Evening Times SCOTTISH Socialist MSP Rosie Kane is to stand trial accused of blocking Edinburgh's Royal Mile during a protest against Trident nuclear submarines. Her appearance at the city's Sheriff Court today with others facing similar charges caused chaos when it emerged legal paperwork was not in order.
Some of those who took their seats in the dock should not have been there, while some of those fiscal Karey Henderson thought should be there were missing. Finally Ms Kane, 43, of Govanhill, Glasgow, and three companions pleaded not guilty to charges of obstructing or endangering road users. A trial date was fixed for September.

Rasta musician takes on Speaker - Evening Times THE Scottish Socialist Party has chosen a Jamaican Rastafarian musician to stand against Michael Martin.
Trade union activist Graham Campbell plans to stand against the Westminster Speaker in the Glasgow North East constituency.
Mr Campbell said: "I will be the SSP's first ever Afro-Caribbean candidate and relish the chance to attack Labour's record on asylum and immigration."

"We will cause maximum disruption, targeting their show homes and disrupting their AGMs"
Rosie Kane, Socialist MSP

Campaigners opposed to the M74 motorway extension in Glasgow have vowed to take their fight to the companies who will build the controversial link.
The five-mile stretch of road has been given the go-ahead despite a public inquiry ruling against it.
Supporters said the link would tackle Glasgow's traffic problems.
But protesters have promised to "up the ante" and take direct action which would cause "maximum disruption" to the firms involved in the project.
The campaign set up to oppose the new road, Jam 74, is also planning direct action similar to the treetop protest against the M77 which ended in 1995.
Jam 74 (Joint Action Against the M74 ) said the new link was a waste of £500m of public money and would only lead to more traffic congestion.
Scottish Socialist Party MSP Rosie Kane said: "These firms will be profiting from the misery of communities and so we're going to up the ante and pay them a visit.
"We will cause maximum disruption, targeting their show homes and disrupting their AGMs.
"We will also take direct action against the Scottish Executive and chambers of commerce who back the road."
She said the road would pass over a community with one of the lowest car ownership rates in Europe.
"This road is not built for them and won't benefit them," said the MSP, whose Govanhill home lies beneath the proposed route.

BBC Scotland News Online

Sunday Herald

CAMPAIGNERS against the M74 extension are planning to involve G8 protesters from around the world in non- violent direct action to stop the motorway being built...

JAM74, the group that is co-ordinating opposition to the M74 extension, has already been approached with offers of help by campaigners from America and Germany planning to come to Scotland for the G8 summit of world leaders at Gleneagles in July.

Although organisers are reluctant to reveal their precise plans in advance, it is possible buildings could be occupied, construction vehicles prevented from starting work and protest camps set up.

“People might be looking for some some fun on their way to Gleneagles,” said Will Jess, chair of JAM74. “This is the most destructive motorway in Europe, so hopefully other Europeans will help us, too.”

This is not the end of the road... It's just the beginning

One of the first to the barricades will be Rosie Kane, the Glaswegian Scottish Socialist MSP who cut her political teeth protesting against the M77 extension in the 1990s. “If the bulldozers arrive, I will be standing there side by side with the community,” she declared.

“That’s my promise, and I will keep it. If the Scottish Executive is determined to trample over our communities, we have got to start shouting louder.”

She accused ministers of taking “violent direct action” by allowing the motorway to destroy impoverished neighbourhoods. “They have blocked our right to social and environmental justice. If anyone’s being violent and brutal, it is them,” she said.

This weekend thousands of pledge cards are being circulated by JAM74, an umbrella organisation for anti-motorway groups, encouraging people to sign up to “beat the bulldozers”. This is the first step in what organisers promise will be “a highly orchestrated campaign which will bring maximum disruption to construction of the motorway”.

Comparisons are already being drawn with the M77 campaign, which involved thousands of protesters marching, setting up camps and clinging to trees in Pollok Park in 1994 and 1995. The opposition was ended only with the help of scores of arrests, hundreds of police and many millions of pounds of public money.

Sunday Herald

THE monarchy should be abolished and all parts of Britain should declare themselves republics in order to become true democracies.

The call from leading writer and artist Alasdair Gray makes the controversial case for republicanism in a new political pamphlet called How We Should Rule Ourselves due to be published by Edinburgh-based Canongate in advance of this year’s general election.

The document, which has been co-written with Adam Tomkins, Professor of Public Law at the University of Glasgow, argues that the nations of the United Kingdom can only become truly democratic by axing the Queen and restoring power to the people through properly elected parliaments that are not answerable to the Crown.

The pamphlet is set to reignite the monarchy debate especially as some states, including Australia, are reconsidering their membership of the commonwealth following revelations that after the forthcoming royal wedding Camilla Parker Bowles will technically become Queen upon Prince Charles’s succession.

Gray told the Sunday Herald: “The notion of having government by a royal family is ludicrous. The royal family are the least free human beings in Britain. It’s practically impossible for them to act sanely.”

Although Gray has written pamphlets before, in 1992 and 1997 on the theme of Scottish independence, this is his first overtly republican tract.

He was inspired to write it after hearing Tomkins speak at a demonstration on Calton Hill organised by the Scottish Socialist Party in protest at the Queen’s opening of the new Scottish parliament in October 2004.

Gray e-mailed the academic two weeks after the event and they decided to get together to collaborate on this work. Tomkins, an Englishman living in Scotland, is a committed republican. He published a book earlier this year called Our Republican Constitution...

Like Tomkins, Gray is not part of any political party, although he has supported the Scottish Nationalist Party in the past. He now plans to vote for the Scottish Socialist Party, who share his republican views.

SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit
Press Release: 26/03/05

Socialists terminate BNP street campaign in Edinburgh

Scottish Socialist Party members, including two prospective candidates in the coming General Election, today reduced a Scottish wide British National Party pre-election mobilisation to chaos and drove the fascists off the streets of central Edinburgh.
The BNP members had set up a stall on Edinburgh’s world renowned Princes Street which included an Inverness BNP banner.
Alerted by text messages, SSP activists were on the scene within minutes and surrounded the fascist activists who were attempting spread their message of hate.
After attempting to intimidate the SSP members with threats of violence, the BNP were eventually forced to abandon their stall in the face of the SSP’s non violent direct action tactics which included surrounding their stall and drowning out their racist chants.
Two of the SSP activists are prospective candidates in the General Election; Morag Robertson for Edinburgh South and Steven Nimmo in Livingston.
Steven Nimmo was previously involved in direct action which left the BNP’s Scottish Election campaign launch in ruins.
Speaking after today’s events Steven Nimmo said;
“We won’t allow the purveyors of racism and hatred pavement space to peddle their poison in Scotland during the course of this election.
“If they think they are going to be treated as a respectable political party they can think again.
“The SSP stands in this forthcoming election with the message that racism and hatred towards asylum seekers and the traveller and Roma community is completely unacceptable.”
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