Turn up the Heat on the Condems Over The

Welcome to Scotland: UKIP leader Farage waltzed into Edinburgh on the back of his English council elections successes - bad move, Nigel... • see pages 2, 3 & 9 £1 • issue 418 • 24th May - 6th June 2013 www.scottishsocialistvoice.net TAX THEIR by Richie Venton THOUSANDS are march - BOARDROOMing in Scotland Sagainst the vi - cious, vindictive Tory Bedroom Tax. Anger is turn - ing to outrage on the streets and on the demos, as this cruel theft of income from the poor - est has claimed its first victim. Stephanie Bottrill, a - NOT OUR grandmother, was driven to suicide by the impossible prospect of having to find another £20 a week. She had done without heating all win - ter to save up for the Bed - room Tax bills. Horrific reports are emerg - BEDROOMS ing of investment of time, money and staff hours by so - cial landlords in what amounts to ‘suicide watch’; housing staff, caretakers and welfare rights workers are being sent on courses to spot the danger of suicide amongst those tenants af - fected by the Bedroom Tax. CAMERON: owns spare homes LORD FREUD: 11 spare rooms CLEGG: in bed with the Tories • Continued on page 5 Turn up the heat on the ConDems over the Bedroom Tax • see pages 5, 6 & 7 NEWS Farage media firestorm illuminates increasingly right wing unionist agenda by Ken Ferguson Tax but in reality have not commit - ted to scrap it, while north of the WHEN seeking advice on a venue border they increasingly favour for his Edinburgh press conference scrapping universal benefits in to launch his Scottish push, UKIP what they term “freebie Scotland”. chief Nigel Farage’s team appar - Against this background the de - ently consulted Daily Mail political cision by Scottish Labour to launch journalist Alan Roden, who sug - a breakaway No campaign against gested three possibilities including independence reflects growing un - the eventual venue, the Canon’s ease by rank and file Labour sup - Gait. A key consideration from porters, voters and trade unionists Farage’s media team was that at sitting around the same table in “Nigel could enjoy a pint of heavy” the class collaborationist Better To - building on his home counties real gether campaign with Tories and ale, man-of-the-people image. Lib Dems. However, by choosing In the event, although he faced to front the event with Gordon heavy protests, the result of his ex - Brown who spent years in govern - perience was more bitter than he ment praising the innovation of the anticipated and his confinement in city speculators who authored the the Edinburgh pub certainly gave a crisis they showed the empty na - new meaning to the term “lock in.” ture of their non-alternative to the What the ensuing media storm ConDems. The listing of former showed above all was the real and Labour glories such as founding rapidly growing political diver - the NHS and building social hous - gence between Scottish and British ing failed to mention the reality that politics with Farage receiving wall- BARRAGE FOR FARAGE: UKIP’ s radical reception in Edinburgh subsequent Labour governments to-wall coverage for his assertion sold off social housing and did little that a section of those protesting at “fruitcake” right wing is yet an - tion debate, the demonising of ben - to oppose privatisation in health. his extremist views were them - other sign of the growing strength efit claimants, the sick and the dis - selves “fascists”. That this largely of the Tory right who are either abled and the entire big lie that the Tear jerker synthetic row ran and ran and even deeply suspicious of or openly hos - crisis engineered by city speculators And of course we heard the old generated a front page splash in the tile to Cameron’s supposed “mod - is actually to be paid for by workers tear jerker call for the Scots to stand metropolitan-based Guardian and eration.” The story follows on the jobs and pensioners living stan - by English workers in the face of a took top spot on the BBC tells us declarations in favour of an EU dards. Meanwhile the representa - Tory England even if that means little about the real news value of pull out by former Thatcher-era tives of the Tory grass roots queue volunteering to subject Scottish Farage’s Edinburgh foray but great chancellor Nigel Lawson and right up to denounce gay marriage in a workers to a Tory government they deal about the rightward march of wing minister turned media pundit further challenge to the carefully never voted for while failing to British politics. Michael Portillo both deeply dam - cultivated moderate and modern mention that the Brown and Blair aging to Cameron and de-stabilis - image of the Cameron camp. government kept anti-union laws ‘Swivel-eyed loons’ ing for the coalition with the If this rightward drift was simply which make such solidarity illegal. Just as Farage went off the boil pro-EU Lib Dems. confined to the English Tory shires The truth is that the demand for a as a running story, up popped a At the heart of the growing strife it would be bad enough but the truth Yes vote - stripped of all the vote Yes “close friend” - unnamed - of in the Tories is the reality - sky is that, with the aid of a shrill media and die No scares - has at its core one David Cameron to tell journalists written by the recent frenzy around campaign from the likes of the Tele - simple fact. Independence would en - that the Tory grass roots activists Thatcher’s death - that vast graph and the Daily Mail , it is in - sure that voters in Scotland would were “swivel-eyed loons” who risk swathes, even a majority of the creasingly tilting Westminster get the government that they actually wrecking the carefully burnished party remains on the hard-right. politics to the right. So the Labour voted for and the policies they sup - moderate image of Cameron Tories Suppressed initially by the relief reaction to these developments is to port. As Westminster lurches right, as reasonable moderates. of getting a partial hold on power float stories that they will be equally that growing gap between the poli - That the story figured promi - with the Lib Dems, the hard nosed “tough” on claimants, take a hard tics that result and the vision of a nently in the Daily Telegraph , the “nasty party” core of the party grad - line on immigration and duck and democratic, inclusive Scotland will house journal of the Tory English ually broke cover. Issues such as the dive on the EU. They huff and puff increasingly play a crucial role in the shires and sounding board for the thinly veiled racism of the immigra - about the iniquity of the Bedroom battle for a Yes vote. 2 • Scottish Socialist Voice • issue 418 NEWS LITTLE ENGLANDER FARAGE HAS WNhenO Nige lP FaraLge ACE IN SCOTTISH POLITICS attempted to re-launch UKIP in Scotland, he was challenged by protesters from the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) who told him that xenophobic politics were not welcome in Scotland. This subsequently led to Farage calling the protest “anti-English” and decrying the “ugly face of Scottish nationalism”. Liam O’Hare of the Edinburgh RIC explains why he participated in the protest THOSE who protested the UKIP leader did so, not because of where Mr Farage was born, but because UKIP are a party with a well- documented agenda of racism, FACE TO FACE: ugly face of nationalism is met by the Radical Independence Campaign’s Liam O’Hare homophobia and sexism. Indeed, their far-right Scotland is from England - a every passing day. Indeed, his visit to Scotland, perhaps politics are largely alien in Thatcherite, anti-immigrant, politics in Westminster could what Nigel Farage did not Scotland, where there is a anti-welfare state Little almost be being conducted in realise is that it is an aversion broad consensus around the Englander like Farage has no an entirely different orbit. From to his type of politics that need for more progressive place in Scottish politics. austerity to Trident and the might tip the balance in the policies on immigration. Indeed, the “ugly face” of European Union to immigration, referendum next year. The scapegoating of Scottish nationalism needs to the consensus in Scotland is for It has always been clear immigrants for society’s be juxtaposed with British something altogether different that people will only vote for problems, a line peddled by nationalism - which is a damn than what the British independence in 2014 if they not only UKIP but all the sight uglier. It is British Government has planned. The think it will make a positive Westminster parties, is nationalism which has been alarming rise of UKIP is merely and fundamental difference challenged with a different used to drum up support for indicative of this. to their lives. The rightward narrative in Scotland. This illegal wars and the turn of politics in England, was what we saw happen on expansionist, aggressive Wedge combined with the growing the streets of Edinburgh foreign policy of Britain. And the deeper this wedge momentum of the Radical during the Farage visit. It is British nationalism is driven, the more likely it is Independence Campaign is which screams “British jobs that we will witness this making this outcome seem Purpose for British workers” and says political divide turning into a more and more likely. The purpose of the protest we need to leave the EU and constitutional one. A new generation is was two-fold. Firstly it shut the borders. And it is A Panelbase poll released emerging, arguing for intended to damage Farage’s British nationalism which lies in the Sunday Times said that Scottish independence on a attempt to project UKIP as a at the heart of the deep- if the UK looked likely to radical, inclusive basis.

Load more