Yes Scotland Meeting Edinburgh 115

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Am back in Edinburgh and speaking at a Yes Scotland meeting on Friday 24 May at the Columcille Centre, 2 Newbattle Terrace, Edinburgh at 7pm.

This is my first entry as a speaker into the referendum campaign, and I am excited – and nervous – about it. I have of course given quite literally hundreds of speeches, on every continent, in the last nine years. I have spoken before official committees of the Council of Europe, European Parliament, Arab League, UK Parliament and Scottish Parliament. I have spoken at a great many of the world’s most prestigious universities. I have spoken to crowds in the tens of thousands.

That has been almost all on the subject of universal human rights, international legality and peace, about which I am so passionate I abandoned a well-paid career to serve those causes. At the Columcille Centre on Friday my audience will not be remotely the largest, or most intimidating, or most potentially hostile, I have ever faced. But I will be speaking in the cause of the freedom of my own nation. That brings a lump to my throat and butterflies to my stomach. And so it damn well ought.

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115 thoughts on “Yes Scotland Meeting Edinburgh”

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  • Indigo

    Would love to have been there … am sure that it will go really well.

    Understand your sentiments … it’s a bit like fighting for a family, isn’t it?

  • angrysoba

    Sorry for the Off-topic, and sorry that this is a bit old, but I thought that some of my old sparring partners here would like to see this video of a guy explaining how population growth may not be the catastrophe that many would love it to be, nor the fact of many people emerging in the world need lead to poverty for all when it could lead to better lives for all. In short, the increase in wealth is not a zero-sum game. We need not all grow wealthier by making everyone else poorer.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg

  • Dick the Prick

    Good luck dude. As a Tory I should want a free Scotland and I know it won’t make a damn bit of difference to a Yorkshireman, but my heart remembers Vatersay and the Outer Hebrides. Defo wish I was there – it can be won!

  • Nick

    All the best, Craig. But it will be tough because so much is riding on this. I’ve also been reading the excellent writings from Scottish Left Review and the Jimmy Reid foundation – cannot recommend enough. I’m left feeling that what is hanging on Scottish independence is not simply the fate of 5 million people, but of the whole European continent. With almost every country preaching the neo-con bullshit hymn and the salvation appearing a worrying trend further towards an insane fascist right (as Craig so well described yesterday) – one little country turning its back on the madness could signal hope to the downtrodden of all lands.
    Sorry if that ups the pressure on you even more, Craig!

  • nevermind

    ‘Hals und Beinbruch’ as they say, shall be thinking of you in your most strident moment.

    Speak up for the common man, speak up for what should be each and every citizens rights and responsibilities to their newborn nation and embrace Independence like a blustery day, with cautious optimism.

    Good luck with the speech, make it a funny one, there is enough material in Scotland’s past to raise a cackle or two.

    Apparently they make a brown potent elixir up there, which gives one confidence enough to speak to the Oxford Union…. it surely will ease your thoughts in front of the Edinburgh crowd.

    Sealbh math dhuit/dhuibh!

  • Haemoglobin

    I should be able to make it along.

    A couple of the other speakers should be interesting…

    Confirmed speakers include:

    Craig Murray, (Former Ambassador and Rector of Dundee University)
    Jim Eadie MSP (Scottish National Party)
    Margo MacDonald MSP (Independent)
    Alison Johnstone MSP (Scottish Green Party)
    Colin Fox (SSP National Spokesperson)
    Celia Fitzgerald (Labour for Independence)
    Tommy Shepherd (Former Assistant General Secretary of the Scottish Labour Party)

    http://www.yesscotland.net/neilhay/yes_edinburgh_southern_launch_night

  • crab

    I would like ‘The Union’ to be degrandurised, revealed as an abused relic, so that Scotland can retire it.
    For real economic and social links within the British.. or Northerly(?) Isles to be refreshed.

    A challenge is convincing that Scotland can cut off westminster and stand on its own against the competition and disruption which will follow, while England, Wales and NI are thrown into -political crisis, and perhaps global influences will meddle with the situation.

  • AAMVN

    This might be the first battle in a long campaign. Even if Scotland is hoodwinked and scaremongered into voting ‘no’ there will be other chances in the future. Once they have admitted the possibility people will get used to the idea and independence will come. None of the good things about the Union will change I’m sure.

  • Juteman

    Go for it Craig.
    How do folk want to be remembered decades from now. when the history of Scottish Independence is being taught in Scottish schools?

    How did you vote dad/mum.grandad/granny?

  • Jon

    O/T but of interest here generally. I appreciate there are reasons to be cautious about Avaaz, but their current campaign is, in my view, important. Obama is apparently feeling pressure to do a speech on Guantanamo, so now would be a good time to call (again) for its closure.

    Optimistic? Maybe, but worth a go: http://www.avaaz.org/en/obama_shut_down_gitmo_4/

  • Barontorc

    Craig, the only hope for the bulk of England is that Scotland does indeed leave the Union and by that act will coerce the various regions of England to seek new pastures be it federal or otherwise. The Westminster power-base has imploded and the political model is well overdue getting kicked out and replaced with a democracy to suit the whole country not just the over-heated south east.

    As, you say and no doubt feel, this is a momentous time for Scotland, so be glad to make your contribution count.

  • Jives

    Good luck Craig.

    Remember…before such a speech 2 malts good,3 malts potentially problematic :.)

  • splittists

    Bet you’ll be surprised who you move with your words. The whole world is going to see what happens when a people leave a criminal state – maybe even some of the different peoples whose livelihoods get strip-mined to pay for bank bonds and prisons and wars: Cajuns and Gullahs and first nations, and New Englanders and Cascadians and crackers, and Eastern-Seaboard internationalists and Tidewater troglodytes. When they hear you, they might ask themselves, What would we do if we weren’t subject to the USA?

  • Jon Pelfrey

    Just saw the news regarding the hacking of the soldier in London. One of yours who did the hacking, Craig? I’m wondering if we’ll have one less commenter here.

  • Ray Vison

    I was quite shocked on a recent visit to Scotland how nobody seemed to want independence. It was like they couldn’t be bothered with it. A country or a nation? Nobody seemed to have any facts. Nobody knew the M25 was paid for with Scottish oil etc etc. I was worried that all the propaganda had pushed them away from even thinking about it and that the true economic facts unknown. What an opportunity they will have, an opportunity that people in other countries die for, yet how many will be taking it?

  • BrianFujisan

    Good luck Craig.. As Jives says just a couple for the nerves.

    Ray,
    i’m not sure that a visit to Scotland is cause to assume we are not interested, i find most people ( even though they are Missled almost daily by MSM ) are warming to the idea of independence.

    AS A PARENT OF A SERVING SOLDIER with a young family, i find it
    A bit worrying, the news about that soldier murdered in such a way,(WTF)

    But i knew that that T word would immediately be getting tossed around by the criminals in suits – who armed the horrors in Libya, and now Syria
    They have no human morals nor shame, i bet some of them have to fight the Glee from showing on their Pompous face when attacks like that on the soldier occurs, I suspect we shall all pay for it though ( not more so than the soldiers family ) But as the Police state rears its ugly head ever Higher

    Jon
    Avazz seem ok on the whole, that petiton signed and wow its doing well Almost half way to the 500,000. A large number of Brazilian’s Signing, as as i watched for a few moments. Obampot Pledged to close Guantanamo years ago of couse. i wonder whatever happened to the campaign to have the evil Shit’s nobel prize revoked

  • Frazer

    Best of luck mate..will someone be filming it and if so can you publish it here ? Don’t forget to wear your kilt.

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