IT was flash and organised in less than a day, but yesterday’s demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament against the Westminster Tory-DUP coalition’s power grab was anything but flashy.
Instead, real people and not politicians, just ordinary Scottish folk with their dander up, turned out in their hundreds to say Hands Off Our Parliament.
Estimates put the crowd at between 800 and 900, an astonishing turnout given the short notice of the demonstration, and when Nicola Sturgeon came out to say hello, it seemed like every one of them wanted to shake her hand or snap a selfie.
That was the only involvement by a senior politician in the whole event. The Hands Off Our Parliament (HOOP) organisers who put together the memorable March demonstration had little time but they managed to find a microphone, a loudspeaker and then did something quite remarkable – they let the people speak.
One of those, Moira Lamb from Strathaven, movingly told the crowd: “The reason I came here today is that I have a few mental health problems and I find being in a crowd very difficult. But when I watched the Parliament debate and Prime Minister’s Question time and I heard of the man who said the suicide word, I thought that was a terrible thing to say. On a daily basis sometimes I feel that I shouldn’t be here.”
To loud applause she continued: “When that MP actually stated that’s what they should do I was absolutely horrified. We should stand up for people with mental health problems. I say no to suicide and I say we must fight forward and make sure we achieve what we want to achieve.”
It soon became clear that Ian Liddell-Grainger, the Tory MP who made the obnoxious “suicide” comment to the SNP group on Tuesday night, inspired some people to attend.
Moira told The National: “It was a difficult decision to come here because I do struggle with crowds, but I felt I had to protest against that suicide word.”
Kevin Bowie from Edinburgh said: “The suicide comment yesterday made me so angry that I felt I had to come along. I was absolutely raging and as usual in the press nothing was done – if that had been an SNP MP he would have been hounded and made to resign.”
One woman told the demonstration: “It is absolutely brilliant that you have turned up to try and save our Parliament that is totally under threat.
“There’s a lot of work to be done, there’s a lot of road to go, but I hope with all my heart that this time we really, really go for it and stop listening to lies from Westminster.
In the crowd there was plenty more indignation at the power grab. James Puchowski, Edinburgh University student and co-convener of the Edinburgh Young Greens, told The National: “I am here as someone who votes in Scottish parliamentary elections and who is frustrated that not only is the idea of a string devolved Parliament completely thrown out of the window but we are now facing a hard Brexit and that our Parliament doesn’t matter when it comes to the decisions on Brexit.”
Catrina Bayraktar from Edinburgh said: “I came here today because I think it’s appalling that they are so disrespectful to our Parliament that we fought so hard for, and it’s not just SNP supporters but everyone around Scotland that supports our Parliament.”
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