Social justice and equality

Sir,

Dr Wilson’s accusations in his recent letter to Hebrides News, that a local man recovering from cancer ‘talked Scotland down’ when he highlighted failings in the provision of cancer care in the NHS in Scotland, is not only an ugly and shameful episode in the SNP’s election campaign locally, it highlights a broader issue with the SNP nationally.

Not one week on from the Hillsborough enquiry verdict, Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, has promoted her party’s campaign for re-election and delivered a crass insult to the ’96' by being pictured, laughing and brimming with pride, whilst holding a copy of The Sun newspaper whose front page endorses her campaign.

Letter: Social justice and equality

2 May 2016

Many people in Scotland and across the UK, refuse to buy The Sun, on the basis of its appalling and on-going abuse of the 96 Hillsborough victims, amongst many other reasons. It is the newspaper that did not carry a front page report of the verdict this week, and which originally accused innocent football fans of abusing the dead, urinating on police officers and of being thugs whose conduct contributed to the loss of life in hindering police actions. We now know, as we did at the time, that the opposite of all that was in fact the truth.

Why this matters locally, is that it is clear from both Dr Wilson’s grubby intervention, and Nicola Sturgeon’s grubby photo, that the driving ideology of the SNP is not socialism, and its inherent demand for solidarity and compassion, but nationalism, which seeks its ends without either.

I, for one and with my opportunity at the ballot box, would never vote for any party that puts nationalism above class and worker solidarity. I still believe in the act of solidarity in the UK, led by a unified Labour and trade union movement, that delivered as the result of a committed struggle, the world's most progressive health service and welfare state. That same movement, UK wide, delivered the universal right for education, legally enforceable rights for workers, and the system of social housing.

This is all still a work in progress and dividing that solidarity by nationhood, is exactly the move its key opponents would wish for. Today, that is of course why The Sun, ultimately owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, wants the SNP to succeed. It wants division in the UK and fosters it at every opportunity, because that is the condition that enables its real ideology to thrive.

I am voting Labour (both votes), for Rhoda Grant, a candidate who has over many years campaigned in the Highlands and Islands for social justice and equality, in line with Labour’s long-term traditions and purposes. I urge others who feel the same on issues of solidarity and compassion to do so.

Labour has had its own internal struggles, but under Corbyn and Dugdale, that is fully in the past, the party is being restored to its true values, and is very much opposed by The Sun.

Peter Urpeth

6a New Street

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