ALBA Celebrates the International Day for People of African Descent

Posted by Alba Party, August 31

Today we celebrate the International Day for People of African Descent. We applaud the extraordinary contributions of the African diaspora in Scotland and strive to create a Scotland that eliminates all forms of discrimination against people of African descent.

ALBA Party General Secretary, Chris McEleny said:

“This day is a celebration of the enormous contributions of people of African descent to every field of human endeavour and Scottish society. It is a recognition of the profound injustices and systemic discrimination that people of African descent have endured for centuries, and continue to confront today.

It is essential that we continue to speak up – loudly and without fail – against any notion of racial prejudice and that we work tirelessly to free society from the blight of racism."

Scotland's green energy industry must not repeat the mistakes of North Sea oil

Posted by Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, August 25

IT’S been a big week for Scottish offshore wind. First and foremost, Seagreen, some 20 miles or so off the Angus coast, has come on stream.

It has been in the making for more than a decade, and now takes its place as the world’s deepest offshore windfarm.

The giant turbines totally vindicate the decision to deploy Scotland’s offshore industry in deep waters with giant or the, even more exciting, floating turbines.

In contrast to the English industry which, hitherto at least, has been concentrated nearshore or in estuaries, the Scottish industry is the future of big wind development. It is the difference between genuine offshore energy development and what is effectively onshore wind in a puddle!

The SSE/Total Seagreen, when fully operational next year, will through its giant 114 turbines generate 1.1 gigawatts (GW) of electricity – enough to power about one million homes. Each will have a maximum tip height of 187m (614ft), which is about twice the height of the tower housing Big Ben. One Scottish giant turbine dwarfs England’s most famous landmark.

The £3 billion Seagreen watermark comes hot on the heels of the go-ahead to three new developments in the waters around Shetland which are expected to contribute another 2.8 GW of electricity.

To understand the scale of opportunity, remember that the latest offshore wind projects are being priced at £50 per megawatts (MW) hr and falling while new nuclear is £100 per MW hr. Currently, the offshore wind guaranteed price of electricity generation is around one fifth of what is being paid right now for England’s dependency on gas generation.

Over the next quarter century, Scotland could produce five times or more of our own requirements in electricity from offshore wind alone. Offshore wind carries the advantage of much higher availability than its onshore sister, but in any case can be relatively easily backed up by green hydrogen and pump storage hydro. Scotland has all the ingredients to lead the next clean green revolution and secure affordable power.

And that unfortunately is where the good news stops, because we are in clear and present danger of frittering away all of these advantages just as a previous generation allowed our oil and gas riches to be claimed by the combined avarice of international oil and the London Treasury.

SSE chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies is one of the few people in the country who will not need to worry about his own coming £5000 electricity bill with his annual remuneration at £4.5 million and rising.

He has been boasting about the amount of local content in the project. In fact it is a scandalous disgrace. Only the assembly takes place at Nigg with the giant towers and turbines built elsewhere.
Even of the 700 operational jobs, only 50% are to be located in Scotland.

Instead of ploughing tens of millions of public money into BiFab’s foreign owners would it not have been a better idea to guarantee Scottish yards a lucrative billion pound stream of orders?
And unfortunately the scandal of missed opportunity does not stop there. The ScotWind auction conducted by Crown Estate Scotland is perhaps the single biggest example of policy incompetence of our lifetimes.

It makes the Ferguson fiasco look like a mere bagatelle and the census confusion a muddle not a fiddle.

As an excellent analysis by Common Weal demonstrated, the ScotWind auction succeeded in leasing a substantial part of the best offshore acreage for a fraction of its true worth to international capital.

The energy moguls took the innocents of the Crown Estate Scotland to the cleaners and spat them out the other end. The outgoing chief executive, Simon Hodge, is no doubt an excellent forester. To put him in charge of an organisation negotiating one of the biggest deals in Scottish history with some of the greediest corporates on the planet, is like putting the sheep into a pen to control the wolves. For example, this week’s Crown Estate press release actually boasted that the three Shetland deals would see the successful applicants pay a pathetic pittance of £56m in option fees to the Scottish Government!

Our natural resources will bypass the country with no impact on the public good whatsoever. Meanwhile, Crown Estate Scotland is so complacent that it is allowing the world-leading floating demonstrator of Kincardine to wither on the vine.

So what is to be done?

Firstly, renegotiate the options thus far granted to ensure a public share in every single project of at least 25.

Secondly, use this “golden share” to ensure the maximum Scottish content of suppliers to benefit from the billion pounds of orders over the next quarter century.

Thirdly, use the golden share to provide the equity for Scotland’s own public sector electricity supplier to ensure that never again are Scottish consumers faced with mass fuel poverty in this land of energy plenty.

Do these things and we will substantially increase confidence that our own government has the wit and the intelligence to manage the vast resources of an independent country. Take no action and future generations will look back in anger at a bunch of stookie dummies who sold their country and didn’t even manage to secure 30 pieces of silver!

Kenny MacAskill MP: Why we spoke out

Posted by Kenny MacAskill, July 16

I was proud to be elected to Westminster in 2019 but it was as is so often said to settle up, not settle down. I’d stood for Westminster before though at a time when being an independence supporting candidate was for almost all, just a matter of flying the flag.

I’d been fortunate to have been elected to Holyrood and to have served in the first-ever SNP administration. After 2014 when we came close but sadly not close enough, it was time for me to do other things and for others to pick up the baton. I wrote books and watched from afar.

In 2019 I was asked to stand again and agreed to do so. It was to be for that one final push to set our country free. I was as proud to be with new Westminster colleagues as I had been with former Holyrood stalwarts. Our nation was under attack and our democracy being denied.

But the SNP I had joined almost 40 years before was no more. Party democracy was abandoned, disgraceful actions and machinations were perpetrated and so I left. But that has allowed me, along with my colleague Neale Hanvey to pursue the cause of independence that I have always held dear, and at last to seek to settle up not settle down.

Our actions in the Chamber were necessary. They were not taken lightly but forced upon us by the circumstances our country is facing. Scottish democracy is being denied and parliamentary procedure is being distorted.

Scotland has a mandate for a referendum and yet it’s refused outright by a charlatan of a Prime Minister. He even rejects a vote of no confidence, something that’s fundamental in a democratic chamber. He’s lost the support of his own party yet was comprehensively rejected by Scots in 2019, as has been every Tory PM during my lifetime. And indeed, so will be whoever succeeds him.

All this is happening though whilst Scots are suffering. We may be blistering in a heatwave, but a cold winter is coming, and it will be cruel for many. Already many are struggling to fuel their cars and those that do often find themselves paying to carry out their job, not just get to their work. There are pledges of Tory Tax cuts for the wealthy and plenty money for war and weapons of mass destruction. But total intransigence on an increase in mileage allowance for the low-paid who are providing vital services.

Scotland is energy-rich. Oil supposedly all gone in 2014 is now the UK's salvation and an offshores renewable bounty has arrived. We’ve more renewable energy that we need to power every home, yet it’s to be cabled south. The exploitation of our nation's resources and at a time when over half our people will be in fuel poverty. It is simply perverse that Scotland is energy-rich, yet Scots are fuel-poor.

It was for those reasons that we spoke out. There’s a price to be paid by us with suspension but so be it. I was not elected to administer the British State but to continue the drive for Scottish Independence. That the SNP takes titles such as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and even more bizarrely Shadow Spokesperson for Wales and Northern Ireland I find incredible. Independence Parties do not seek to form, and can never do so in any event, a British Government. It’s not our Parliament and never will be. It’s rigged against us and all parties unite to block us.

The duty of independence MPs is to pursue Scotland’s cause and protect Scotland’s people. Room for manoeuvre in Westminster is limited as the government has all the cards. But meek and supine acceptance there cannot be. Other parties seeking independence have used it as a forum to pursue their democratic demands. Charles Stewart Parnell ensured that it would not be allowed to be a block to the march of the Irish nation and instead used it to promote Ireland's cause. Maxton and other Red Clydeside stalwarts spoke out, as did Neale and I, on issues and likewise were excluded.

The time has come for Scotland to demand its legitimate right to self-determination. Neither an acquiescent Supreme Court nor an intransigent UK Government can stand in the way of the Scottish people. The starting pistol for the campaign for independence has been fired by the First Minister, and there can be no turning back. The needs and wants of our people require it, as much as the legitimacy of our cause demands it.

All avenues must be used and that requires actions in all democratic forums, as much as peaceful demonstrations in our communities. After all independence MPs are in Westminster to settle up not settle down.

Wha would be a traitor knave.

Article originally featured in the Yours For Scotland blog, July 16 2022. 

ALBA Serves notice on Tory Leadership contenders - respect Scottish Democracy and the clear mandate for an independence referendum

Posted by Alba Party, July 20

Speaking to the Foreign Press Association at the Royal Overseas Club in London this morning (Wednesday) Former First Minister and ALBA Party Leader the Rt Hon Alex Salmond warned the contenders for the Tory leadership that outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “veto over Scottish Democracy will not stand”.  Meanwhile ALBA Westminster Group Leader Neale Hanvey MP announced that he will be writing to the remaining Tory leadership candidates informing them of  Scotland’s Claim of Right and challenging them to respect the mandate for a Scottish Independence referendum, given by the Scottish people to their elected representatives in the Scottish Parliament and urging them, if elected, to agree to a Section 30 Order which would allow a legal and consented referendum to take place.

Speaking at the Foreign Press Association Alex Salmond will state:

“Whoever is elected Tory Leader and becomes Prime Minister must be made to realise that the will of the Scottish people and their elected Parliament cannot be denied indefinitely.  That is why ALBA is advocating a coordinated campaign of popular demonstration, parliamentary intervention and diplomatic initiative to break Westminster’s stranglehold over Scottish Democracy and to force a change of position by the incoming Tory Prime Minister.”

Continuing Neale Hanvey MP will state:

“Scottish Democracy is not the plaything of Tory leadership candidates, as they attempt to out-bid each other in terms of who can be the most muscular and ardent Unionist. The Conservative Party have not won an electoral mandate in Scotland since 1955, so if Tory MPs are allowed to change their minds over who is Prime Minister and if the Tory Party is allowed to choose a new leader then so too must the people of Scotland be allowed to choose their own future in an Independence Referendum.

“That is why I am writing to each of the remaining Tory Leadership candidates today reminding them of Scotland’s Claim of Right, that it is for the people of Scotland and the people of Scotland alone, to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs.  I am challenging them to respect the mandate for a Scottish Independence referendum given by the Scottish people and urging them, if elected, to agree to a Section 30 Order which would allow a legal and consented referendum to take place.”

Concluding ALBA Party Chair Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh will state:

“If Scottish Democracy is to mean anything there must be a Scottish Independence Referendum on 19 October 2023 as the First Minister has promised, no ifs, no buts.  The refusal by outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson to respect Scotland’s mandate for that referendum to take place and his outright dismissal of the request for a Section 30 Order is a defining moment in Scottish politics on which the constitutional future of Scotland itself will be determined.”