IN Saturday’s National you reported on the good work that Toni Guigliano is doing to increase the voice of the rank-and-file membership of the SNP as we shape the indyref2 “offer”.
However the SNP Trade Union Group has taken some concrete steps in this direction too. As the TUG representative on the National Executive, I tabled the following motion for consideration by the NEC at its June meeting. Given that the terms of the motion were circulated on our very large mailing list, I’m not breaking any confidences by revealing it here. It should also be noted that before I sent the motion to the National Secretary it was circulated and approved unanimously by the executive of the Trade Union Group.
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The motion was: “National Executive resolves to organise a National Assembly this July, the subject of which will be current party policy on the Growth Commission.”
Subsequent to tabling the motion, at a meeting of my constituency association I suggested that we press the National Executive to convene a National Assembly to consider how we integrate the cost-of-living crisis into the indyref2 offer.
As a result, the secretary of the constituency association wrote to the National Secretary in the following terms: “At our formal CA meeting which was held on Monday May 23, it was agreed that I write to you to formally ask you to put to the NEC a request to hold a National Assembly as a matter of urgency. The reason for this request is that there is currently no forum for members to discuss pressing issues such as the cost of living and economic crisis until National Conference in October. Given the pressing urgency of these issues we feel that there should be an opportunity for members to discuss such matters prior to October.”
The terms of the Trade Union Group motion were not tabled at the National Executive. However, given that the communication from the secretary of my CA was tabled, I was was not particularly fussed.
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Indeed the actual wording of the Trade Union Group motion was part a political signal and part a holding response to the essay by Andrew Wilson in an edition of the Sunday National where it was unclear whether Andrew was trying to exhume the terms of the original Growth Commission Report or suggest that it be rewritten given the changed circumstances in which we find ourselves. In short, I fully expected the motion, had it been tabled, to be further amended at the June National Executive.
In effect the communication from the constituency association achieved that purpose, absent one detail, the timing of such a National Assembly.
In speaking, along with others, in favour of the proposal for a National Assembly I stressed the point that such a National Assembly take place sooner rather than later, in my view no later than the second week of August. The main purpose of this letter is to press home this particular point.
Now it may transpire that there are a series of National Assemblies rather than one – there is certainly a logic to that and that they will in all probability be self-financing, something I personally do not object to – but at this time mobilisation now on this issue is critical.
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It is critical that the SNP and wider independence movement not only reflects the public mood but vitally gives voice to that public mood on the issue of this year and probably the next few years too: that is the ability of ordinary people to live with a a modicum of economic dignity.
This public mood was in evidence at the huge RMT picket line at Glasgow Central Station which was addressed by, amongst others, the MPs Chris Stephens and David Linden and councillors Rosa Saleh and Graham Campbell.
However, that mood was also in evidence later that afternoon, when the SNP Trade Union Group banner switched venue and welcomed the marchers into the Bannockburn field where we handed out the RMT leaflet explainer. In 40 years of trade union activism I have never experienced such a positive response of outstretched arms and hands eager to take a leaflet.
Bill Ramsay
Convener, SNP Trade Union Group
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