Last Thursday I managed to get into a meeting in the Queens Hotel in Dundee, held to give Jeremy Corbyn an election opportunity to support the Labour candidate for Dundee West, Jim Malone and of course lay out his intentions for a Labour government. Although the meeting was to go out as a public meeting , it was anything but that, as the room was about half filled with party activists specially invited. Although most of the seats were filled it was obvious that the seating area had been reduced to try to show a well attended meeting.
I sat down beside a lady and had a blether to her, she told me that although she had been a Labour member most of her life she was really swithering as to whether to vote for them this time as she fully supported independence, the lady was English and had lived in Scotland for some time and loved the country.
I fully believe that had I been noticed I would not have been allowed in to the meting and as I went down the stairs I hesitated just enough as the guy at the door went into the hall with a poster , he went one way and I went the other way around the back of the room and into an empty seat of which there were quite a few.
My reasons for being there were to try to get Corbyn to explain why , if he truly believed in democracy he was, ( according to recent pronouncements) prepared to thwart the will of the Scottish people by refusing to entertain a section 30 derogation of schedule 5 of the 1998 Scotland act, more commonly referred to as the devolution act. This was what was put in place during the run up to the 2014 independence referendum, it made the referendum decision agreed by both sides so no legal challenges could be made to the result.
Now , I have nothing personally against Jeremy Corbin, in fact I like him and compared to that child idiot Johnson he would make a much better Prim Minister. (to be better than Johnston however does not mean one would necessarily be a good Prim Minister) However he vacillates like no other politician I have ever known and he is a fence sitter. This was obvious in his approach to Brexit and more to the point as far as I was concerned in his attitude to Scotland.
Now Scotland have a pro independence majority in the Scottish parliament and also a majority of Scottish MP’s in Westminster. They were all voted in on the basis that there would be another referendum on independence, The only problem is that the SNP also have a leader who vacillates and has taken us no nearer to being prepared for a referendum in 5 years, but that is another issue and I have blogged on that bone of contention many times.
So in the absence of any initiative by the SNP ( party of independence) I decided to take matters a bit further so I went to the meeting and when Jeremy was well into his speech ( most of which I agreed with by the way) I stood up and interrupted , Jeremy kept on speaking and as he had a mike I had to raise my voice to be heard . There followed quite an exchange where I repeatedly asked why he thought it was within his remit to thwart the expressed will of the Scottish people. There was also an altercation with several of the party members including the last Labour MP for Dundee West. I had to warn the three members involved that they were assaulting me and to remove their hands from my person. The rest of the audience started behaving like a baying mob and I pointed out this to Jeremy and asked of this was his idea of democracy. So after a pretty intense exchange, some grappling and pushing and only once I had said my piece, I left. Mission accomplished .
That should have been the end of it but the rest of the day was taken up by calls from the press including papers like the Daily Mail who had by this time trolled my blog site to try to find anything they possibly could to discredit me with the intention of trying to get the main outlets like the BBC and Skye to take down the footage which by this time was going viral. Because of this invasion of my personal space I had to take down my Twitter account , Facebook account and my blog site. So for the past few days I have been silenced, This is what happens when you try to force the Labour party to act in a democratic manner , So beware.
Yes Jeremy Corbin comes over as a easy going affable guy ( and I honestly believe he is) but behind him is the dark arts of a dark heart of old Labour. I have had a better few days than the last few have been, but it will no doubt settle down and the sooner it does will have a bearing on whether I bring charges for assault or not. An assault that a prospective prim Minister presided over and made no attempt to stop. The Queens hotel is a licensed premises and as such is subject to the Licensing act Scotland in which makes it clear that only the proprietor or their employees can ask someone one to leave the premises. If that person refuses and only then, can the “staff” use reasonable force to remove that person. Anything other than that is a bar room brawl and that therefore is what the Labour party indulged in in order to silence a reasonable request for clarification on a very important issue to the Scottish people
There is a lot about Scotland that Jeremy does not understand , the law is perhaps one of these things, and the other is that the people of Scotland will not stand idly by and allow an undemocratic master to rule over them. Before you come back to Scotland Jeremy do some homework and do please reign in your dogs of war as they do you no credit.
Bob Costello 
Bob
I saw the footage and wasn’t surprised at the reaction, that’s Labour all the way. Corbyn would never answer the question though, he’s as unionist as the rest and see Scotland as a possession. Labour in Scotland are also over no matter what Corbyn says. This election also feels like it’s not for Scotland, so little decent coverage of it you could wonder if it’s actually on. I feel like an outsider looking in, will definitely vote and probably for Chris Law even though I’m not a fan at all but I suppose needs must.
Hope you’re ok.
Bruce
Yes I am fine Bruce but had an interesting few days of it. You are right it does not seem like an election and the SNP have put themselves and the rest of us in the position where we will probably get the most right wing government ever