WE NEED TO FIGHT BACK

An extract of my speech to the Yes event held in Golspie this weekend.

GOLSPIE

Thank you for the invitation to speak at this event. Today is not the first connection between Golspie and my family. My late father, who was in the RAF during WW2  was stationed here in 1941 until he joined the desert RAF forces in Egypt. I remember he told me Golspie had an excellent chip shop run by an elderly woman who was kind to the servicemen and always found a few extra chips for them. While my dad was here the elderly lady went into hospital. My dad,looking to repay the old lady for her kindness,  got a couple of others to help and managed to lay his hands on some paint and they painted the chip shop while she was hospitalised. He worked in the RAF stores. This explains for anyone here today who is around 100 years of age why your chip shop in Golspie was painted in RAF blue for many years 

WE meet here to remember a period of Scottish history for which none of us can feel any sense of pride, but only shame at the failure of Scots society at that time to defend the interests of the common folk but to allow the tragic cruelty of the day’s capitalism that valued the rights of man as but nothing. The evictions were resisted and opposed but from the start it was an unfair battle, with the establishment, including many in the Kirk, the Duke’s enforcers, the army, the justice system all available to put down protest and intimidate and inflict fear on any that stood in the way.

We cannot condemn the people of that age. These were very different times, with none of the modern methods of communication like television, radio or social media that allows us today to be well informed about events across our country. That allows us to organise, to challenge, to ensure justice for all. I wish!

Here we are centuries later and can we boast that our country Scotland  enjoys justice and fairness?

I don’t think so. I see a country that every day witnesses our assets  removed with little or no benefit for the people of Scotland. I see a country where politicians use the power of the Justice system to persecute political rivals. That jails journalists on trumped up charges, so bizarre themselves that the judge herself cannot spell out what crime has been committed. We were told we don’t need to know that answer it was clear in her mind. That was enough! What sort of justice is that?

The dawn raids on people like Mark Hirst, seizing all his electronic equipment, denying the very tools of his trade as a journalist. Trumped up ridiculous charges, completely malicious in nature. It went on for months until it came to the local sheriff court. The Prosecution laid out their  charge. At the end of the Prosecutors remarks the Sheriff asked one question “Is that it?” ,he asked. The Prosecutor replied Yes. The Sheriff then stated “Case dismissed. No case to answer” So The charges against Mark were dismissed. Those who made the allegations however, who wasted police time, wasted court time were not out a penny. I cannot name them but they used the public justice system to make the allegations. Mark Hirst however was out many thousands of pounds in his legal costs and tens of thousands of lost income from his job as a freelance journalist. I said I could not name those responsible. That does not mean I don’t know who they were. They were some of the same people who used the same state prosecution service to make the spurious allegations against Alex Salmond. I cannot name them however, because the Judge in Craig Murray’s trial was the same judge in the Alex Salmond trial, who afforded lifetime anonymity to these women, even though by the end of that trial not a single guilty verdict was delivered and the only serious allegation was proved to have been impossible to have happened.

It may surprise you if I tell you that there is another trivial case taking place this very month again involving one of the same women. The exact same tactics in use again. Another political opponent in the dock.

On a separate matter laws are being prepared and implemented to ban protest and demonstration at our Parliament. What happened to that ambition to have open and transparent Government?. Instead we have widespread concealment, redaction, avoidance and suppression.

When our country’s leaders are more intent of stifling debate, outlawing protest, using the courts as a political weapon we need to realise we have failed. That we have allowed today’s establishment to impose their will on our people. Just like centuries before.

I ask you to think on the injustices of the past. Our folk transported from their homes and glens to countries far away. Talented folk, hard workers, educated, able in many cases to read and write. Talents that enabled them to live useful and productive lives in their new homes.

Our task is to enable the Scots population of today to make use of their talents, here in Scotland. To build a fair and decent society, to have fair opportunity and justice available to all.

Surely after more than 300 years we have learned it cannot happen without Independence. Where those most committed to our people and country govern for the benefit of all of our people. In the 21st Century. Let only those who through free choice  leave our shores, but to build here, using our assets and ingenuity, the country for all where we can all benefit and create the good prospects for future generations.

Independence is the route and each and everyone of us must march that road from this day forward until we secure that objective. We have wasted enough time. It is time for action. We can and we must succeed.

I am, as always

Yours for Scotland

BEAT THE CENSOR

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