Campaign news archive - October 2014

Parliament Square Law is too Restrictive

Parliament Square Law is too Restrictive

Letter to the Guardian The appalling treatment of protesters occupying Parliament Square last week (Occupy protesters forced to hand over pizza boxes and tarpaulin, 24 October, theguardian.com) calls for an urgent review of current legislation governing protest there. For 10 days, until Sunday, Occupy Democracy campaigners hosted a daily programme of assemblies and workshops outside parliament to address what they say is “a huge democratic deficit” in Britain today. Using the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 (PRSRA), which bans any “structure designed for staying” along with any “amplified sound”, police responded by kettling protesters and confiscating a wide range of items including umbrellas and sleeping bags which protesters were using to keep dry and warm. More than 40 people were arrested for the most trivial things, including sitting on a piece of tarpaulin and attempting to provide food and water to a protester who remained in the square after it was cordoned off with metal fences. [continue...]

Neil Findlay MSP for Scottish Labour

The selection of a new Scottish Labour leader is now underway.
Neil Findlay MSP has announced his candidature and is supported by the LRC’s sister organisation in Scotland the Campaign for Socialism. Their website is at: [continue...]

Scotland: Federalism - Powers for a Purpose

The Citizen – Editorial, autumn 2014 Left unity is in practice an ambition often more praised than realised, but the vanity of small differences should play no role in the setting of our post referendum priorities. The Scottish Left will now be obliged to focus on our common interests, something which in our view can best be advanced through the vehicle of the People’s Assembly. The referendum campaign pulled many people into active politics for the first time. The fact that in the teeth of official disdain a campaign was sustained which sought, however misguidedly, to challenge the established order of things should be welcomed and its energies harnessed. It gives the lie to the convenient mythology of public indifference to politics. Instead what ordinary people are justifiably cynical about is the hollow platitudes and austerity consensus of the mainstream parties. [continue...]