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Lochee protests against exploitation and austerity. 'SNP! Hear Us Say – Budget Cuts – No Way!'

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Details: Created: Wednesday, 18 May 2016 12:45; Written by Michael MacGregor

On Saturday 7 May history came alive at the protest in Lochee. Dundee against Workfare. Dundee Against Austerity (DAA), the Revolutionary Communist Group, Class War, Scottish Unemployed Workers Network, Dundee Trades Union Council, Dundee Trades Union and Socialist Coalition and the Socialist Workers Party stood united to condemn workfare exploitation at the Range store.

We were standing on the site of what was once the largest jute mill in the world where Scottish and Irish immigrant workers toiled to make the Baxter, Caird and Cox mill owning families fabulously wealthy. At one point in the 19th Century the densest proportion of millionaires in Europe could be found in the richest suburb of Dundee, Broughty Ferry, many miles from the filth and heat of their factories.

Scotland: SNP and Labour share out austerity

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Details: Created: Thursday, 21 April 2016 15:06; Written by Michael MacGregor

‘This idea that the SNP are going to put an end to austerity is just nonsense.’
David May, independent councillor

Pensioners in Angus have learned the reality of that statement. Service users and their families in the small towns have confronted the SNP-run rural council. Iain Gaul, council leader, argued on BBC Radio Scotland that privatisation was the most effective means of providing care services. The SNP council is seeking £0.5m cuts, and the vulnerable are to bear the cost. So much for the SNP’s claim to be anti-austerity.

Fighting deportation: exposing the SNP

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Details: Created: Thursday, 21 April 2016 14:56; Written by Joey Simons

The Scottish government’s White Paper, published in 2013, proposed that in the event of independence the SNP would end dawn raids, close Dungavel Detention Centre and grant people seeking asylum access to the mainstream welfare system. As it is, immigration law remains a ‘reserved issue’ for Westminster, over which, according to the rules of bourgeois democracy, the Scottish government has ‘no power’. SNP politicians and ministers have repeatedly raised their opposition to inhumane UK immigration policy and proclaimed ‘refugees are welcome here’. However, the reality is that devolved Scottish institutions and public bodies, above all the police, are deeply involved in colluding with the racism of the British state and its associated violence. The apparent outrage of the Scottish government is worthless in the face of Police Scotland’s direct role in carrying out dawn raids and brutalising those who are actually opposing Britain’s racist immigration system.

This collaboration was starkly exposed by recent events in Glasgow. On 21 March, Police Scotland officers and local social workers assisted a Home Office Enforcement Team in carrying out a brutal early morning raid against Beverley Vaanda Kanjii and her 14-year-old son. In the course of the raid, in front of her terrified child, Beverley was handcuffed, dragged across the ground and repeatedly kicked, sustaining serious injuries. After her son refused to board a flight from Glasgow Airport, they were transferred to the Home Office’s Immigration Reporting Centre on Brand Street.

How SNP government votes for cuts and austerity

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Details: Created: Thursday, 18 February 2016 12:20; Written by Michael MacGregor

On Wednesday 16 December, the Scottish National Party’s John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy, delivered his budget statement to the Scottish parliament. He described it as a ‘Scottish alternative to austerity’. The following week, 7,000 people in the country sought emergency food parcels in the run-up to Christmas Day.

The SNP has positioned itself as a progressive anti-austerity force in Scotland and the United Kingdom. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon proclaimed when she was elected leader in 2015 that her central aim was to tackle poverty. Swinney has now reconfigured the priorities: ‘Critical pillars of Scottish life – our schools, hospitals and police – will not be sacrificed to the Chancellor’s austerity obsession.’ As a consequence, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has estimated that cuts of up to £500 million per year will fall on other areas of spending up to the end of the decade. Cuts to unprotected departments of 2.9% in 2016-17 will rise to 10.7% by 2020.

Scotland: SNP progressive claims to be tested

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Details: Created: Saturday, 28 November 2015 16:56; Written by Michael MacGregor

‘Both Labour and SNP point left in rhetoric but neither do in action or deeds’

(Gerry Hassan, Scottish Sunday Mail 8 November 2015)

On the first anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum of September 2014, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Trussell Trust and Oxfam Scotland drew attention to the continuing rise in foodbank usage linked directly to problems with welfare benefits and tax credits. The Scottish government’- that is the Scottish National Party - were urged to do more to address the situation.

A further report in early October by the Child Poverty Action Group showed that 210,000 children across Scotland live in poverty. Each of Edinburgh’s 17 council wards has child poverty rates of more than 10%. Across Edinburgh 21% of children – 15,000 – live in poverty as defined by being in households where income is less than 60% of median household income. In Glasgow’s Easterhouse 40% of children grow up in poverty while 27% of people live with a disability. 940,000 families were living in fuel poverty in 2013, 39% of households.

Fighting sanctions in Scotland

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Details: Created: Monday, 23 November 2015 20:32; Written by Dominic Mulgrew

One year on from the Scottish independence referendum the need for an organised working class movement remains the key to smashing the Tories’ brutal benefit sanctions regime. Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures released in August show that almost half of all benefit sanction decisions against JSA and ESA claimants across the UK have been overturned under challenge. Between 22 October 2012 and 31 March 2015 there were 1,824,877 adverse sanctions against claimants. 575,901 of these decisions were challenged, with 285,327 being overturned, a staggering 49.5%. This shows the importance of appealing against benefit sanction decisions.

In Scotland during this period, 7,668 sanctions were applied at Dundee’s Wellgate Jobcentre making it the worst jobcentre for sanctions in Scotland. In Glasgow, Springburn Jobcentre recorded the highest number, 3,997, with Govan second highest at 3,108. Alongside Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty, the Scottish Unemployed Workers Network and Dundee Against Welfare Sanctions, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! supporters have maintained regular pickets outside both Wellgate and Govan Jobcentres over the last year against this brutal policy.

Making a noise for Sheku Bayoh in Kirkcaldy

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Details: Created: Wednesday, 12 August 2015 09:32; Written by Scotland Branches

Supporters from Fight Racism Fight Imperialism went up to Kirkcaldy on 8 August to join others collecting signatures and handing out hundreds of leaflets demanding justice for Sheku Bayoh, who died in police custody on 3 May earlier this year. Nine Police officers were involved in his restraint, using pepper spray, CS gas, batons, handcuffs, ankle and leg restraints. Sheku died from positional asphyxiation. This has been a cover-up from the start!The family was given 5 different stories on the same day by the police about how he died and in one version the police were not even present. It took 32 days for the officers to give a statement on his death and the 9 officers involved were able to meet immediately after the death to corroborate their stories and it has emerged that Stephen House, Police Scotland's chief constable, has secretly met each of the police officers involved in Sheku's death.

No Justice! No Peace!

Join the march for justice for Sheku Bayoh

6 September 2015, Kirkcaldy, 2pm at Kirkcaldy town house.

Support the campaign: Facebook Justice-For-Sheku-Ahmed-Tejan-Bayoh

Donate to the campaign through YouCaring www.youcaring.com/nonprofits/justice-for-sheku-ahmed-tejan-bayoh

Scotland: fighting the SNP and Labour

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Details: Created: Wednesday, 29 July 2015 15:49; Written by Dominic Mulgrew

George square 20 June

In Scotland, fighting austerity means taking on both the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Labour Party.

Whatever the anti-austerity rhetoric of SNP MPs in Westminster, on the ground it is a different story. In Dundee, it took 13 weeks of all-out strike action by117 hospital porters in Dundee, Unite union members, before they won their fight against low pay with demands for pay re-grading and back pay. They were up against the SNP Scottish government which backed down only after the porters began pickets of the office of Dundee East MSP and Health Minister Shona Robison. Caledonian MacBrayne ferry workers, members of the RMT and TSSA unions, are also calling strike action as the Scottish government moves to privatise the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service with no guarantee over jobs, wages and conditions. On the same day as the 20 June anti-austerity rally in Glasgow, the SNP’s trade union group met in Stirling but did not extend an invitation to the striking Dundee porters.

SNP – pay the porters now!

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Details: Created: Thursday, 11 June 2015 12:27; Written by Michael MacGregor

In Dundee, the all-out strike of 117 hospital porters is moving into its ninth week. The porters, members of Unite and Unison, have been in dispute over their pay grading which is set at the lowest level in the NHS. They are seeking regrading and the payment of back money owed over years. Years of poverty pay and getting nowhere with intransigent management and dishonest negotiation has forced the workers to withdraw their labour. The picket lines have been solidly maintained at Ninewells and Royal Victoria Hospitals. Donations have poured in to support the low-paid staff and they have marched in solidarity with striking council care workers in Glasgow.

What next for the Scottish National Party?

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Details: Created: Thursday, 11 June 2015 11:27; Written by Michael MacGregor

‘Labour gained 142 seats and Glasgow sent off 10 ‘Red Clydesiders’ to Parliament to abolish poverty. It is recorded that on the train down these MPs were concerned chiefly to discover if being thrown out of the House of Commons meant a loss of salary. Abolishing poverty was one thing but joining the ranks of the poor was not their intention.’

(1922 General Election, quoted in John Maclean, Battlepost of the Poor)

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has styled itself as the new party of progressive social democracy in Scotland and campaigned for a parliamentary anti-austerity alliance with the Labour Party. This strategy unravelled with the Tory victory. The September 2014 referendum posed the question: who will represent the working class? Our answer then was neither the Scottish Labour Party nor the SNP. That has not changed today.

Scotland - No vote for austerity!

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Details: Created: Thursday, 23 April 2015 09:30; Written by Dominic Mulgrew

As we approach the general election, polls suggest that Labour could lose all but five of its 41 seats in Scotland – a historic defeat. Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy insults the electorate with populist policies such as reintroducing alcohol to football grounds. The ‘Red Tories’ are a ruling class party and must be buried.

Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party (SNP) is swallowing up the ground lost by Labour. Its membership, now over 100,000, has more than quadrupled since the referendum. It is proclaiming itself to be an anti-cuts party and has implemented measures to increase free childcare to 16 hours a week for three- and four-year-olds and some two-year-olds, grant free school meals to children up to Primary 3 and continue to meet the cost of the bedroom tax with discretionary housing payments.

Scotland - Home rule or independence?

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Details: Created: Thursday, 12 February 2015 15:23; Written by Michael MacGregor

In FRFI 242 we stated that: ‘Home Rule will represent the limit of the aspirations of the middle class and better-off sections of the working class: the SNP is a bourgeois party and it will implement whatever cuts are necessary to preserve economic stability.’ The historic referendum on Scottish independence saw the mass of the working class, the youth and progressive people vote overwhelmingly to secede from the imperialist United Kingdom. 1.6 million people in predominantly urban and poor working class constituencies voted Yes. However, the working class has reached the limits of what can be achieved by voting at this moment. Now is the time to organise across Scotland a fight against the austerity programme of the Tories, the Labour Party and the SNP. Any progress in this struggle requires an end to the reactionary Union and with it a complete break from the bankrupt British labour movement. It must become a fight for socialism.

Who speaks for the Scottish working class?

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Details: Created: Saturday, 20 December 2014 17:23; Written by FRFI

On Saturday 22 November, FRFI supporters were among 3,000 activists who attended a conference convened by the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) in Glasgow. At the same time, possibly as a spoiling tactic, the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) organised a rally at an arena a hundred yards away which attracted 12,000 people. Politics in Scotland has undergone a dramatic change as a result of the referendum on 18 September. The genie is out of the bottle, and it will be very difficult for the ruling class, whether in Scotland or in Britain, to put it back. As political parties prepare for the 2015 General Election, the question is: who will speak for the Scottish working class?

Scottish Independence Referendum - Ruling class panics as Scottish youth and oppressed show the way forward

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Details: Created: Thursday, 09 October 2014 12:37; Written by Paul Mallon and Michael Macgregor

On 19 September, the British ruling class breathed a huge sigh of relief when the results of the previous day’s referendum on Scottish independence were announced. The possibility of a Yes victory had caused widespread panic in the days beforehand. But on a massive turnout of 84.6%, 55.3% had voted against independence, with 44.7% in favour – two million as against just over 1.6 million. Within hours of the result, pledges by the three Westminster party leaders offering more powers to Scotland in an effort to bolster the No vote, were bogged down in petty party squabbles. Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish First Minister, who had spearheaded the Yes campaign, announced his intention to resign his positions.

Scotland votes no to independence

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Details: Created: Friday, 19 September 2014 20:49; Written by Paul Mallon

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Set 1/2

fwd

2,001,926 (55.3%) voted no, with 1,617,989 (44.7%) voting yes. Overall turnout 84.5%.

The British ruling class is today breathing a huge sigh of relief. The possibility of a Yes victory in the Scottish referendum had caused widespread panic. A triumphalist media is now congratulating everyone on how democratic and peaceful the referendum was. We are told that the result represents the will of the people; but the reality is that it represents the fear of the people. Following the result, SNP leader and Scottish Minister, Alex Salmond announced his intention to step down from his positions. Within hours of the result, the pledges by the three Westminster party leaders to offer more powers to Scotland, lie in tatters.

Scottish independence referendum: Yes now in a majority

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Details: Created: Tuesday, 09 September 2014 11:56; Written by Michael MacGregor

'May He sedition hush, And like a torrent rush, Rebellious Scots to crush.' - 1745.

Sixth Verse of the UK National Anthem, God Save the Queen.

The emergence of the Scottish working class, particularly its poorest sections, into the campaign for Scottish independence has been a very recent phenomenon. A YouGov poll published on Saturday 6 September showed for the first time that a majority of people intended to vote Yes. With ‘Don’t Knows’ stripped out, 51% are supporting independence while 49% are for remaining in the UK. The next day saw falls in the value of the pound and billions of pounds were wiped off the value of Scottish firms. The skies are darkening for the loyal Labour, Tory and Liberal No campaign.

Scotland: Yes to independence - No to British imperialism

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Details: Created: Friday, 14 February 2014 10:37; Written by Michael MacGregor

On 18 September the question, ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’, will be put to the Scottish electorate, estimated at around four million, when newly franchised 16-year-old voters are taken into account. A ‘Yes’ vote will begin a process of negotiation between the governments of Scotland and the United Kingdom on future constitutional arrangements. Michael MacGregor argues that this opportunity should be used to advance the interests of the working class and to undermine imperialism.

Glasgow Strife: Fighting for workers’ rights in Glasgow

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Details: Created: Friday, 13 December 2013 12:08; Written by Glasgow FRFI

I have been a long time supporter of FRFI in Glasgow. The analysis provided in the paper of the ever increasing attacks on poorer sections of the working class, casualisation and the role of the unions and the Labour party in implementing these attacks has been confirmed time and again in my own experience as a worker.

For the past four years, I have worked in an arts venue in Glasgow managed on behalf of Glasgow City Council by Glasgow Life, one of the Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) established by the Labour council in 2007.

Glasgow: For action and democracy in the fight against ATOS

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Details: Created: Wednesday, 03 July 2013 10:49; Written by Glasgow FRFI

The ruling class attacks on sick and disabled people are escalating as the poorest sections of society are being forced to pay for the capitalist crisis. ATOS – the French multinational installed by the Department of Work and Pensions to implement the destruction of social welfare provision – has been subject to growing militant protest and pickets by Glasgow Against ATOS (GAA). Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! supporters in Glasgow have been working with GAA for the past year. The statement below has been produced by Glasgow FRFI in response to recent attacks on them from within GAA.

Scotland: Fighting the bedroom tax, challenging the Labour Party

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Details: Created: Thursday, 13 June 2013 14:13; Written by Joey Simons

Memories of the Poll Tax still run deep in Scotland, where Thatcher first implemented the hated tax, and working class resistance to it first arose. With the bedroom tax now set to affect 105,000 social housing tenants, around 80% of whom are disabled, anger and organisation is building once again. Yet so too are the opportunist forces on the left and in the Labour Party who sought to control the anti-poll tax movement, and seek to hold back resistance again.

PCS says ‘We will not manufacture a dispute’ against Atos

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Details: Created: Monday, 04 March 2013 13:36; Written by Glasgow FRFI

Public and Commercial Services Union

On Thursday 14 February, members of the expanding Glasgow Against Atos (GAA) campaign including an FRFI supporter met with representatives of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union to discuss how the PCS could help GAA fight against welfare cutbacks. GAA was set up in October 2012 as a broad-based campaign following successful pickets of Atos initiated by Glasgow FRFI.

More victories against police repression for Glasgow activists

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Details: Created: Tuesday, 06 March 2012 11:30; Written by FRFI

‘The law is simply and solely made for the exploitation of those who do not understand it or of those who, for naked need, cannot obey it.’ Bertolt Brecht

The last two months have again seen significant victories in Glasgow in the fight against police repression, vindicating the relentless political campaigning led by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! members and the Glasgow Defence Campaign.

Scotland’s education crisis

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Details: Created: Monday, 19 December 2011 15:01; Written by Paul Mallon

The crisis facing education in Scotland is deepening. According to the BBC, classroom teachers are now being forced to purchase basic education materials such as pens and paper out of their own money.

Strike action on 30 November against the attack on pensions is being taken by most Scottish teaching unions. This follows over a year of increasing animosity and frustration by members with the Education Institute of Scotland – Scotland’s main teachers’ union. The union has spent the past period agreeing voluntary redundancy agreements. The con-sequence of these is ever-growing unemployment among newly qualified teachers as posts disappear. According to the General Teaching Council for Scotland only one newly qualified teacher in five can expect to find a full-time, permanent teaching job on completion of their induction year.

Oppose the criminalisation of progressive football fans!

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Details: Created: Monday, 19 December 2011 13:38; Written by Connor Riley

Over the past few months in Scotland, politicians and public figures, newspapers and the police have begun a war aimed at criminalising progressive football supporters. The Scottish Parliament is currently debating the Scottish National Party’s Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill. The Bill bans the singing of ‘offensive’ political songs and would give each police officer the power to arrest and charge people for acting in a way that the state deems offensive. Although the Bill will affect all football fans, there can be no doubt that it is aimed at, and will be used most against, supporters of Celtic Football Club because of their support for the Irish Republican movement and for the Palestinian struggle.

Glasgow Defence Campaign: a year fighting police repression in Scotland

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Details: Created: Monday, 19 December 2011 13:38; Written by Joey Simons

December 2011 marks one year since two members of FRFI were targeted, arrested and charged by police on a militant student demonstration in Glasgow. FRFI members were singled out following months of organising against police harassment through the Govanhill Defence Campaign, established after unsuccessful attempts by officers to shut down stalls and ban the sale of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! in August 2010. It was clear state intimidation was set to intensify, and the Glasgow Defence Campaign was formed:

‘Having opposed political policing and intimidation on the streets of Govanhill in Glasgow, we will stand up for all our rights as we mobilise against the budget cuts and organise in defence of the working class...We call for maximum unity in defence of all those attacked and imprisoned by the British state in its attempts to silence dissent.’ (GDC statement, December 2010)

Scotland has not seen anything like the outbreaks of disorder, mass protest, civil disobedience and inner-city uprisings which have shaken the authorities in England over the past year. There has been no serious struggle as yet against the cuts in Glasgow. Trade unions continue to accept wage freezes and negotiate voluntary redundancies; genuine working class campaigns, such as that against the closure of the Accord centre, remain isolated; student occupations and direct actions have ebbed and flowed.

Occupy Glasgow! Eye Witness Report - 19 Oct 2011

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Details: Created: Thursday, 20 October 2011 10:04; Written by Glasgow FRFI

glasgow_occupation

On Saturday 15 October at 11am the occupy movement spread to Glasgow as tents were erected, anti-cuts banners hung and progressive messages chalked on the red surface of George Square, in Glasgow’s City Centre. Opposite the occupation sits Glasgow City Council’s (GCC) chambers of corruption which are controlled by the Labour party. Below is an eye witness report and observations of a Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) supporter who has attended the occupation in solidarity on Tuesday 18 and 19 October;

Glasgow FRFI supporters stand up to political courts and cops – October 2011

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Details: Created: Sunday, 16 October 2011 12:06; Written by FRFI

court_protest_13_october_2011

On 13 October 2011, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! supporter Dominic O´Hara appeared once again in front of a judge at Glasgow District Court, the latest in a long line of court appearances for FRFI activists over the past year of political harassment, arrests and trials. 15 supporters held a protest outside the court, standing with the banner of the Glasgow Defence Campaign (Don´t panic – organize!) and distributing leaflets to the many working class people coming and going through the revolving doors of sham Scottish justice.

Strathclyde Police - Back Off! - 02 Oct 2011

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Details: Created: Tuesday, 04 October 2011 13:27; Written by Glasgow FRFI

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! condemns the open political policing that was employed on Saturday's Scottish Trades Union Council march from Glasgow Green to Kelvingrove Park. Throughout the march people were harassed and stalked by lines of officers intent on provoking a response from the peaceful protestors. Coalition of Resistance supporters were taken aside by officers and warned to behave, IRSP Alba and John Brady Society followers were questioned for flying a Starry Plough flag and a Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and Glasgow Defence Campaign (GDC) supporter, who has been targeted on previous protests, was detained by officers for condemning political policing as the march passed Cranstonhill Police Station, 945 Argyle St.

The following video captures the scenes as the arrest took place only for him to be de-arrested due to the popular will of the protestors.

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! sends its solidarity to the people who left the march and successfully secured our supporters release. As the targeted comrade said after re-joining the march 'a victory for one is a victory for all!' FRFI will continue our role in the Glasgow Defence Campaign to make sure the actions of Strathclyde Police are recorded, publicised and organised against.

Fighting the cuts in Glasgow

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Details: Created: Sunday, 07 August 2011 17:10; Written by Dominic Mulgrew

In Glasgow, campaigns against the cuts have been successful in getting increased support from working class people. However, in a significant development, these campaigns have encountered undisguised hostility from those whose support they might have taken for granted – the trade unions and the main organisations on the Scottish left.

On 22 June Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! supporters in Glasgow joined a successful occupation of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) offices on Cochrane Street in the city centre. The direct action had been organised by the Black Triangle disability rights group and the Citizens United campaign, with the support of carers from the Save the Accord Centre campaign. The action had been called to highlight and oppose corporate tax evasion which is estimated to be worth £120 billion a year.

Glasgow - Fighting political policing

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Details: Created: Thursday, 16 June 2011 13:42; Written by Paul Mallon and Joey Simons

The fight against the cuts in Glasgow has also become a fight against police repression. FRFI supporters have been harassed, arrested and face court trials for their role in protests last December against tax-evading monopolies and student fees. To oppose this political policing, they have set up the Glasgow Defence Campaign (GDC, http://glasgowdefencecampaign.blogspot.com), now supported by John Pilger and Ken Loach.

The Save the Accord Centre campaign has now become the most significant struggle against council cuts in Glasgow. The Labour council is demolishing the learning disabilities day centre to build a bus park for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Carers, parents and service users from the working class community of Dalmarnock have been fighting for a like-for-like replacement. The council is refusing to build one, citing the ‘economic climate’ while handing over millions to private developers and land speculators. At a protest outside the City Council Chambers on 31 March, 20 police faced 15 demonstrators. As the protest ended, two FRFI supporters were seized by the police and dumped in the back of a police van. One was questioned by a police officer who was due to appear as a witness in a court case against him. The second was threatened with a charge of ‘breach of the peace’.

Scottish Parliament elections: Labour crashes to defeat

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Details: Created: Friday, 13 May 2011 22:46; Written by Paul Mallon

ian_gray_confronted
The defining moment of the Scottish election, supporters of the Save the Accord Centre campaign confronting Labour Leader, Ian Gray. Glasgow 7 April 2011

On 5 May the Labour Party suffered a major defeat in the elections to the devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh, as the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) swept to the first overall majority in the Parliament since its inception in 1999. The election saw the SNP make significant gains in the traditional Labour heartlands in Lanarkshire and Glasgow. The dismal results for the left outside the Labour Party confirmed the political standpoint of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! – the need for socialists to make an explicit anti-Labour position central to the rebuilding of the socialist movement.

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