Coverage in the Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser of our protest outside NLC Headquarters, just on part of a successful grass-roots community campaign to save 39 community facilities are 110 jobs across North Lanarkshire.
I was the organiser of the protest which took place outside North Lanarkshire Council headquarters in Motherwell last week, and I would like to thank everyone who came along for their attendance. We were only a small part of a movement which spread the length and breadth of North Lanarkshire, and it was only thanks to the tens of thousands of people in the area getting active, signing petitions and pressurising local and national politicians, which caused NLC to u-turn and save our community facilities (it must be stressed that this is only a short term promise though).
After the protest I attended the council meeting which was scheduled to take place, to see the decision ratified, as up until that point it had not been. What became apparent during that meeting was that there had been significant behind-the-scenes shenanigans going on. The SNP group had called for a vote of no confidence in Leader of the Council Jim Logue, and on hearing why it had been called I could not disagree. The Policy & Strategy Committee of the council had voted for these cuts to go ahead by 13 votes to 12. It was not in Councillor Logue’s power to override this, so to announce this without giving the full council any say in the matter was completely and utterly wrong. When it was then revealed that Anas Sarwar, leader of the Labour Party group in Scotland, had let it slip to the press that an announcement was coming later that day, it became clear that these 39 unavoidable closures were not only completely avoidable, but they were politically toxic in the run up to a major by-election.
Our local politicians should bear in mind going forward, we are not political playthings, and they take on the people at their peril.
Letter to the Motherwell Times, 13/10/23
An Independent Scotsman 