Union chief in warning over far right poverty fears
One of Scotland's most powerful union leaders has warned the far right is weaponising legitimate poverty fears because main stream parties don't have policies to redistribute wealth.
STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer has spoken out as John Swinney prepares to hold a summit on "democracy and respect' in Glasgow tomorrow which will be attended by churches, trade unions, charities and political leaders.
She has challenged the First Minister to make sure the event is not just a 'talking shop' by confronting policy choices like nationalisation of key industries she believes would shift power out of the hands of unaccountable billionaires and spread money more equally.
Foyer said: 'Across this country cynical forces are driving the rise of the far right, feeding like vultures off the alienation - indeed the desperation - of many in our communities.
'Legitimate fears and concerns are being twisted into false and hateful narratives which must be countered.
'No-one is more concerned about poverty, homelessness or the safety of women and children on the streets than we are. The difference is, we know who is really to blame.
'This summit must not just be a business-as-usual gathering of groups who, no doubt, mean well but aren't prepared to roll their sleeves up and tackle head on the threat we are facing.
'The Scottish Government knows this. We've made it clear to them. We take them at their word that this summit will mean hearing from those at the heart of our communities - unions, community groups, anti-racist campaigners and more – who are best placed to counteract the poison of the far-right.
'But we also know that there's a job of work to be done by all those involved to look in their own backyards too. Any organisation who turns up at this event thinking they and their members are immune from all this should stay at home.
'And yes, this includes unions too. We're seeing some folks within our ranks falling prey to the illusionary, false pledges offered by the populists and far-right who promise salvation to their ills but will deliver nothing but division and rancour.
'We know that centrist policies that prioritise the economic status quo has played a critical role in the rise of the far-right. The lack of hope and optimism for the future that working class people feel, with unaffordable energy bills, skyrocketing food prices and housing costs still stupidly expensive, means they're searching for an answer.
'That answer has not yet been adequately addressed within mainstream political parties.'
Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community!
Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today.
You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland.
No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team.
All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in!
If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'.
We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like.
To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.
If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
Foyer believes a new age of nationalised industry is the only way to spread wealth more equally rather than allowing power and money to be increasingly centralised in the hands of a small number of billionaires.
She added: 'The answer is to begin to shift power so that the wealth and assets are owned by the many. It means public ownership of our utilities to stop the billionaire energy giants ripping off members and public intervention to protect decent jobs.
'It means ensuring everyone has a decent standard of living. It means organising folk within our spaces to ensure that their valid and legitimate fears for the future are addressed and better, kinder and more collective solutions are found.
'So, let's be one hundred percent clear, migrants aren't to blame. It's a failure of our state, the failure of our political class, that has members within our community turning to the populist right and far-right for answers.'
Foyer insisted the STUC was the first organisation to welcome the announcement of Swinney's summit to fight the rise of the far right and that it would also be a key theme of the STUC's upcoming Congress in Dundee next week.
She added: 'We need to be ready to have hard conversations about how we got here and be ready to work on solutions that can build working class unity in our communities founded on hope not hatred.
'That hope comes from the brilliant individuals and organisations who campaign together collectively for healthier communities, to tackle poverty, campaign for better housing and celebrate the richness of our culture.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Edinburgh Reporter
7 minutes ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
Women discussing books at the Book Festival
A small group of women gathered in the cafe at Edinburgh Futures Institute with a suitcase of books which they set out to read and discuss. They represented a range of groups which anyone following Scottish public debate is familiar with. They are names known quite well in the area of discussion of gender related matters and included representatives from Women4Scotland and their supporters including Joanna Cherry, KC. Women4Scotland is a campaign group which took The Scottish Government to court over the definition of sex – and celebrated the decision handed down by the Supreme Court that sex is defined by biology. They seek to protect nd strengthen women's rights aiming to promote evidence based discussion so their presence today was not surprising According to Lucy Hunter Blackburn, co author of the best selling book, The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, she had come to meet up with friends. She explained that the Book Festival did not invite any of them to take part in the official festival platform so they had brought their own favourite books to talk about them and swap them. Ms Hunter Blackburn said: 'We decided that if the book festival wasn't going to have our voices on its official platforms, we could meet up and bring our favourite books and talk about them and swap them and just be here with the books that matter, because it's a book festival. 'What we'd really like people to do is read these books. I would especially like them to read Jenny Lindsay's Hounded. We will be putting pictures up on social media of this kind of library for people interested in books on this issue.' When asked what this 'issue' means Lucy explained: 'I mean the lives of women as a group of people defined by our sex. We have books here about recent political debates around gender identity and sex. We also have important books about maternity, the ways that sex affects women's daily lives. There are so many books which have been written and it is a shame the festival seems to have gone off this as a topic. We hope they will come back to it.' Earlier this week it became known that the National Library of Scotland have removed the book The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht from an exhibition – said to be as a result of pressure from staff. Dr Pam Gosal, MBE, MSP said she has written to the Culture Secretary Angus Robertson to express her disappointment. She said: 'Excluding a book which reflects the sentiments of a significant portion of the Scottish population constitutes discrimination. Lucy said: 'I think we've seen from the Freedom of Information released from the National Library that there is a real problem in cultural institutions that a minority of staff are determined that voices like ours certainly what shouldn't get platformed and shouldn't be heard, and managements need to get braver and need to stand up to that.' Elaine Miller who lives in Edinburgh and has spoken about women's issues on many occasions – including when she stood as a candidate in the Corstorphine/Murrayfield by-election – was part of the small group. She said: 'We have gathered to look at books that we have and discuss books that we don't think that the Edinburgh book festival would be interested in platforming, because they're by women talking about women's issues. It seems that this international festival which is funded on public money, isn't interested in our voices, and that's why they're not supporting a best selling book, which I am part of.' Ms Miller denied that any of the books are controversial. She said: 'I think that women talking about issues that pertain to themselves is just routine and normal. We have representatives from all sorts of people. I think other people have described me as gender critical. I don't personally think I criticise gender. I don't care if someone has a gender expression. I am sex factual – sex is real and matters. I know that because I am female and it impacts on my life. So I wouldn't describe myself as gender critical but apparently I am.' The Book Festival has been approached for comment. Joanna Cherry KC and Susan Dalgety Like this: Like Related
Edinburgh Reporter
7 minutes ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
Sturgeon touts her book to a room full of fans
Now she says she is living through her adolescence, the most obvious illustration of which is a tattoo which now adorning her forearm. (Shock news – there may be a second sometime soon). During the intervening period she has lived her life largely in the public eye. Now, after announcing her imminent retiral from politics her memoir of eight and a half years in office as First Minister and as a politician of varying degrees since her late teens is published. Frankly is widely available but has been on sale in branches of Waterstones since Monday – apparently in breach of an earlier embargo. The audience at the sell out Edinburgh International Book Festival event in the McEwan Hall was clearly made up of Sturgeon fans, ranging from those who individually thanked her for her leadership during the pandemic to the warm applause at various things she said. Ms Sturgeon said that Alex Salmond was a 'strong charismatic individual' and the two of them together became 'an incredibly successful partnership. But Kirsty Wark who was conducting the interview issued the first of carefully barbed comments against Salmond who died suddenly almost a year ago, suggesting that Salmond would have been upset 'if you had delivered independence'. She also referred to his dual person saying he could be 'both charming as well as a bully', and said to Ms Sturgeon ' I think he undermined you a lot of the time.' Sturgeon rejected that notion replying that he 'also bolstered me a lot of the time. He was so integral to some of the happiest times of my life.' Wark also accused the former female First Minister of failing to achieve closure of the attainment gap as she had promised. Sturgeon admitted it is 'possibly one of my biggest regrets' but that her policies to introduce the Scottish Child Payment, funding for early years education and the Baby Box are lifting children out of poverty and will continue to have an effect in years to come. She also claimed the Scottish teaching profession is the highest paid in the UK and that child poverty is falling right now in Scotland in contrast to the rest of the UK. On gender recognition reform, her regret is that she did not pause the progress of legislation but claims that the debate is toxic on both sides. Nicola is now reconciled with Kezia Dugdale ('we are now good friends') after the 2017 leaders debate, but clearly has no friendly thoughts towards Joanna Cherry, KC, who has said she will reveal information about a conspiracy against Alex Salmond in her own memoir to be published next year. Ms Sturgeon said: 'There are certain people who spend a lot more time thinking about me than I do about them.' King Charles came in for a mention during the hour long talk and according to Sturgeon she feels that the monarchy 'should end soon'. And in a word directed to her SNP colleagues for whom she was a leader without parallel, winning eight elections in a row, she brushed off any thought that they were scared of her. She said: ' I wasn't as uncollegiate as my critics would say.' Did we learn anything we didn't know about Nicola Sturgeon before? Probably not. To find out if there are any revelations in the book – well you will have to buy it to find out. Nicola Sturgeon in 2023 after her resignation as First Minister Photo Martin McAdam Like this: Like Related
Glasgow Times
15 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Sturgeon tells of fresh abuse in ‘toxic' trans rights debate
While the former Scottish first minister said she does not 'spend a lot of time looking at the bowels of social media', she is aware some people online have 'laughed' about her miscarriage, and said they want her to be 'raped in a toilet'. She spoke about the miscarriage she had in 2010 as part of events and interviews in recent days to publicise her memoir, Frankly. She says in the book that she 'should have hit the pause button' on controversial legislation to allow trans people to self-identify and gain legal recognition in their preferred gender without a lengthy medical process. Despite fierce opposition from some women's rights campaigners who feared this would give biological males access to female spaces, the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was passed by Holyrood – though it has never been enacted after being blocked by Westminster. Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Thursday, Ms Sturgeon said the debate was 'toxic on both sides'. Highlighting comments made on social media this week, she said: 'There are people who call themselves feminists, standing up for women's rights, saying things about me such as when I described my miscarriage experience the other day 'I haven't laughed as much in years', accusing me of making it up, people saying they hope I am raped in a toilet.' She accepted that 'in all of the tone and tenor of this I am not saying I was blameless at all', saying she 'desperately' wished she had been able to 'find a more collegiate way forward' on the controversial issue. Nicola Sturgeon's memoir, Frankly, was published this week (Jane Barlow/PA) She described transphobia as 'the soft underbelly of other prejudice'. Ms Sturgeon insisted not all opponents of gender reform are either transphobic or homophobic, but the issue of trans rights 'has been hijacked and weaponised by people that are transphobic and homophobic'. She said she was 'worried' that if she paused the gender reforms at Holyrood, this would have seen her 'give in to that'. However she said: 'I might have been wrong, and I probably was wrong about that.' Ms Sturgeon also made clear her support for transgender rights, saying: 'To my dying day… I will just never accept that there is an irreconcilable tension between women's rights and trans rights. Nicola Sturgeon has been publicising her memoir, Frankly (PA) 'I don't believe you have to choose between being a feminist and standing up for one of the most stigmatised minorities in our society. 'Who has threatened women for all the years I have been alive – abusive men have threatened women. 'You get bad people in every group in society but you don't tar the whole group with the bad people, and that I really regret appears to be what some are trying to do with trans people, to take some people and say that is representative of the whole trans community. 'My life might be easier if I just gave in on this issue and said 'yeah, I got it wrong' and we should never try to make life better for the trans community. 'But I will never, to make my own life easier, betray a stigmatized minority, because that is not why I came into politics and it is never what I will do in politics.' She later confirmed she had not contacted the police about the abusive comments. She told journalists: 'I think in terms of online abuse, sometimes we just have to kind of all take a step back and stop doing it, rather than think that the recourse is always to go to the police.' But she also said she feared the abuse politicians receive could 'drive out so many good people' from politics, with the former first minister warning this 'will be a disaster for democracy'. While she said there were now more women in senior positions, she added: 'In many, many ways it is more difficult for women now in politics because of the toxicity and social media. 'I don't have the magic answer to that but I do know that unless we get to grips with it and address it better, we're going to drive out so many good people, women and men, from politics and that will be a disaster for democracy.'
