On the march with the STUC

It’s been a march a minute for STUC and its affiliated unions this year.

Last week a highly successful event was held in St Andrews’ during the G20 Finance Minister’s Summit as part of the Put People First campaign. In a fortnight we will take to the streets to celebrate the STUC’s annual St Andrew’s Day march against racism and fascism and the week after that thousands of people will take to the street in support of the “The Wave” – a coming together of environmental, trade union and anti-poverty campaigners calling on those at the United Nations Climate change Conference in Copenhagen to break the log jam and deliver real climate justice for the next generation.

On top of all this there are two major demonstrations tomorrow (Saturday 14th). Coinciding with the visit of NATO to Scotland, STUC is supporting the Stop the War Demonstration ‘No to NATO, Scrap Trident, Troops out of Afghanistan’ and in Glasgow we have played a major role in bringing together Scotland’s civic, faith and political organisations to support the Scotland United initiative which is organising an event to counter the attempts of the fascist Scottish Defence League to spread their particular brand of racism and islamaphobia.

Whist the historical lack of support for the BNP up here is a cause for some satisfaction, most sensible commentators recognise that the failure of the British National Party and their other fascist cousins to gain a foothold in Scotland should not imply that there is no racism here and no future threat. STUC’s St Andrew’s Day March and Rally was founded precisely because the far right were attempting to subvert genuine the national day of celebration. As our General Secretary Grahame Smith will say tomorrow “Wrapping yourself in the Saltire or wearing a t-shirt with William Wallace on it, or waving a union jack and singing Rule Britannia doesn’t make you a patriot - particularly when it’s accompanied by a Nazi salute.”

Saturday’s demonstration will be a broad based, multi-cultural celebration of Scotland’s diversity. We will avoid direct confrontation with the jack booted fascists. But a more significant confrontation will take place – between the decent values we espouse and their politics of hate. We will have the numbers and we will have the people of Scotland on our side.

Dave Moxham
Deputy General Secretary