A SCOTTISH TRADE UNIONIST WITH A CLEAR VOICE AND A CLEAR HEAD SPEAKS OUT FOR SOLIDARITY WITH THE UK.

George McIrvine, Unison Police Branch Secretary

The choice facing working people in Scotland this September is clear. We can either continue to work in solidarity with our brothers and sisters across the rest of the UK or we can turn our back on the cooperation which has achieved so much in the United Kingdom.

I’m hugely proud of what we have achieved together. Our NHS was established by a Welshman, the welfare state was created by an Englishman and it was a Scot who founded the BBC, another of our great institutions.  More recently it was the UK Labour Government that introduced the National Minimum Wage which benefited millions of people across the United Kingdom.

These are all things which have been for the many and not just the few. It is the kind of change that we can only continue to make by standing shoulder to shoulder with people across the whole of the UK.

Although we mustn’t take them for granted or rely solely on past gains, we are right to celebrate all that we have achieved together. What we have achieved in creating a fairer and more just society was made possible by working together and campaigning for progressive change across the UK.

It is important to remember that the fundamental changes that have taken place in making the case for social justice and tackling inequality have affected the whole of the United Kingdom, not just individual parts of it.

That is why the separation pitch from the nationalists is so deceptive and devoid of reality. The debate that they want to have is one between change and no change, more powers and the status quo and Scotland v England.

That could not be further from the truth. September’s vote is a choice between stepping into the unknown with separation or building on the success of the Scottish Parliament and all that devolution has delivered for the people of Scotland.

You will have difficulty finding someone who is part of the campaign to keep Scotland in the United Kingdom that believes that things are perfect. But you will find nobody that believes walking away is the answer to this or any issue.

As part of the trade union movement I know that the best outcome is always found by working collectively. Working together is how we can achieve the change that is needed.

But there is something more fundamental than that. I want to live in an outward looking country where solidarity with others is seen as something to embrace, not a source of grievance.

I want to be able to say that we thought long and hard about the choice that we faced, but ultimately we chose working together in solidarity with friends, neighbours and colleagues across the UK rather than walking away. When it comes to the crunch I will back co-operation and partnership over division and grievance.

SEPARATION IN A NUTSHELL.

The post below was sent to me as a comment and I thought it rather good at explaining the unjustifiable position of the snp and the supporters of separation.

I went to vote in the Euro elections the other day. A party near the bottom of their list caught my eye - 'Yorkshire First'.

They claim to be 'progressive' of the 'centre' and promise to put the interests of 'Yorkshire people first'. They claim that Westminster is full of poisonous cynics who do nothing much than stuff their own pockets and therefore separating from this Westminster 'elite' is part of their 'socialist agenda'. The say they are 'inclusive' but you have to be proper Yorkshire and display the white rose. They also claim that Yorkshire has a legitimate royal and monarchical line symbolised by Richard III whom the Tudor elite (in London) has spent years vilifying. as the biggest county Yorkshire could quite easily 'go it alone' they claim. I would like to ask the SNP nationalists here if any of this sounds familiar. The reason I ask this, is that one of my colleagues is a SNP supporter and when I described this 'party' to him, he called them 'nutters', 'idiots' and 'small town flag waving xenophobes'. But in truth they do not say much that is different from the SNP as far as I can see. The Yorkshire First guy at the voting depot wore a White Rose and kept on about how 'Yorkshire people' were 'decent' not 'like southerners'. Again, sound familiar?

Please, you must make common cause with working people across the country not run away from the hard fight against the Tories that is coming by turning your backs on the rest of us who are still battling in Liverpool, Manchester and believe it or not, in the poor districts of London.

THOSE WEE SLEEKIT TIMOROUS SNP/SEPARATIST/CYBERNAT BEASTIES.

I still find myself dealing with snp/separatist/cybernats who bizarrely complain that Scotland gets a bad deal from the UK parliament because it’s in London. For them it is too far-off from Scotland, some of them even say that the MP’s in London know nothing about Scotland because they don’t live here. They refer to Scottish issues as if they are unique and not like the rest of the UK. It’s a rather pitiful form of bleating and it does not stand up to examination.  I have posed this question to several of them before and I pose it again now, so far my question has been ignored, Consider the following facts and the question at the last paragraph.

London (UK Government) to Glasgow 400 miles. 

Washington (USA Government) to LA - 4,300 miles.

Moscow (Russian Government) to Vladivostock - 5,657 miles.

Canberra Australian Government) to Perth 2,386 miles.

Beijing (Chinese Government) to Lhasa 2,269 miles. 

How on Earth do these governments manage if we here in Scotland according to the snp teuchters who are afraid of getting lost in the big smoke can't.  The distance which separates Scotland from London they say is so great that it represents an insurmountable barrier?, and this absurd claim is being made some 45 years since the great Russian Uri Gagarin was able to speak to us live as he circumnavigated the planet earth in space. Eight years later some 37 years ago we watched live pictures and listened to a live conversation from the Moon featuring the legendary American astronaut Neil Armstrong but London is too far away for these pathetic whiners.  Is it not about time these nationalist idiots stopped trying to treat the Scottish people with contempt?.  

ANOTHER COUNCIL MEETING AND ANOTHER SNP DISGRACE.

09.30 am May 1^st 2014 and Renfrewshire Council meets for it’s regular cabaret as officers and councillors shuffle in, most rather self consciously because proceedings are now being filmed. Everyone apart from the snp members wondered what the snp stunt or stunts would be this time, snp stunts and disruptions are now firmly back in favour for the cameras, a few of them see themselves as Mel Gibson, it’s only a matter of time before we see them growing bushy beards and painting themselves blue and that includes the men as well.

 We did not have long to wait for stunt number one, this took the form of an attempt to move two mythical emergency motions before anything else had started, both were predictably rejected and then came Stunt number two which was a walk out in high dudgeon while displaying synthetic rage, it looked rather similar to the ‘march of the Siamese children’ from The King and I.

This meant that the snp chose their infantile stunt rather than holding the council to account. Items on the agenda which clearly were not important enough for them were things like the request for a council donation for a memorial to steel workers who had been killed at work, plans to commemorate WW1 and support for the armed forces community got binned as well. Dead workers, dead soldiers and soldiers who have problems after serving therefore did not gain any sympathy or even a mention from the snp.

Among the snp motions which they themselves scrapped were how we can better help young carers who sometimes have problems balancing their school attendance and punctuality with their caring duties, and an attack on Labour for supporting a welfare cap, this one was nonsense but we were all looking forward to seeing how they would go about this in the light of the snp leader and first minister alex (del boy) salmond also saying that he supported a cap on welfare, the famous snp Janus face on show again. The creation of more jobs from tourism was also unceremoniously dumped by the snp absconders as well. A couple of spurious emergency motions for the cameras it seems were far more important to the snp than all these other things. This is of course desperate and deplorable behaviour from snp councillors who again showed their contempt for the people of Renfrewshire. Meanwhile Labour as always got on with business which was quicker than usual as there was no snp posturing or disruption to take up our time. Approximately £5,000 was saved of tax payer’s money as well because the snp were not there to extend the meeting with their awful behaviour which cut out about 3 hours which is usually added on as they think nothing of wasting tax payers money to grab themselves publicity.  A bad day for the snp and a good day for the Renfrewshire tax payer.