But resume they certainly will. Surprisingly perhaps, the first policy clash of the autumn could arise from the least recognised, yet perhaps most successful example of Holyrood’s divergence from Westminster systems – refugee integration. The Kenmure Street siege in May gave Scots a tiny glimpse of the support systems – local, neighbourhood, voluntary and official – that have built up over two decades since Syrian refugees were first dispersed to Glasgow. Scotland’s largest city now has 4,500 asylum seekers – more than any other UK city – with a 50 per cent application success rate. But that’s not what tends to grab the headlines. Last year a Sudanese asylum seeker stabbed several people in a Glasgow hotel, before being shot dead by police. Since then, Glasgow Council has refused to accept more asylum seekers unless the Home Office and private contractors Mears stop housing them in unsuitable hotel accommodation – a visible example of the human rights’
Alison Phipps, ambassador for the Scottish Refugee Council, writes about the Kenmure Street protest for National Extra IT S easy and not wrong to focus on the crowd, the images, the thronging that began as a trickle and built to flood. The crowd tells a story. The centrally organised crowd is one thing, but the one that just, flows together from many, many tributaries is quite another. You don’t get to place where people overcome their fear of crowds and of protests spontaneously. Not least when the practice of the pandemic has been giving each other space. It’s a romantic seduction, like the belief that a virtuous violinist can just play. The crowd was, in the main, community educated, well-practiced, and the tip of the iceberg.