Movement event: Scotland’s Not For Sale
Scotland is being asset-stripped.
Scotland’s Not For Sale
The Scottish Parliament convened in 1999 with the pledge to establish a people’s parliament. A quarter of a century later, Scotland’s political class have abandoned this promise.
Behind closed doors, politicians take their lead not from the electorate but from the corporate lobby and vested interests. Outsourcing has become the organising principle of government. A litany of key infrastructure projects have been entrusted to private consultancy firms. Meanwhile, our democracy suffers the consequences as Scots grow increasingly apathetic towards a parliament that prizes rhetoric over delivery.
Scotland is being asset-stripped. The ScotWind auction leased responsibility for the development of renewable energy to the fossil fuel industry. The design of the National Care Service was outsourced to PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG. Two new ‘Green’ Freeports have arrived on the Firth of Forth and the Cromarty Firth. Glasgow and Aberdeen are to become ‘Scottish Investment Zones’. Even Scotland’s trees are on the market thanks to a £2bn Scottish Government PFI deal for nature restoration. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government has given almost £8 million worth of subsidies to the arms industry over the last 6 years. Since 2016, £240 million has been handed to a selection of wealthy landowners in forestry subsidies.
More than a decade after the Independence referendum, Scotland’s future is being torn from Scotland’s hands. If this country’s land, seas, wind and trees belong to anyone, they belong to us, the people of Scotland.
Scotland’s establishment has had it their way for too long. That’s why, in Glasgow on Saturday the 28th of June, activists, academics, politicians and trade unionists will convene to interrogate this assault on Scottish sovereignty and pose an alternative rooted in the politics of class, democracy and ownership. Join us for ‘Scotland’s Not For Sale’.