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Hi, welcome to Saint Bryce Kirk. Nice to see you all here. My name’s Marie
Penman and I’m involved in campaigning for an independent Scotland. It’s only
8 months until the referendum and I think it’s important for people to hear all the
facts before making a decision on whether to vote yes or no to that all important
question, “should Scotland be an independent country”.
Tonight I’m delighted to welcome a guest speaker to Kirkcaldy who has his own
views on why we should be voting yes. Tommy Sheridan first got involved in
politics while a student at Stirling University but rose to prominence when he led
the campaign against the Poll Tax, and just to remind you, this was implemented
in Scotland a full year before it was introduced to the rest of the UK, So what
happened to being “Better Together” back then? Tommy has been a campaigner
and activist for all of his adult life, fighting against the Poll Tax, inner-city poverty,
the deployment of nuclear weapons in Scotland, benefit cuts and more recently
the “Bedroom Tax”. As an MSP back in 2002, it was Tommy Sheridan who first
proposed the bill to give free school meals to all Scottish children, something I’m
glad to say was recently passed in Holyrood. A long-time supporter of Scottish
independence, it’s interesting to note that most of the things that Tommy
Sheridan has campaigned against in his lifetime would be scrapped in an
independent Scotland. It’s an honour to have his as part of our campaign.
Please give a very warm welcome to Mr Tommy Sheridan. [Applause]
[TOMMY SHERIDAN]
Thanks very much folks. That was a very lovely introduction and I hope I’ll do
that introduction some honour here tonight. I’m hoping that we can have as
much time as possible for questions, because it’s no use having meetings when
all you do is sit and listen, we need to have a wee bit of interaction. We need to
try and stimulate some debate and hopefully generate more “light” than just
“heat” because, so far in the debate that revolves around the very future of our
country, I’m afraid there is far too many occasions where it becomes
mud-slinging and personal slanging, rather than having a bit of educated and
informed debate. I think we’ve got to try and persuade people of the case for
independence. I think we have to try and persuade people to have the
confidence to take their own destiny in their hands on September 18th
and actually become a sovereign nation. I think it is very, very important to realise
that many, many other countries that have fought for such sovereignty over the
years have actually had to take up arms to fight for the type of sovereignty.
We’re getting the chance without one single bullet getting fired, all we’re having
to do is go to a ballot box and put a cross beside “yes” and we can become a
nation.
There are two things I wanted to start with in relation to what I think is the
background to this discussion. Two stories. One revolves around the report that
Oxfam released just last week, some of you may have read it. Oxfam have
revealed that such is the grotesque level of inequality on our planet today that
we now have 85 individuals, 85 individuals who have a collective wealth greater
than half the world’s population. Try and just think about that for a moment
because figures can just roll over you. 85 people have got more combined
wealth than 3.5 billion people. That to me is why I’m involved in politics, that’s
why I want to fight for independence, because it’s that type of grotesque
inequality that we have to fight against, that we have to make a stands against,
that we have to make a difference about, and I think in an independent Scotland
we can start to reverse the trend of inequality by having a small country that
puts social justice and equality at the forefront of its policies rather than being a
mere sound-bite that is discarded at the first opportunity.
That’s one story that is in the background to tonight’s discussion, the other story
revolves around a woman called Sheila Holt. Sheila featured in a Daily Mirror
story. Sheila is a woman from Rochdale who is mentally ill and who had her
Income Support stopped just over two weeks ago. She, as a part of the trauma,
had a heart-attack and fell into a coma. A couple of days ago she received
letters, or at least the letters were delivered to her home and brought to her in
hospital where she was still in a coma, from ATOS asking why she wasn’t
presenting herself as fit for work. Now the reason that story is important is
because ATOS probably gives us a definition of cruelty, a definition of social
brutality. In relation to an organisation that is paid £1.6 billion of your money to
hound and harass the poorest, most vulnerable people in society causing
increased despair, fear and suicide. Interesting you know, in terms of this theme
of inequality, you won’t of heard of this guy, Thierry Breton, you won’t of heard
of him but he’s the Chief Executive of ATOS and last year qualified for a wage
rise, £297,000 wage rise. Now some of you are sitting there and thinking,
“well Tommy’s got that wrong, obviously what he means is he’s qualified for a wage
of £297,000 and that’s obscene enough”,
but no, brothers and sisters, the reality is
that he now has a wage of £2.3 million. His wage rise last year was just under
£300,000 which took him to £2.3 million, to be the boss of a company that sends
our threatening letters to mentally ill women in comas in hospitals and do you
know something the reasons I want to talk about Sheila Holt is because the
response to what happened to Sheila Holt in Rochdale, the response from her
local Labour MP sums up, crystallises the reality of the choice that faces us here
in Scotland because faced with what happened, Simon Danczuk who is the
Labour MP in Rochdale was questioned by a local newspaper about what he
thought over what happened to his constituent, and his answer right away in
relation to this letter from ATOS being delivered to a mentally woman in a coma
in hospital, the first line of his answer was, “I am in favour of welfare reform,
but the way the coalition are doing it is to try
and bulldoze the changes. It has to be done slower”. There’s no condemnation
from the local Labour MP about what ATOS have done in relation to £1.6B of public
contract. No condemnation of the hounding of the poor. No condemnation of the
welfare cuts. Why? The reality is, it doesn’t matter who wins the next general
election, the welfare cuts are going to continue, the hounding of the poor is going
to continue. I sometimes find it incredible when I watch the debates on the
telly and people have a go at those that are supporting the Yes campaign, the
say “yeah, but you can’t be certain about this” and “you can’t be certain
about that”, I’ll tell you what we can be
certain about, voting no in September is going to mean more austerity
[Applause], that’s what we can be absolutely certain about. There is no doubt
that a No vote in September 18th means more austerity on September 19th.
These people think they have nay gone far enough, these Tory spivs and
millionaires. They’ve already introduced a programme of £40 billion worth of
cuts, they’ve now announced another £40B worth of cuts and Cameron and co
every time we have Prime Minister’s Questions, they goad Mr Milliband,
“what would you do?”, “are you gonna reverse the cuts?”, and they sit there,
shame faced as the reality is they’re not going
to reverse a single cut. They said, “we’ll do it differently”, they’ve
even said they wouldn’t do it as quick. I don’t know
about you but if you’re condemned to death does it matter whether you’re killed
with the first slash across the throat or the second or third? For goodness sakes,
when are they gonna develop some backbone and stand up against these
people? [Applause] When are they gonna develop some tradition and history?
And to remember that the Labour party and the Labour movement was founded
by people that fought for welfare, that fought for a free health service that’s
getting dismantled in England as we speak. They’ve got a cheek haven’t they?
Marie was talking earlier about Mr Brown of this part of the world who talks
about, if we move away from the United Kingdom what does it mean for the
united National Health Service, as if in an independent Scotland we won’t have a
health service. He should know better because the reality is that health service
in Scotland here today is not only better but it’s more public than the health
service in England is right now, that’s a reality. [Applause]
These people have lined up the Health Service for the big, rich friends. They’re
already selling it off bit by bit, that’s their plan. We have got to say to ourselves,
brothers and sisters, in relation to the background to this discussion, we are in
the midst of an economic crisis, an economic crisis that had got absolutely
nothing to do with ordinary workers, benefit claimants, immigrants or any of the
other scapegoats that this ConDem government is using. We’re in the midst of
an economic crisis caused bankers and irresponsible politicians, that’s who’s
responsible for the problems. [Applause] You look at the Office of National
Statistics figures, they show that we now have bailed out the banking sector to
the tune of £19,000 for every man, woman and child across the United Kingdom.
£1.2 trillion is how much has been used to bail out the bankers. How dare they
attack benefit claimants. How dare they attack trade unionists? How dare they
attack immigrants or anyone else that is unable to speak up for themselves
when the reality is, it’s the rich and the privileges that are the problem.
Austerity, definition: Punishing the poor for the mistakes of the rich. That’s what
austerity represents, brothers and sisters. And we have an opportunity don’t we?
We have an opportunity on September 18th to say no, we’re no travelling on this
bus any longer, we getting off this bus, we’re gonna do things differently! You
see, let’s no make the mistake, deliberately. You’ll hear from those who project
fear and negativity, “yeah it’s all about Alex Salmond”, “do you really support
the SNP?”, brothers and sisters, this vote is bigger than any single political party,
this vote is about the very future of our country, of our children, of our children’s
children. This vote is nay about whether you like Alex Salmond or whether you
don’t like Alex Salmond. This vote is about whether your country is gonna put
people before profit! About whether your country is gonna send young kids to
die in illegal wars. About whether your country is gonna spend money on giving
kids a decent, healthy, nutrition free meal or whether your country is gonna have
a publicly owned health service and a mail service which has been privatised in
England but won’t be privatised in Scotland!
Anyone worth their salt, brothers and sisters, in my opinion anyone worth their
salt within the Labour party, they should welcome a Yes vote, not because it
means they can roll away their red flags because there’ll be no role for them in
an independent Scotland, on the contrary, the Labour party in Scotland would be
rejuvenated, transformed in an independent Scotland because in an independent
Scotland when you stood for the Labour party you could actually stand for
Labour values instead of the south-east Tory values which the Labour party now
stands for. [Applause]
You hear a lot about political consensus, apparently it consensual to attack
benefit claimants regardless of the fact that the biggest majority of benefit
claimants are workers. You all know, the Tories try and promote the images,
don’t they, with their “shut curtains” analogy of that man of darkness, Mr
Osborne. How do these people know? 29 members in a cabinet, 23 of them are
personal millionaires, what do they know about living on low-pay, living on
benefits, living in a council house. What do they know about those things and
worrying about the future of your kids? They don’t know about it. They get in
and out of the studios for their soundbites off the Starship Enterprise because
that’s the different planet that they inhabit. I’ve debated with them, with things
like the bedroom tax, as Marie said earlier, when you talk about how they have
decided to attack some of the very poorest, most vulnerable people. They no
just went for the working class, they went poorest sections of the working class,
because the only people affected by the bedroom tax are those in receipt of
Housing Benefit. To be in receipt of Housing Benefit you have to prove that
you’re poor, it’s a means-tested benefit, you have to either be low paid or you
have to be on benefit. Well brothers and sisters, they’re going after you if you’re
in the position. Why? Because they think you’re an easy target. I’ve debated
with these cretins that say, “well you know, don’t they think about taking in a
lodger if they’ve got an extra bedroom?”, well that’s alright isn’t it, for them,
the Tory toffs, in their mansions with their 12
or 14 bedrooms, they want to try and live in a council or housing association house
where you can hardly swing a cat never mind taking in a lodger. But it shows
you just how little they know, cause if you did take in a lodger you’d lose your
housing benefit. [Laughter] That’s how stupid they are with their arguments. These
people are totally and utterly out of touch with everyday reality. We have got an
opportunity here in our wee small country to do things differently. See the
consensus we’ve got isn’t the same as the consensus in Westminster. It’s interesting,
the TUC, the Trade Unions Congress, conducted a major, major study where
they asked the general population how much of the welfare budget
was claimed by the unemployed and the average response was 48%, 48%, the reality
is 7%. But where does the general population get that from? From the
Daily Mail and the Sun and these Politicians who want to hound and scapegoat
the poor. The general population was asked, “how much of the welfare budget
is fraudulently claimed?”, because we hear it all the time don’t we,“the
benefit cheats”, there’s even adverts isn’t
there, on the telly, the radio, the bus shelters, on the buses,“we’re coming after
you!”, because it’s a massive problem, isn’t it? Because the general population
when asked “how much of the welfare budget is fraudulently claimed?”
the average response was 28%, that’s how much people thought was fraudulently
claimed. What’s the reality? 0.7%, 0.7%, brothers and sisters, I’m gonna put this
to you; 0.7% of the welfare budget is fraudulently claimed, twice as much money
isn’t claimed by people that are due payments than is fraudulently claimed. Non
claiming of benefits is a bigger problem than fraudulently claimed. Where’s the
big campaign to get people to claim their benefits? Where’s the adverts on the
telly for that? [Applause] It is a tiny, miniscule part of the budget, but then you
look at the other side of the coin, you ask yourself about the Starbucks of the
world that have been operating in this country for 16 years, that have generated
sales of over £3 billion and in that time have managed to pay only £86 million in
tax, a rate 1%. I have to say, wouldn’t it be great if we all paid 1% tax,
Starbucks gets away with it, Amazon gets away with it, Google gets away with it,
Boots gets away with it. We have a situation now where the latest academic
research suggests that non-payment of Corporation Tax across the UK leads to a
loss to the Exchequer of £120 billion a year. £120 billion a year. Crisis, what
crisis? They’d be no need for cuts. Never mind cuts, we could increase benefits,
we could increase minimum wage, we could have a lower retirement age, we
could have free school meals for primary and secondary schools if we could only
get the rich to pay their bloody taxes, that’s what we could do! [Applause]
We have a chance, brothers and sisters, a once-in-a-lifetime chance perhaps, to
say on 18th September that we stand for something different, that we actually
value humanity itself, that we actually recognise something called human
solidarity, we actually believe that our old folk should be looked after, we
actually believe that our children should get a decent start in life, we actually
believe in something called the welfare net that actually looks after people.
That’s the choice, you’ve got a choice on 18th September. But some people will
say, “but Tommy, what about that ‘I’, can you dot it, what about that ‘T’, can
you cross it?” and the truth is, if I could
dot the I’s and cross the T’s I’d have won the
lottery a long time ago. There’s no way shape of from that we can answer every
question but we can certainly repel the nonsense, “oh, if you vote for
independence we’ll have border controls”, “oh, if you vote for independence
we’ll lose the pound”, why would you lose the pound, it’s as much
ours as it is anybody else’s. Why would we lose the pound?
What a cheek, to get wee Willy Hague rolled into Glasgow last week there,
Wee Willy, coming up to “warn us” of independence, he bloody warned us about devolution
and he was wrong about that, why would he be right about independence.
Let’s not be taken in by this doom and gloom that is promoted by the No
campaign. And by the way, I’m not gonna have a go individually at some people
who, for some reasons I could recognise, are gonna vote no, there are some
good people still. I had wee discussion recently with somebody online who
said that, if there was an independent socialist republic on offer, they’d
vote yes on 18th September but it’s not on offer so they’re
gonna vote no, and you know, I said, that’s negative
and it’s also failing to look at the bigger picture. You see my picture of
independence might not be yours, my vision of independence certainly won’t be
shared by the higher echelons on the SNP shall we say? Personally, and this is
only personally, I’m not interested in putting the Monarchy on a diet, I don’t want
a slimmed down Monarchy, I want rid of the Monarchy, that’s just my position.
[Applause] I also don’t want oil and gas and electricity to be run for private
profit, I think it should be run for social need and I think any surplus that’s
generated, and by the way how can you fail to generate a surplus by selling gas
and electricity for goodness sakes? It’s not as if you’ve got a choice, is it? Why
don’t we do what most other countries in the world do, publically own their oil,
their gas and their electricity. That’s what we should do. [Applause] People
wonder about how we’re gonna pay for things. We’re a country that is absolutely
rich in land, water, the ability to generate energy, not just in relation to gas and
electricity but from wind and wave power as well. We have got an abundance of
universities. We have got fantastic engineering capabilities. We’ve also got
something which, personally in an independent Scotland I’ll be fighting hard for, I
can never understand why it is that we have got a publically owned health
service and a privately owned pharmaceutical industry. Why the hell should we
allow them to rip us off? Let’s have a publically owned pharmaceutical industry
to feed our publically owned health service. That’s the type of thing we could do
in an independent Scotland. The world is our oyster. Voting for independence
isn’t the end of the journey, brothers and sisters, it’s only the start of the journey.
That’s the reality of voting for independence. We know, we know the trajectory we’re on,
we know that we’re gonna build a country that’s based on social justice.
We know that we’re gonna build a country that promotes equality. We know we’re gonna
build a country that doesn’t scapegoat the poor or those, who like many
of us, were immigrants when we came to this country. We’re not gonna scapegoat
anyone who comes and wants to work and live in out wee small country.
Brothers and sisters, I think we would be fools to throw away this chance, fools
to throw away the opportunity to build a wee country that would become the envy of
many in the world. You know, I was looking today through some of the poverty
statistics and I was looking at UK 12.8% of the population living in real poverty,
25% of children living in poverty then I had a wee glance at Norway, Denmark,
Finland, less than 5% both poverty and child poverty and I think to myself, hear
these people say “oh, you’re no big enough, how are you
gonna survive” : These countries, Norway for instance, it’s
now accepted that it’s second in the world in terms of global wealth and it’s
second in the world in terms of global happiness as well, a wee country, less than
us, 4.9 million people and yet they are away up there and we’re away down at
16th.
Brothers and Sisters, we’ve got a chance here, we’ve got a chance to stand up
straight, be proud, not that we’re better than anybody, we’re no better than
anybody. Hey, nobody else is better than us. We’re equal and we’re gonna our
rightful place on the world stage as a normal sovereign nation.
After September 18th politics will be consensual, it’ll be left of centre, the Labour
party can rejuvenate. The SNP will certainly be fighting, they might have some
battles even within their own party because there are some people there who
might want a different independent Scotland from us, great, that’s what
democracy’s all about. But the truth is, that central core of that new Scotland is
gonna be a fair country.
I’m gonna finish, brothers and sisters, by referring to one other thing, and it’s
something that in and of itself is enough to convince me that we should vote for
independence. So many reasons, isn’t there, I mean everybody’s got their own
reasons. The fact that we’ll never ever have a Tory government is one, I’ve got
to say! [Applause] Because in the consensual politics of Scotland, the Tory’s
right-wing extremism will not win anything like a majority. For goodness sakes,
we got more Pandas the now than we have got elected Tory MPs. [Laughter]
Does that not tell you something about the political priorities of the people of
Scotland? There’s a good reason. Some people have said to me, you know,
“Tommy, you’re a Socialist. Are you not abandoning the working class in
England and Wales who’ll never get rid of the Tory’s if Scotland goes
independent?” and it’s a lie, it’s a myth, deliberately promoted by people who
know better. In all of the elections where Labour have won a majority in
Westminster they didn’t rely on Scottish votes, but in 1955, 32 years out of the
60 years since 1955 we’ve ended up with Tory governments that we never voted
for. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a country where we actually get the government
we vote for, is that too much to ask?
[Audience member]: It’s democracy
[Tommy Sheridan] It’s called democracy. But brothers and sisters, that final
reason is a reason that means quite a lot to me. I remember sharing a bit of the
street, shall I call it a street? Maybe a road. Outside of the Faslane Nuclear
Submarine base and I shared it with one of my opponents who I still consider a
friend but he’s an opponent in this argument. I shared a wee bit of the street
with George Galloway and George and I were there as part of the annual protest
against nuclear weapons and I was trying to explain to the police officers that I
was there trying to uphold international law, in 1996 the International Court of
Justice found that nuclear weapons were illegal weapons, and that I was here to
disarm the nuclear submarine base. You won’t be surprised to learn that the
police weren’t very persuaded by that argument. [Laughter] George Galloway
tells the story that he heard, he heard one of the police officers say to another,
“you take the old one, we’ll take Sheridan”, he says he knew then that it was
time to pass the torch on. [Laughter] I remind George of that story whenever I
can and the truth is, brothers and sisters, I’ve been arrested 6 times outside the
Faslane Nuclear Submarine base and I’ve been put in prison 3 times because of it
and I think those weapons are offensive. I think they are inhumane, I think
they’re barbaric. I think they represent everything that’s wrong with our world.
[Applause] That we can spend over £25 billion to renew these weapons of mass
destruction but we’ve got 3.5 billion people with less income than 85 people you
could fit on a double decker bus. We’ve got kids starving. We’ve got children
dying of easily preventable diseases like Cholera because we don’t have enough
money to spend on the medicines but there’s always enough money to spend on
nuclear weapons. Brothers and sisters, what a message it is to the world, what a
message it is, if we vote for independence on September 18th , we’re also voting
to get rid of nuclear weapons. [Applause]. See if you’re not even persuaded by
some of the other arguments, I’ve got to say to you, here’s an opportunity for us
to say loud and clear to the whole world, we’re not going to spend £25 billion on
scrap metal any longer, because that’s what it is, because it will never be used, if
it’s used it’s the end of the world. So why spend £25 billion on scrap metal when
we could spend £25 billion on tackling poverty and inequality, that’s the choices,
brothers and sisters. Please on September 18th be responsible and courageous
enough to recognise that that’s the choice and vote YES!
Thanks very much.