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.