Embezzlement and calls to pamper the rich spotlight the gulf between the powerful and the people

By Ken Ferguson

AS THE VOICE goes to press we are in the midst of headline grabbing stories generated by the formerly or still self defined powerful in ways that leave the rest of us somewhere between bemused and furious.

The plea of guilty by Nicola Sturgeon’s ex, Peter Murrell, to £400,000 embezzlement from funds donated to fight for a Yes vote in a second Indyref which never happened represents not just the entitlement of the powerful but utter hollowness of his supposed commitment — embraced by millions — to independence.

Murrell’s actions of course are damaging both personally and politically for both the SNP and much of its leadership. It seems likely to widen the gap which sees support for independence at around 50% with the SNP a near 20% behind that. Setting aside the party implications posed by the guilty plea surely for the wider independence movement questions must now be raised as to what vehicle now represents the broad independence movement and acts as custodian of any campaign funds it raises.

The Voice has, since 2014, counselled against absorbing the vibrant, mass, pluralist Yes movement into a single party, the SNP.

The consequences have been dramatic — Nicolamania, thousands flocking to join the SNP, mass wipeout of Labour MPs, the splits, Surgeon resignation, breakaways and slump in power both politically and electorally, Swinney, and the recent electoral victory.

Indy movement is stronger than SNP

The balance sheet of the ten years past which now place the SNP weaker than the support for independence — cruelly underlined at the election by the failure to achieve the self-proclaimed objective of an SNP majority — must pose serious questions about the priorities and shape of a renewed Yes campaign.

Given that Westminster is delighted to play the game of party politics based on dubious number games which exclude those not comfortably seated on Westminster’s green benches or Holyrood’s hemicycle it is surly time for a rethink by the broad independence movement. Either we meekly roll over and accept the London veto despite a Holyrood independence majority or structure campaigns which ends Yes supporters being spectators and mobilise them as part of a fightback.

Scottish newly appointed ministers, implementing business as usual under Westminster tutelage, are warning of what they only whispered pre-election, that there will ‘undoubtedly’ be £4.5bn cuts and 20,000 public sectors sackings.

Not only does this need to meet with real resistance beyond the usual token demos but through industrial action, community opposition to service cuts and defiance budgets to protect services.

And such action must also hammer home the message that such cuts are the real consequence of the union and tying Scotland’s future to the Westminster fading dream of the UK as a big player still hanging on to Trump’s coat tails.

Anyone who doubts the hollowness of ‘the Vow’s’ promised union dividend was given a shake by the droolings of Tony ‘Messiah’ Blair in his 5,600 word essay whose main revelation was, like the Bourbon Kings, he had ‘learned nothing and forgotten nothing’. Oppose workers rights, cut taxes for the bosses, drill baby drill and hell with global warming and, of course, his old favourite, as under Bush now under Trump — back a US war in the Middle East.

All this against a compliant media backing for billions to be added to war spending as the chorus that we cannot afford benefits despite having some of the most measly pensions in Europe and tens of thousands — including children — living in daily poverty grows ever louder.

As I write oceans of time and type is being poured out on ‘findings” from former New Labour minister Alan Milburn on the need for youth jobs. Yet in interview after interview, the supposed solution, largely voiced by
representatives of ‘hospitality’, was the same cut taxes, peg wages, water down workers rights.

Same old cuts…

Despite the breathless commentators on the BBC et al and whether from the pen of Blair or Milburn this is nothing new but the same 40 year old rancid stew of privatisation, low taxes, insecure work totally devoid of any suggestions on how real jobs might be produced.

This in a Scotland with immense natural resources in wind, wave and water which — as has been underlined by the Hormuz crisis — is surely the key to the future, puny efforts to harness the demand for the equipment and skills and the resultant jobs are made.

This sees structures which could be built here assembled abroad while capacity stands idle and, in a hardly commented on scandal, a £1.5bn Chinese proposal to build structures at the former oil rig yard at Ardersier on the Moray Firth bringing 1,500 jobs is blocked by the Starmer regime on “security” grounds and is headed for Europe.

Whether on the question of independence or economics the moth eaten policies of a fading British imperialism which is now so weakened industrially that it doesn’t have enough steel for its war drive has no answer. Integrating the fight for social justice and independence is the best choice to defeat the unionists and offer a real answer to the disillusion feeding Reform.