All out for Yes: Colin Fox, Isobel Lindsay, MSP Jean Urquhart, Alan Bissett and more in this issue • See inside FREE • issue 444 • 5th–18th September 2014 scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com ‘On 18 September, power will lie in the hands of the Scottish people. You have to decide whether to keep it or give it away...’ – Jim Sillars For a Scotland that puts people before profit – vote ScottishSocialistVoice.wordpress.com /ScottishSocialistVoice @ssv_voice VOTE YES by Alan Bissett HERE WE are going into the LabourLabour votersvoters last fortnight of the long campaign for Scottish independence and things are now very exciting indeed. movingmoving toto YesYes The latest poll, from the No- friendly YouGov, places Yes at 47 per cent and No at 53 per cent, a massive swing of 8 per cent from their last poll, making victory for Yes very much possible. Even Better Together cheerleaders the Daily Mail are describing the result of as being ‘on a knife edge’. During the last TV debate with Alex Salmond, an under- pressure Alistair Darling “MY FRIDGE MAGNETS TOLD ME admitted that ‘of course TO VOTE ‘NO’”: the new face of Scotland could use the pound’, Better Together, aka ‘Patronising BT Lady’, has heralded in a putting to rest a central BT Lady’, has heralded in a disastrous time for the No camp falsehood of the No campaign. Better Together’s advert some supporters have been appear toxic and off-putting to the right. The same recent targeting the female vote – in lashing out – literally – with the public. Even the police are YouGov poll has seen support which a woman, filmed in the reports emerging of physical recognising this tactic. for independence rise by 12 kitchen, claims not to care violence against Yes activists. Yes, instead of trying to fight per cent among Labour voters about politics and fails to These have been largely dirty, has been quietly building in the last month, as the left- remember the First Minister’s ignored by the media, who up the largest mass movement wing tone of the Yes movement name – alienated Yes, No and prefer to magnify complaints in Scotland’s history. becomes clearer by the day. Undecided women alike for its from Labour’s Jim Murphy Aware that the potential for Ideas which have been off the patronising tone. about being hit by an egg. change lies within the Scottish political agenda for generations Murphy’s ludicrous talk of working-class, who have been – nuclear disarmament, the Violence ignored ‘co-ordinated attack mobs’ and long-alienated from by right-wing nationalisation of industry, anti- It is a measure of how Better the No campaign’s predictions UK governments, the Radical privatisation, wealth Together have been depending of ‘absolute carnage’ on Independence Campaign have redistribution and social housing upon political apathy that Scottish streets have meant a been out encouraging people – are now on everyone’s lips, they’re now using meaningless public rebuke from the Scottish on housing schemes and in job and it is increasingly obvious to platitudes such as, ‘I love Police Federation for centres queues to register. voters which result is most likely Scotland, I’m voting No’ and ‘I ‘intemperate, inflammatory and Groups like the Scottish to deliver these. love my kids, I’m voting No’. exaggerated language’. Socialist Party and Labour For But the No campaign has Now that all of their Independence, whose values Political awakening also taken a rather sinister arguments have been dispelled, have remained intact, have been Labour, meanwhile, are turn. Aware that the UK might Better Together are now simply successful at targeting those spending their energies fighting be slipping from their grasp, trying to make the whole debate disaffected by Labour’s drift to against the largest political awakening of working-class To subscribe to the Scottish Socialist Voice – newspaper of the Scottish Socialist Party – fill in this form people that Scotland has ever and send it to: Scottish Socialist Voice, Suite 370, 4th Floor, Central Chambers, 93 Hope Street, Glasgow known, on behalf of our rulers. G2 6LD. Or telephone: 07810205747. Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to ‘Scottish The media and No voters like Socialist Voice’. 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I enclose: g £5 for 2 issues g £10 for 4 issues g £20 for 8 issues It is proof of what can happen when the left unites: we can win. 2 • scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com • issue 444 VOTE YES WHY I’M VOTING Which side FOR INDEPENDENCE are you on? by Ken Ferguson, editor, Scottish Socialist Voice AFTER THE long campaign, the scares, the experts and the claim and counter claim as 18 September approaches, the question is increasingly clear and increasingly simple. Which side are you on? The Tories were rejected by Scottish voters an age ago as the people who brought the long years of Thatcher’s class war on working people with it closures, sackings and the detested Poll Tax. The Lib Dems, once the mister nice guys of Scottish politics, sold their souls for a few crumbs from the Westminster Tory government and are reaping the whirlwind of rejection from disgusted voters. The more this gruesome pair tell scare stories about a Yes vote the more the independence vote grows. YES FOR SUCCESS: Colin Fox speaks at a huge pro-indy rally in Edinburgh PHOTO: Craig Maclean In bed with the Tories by Colin Fox, SSP ments we choose and the Democracy and serving However the most shameful role in the co-spokesperson policies we support instead the needs of all citizens will anti-Yes campaign has been that of the party of suffering those we did not. always trump the interests once the natural home of progressive voter VOTING YES on 18 Think about it, after 18 of ‘the moneymen’ in the favouring justice and peace—Labour. September unlocks a door September there will be no new nation I envisage. Trashing their honourable past they have to previously unreachable more David Camerons in The Yes vote I will cast spent the campaign in bed with the Tories possibilities for working Scotland, no more Tory will therefore be for a mod- against the interests of their loyal voters. class people in Scotland. It governments we did not ern, democratic nation that In the Tory funded Labour fronted Better frees us from the economic elect, no more Bedroom will, I believe, chose to be- Together alliance they have sung the same neoliberalism of the City of Tax we did not vote for, no come a republic where we tune as parties detested by Scots voters with London that puts the greedy more Poll Tax we did not elect our Head of State. a mixture off fear and threats in desperate pursuit of profit for a tiny vote for either, no more Tri- And we elect someone rep- drive to maintain the cosy Westminster world elite ahead of satisfying the dent nuclear weapons sta- resentative of the population in which they enjoy a life insulated from the primary needs of millions. tioned on our soil, no more as a whole and who is ac- world of insecurity and deprivation facing Independence means we immigrants and claimants countable for the decisions thousands of those who elect them. can rid Scotland of the blamed for an economic cri- they take on our behalf. child poverty, fuel poverty, sis caused by the bankers... So I’m voting Yes on 18 Labour voters decisive food banks, low wage those days are over! September and I have never It is the decision of those Labour voters economy and the worst In an independent social- been more confident of vic- which will be decisive on 18 September—will anti-union laws in the ist Scotland no one is left tory than I am today. they back a Yes vote and take the power to whole of Europe. behind to live in poverty As I travel round Scotland defend the NHS, create real well paid jobs, It also frees us from the and squalor, forgotten by I see evidence everywhere scrap Trident and back a people before profit warmongering straitjacket the complacent and all too of the staggering achieve- Scotland, or the pretend socialists currently imposed upon us by the comfortable middle classes ments of the biggest politi- lined up with the Tory austerity and cuts? British state at Westmin- and the important decisions cal grassroots movement In this Voice, we offer the views of a range