by Rab Bruce’s Spider

Depending on which source you listen to, anything from 35,000 to over 90,000 people marched through Glasgow last weekend to show their support for the cause of Scotland becoming a normal country. There were hundreds of photographs and videos posted on social media and it is noticeable that, apart from the unpleasantness caused by a handful of Unionist counter-protesters who took pleasure in giving Nazi salutes, the whole affair went off without any trouble.

yet it is worth mentioning that, out of all the many photographs, one gaining a significant amount of publicity shows a banner referring to Tory Scum. Even now it is being reposted around Twitter on the grounds that it annoys the Tories, so is worth sharing.

A word of caution is necessary here, especially because another march is planned in Dumfries, a Tory heartland. Now, whatever you think of the Tories, and it must be said that the policies they delight in inflicting upon the whole of the UK are not those one would associate with anyone who cares for their fellow human beings, we really need to take more care about what we say, especially on prominent banners. Because the whole point of the march is in danger of being hijacked as the Tories and their media pals focus their outrage on this banner. They have neatly associated the march with the SNP even though it was a completely independent event, and are making sure that their own supporters see that the vile Nats are rude and nasty.

So let’s keep the insults in check as far as we can, because they should not be the topic of conversation. By giving the Tories a chance to deflect from the real issues, we are playing into their hands, and they are past masters at exploiting such things.

The march was a great success, no matter how many people attended nor how the media have attempted to portray it. Let’s hope the next one is just as successful in showing the depth of feeling among Yes supporters. But it is important that it goes off smoothly, peacefully, and gives the Unionists no possible excuse to paint the Yes movement as anything other than friendly and welcoming. We are not going to persuade any wavering Tory voters to change their minds by calling them scum. The way to change people’s minds is to point out that, while they may have felt justified in voting No last time, circumstances have changed. We can quite easily point out all the things they were told which have turned out to be untrue. If we do that, the Unionists have no arguments they can deploy, so let’s not give them anything they can use against us.