ALL during lockdown, Yes hubs across the country have had to shut down, but now that restrictions are gradually lifting they will undoubtedly play a huge part in the Yes movement’s future. Here’s the tale of one terrific grassroots initiative that is getting going again having had to change its modus operandi during lockdown. David McEwan Hill wrote to tell us about the Forward Shop in Dunoon which is the headquarters of Yes Cowal, one of the movement’s most active groups. He explained that the Forward Shop is probably a unique little enterprise which started out as a result of the political activity in Cowal after the 2014 independence referendum and then became something much more.
Nicola Sturgeon has been leading us to the top of the hill and down again since 2016
ACCORDING to Dave McEwan Hill on Thursday: “We [the SNP] have the team and we have the information. After today our campaign to normalise independence will be relentless.” I hope he is right but I have serious doubts about the team, and the information simply is not there because the team has not been preparing the case for independence, as the FM’s faltering responses to questions on currency and borders during this election campaign have shown. As yet, I am not quite in the camp which says Nicola will never lead us to independence, but she is not nicknamed the Grand Duchess of York for nothing because she has been leading us to the top of the hill and down again since 2016.
Letters
There was a gap of three-and-a-half years between the SNP s 2011 election win and the independence referendum ARE we ready for today? This has been a very strange election. The polls are looking good, but we must not make any assumptions. They looked good in 2016, so some folk didn’t bother going down to vote and we lost some ground. This has been described as the most important election Scotland has ever faced. A significant majority for independence in our parliament provides us the mandate for an independence referendum. So make sure you use your vote. I note the avalanche of Unionist leaflets we have been receiving has conceded this point. They know Boris’s bluster is just that. Bluff and bluster.
IN 1973, after hearing Winnie Ewing speak at Gordon Wilson’s eve-of-poll meeting during the Dundee East bye-election campaign, I joined the SNP. Until my wife was paralysed in 2004, I was a very “active” activist. I believe it is possible I have climbed more tenement stairs than any other member of the party in Dundee! In recent months I have been appalled at the amount of i n-fighting and sniping both within the SNP and the independence movement in general. This week I was devastated to read the latest set of allegations and see the banner headlines they were given by just about every paper on display in my local supermarket.
Letters
The Labour leader s opposition to indyref2 is in defiance of the UN Charter and the Scottish Claim of Right THIS is the best news I have heard in weeks. Starmer’s Labour has just been exposed as a Tory establishment puppet. In defiance of the UN Charter, the Scottish Claim of Right and the Smith Commission, it is going to campaign against the right of the Scottish people to democratically choose their own future. This sorry gaggle is the descendent of the Scottish Socialist Federation that founded the Labour movement, which campaigned furiously for Scottish home rule, which gave us Keir Hardie, James Maxton and John MacLean. What an utter disgrace!