The Scottish Trump mural that proves the importance of protest

The National

02-05-2025

Its main purpose was to highlight the catastrophic climate impact of the US president's first 100 days in office but it coincided with reports that the UK Prime Minister had gone in to bat for Trump's campaign to host the 2028 Open golf championship at his course.
Never was a message more urgently needed than the 'Time to resist – fight the billionaire takeover' scrawled in the Ayrshire sand alongside a graphic depiction of the man himself.
(Image: © Saf Suleyman / Greenpeace) Because, although Keir Starmer's proper response to Trump's blatant attempt to use his position for financial gain would have been to tell him to take a hike, the Prime Minister is reported to have put Whitehall officials on the case to whip up business support. It's yet another example of the impact of public protest at a time when the Westminster government appears to be willing to do anything it is instructed in order to negotiate down White House tariffs imposed on British imports.
Other headlines this week have also underlined the need for protests while our politicians turn their backs on atrocities inflicted on the innocent.
READ MORE: New National series to investigate Donald Trump's links to Scotland
The Irish band Kneecap are learning the consequences of speaking out against the genocide in Gaza which Western governments have decided to ignore.
It's no coincidence that the moral outrage whipped up this week over comments they made years ago followed the display of pro-Palestine comments and criticism of Israel during their performance at the huge Coachella festival in the US last month. The band also took aim at the US government's arming and funding of Israel.
Controversy can be an expensive business. It has so far cost Kneecap a gig at the Eden Project in Cornwall, another in Plymouth and three in Germany, all of which have been cancelled by organisers amid the fallout.
READ MORE: Politicians want to cancel Kneecap – but stay silent on Chris Brown playing Hampden
Public protests have been a legitimate response to political decisions for decades, including CND marches in the late 1950s protest songs and marches against the Vietnam War in the 1960s, to the Rock Against Racism Movement in the 1970s, to the poll tax riots in London in 1990 and the huge marches against the invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s.
I remember taking part in marches protesting against unemployment in the 1980s, when the policies of Margaret Thatcher pushed the UK jobless figure up to around 250,000. A quarter of all those under 25 years old were out of work.
As well as displaying a remarkable knack for panicking and crashing global money markets, Trump has provoked protests throughout (and just after) his first term as US president and the first 100 days of his second.
To my mind, it's a good thing that so many people are appalled and angry enough about his policies and attitudes that they are willing to take to the streets to show their disapproval. In doing so, they are following a long, strong and noble tradition.
Greenpeace, which collaborated with arts organisation Sand In Your Eye on the beach protest unveiled this week, says it has watched Trump take actions that actively damage the environment.
Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: 'During his first 100 days, President Trump has been actively working to dismantle and weaken environmental protections and attack those who fight to protect nature and our shared climate, putting the corporate profits of his billionaire friends ahead of people and the planet.'
The beach protest wasn't quite my personal favourite anti-Trump protest. That accolade goes to the late, great Janey Godley, who in the same general area held up the undeniably to-the-point placard saying: 'Trump is a c**t''.
However, it makes its point in an impressive, artistic way.
What's more, it avoids the threat of prosecution, an advantage not shared by another Trump protest, the covering of the Turnberry resort with red paint and pro-Palestine graffiti.
Just days ago, a seventh person was arrested and charged in connection with that little adventure.
It's easy to understand the frustration over the lack of any effective action from our politicians at Trump's trampling over the rules of politics. His bid to bring the Open to Turnberry, for example, was described yesterday by experts as a possible breach of the US Constitution.
If successful, they say, it could break the spirit of a clause which forbids federal officials from accepting benefits from foreign or state governments.
No shit, Sherlock.
The Guardian reports that Trump has raised the issue 'multiple times' with Starmer but we all know how desperate the Prime Minister is to curry favour with the president. If he can do so – and let's just give the Downing Street insistence that the Open decision will be taken by the Royal and Ancient the little attention it deserves – with the gift of a major golf tournament, he will do so.
Failure to do so will no doubt push Britain even further down the priority list for a trade deal.
It's already regarded as 'second-order priority', more than a little humiliating for a British prime minister who has already ditched enough principles to fill his out-tray for a year.
This week, it became obvious that Starmer is looking for a way out of a promise he made in 2021 that Westminster would have the final say on any trade deal he made, including those negotiated by Trump.
We can't even rely on a modicum of opposition from Labour's leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, who has already suggested we all don Make Scotland Great Again caps.
Ironically, Turnberry has not been considered to host the Open Championship rota since 2014 due to organisers' fears that the golf itself would be overshadowed by political considerations arising from Trump's ownership.
READ MORE: Aberdeen locals react to Michael Gove choosing 'Lord of Torry' title
The president's support for Israeli actions in Gaza was one of the key elements of Kneecap's Coachella's protest, delivered to the crowd at the US's biggest festival. There was some criticism after the event, as well as significant support.
But it was this week that controversy kicked in, when comments during a performance in November 2023 were injected into the debate.
You probably know this by now, but for clarity, a video appeared to show one band member saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.' Cue uproar.
Even John Swinney joined the steady stream of politicians demanding that Kneecap be cancelled from TRNSMT or Glastonbury or anywhere else they have gigs lined up. You can find the band's two-year-old comments ill-advised and wrong and still be suspicious of what feels like an orchestrated attempt to shut them up about Gaza.
Similarly, you can support the sentiments and the solidarity with Kneecap pouring from the contemporary music world and still see flaws in the thinking behind it.
A statement issued by the band themselves makes some strong points about the media coverage of the controversy when it says: 'But do politicians and right-wing journalists strategically concocting moral outrage over the stage utterings of a young punk band, while simultaneously obfuscating or even ignoring a genocide happening in real time (including the killing of journalists in unprecedented numbers), have any right to intimidate festival events into acts of political censorship?
'Kneecap are not the story. Gaza is the story. Genocide is the story.''
A letter of support for Kneecap sent by Heavenly Recordings and signed by Primal Scream, Massive Attack, Pulp and dozens of other musicians wanders into less certain territory when it says: 'In a democracy, no political figures or political parties should have the right to dictate who does and does not play at music festivals or gigs that will be enjoyed by thousands of people.'
There are surely some views and some statements that have no place in a democracy and no place on a performance stage.
The rise of the extreme right makes the imposition of those boundaries more important than ever.
That said, condemnation of Israel's actions in Gaza must be able to be freely expressed. Kneecap have apologised for their mistake two years ago. That mistake should not be used to muzzle the truth today.
The right to public protests has an important role to play in a democracy. Now is not the time to erode it.