submitted to Chief Constable Stephen House regarding the police behaviour on the night, from a local MSP who was in attendance at the meeting.
This all sets a dangerous precedent. Last year, it was through a number of well attended meetings at Glasgow Uni that the mass opposition to the SDL was initiated. This strategy then set the blueprint for opposing the SDL when they emerged elsewhere in Scotland. All these meetings were able to go ahead with no interference from the authorities; it seems, however, that times have changed and the police are now keen to keep closer tabs on independent anti-fascist activity in Glasgow. It also poses the question of how the police will act on 18 September itself, especially when we consider their actions in Kilmarnock in going out of their way to facilitate an effectively illegal demonstration by the SDL.
Monday cannot be seen in isolation, however. It comes at the same time as disturbing developments on the southside of the city, where police are stepping up attacks on the rights of left-wing groups to sell newspapers and hold street activity. Over recent weeks, members of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! have now on several occasions had dozens of copies of their newspaper seized by police, who claim to be enforcing legislation to regulate street trading. This neglects the fact that the Civic Government Scotland Act is clear that newspapers are an exception to this rule, and do not require a license to sell . FRFI members report that to get around this, police are arguing that their newspaper is in fact… not a newspaper, despite it being registered at the Post Office as exactly that! As a result, three FRFI members have now been arrested and charged with breaking this law.
This is all happening in Govanhill, an incredibly diverse area of the city with several generations of immigrants living in the vicinity, including most recently an influx of eastern European migrants, many of Roma descent. Local residents report that there is a growing sense of underlying tension in the area, with accusations and rumour flying around of “Roma crime” with reports of bin-raking for identity theft, cars being vandalised and so on. Clearly this ignores the reality of the social problems in the area, and points to the classic tactics of divide and rule in a period of huge capitalist crisis. On top of the police attacks, loyalists in the area are becoming more active, with at least one attack by far-right thugs on a stall on Victoria Road.
Whatever one thinks of FRFI’s politics, it’s deeply worrying that a left-wing group doing consistent work in a working class area with its own set of social problems are coming in for sustained attack from so-called ‘community police officers’. It’s something that we’re likely to see more of over the next few years, as the state attempts to clamp down on any attempts to build working class resistance to their austerity package of swathing cuts and job losses. They’re targeting one group on the southside now, but any of us could be next, and we’ll need maximum solidarity from all progressive and left-wing forces to face off these blatant attacks on the democratic right to hold activity on our streets.
UPDATE (13-08-10) : in the past couple of days a new campaign has been launched, the Govanhill Defence Campaign, to oppose political policing in the area and present a united front against harassment and intimidation from the authorities. There’s more info and a launch statement on the campaign blog here: http://govanhilldefencecampaign.blogspot.com/
Global outrage at Israel's brutal attack on the Gaza aid flotilla
When Israel announced that they were holding their own inquiry into their massacre of aid activists on the Gaza Flotilla, which happened at the end of May, it wasn’t a massive surprise when their ‘impartial panel’ proved to be a total sham. As we reported at the time, Israel predictably hand-picked a panel mostly consisting of retired Israeli generals, some Canadian military hack with a dodgy human rights record, and David Trimble, Ulster Unionist politician and renowned bigot and sectarian knobhead.
But you’d maybe expect that, for all its faults, the United Nations, an international body which is kind of meant to be as impartial as they come, would manage slightly better on this front. Somehow, however, and quite incredibly, the UN have managed to top all of Israel’s shameless whitewashing – they’ve only gone and picked Alvaro fucking Uribe as the vice-chair of their ‘independent’ panel of inquiry into the attacks. Uribe is the outgoing President of Colombia, famous for his friendly, diplomatic and impartial bouts of killing trade unionist, funding right-wing guerillas and being best pals with some of the world’s most notorious drugs barons, at least when he’s not too busy stoking up war with his neighbours and receiving billions in aid from the United States, that is!
Israel has been in the news the past couple of days for practically provoking a war with Lebanon following military excursions which skirted the Lebanese border, leaving five dead – including a civilian journalist – when things spilled over into gunfire a few days ago. As it happens, Colombia has also been in the news for much the similar (without any killing… yet), constantly accusing neighbouring Venezuela, and the left-wing government of Hugo Chavez, of harbouring left-wing guerillas who form one side in the relatively low-intensity civil war that’s been going on in the country for decades. Although there’s absolutely no evidence that this is the case – all Uribe has been able to offer is a couple of dodgy photos from a few years ago that were probably taken in Ecuador anyway (which Colombia illegally invaded in 2008 on the same justification). Chavez has quite understandably been getting a bit unnerved at these persistent threats emanating from Colombia, given that it’s no secret that the US government would quite like to bump him off and a proxy war through Colombia is probably their best bet for doing so now, after their countless failures to depose Chavez domestically and halt the ongoing revolution .
Uribe and Bush share a joke about how many commies they killed last week
Uribe’s regime in Colombia have consistently failed to investigate reports of systematic torture, human rights abuses and extra-judicial murder in the country. Invariably, these have been against the left-wing opposition – including the now infamous cases of Coca Cola bottling plant workers who faced execution by paramilitary death squads because they’d tried to fight for better wages and conditions, or even just been a member of a trade union. It’s crazy that the UN thinks a man who has well documented links to fascist paramilitaries, cocaine trafficking and mass abuses of human rights in his own country is possibly capable of impartially investigating a massacre of civilians abroad.
And for the inquiry to be announced in the same week that the UN Secretary General was summoned by the Venezuelan government over serious concerns about a Colombian attack is just taking the piss, and whether intentional or otherwise, sends a clear endorsement to Colombia’s US-sponsored imperialist warmongering. An MEP from the United Left party in Spain, Willy Meyer, has already slammed the decision as like “like leaving a fox to guard the chickens”, adding that Uribe presides over a country with “the largest mass grave in Latin America”.
Can you be cooler than these previous campers? Yes, you probably can be!
We’ve been counting down the days to Camp Secret Squirrel for months now, and we’re now eventually onto the final stretch. The coach has been booked, the beverages are sorted, the workshops and the food have been finalised, and now we’re just waiting for youse all to show up. Cause if you don’t, you’re probably crazier than Glenn Beck on crystal meth. Fact.
If you’re planning to come, you’ve hopefully by now confirmed your attendance by speaking to one of the organisers or by sending an email to scottishsocialistyouth@gmail.com. We’ll be in touch in the next day or two to make sure you know all the details, but for now here’s a summary of most of the important stuff you need to know if yer coming..
HOW MUCH IS IT? The camp this year costs £10 unwaged, and £15 if you’re in a job. Not only does this include all the camp activities and workshops, but also coach travel to the site and back from Glasgow, and all your meals as well! You can pay on Friday when we get the coach.
HOW DO WE GET THERE? Most of us are getting a coach from Glasgow this Friday evening. The bus leaves at 6pm from North Hanover street, just next to Queen Street station and George Square.We’ll be meeting there at 5.30pm – don’t be late! If you live more locally, we should be able to meet you in Castle Douglas and get you to the site.
SO WHAT FOOD DO WE GET? We’ve worked out an amazing vegan-friendly menu for both Saturday and Sunday, which includes three meals on both days. There’ll be some snacks available on Friday night, but feel free to bring some food for then if you want.
WHAT DO I NEED TO BRING? You’ll need somewhere to sleep, so a tent and sleeping bag would be pretty great. Remember this is Scotland we’re dealing with, so do be prepared for all weathers (not that it’s actually gonna rain, obv.). You’ll also need some money! Please bring change if you can – coins will be more useful than everyone turning up with twenty pound notes. Cheeers.
Please also remember to bring some basic cutlery, a bowl, a plate and a cup – and if it’s plastic or metal, then even better!
We’re going to a site in rural Galloway – it’s going to be very dark, so remember a torch… one with batteries in it.
CSS 2010
WHAT FACILITIES ARE THERE ON SITE? The camp has two wooden cabins and an area covered with a large canvass, giving plenty of room for workshops, dancin’ and stuff. There’s also a compost toilet and a tap with running water. Wood-fired ovens and stoves as well, which we’ll be doing all the cooking on. Yipee!
CAN AH BRING MA CHOONS? Aye, bring it in a digital format – mp3 player, compact disc or memory stick are all acceptable mediums. Jack says: ‘If you leave DJing to me, you get DJing by me’.
ANYTHING ELSE? Watch the Wickerman (1973). It will help you understand lots of jokes which will undoubtedly be made over the weekend.
See yiz at camp – gonna be SO GOOD.
ps. If you haven’t confirmed your place yet but you would like to come, you’re still very welcome! Send us an email at scottishsocialistyouth@gmail.com and we’ll get back to you!
Following the relative success of their wee day out to Kilmarnock -- where the shameful actions of Strathclyde Police ensured that their ‘march’ could go ahead -- the SDL are intending to have another go at parading through Glasgow next month, on Saturday 18th September.
As you might recall, when the SDL last tried to march in the city, the first far-right demo in Scotland for decades, they were met by thousands of anti-fascists who opposed them directly on the streets and ensured that the police soon bussed them out of the city centre. It was a resounding victory, and a repeat of this situation when they tried to hold a demo in Edinburgh in February was enough for many to see the organisation as finished. Not so -- they came back for a jaunt to Killie, had a nice day, and since then have been intent on making their trip to the big city as much of a success.
Responding to an official complaint from the Scottish Anti-Fascist Alliance, the police have sought to defend their actions in Kilmarnock on the grounds that they cannot discriminate against ‘legal protest’ and that their heavy-handed treatment of anti-fascists was both ‘justified and proportionate’ in keeping order on the day.
This all sets a worrying precedent for September 18th. The SDL have learnt from their previous mistakes, and now know that by meeting inside pubs, they’ll invariably just end up getting kettled within by the police, and in turn, hundreds of anti-fascists. On the other hand, meeting on the street offers them both police protection, and guarantees that they’ll get some kind of street protest/shouting match. So this time, the SDL have applied for a demo which will, they claim, gather in Blytheswood Square towards the west of the city and march to George Square, where they intend to lay a wreathe at the cenotaph. It will be doubly ironic if the SDL are allowed to assemble at their desired location, given that Blytheswood Square is now off limits to everyone else.
What Kilmarnock demonstrated though was that the state cannot be relied on at any level to stop the threat of organised fascism. Ultimately, the police will attempt to keep public order -- and if this means allowing the SDL/EDL/NF to march, then so be it. It’s a game of numbers, one which worked to our advantage in Glasgow and Edinburgh, less so in Kilmarnock and countless EDL demos down south. Mobilising against fascism doesn’t have to be difficult -- in fact it’s been one of the best, most gratifying and worthwhile things that SSY has been involved with over the past 12 months. In Glasgow and Edinburgh hundreds, even thousands, of ordinary people have been angry enough to take to the streets in direct action against fascism.
Which makes it all the more bizarre that there’s a growing school of thought which says that the EDL “shouldn’t be opposed”, because this is “playing into their hands” and “harming community relations”. It doesn’t come as any great surprise to hear that this is being spearheaded by the ‘anti-fascist’ magazine Searchlight, and their establishment-backed front organisation Hope Not Hate. The entire strategy of Searchlight and HNH rests on making appeals to the state to ‘ban’ nasty people -- bans which then all too easily backfire against the left. Their major success in this so far was Luton last year, where they managed to get ALL political gatherings banned for several months in a bid to stop one EDL march -- great job guys!
Bradford is a special case in many respects, given the race riots which happened there in 2001. But simply calling for the EDL to be banned does not get around this -- the main catalyst for the disorder in 2001 was a march by the National Front. A march that, as it happens, was banned by the authorities from taking place. But this ban didn’t stop some of the Nazis showing up anyway -- and similarly, a ban on the EDL’s march isn’t going to stop a large amount of their support showing up either. They’ve been building up this demo for months, constistently referring to it as ‘the Big One’ and one that ‘one wont be for families’. It doesn’t take long to figure out what they want: a ruck with the local Asian youth (with one third of Bradford’s population being Muslim).
It’s particularly shameful that the local trade union council has come out against any planned counter-demo, alongside “most political parties, faith groups and community groups”, according to Hope Not Hate. In effect, all they’re doing is alienating those that will come out to oppose the EDL -- abandoning any local youth who come out to defend their community from attack by the thugs of the EDL. The local labour movement should be at the forefront of direct action to stop the EDL, not cowering at the back cause they’re scared they might get hit. A broad, united anti-fascist demo would send a clear message to the EDL, and people watching from all over the UK, that Bradford stands against them. Sitting at home and abandoning the local Asian youth to defend their city is exactly what will lead the media to portray the whole thing as a ‘race riot’. And that’s what we all want to avoid.
If you want to free the weed clap your hands.. CLAP CLAP.
Yesterday saw the SSY organised Legalise Cannabis – End the War on Drugs demo take to the streets of the west end of Glasgow, with between 300-350 mostly young people turning out for the biggest march of its kind Scotland has seen for a number of years.
The demo left University Avenue in the west end of the city at around 1pm with a small police escort, before marching via Byres Road and Dumbarton Road to Kelvingrove Park. Indeed, the marchers then proceeded to er, legalise cannabis, with the police adopting a very welcome non-interference approach to anyone lighting up in the park!
Across the world, the tide is beginning to turn against blanket drugs prohibition. An ever increasing number of countries are opting to decriminalise possession and start treating drugs as a social and health issue, rather than a criminal one, with harm reduction at the fore. This couldn’t be further from the truth in the UK, however. None of the big four parties are willing to go anywhere near a policy of relaxing our backwards drugs laws – displayed all too recently in the rush to ban mephedrone, or m-cat, flying against the advice of top scientists and even the government’s own drugs advisory board, several of whom resigned in protest, but happily going along with the agenda of right-wing tabloids.
This is why we felt it especially important to take the message to the streets again this summer that there is a real alternative to the madness of drugs prohibition – to legalise, regulate and control drug use, rather than pushing the whole industry underground and into the arms global crime syndicates.
Saturday’s demo got a great reception from passers-by – afternoon shoppers on Byres Road applauded the march as it passed, while groups of young people charged over the street to join it as it went by. The fact is, most people know that cannabis is not a dangerous drug, and if the reception SSY have got on the streets over the past few weeks is anything to by, most people know it should legalised too.
For as long as the UK government continues on their ridiculous and, ultimately, flawed approach of criminalising young people who smoke the occasional joint, forcing heroin addicts into a life of crime and prostitution, and wasting vast amounts of police time and resources on a pointless “war on drugs” that fuels conflict across the world, SSY will continue to campaign for sweeping reform to the drugs laws. See youse all next year.
M-CAT NOT FAT CATS! The march sets off from Uni Avenue
When I say LEGALISE, you say.. CANNABIS!
The PA system that totally worked the whole time and that there was absolutely no problems with. Uhuh
Glasgow City Council are poised to bring in new legislation that could effectively ban public processions and demonstrations from the city centre, among other draconian measures which together form an unashamed attack on democratic rights in the city. As we reported earlier this year, this comes as part of their much trumpeted drive to cut down on the number of the sectarian parades in the city – which is reportedly higher than the annual total in Derry and Belfast combined.
It all bears disturbing similarities to current goings-on in Northern Ireland, where the devolved government is currently attempting to push through a swathing attack on the right to protest, the Public Assembles Bill. Similarly, this is being done under the cloak of cutting down on sectarian parades. But as the coalition which has come together to oppose the Bill makes clear, it’s no coincidence that this has arisen at the same time as the worst attack on the working class since the creation of the welfare state: “The two main parties in the Assembly who have already agreed to make these cuts are also the two parties who sat down together and drafted this proposed legislation. The intention could not be clearer. The purpose of the law is to smash any possible opposition to the destruction of the public sector and the sacking of thousands of workers.”
This weekend, Climate Camp is coming to Edinburgh.
Following the relative success of their wee day out to 
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