A guest post by Leanne Tervitt.
Growing up in a miners street during the miners strikes, politics was a common subject in our house. I learned a new swear word every time Maggie Thatchers name was mentioned, or rather spat oot. It was during those years I started to understand how those of us who came from schemes faced discrimination, poor health, lack of opportunity and low wages compared to the folk who lived in the big houses in the estate next to ours.
My family always voted. I was brought up being told that voting was a responsibility I had to take part in, especially those of us who grew up in schemes. I thought back then that everyone voted.
As I got older I realised that this wasn’t the case. I found out that amongst my pals the opposite was true. I learned that deprivation was in fact a good indicator of low voter turnout.
“Why bother voting?” “All politicians are the same.” “Look at them, they dont know how we live”. “What have political parties done for us?” “They dont care about the likes of us” “They dont talk our language” were common phrases in the council estates and still are.
What had political parties done for them? Their lives remained the same. Generations of the same family still in the schemes. Still skint. Still struggling. Still dying.
That all changed in 2014. Huge efforts were made in Scotlands council estates. Grassroots activists arrived into the schemes in their numbers telling us how our lives will be better with Independence. How we will have more money, jobs, employment. Activists from the SNP, from Radical Independence Campaign and many others. Tommy Sheridan holding Hope Over Fear events in miners clubs all over Scotland. Activists who spoke like us. Used our language. Engaged. We had hope. We had something to vote for. And the schemes did vote. In huge numbers like never before. Our schemes were full of independence supporters. They still are.
So what the hell has happened since? We lost and the activists left. We didn’t matter anymore. Our votes didn’t matter anymore. Our lives got worse. Much harder. The schemes forgotten. We lost hope and voter turnout went back to normal. Now voting has intentionally been made even more difficult by the implementation of Voter ID in Westminster elections. They dont want us scheme folk voting. Of course they dont.
Campaigners went back to concentrating their campaigns in the areas that voted. The areas where folk are registered. The affluent areas.
So what are we going to do about it? We are gonna build a Scheme Army thats what.
Scheme folk helping their own. In their own schemes. Where they know every family as those same families have been there for decades stuck in the same poverty they’ve always been in. Where we speak the same language and understand each other. Where our experiences of life are the same.
We walk out our front doors with our wee portable tables. With our wee banner stating “Schemes For Indy”. We have in our bags a wee pile of voter registration forms and info on how to get Voter ID, as many outwith bus pass age don’t have either a passport or driving licence. We explain how even just registering to vote will have politicians and Governments sit up and take notice. We collect new voter data. We promote independence and explain how we could be a wealthy little country where the lives of all Scots will be better. Even us scheme folk! We set up our wee stalls week in week out. A regular familiar face blethering to the families we know outside the post office, the chemist, the corner shop or the bookies. We tell them we are all part of something that will be huge. The cooncil folk rising up to say we have had enough of being poor. Enough of losing our bairns young to suicides and overdoses. Enough of the anxiety and depression. Enough of being hungry or freezing cold. Enough of having no opportunities to escape a life of poverty for ourselves, for our bairns and our grandbairns. For generations to come.
And this time we don’t leave. We dont stop. We turn up all the time not just for elections.
We take our photos of our successes however small. We tell stories of those who want to be heard and we post it all on our website, on social media. We motivate and encourage others to do the same. To help their schemes and their folks. We have a scheme army chat group where we can share our ideas, our successes, our advice and we support each other like scheme folk do! We tell folk the schemes are rising and we are building our Scheme Army of our own folk who have had enough. We speak at events. We build and we grow. We dont walk away this time. We remain there until we achieve our goal of independence and then we help those who helped us, by eradicating poverty from Scotland for good.
We all have our part to play. And our part could and should be massive. Ye want a job done, dae it yerselves!!
Our job is independence. Our way is Schemes For Indy.
Great post Leanne, inspiring, motivating and exactly what is needed. Bottom up, from the people to those in power, it’s past time to say “enough!”
” … we post it all on our website, on social media.”
Is it possible to have links to the sites, please?
Contact with Leanne now establshed – next stage – as an Admin and Livestreamer on Independence Live – I’ll be heading to Dunfermline early March to do the first livestream for ‘Schemes for Indy’, in what I hope will be an ongoing regular programme from similar Schemes all over Scotland on Independence Live..
Great post Leanne also great to see you till fighting the good fight for the schemes as well as for our country.. ALBA should be kicking it self for not fighting for you to stay. Keeping fighting the good fight, you do not need any party to do that, our Margo proved that.. When it comes to HR YOU should be standing in that election as an Independent for Independence.. I don’t see how you could lose..
My exact thoughts as I was reading this Kate. I think Leanne would make a great Independent MP for the scheme. Go on Leanne…..do it!
I wish you every success. Put the professional politicians to shame.
Another excellent paper by Leanne, who is right to raise the critical matter of language.
It is well established via postcolonial theory that culturally assimilated bourgeois elites and intellectuals in a colonial society dinnae speak the same language as the fowk, instead they assume and value only the culture and language of the colonizer. The most oppressed native groups realise this, which in part explains their reticence to vote.
There is clearly never any ‘Union’ in practice within a colonial society, only a native group left holding a worthless mankit violated treaty, which also tells us that the term ‘unionist’ is a misnomer; what we see are effectively colonial parties run by colonialists whose purpose is to maintain the colonial hoax and economic plunder, i.e. the theft of a peoples territory and resources as well as the destruction of their culture, languages and national identity/consciousness. In a colonial society inequalities are only widened further.
The SNP as a ‘nominal’ national party has become part of the colonial ‘racket’ and manages the colonial administration in the colonizer’s interest (i.e. ‘indirect rule’); hence the SNP is clearly a part of the colonial regime. A vote for any of these entities is therefore a vote for colonialism, i.e. oppression.
Because colonial oppression tends to be obscured this means many of the people do not yet know this reality, they have only a rudimentary understanding of their ‘condition’ and what independence really means – i.e. decolonization and liberation. Moreover, as ‘nationalist’ politicians have never undertaken ‘a reasoned study of colonial society’ they are easily drawn ever closer to colonialism, as we see.
The key is for an oppressed people to better understand their colonial ‘condition’ before they can hope to find the only remedy, liberation:
https://salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/THEORETICAL+CASE+FOR+SCOTTISH+INDEPENDENCE.pdf
Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity. – V.I Lenin.
Great to see your dedication to our independent Scottish future, Leanne. We need many more like you – and not only within politics. We need the Scots to gain the confidence of the Irish.
Why vote at all in a UK election. If you vote, you are voting for more servitude, more corruption & absolutely no effectual change. If you vote you are wasting your vote masquerading under the illusion of democracy and change. It doesn’t matter how Scotland votes unless of course you see some value in providing already wealthy Scottish MP’s in Westminster with a great time.
Bring all our politicians back home to Scotland where they have much work to do. A general election means nothing to the people of Scotland because it makes absolutely no difference to the people of Scotland at all.
No change, no difference, no extra funding, more poverty, more manipulation and control by public school boys, inbred in England who are educated to think they have a right to rule and a future of lording it over the people of Scotland, Wales, N.I, & of course English H.Q.
No more…….Don’t vote, No vote. No more U.K.
A great comment Leanne and I respect you for walking away from what you considered undemocratic and skewed , the problem continues that most politicians are of a mindset that politics is a way to riches and a lift up into the middle class or even the upper class , if you look at the makeup of current politicians who among them has any real lived experience , how many of them have suffered hardship or deprivation or experienced HORROR at the thought of a rent increase or a council tax increase for a house that is difficult to heat and maintain , every new increase means that your meagre finances will AGAIN be stretched beyond breaking point , you are desperate, how are you going to pay bills and feed your kids , once again you are going to have to DEMEAN yourself by appealing to a food bank or borrow more from a relative who is in the same boat as yourself , politicians sit in their wee bubble pontificating about progressiveness and civic inclusion whilst they are being paid handsomely and contributing to their fanciful pensions , no worries for them about rent increases or council tax increases or how difficult it is to heat their homes , some of them even get to let their kids run up a £11,000 bill watching football with the expectation that some other poor bastard will not object to paying that bill
It is exhilarating talking about how progressive and inclusive we are making Scotland, it is so rewarding discussing and implementing these wonderful green policies , I am so happy that my niche hobby horses are being discussed ,when they should be concentrating on building social housing for our citizens, and addressing exorbitant energy prices but that is not a priority because most of them have a property portfolio alongside their fat salaries and expenses and NOT having adequate social housing enables private landlords to reap the benefits of that shortage , but don’t worry we are committed to participate with private house builders in building AFFORDABLE social housing for around £200,000 each
Can anyone honestly look at the clowns and morons infesting HR or WM when they are being televised and relate to their lifestyle and believe they have your best interests at heart
“, … if you look at the makeup of current politicians who among them has any real lived experience , how many of them have suffered hardship or deprivation or experienced HORROR at the thought of a rent increase or a council tax increase for a house that is difficult to heat and maintain”
“… some of them even get to let their kids run up a £11,000 bill watching football with the expectation that some other poor bastard will not object to paying that bill”
Ironically Twathater, Michael Mathieson grew up in a scheme in Toryglen in an overcrowded council house with damp and black mould on the walls. He went to John Bosco secondary in Gorbals. That’s why his behaviour in laptopgate pissed me off so much, he should know how privileged he now is and his kids always have been!
https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,michael-matheson-why-werent-all-those-politicians-able-to-fix-it_9535.htm
Marvelous rendition from the initial poster! I myself was brought up in a miner’s raw. I also went doon our local pit, fought Maggie for years and she eventually shut it. 23 years there and our scheme has do,ens of empty houses and yet the local politicians say there’s a shortage! The corner/ Street stalls is a must happen. We have been doing 1 in craigmillar for years! C’moan folk, get yer erse in gear!!!
Absolutely spot on, Leanne. The presumption that has held sway for too long is that we need political parties to lead the way – the past ten years has demonstrated to folly of this and very soon the time scale of the mythical “another referendum can’t be held for another generation” will have arrived, still with no pressure to deliver a referendum unless we, the people demand it. That said, any referendum set on Westminter’s terms will be total waste of time: it will be ‘managed’ (postal votes, anyone?) to ensure the margin of No votes once again somehow exceeds those from people who vote Yes.
So yes, the idea to generate activiy in the schemes where a huge percentage of the population live is an excellent one, but it will need positive, proactive ideas and policies that originate within the schemes to deliver the enthusiasm and belief that it is possible to change the status quo and that securing independence is the only way we will ever ensure this.