xoves, 31 de xullo de 2014

THE INCREDIBLE TRAVELLING YES FLAG #solidaritywithscotland #GalizawithScotland

Hello boys and girls!

I hear that someone is confiscating the "Yes flags" at the Commonweath Games in Glasgow (what a disgrace!). I also hear that there are none left in the internet shops, so I have decided to send one of our "Yes flags" back to Scotland as a symbol of international solidarity between Nations, and lets see where this flag ends up!

You know what? Project fear might be the forces of darkness, but we have the Light of Breogan's Sons with us. So... here we go!

Send us your photos from Scotland when you receive this flag! Where will they be from, I wonder?
Love from Galiza xx


YESWECANTATA - #solidaritywithscotland #GalizawithScotland #MusiciansforYes


Another fantastic video by Jon Scullard

Interview with IVAN McKEE (Business for Scotland) published by #SermosGaliza




This interview was published by the Galician newspaper Sermos Galiza (Galician version) 

Here you have the original version:
Inteview by Pilar Fernández for Sermos Galiza









First of all, could you tell us, what is Business for Scotland and how was it born?

Ivan McKee:  Business for Scotland was created in 2012 when a group of business people who recognised the business opportunities that Independence would bring to the Scottish economy decided to get together and create an organisation to spread this message to others in the Scottish business community and to the general public. Business for Scotland now has more than 2000 members who have signed up to its Declaration. There are around 15 local groups now throughout Scotland and more are being created all the time.
Local BfS groups organise events where business people and members of the general public can come along to hear the business case for Independence.


One of the concerns of small businesses in Scotland is taxes. It is very expensive to have a restaurant, for example, or a shop… Is this situation one of the priorities to improve in an independent Scotland? What other concerns do Scottish businesses have at this moment?
 
The Scottish Government with the limited powers it has at the moment has taken steps to reduce the tax burden on small business (for example Property taxes). Independence for Scotland will allow us to have a more effective and simplified Tax system which will benefit small businesses. The UK currently has one of the most complicated and inefficient tax systems in the world.

Better Together says that an independent Scotland will be weaker, poorer and isolated economically from the world. Do you think that creating a new independent country would be so negative in financial terms? What do you think the cost of independence for Scottish Business and for Scottish Society could be?

Scotland has a stronger economy than the rest of the UK. Tax revenue in Scotland is higher than the rest of the UK (by an average of £1200 per person per year over the past 5 years for example). GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per person in Scotland is also higher than for the rest of the UK (by around 15% on average). At the moment 93% of tax raised in Scotland goes directly to London and Scotland gets back a smaller % of UK spending than we generate in Tax, the net flow of Wealth in the UK is from North to South.

We see great opportunities for business in Scotland after Independence – the strength of Scotland’s economy can be used to benefit business in Scotland, the recognition of Brand Scotland will be raised internationally – helping tourism and other businesses. The Scottish Government will have the powers to focus on sectors which are important to Scotland (for example Manufacturing, Renewable Energy, Food and Drink, Oil and Gas, Tourism, Agriculture and Fisheries) unlike the UK government which is mainly focussed on the Financial Services sector in the City of London.
An Independent Scotland would be more international in its outlook, focused on trading across Europe and around the world.

The CBI was officially registered as a No supporting organization; many enterprises resigned from the CBI as a protest because they wanted to remain neutral (the last one being the BBC). After that, the CBI removed its registration from the Electoral Commission. How did Business for Scotland, view all this movement? Have there been any repercussion?

Our view is that the CBI is clearly an organisation which is campaigning for a NO vote. They should therefore be registered with the Electoral Commission. We think it is ridiculous that they have been allowed to remove their registration. The BBC has NOT resigned from the CBI. We think they should as the CBI is clearly not an impartial organisation.

Some whisky manufacturers have showed their support for the No Campaign as they were concerned about the consequences of a Yes vote in terms of exports and benefits. The UK Gov. has made some statements on this matter too.
In a recent article on your website, food and drink were the top of exports, following by coke (coal?), petroleum and chemicals. How do you think the international exports will be effected by

Premium Food and Drink (including Whisky) is a key sector for the Scottish economy. An independent Scotland would have a higher international profile and this can only be good for exports from this sector. The idea that people around the world will stop drinking Whisky because of independence for Scotland is ridiculous. The UK government is worried about losing the revenue from this sector.

Is there any chance of making stronger links with Galicia?

 An Independent Scotland would want to have stronger links across the world, including with Galicia.

I saw a tweet from Tour Scotland showing support for a YES, Sandy Stevenson said “I’m with (Independence) with all my heart and soul”. Are small tourism enterprises more hopeful with a YES result?

Tourism is one sector that could benefit greatly from Independence. Apart for the international boost to Brand Scotland (raising awareness of Scotland as a tourist destination internationally), there are also plans to significantly reduce the tax charged on flights (Air Passenger Duty) which in in the UK is one of the highest in the world. This has been publically recognised by the heads of RyanAir and British Airways as being of potentially very great benefit to the Scottish tourism industry.

What will the consequences of a NO vote have on Scottish Business?

In the event of a NO vote we can expect to see further cuts to the money allocated to Scotland by the UK government and for the UK government to continue to prioritise London at the expense of developing Scotland. This will not be good for business in Scotland.




sábado, 26 de xullo de 2014

Solidarity with Scotland in Galiza National Day - (Video by Jon Scullard)

SOLIDARITY WITH SCOTLAND #GalicianNationalDay #DiadaPatria #25Xullo #25thJuly


 


Everything checked at home and we were ready to start this amazing day

And here it is my wee report about the 25th of July and Solidarity with Scotland in Galiza!

We started at the Alameda with a stall and were colleting  signatures and pictures.




A friend from Pontevedra and another from Portugal wanted to say a wee hello to us! What a surprise:

The wee one enjoyed the YES SCOTLAND ballons very much!


With the kind permission of their parents



And someone who has a Scottish Piping Master wanted to collaborate with us too in his way! Amazing!


We were participating on the March organizated by the BNG (Bloque Nacionalista Galego)



 
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheik was invited by the BNG and we were very honoured to have her and her husband in Galiza on such a special day!







 
Then we were at the Festigal  collecting pictures and signatures of support for Scottish independence! People from Asturies, Euskal Herria, Valencia, Japan, Brasil, Germany, Andalucía... even from Scotland! What an amazing support for the Scots! You really can't imagine how important you are for all of us, guys!

Friends of Scotland from Andalucia




From Brasil and Germany

Flor and Alba from Asturies
Iñaki from the Basque Country


Jose Luis & Maria Rosa from Valencia
Jon Scullard acted as interpreter for Tasmina who tried out her perfect Galician prononciation (always appreciated, thank you so much!)



And finally, we collaborated with the International Solidarity Organizations "Mar de Lumes" as they organised a collective photo of support for an independent Scotland from Galiza. That was their contribution to this International Campaign. Absolutely brilliant and I know that they worked very very hard to get this amazing photo!

Well guys! We are very happy, we collected about 700 sinatures to send a letter to the British Embassy in Madrid telling Simon Manley that Galicians are very proud of our brotherhood and friendship with Scotland and we stand with you from here. We want you to be a new independent nation, so GO FOR IT, CONQUER THE FEAR - YES SCOTS, YOU CAN!

Mission accomplished!





You can see all the photos here:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2cIt-H2UH35NjdjTENySElBdnc&usp=sharing

Solidarity with Scotland International Campaign






Expat Scots and #solidaritywithscotland: Robin and Christopher #SpeakUp

I have to say that I feel very honoured to be in touch with such amazing lads coordinating "Solidarity with Scotland". Thank you so much for your fantastic support guys! 

Teño que dicir que me sinto honrada de estar en contacto con xente tan marabillosa coordinando "Solidarity with Scotland". Moitas grazas polo voso fantástico apoio mozos!



#GalizaConEscocia #GalizaWithScotland #AGhailisRisAnAlba 25th of July / 25 de Xullo 2014

#GalizaConEscocia - Fotografia colectiva de apoio ao referendo independentista do 18 de setembro en Escocia. #GalizaWithScotland#AGhailisRisAnAlba

Thank you everyone! Thank you "Mar de Lumes"   (Event organizers) 
Moitas grazas a tod@s por participares! Moitas grazas "Mar de Lumes" (organizadores do acto)

mércores, 23 de xullo de 2014

Support for Scotland from Santiago de Compostela #solidaritywithscotland


Banda das Crechas. Manuel Amigo says a few words!
(Thank you Jon Scullard for sharing it! )


Photo: La Voz de Galicia, A. Ballesteros

FOTOGRAFIA COLECTIVA : GALIZA CON ESCOCIA #solidaritywithscotland via #MardeLumes

https://www.facebook.com/events/301305596715925/

THE STATUS QUO by Christopher Carnie #solidaritywithscotland #ScotsAbroad #SpeakUp

 By Chris Carnie (from Catalonia)
chrisfactary@gmail.com
22 July 2014




To change a Government, we vote.
But how do we change how we are governed?

Between 1936 and 1939 Spain changed how it was governed using the traditional method; civil war. Three years of bloody fighting that split families and villages and resulted, in Catalonia, in 38,500 combatant deaths. Most of the combatants were young men, and the death toll represents around one in twelve of male Catalans aged 17-37. It was bloody awful, as old people in Catalonia will tell you, and it resulted in years of deprivation for the losers, the Republicans.

But most people did not fight. The Catalan population in 1936 was 2.9 million. Even with the draft, it was only ever a minority of the population who took up arms.  Most people stayed at home.

This year the Catalans and the Scots are attempting to change how they are governed and by whom, without firing a shot.

This is itself a revolution. Instead of forcing people at gunpoint to change how they are governed we are attempting to do it with words, in local meetings, debates, on the web and by phone. We are trying to talk most people into voting to change their status quo. We are not planning to Guillotine the elite nor to commit regicide as happened when the French and the English wanted to change how they were governed, in the French Revolution or the English Civil War. We are talking to people in Scotland, listening to what they want and sharing the arguments for a Yes vote.
 
The opinion polls say around half the population still prefer the status quo ante. We should not be surprised. It is only the few who are prepared to stick their heads out from the parapet and wave a Saltire for Scotland. Most people worry about change. A bad status quo seems, like nicotine, to be a difficult addiction to lose. We appear to be creatures of habit.

The opinion polls reflect this, creeping up and down (often, as Scot goes Pop! points out, within the polls' own margin of error). It takes an age to persuade people that they could change the way things are.

But slowly, voter by voter, we're helping people to discover that the status quo is not a good place to be, with its Eton-boy elite and its wealth gap and its Trident missiles and its creeping privatisation in health and education.

With a modest shift in the way we are governed (no heads will roll, except in metaphor) we can change all that without firing a shot.  A new, better status quo can be built in a new, revived Scotland.

Just by putting a cross next to 'Yes' on 18 September.


Catalonia total population 1936; 2,918,901 people of whom 1,187,780 lived in Barcelona
Source: Població de Catalunya 1936, Servei Central d'Estadistica, Generalitat de Catalunya, 1937
Total combatant deaths in the Civil War 38,500, or 1.327% of the population, or 7.95% of the male population aged 17-37
Source: La Guerra Civil a Catalunya, E Folch (ed), Edicions 62, Barcelona,  2005





martes, 22 de xullo de 2014

A NO VOTE IS NOT A VOTE FOR NO CHANGE via @bellacaledonia

Please share it!
By Peter Arnott, published in Bella Caledonia http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/ A lot of people wish that this referendum campaign had never happened. They wish the whole damn thing would go away and be forgotten.
But a wish for a return to “normal” is a wish for a Scotland that is already in the past. A No vote will change things just as radically as a Yes vote. It is not only Yes voters who should be called on to look into a crystal ball and imagine a future that is radically "not the same".
Every vile piece of Westminster legislation that has attacked the poor and dismantled the Welfare State, every policy that has ensured that it is only the poor who have paid the price of the recession caused by the greed of the rich, every act of economic and social vandalism - it has been the comfortable pose of the well-meaning voters of Scotland that none of these things have really been our fault. That we didn't vote for them.
Well, after a No vote, we won't be able to say that any more.
Up until September the 18th, we have all been able to hide behind it all being someone else's fault. Either way the vote goes, Yes or No, that comfortable position is already shattered. On September 18th, either we vote to take responsibility for our own economics, our own wealth distribution, our own decisions to make war or peace...or we are voting to mandate away control over all of these matters to Westminster forever. 
Either way, we will be responsible.
If a Yes voter has to take on board the moral hazard of whatever happens for good or ill in an independent Scotland, a No voter must equally accept moral responsibility for having given Westminster permanent permission to do whatever it likes forever. Moral Hazard works both ways.
Whatever austerity measures are coming down the line, all those policies that weren't our fault before September 18th? After September the 18th, they will be our fault. No. Sorry. Every single one of them will be our fault. This is the trap that history has set us

Sorry about that. But that's the way it's going to be. It will feel very bad to have actually voted for all that. But your No vote or your failure to vote will have signified that it in your view it is better for Scotland to suffer neo-conservative governments it didn't vote for than to take responsibility for its own affairs. You will have voted for Scotland, politically speaking, to cease to exist. For Scotland, considered as as a distinct political unit, to disappear.
Alex Salmond, is not the only begetter of this referendum. David Cameron agreed to it too. Now why do you think he did that? Because he is a friend to democracy, perhaps? You know and I know that Cameron agreed to the referendum in order to call Scotland's bluff. To settle and silence the "Scottish question" for a generation. But what else have the Tories, and others in the British establishment, to gain from a No vote?

I think they know that if we take independence off the table, if we remove, voluntarily, that bargaining chip from future negotiation, then there won't ever need to be any negotiations ever again. And having actually voted for that, we will have thrown away any electoral influence over what happens next. We will have given them a mandate to ignore us.
Everything we have gained since devolution, in terms of the painfully slow emergence into democracy we are still undergoing has been predicated on the "or else" of independence. Does anyone in the No Camp seriously expect a prize for loyalty when we remove the best card we've got from our hand? One or two of you can expect knighthoods, maybe, but what can the ordinary No voter really expect as a reward?
The Yes camp are constantly being asked about what kind of negotiations we can expect after we "reject" the United Kingdom - on currency, NATO, oil, Trident and the rest? Well, what kind of negotiations do you expect when you've said to other side; "whatever you want to do is fine with us"?
A replacement for Trident? You don't want that? Shut Up. A slashing of consequential health spending as privatisation of the NHS in England and Wales speeds up? You don't like that either? Shut up.
You voted for it.
Before September the 18th, nice folk in Scotland chatting about the Welfare State and the decline of local government and the miners and the poll tax and the sale of council housing and the destruction of our industries at dinner parties could say in their comfortable, pre-democratic way:
 "Oh well, it's terrible. But it's not our fault. We're not responsible. We didn't vote for that. " 
No more. After September the 18th, we in Scotland will be responsible for whatever happens to us. Our choice is whether or not we want democracy to go along with the responsibility. A No vote is not a place to hide from that responsibility. It is just a vote to have no influence over that future.
Everything has already changed. Everyone has to face the reality of that. Our only choice in September18th is: Do we make the way we change subject to democratic control within Scotland, or do we leave the management of that change to whomever somebody else votes for.
For hours in September, for the first time in history, Scotland will be a democratic country, with its people responsible for themselves. Putting your head in the sand of a No vote won't make our responsibility go away.

xoves, 17 de xullo de 2014

MY CONTRIBUTION TO #solidaritywithscotland : ROBIN CUNNINGHAME from Segovia (Spain) #ScotlandAbroad #SpeakUp #ExpatScots

"I am passionate about seeing my country retake her place on the international stage as a force for peace and prosperity and to see a socially equitable, inclusive and just society. Saor Alba "

W.R.B. Cunninghame Graham of Gartmore from Santa María de Robledo (Segovia, Spain)

mércores, 16 de xullo de 2014

25 DE XULLO : Camisetas da Campaña Solidariedade con Escocia // 25TH OF JULY: Solidarity T-Shirts #SolidaritywithScotland

 Non podían faltar, e decidimos encargar unha pequena cantidade de camisetas da Campaña "Solidarity with Scotland". Terémolas á venta o 25 de Xullo no posto que teremos no Festigal. Ali teremos tamén algún outro material, recolleremos firmas para enviar unha carta á embaixada e sacaremos fotos con tod@s os que queirades participar da Campaña; cerca do referendum, faremos un mapa de Escocia con todas as mensaxes de apoio, ou sexa, que animádevos a colaborar e participar.

Mais información / More information:
http://festigal.com/como-chegar/

http://pilaraymara.blogspot.com.es/2014/07/on-25th-of-july-o-25-de-xullo-el-25-de.html

We decided to print a small number of T-shirts for the Campaign  "Solidarity with Scotland" . We'll be selling them at the stand we'll have at the Festigal (Campus Sur, Compostela). We'll also have other sorts of material, we'll be collecting signatures to send a letter to the British Embassy and we'll be taking photos of anyone who wishes to participate in this Campaign; near the referendum we'll make a map of Scotland with all the messages of support; so, we encourage you all to collaborate and participate.