The week ahead...

Monday
I have the Inverclyde Council pre-agenda in the morning. In the evening I will be chairing a meeting of the Clune Park Task Group.
Tuesday
I have a Members' budget briefing and a special meeting of the Policy & Resources Committee in the afternoon.
Wednesday
In the morning I have a meeting of the Clyde Valley Community Planning Partnership City Deal Cabinet. In the afternoon I have my weekly meetings with the Chief Executive and the Labour Group.
Thursday
No Council commitments at this time.
Friday
In the afternoon I am meeting with the Leader of the SNP Group following his request for a meeting. Not sure exactly what it is about. Rumours are circulating that they are looking for a coalition with Labour but I doubt if that is the case as it would not go down with many Yes supporters in Inverclyde.

My latest Greenock Telegraph column...

The people have spoken but it seems that not everyone wants to respect their decision.

The recriminations and reverberations of Thursday’s historic vote are likely to be with us for some time.

Much of the hostility and blame for the defeat of the Yes campaign is being directed at the Labour Party. I was told by an SNP activist immediately following the count on Friday morning that my political career was over and that the Labour Party was finished in this area.

Personally I don’t understand why so many people were surprised that the British Labour Party decided to campaign against the break-up of Britain. The clue is in the name.

As I said in my last column, the advances made by working people in this country in the past 100 years – such as universal suffrage, the welfare state, the national health service, workers’ rights, equal pay and the national minimum wage – were achieved by working people in every part of these small islands coming together in solidarity through the Labour and Trade Union movement.

For us the principle of solidarity and the opportunity to pool and share resources are the basis for building a fairer and more just society not separation and division.

If my political career is indeed over then at least I will have the comfort of knowing that I stood up for what I believe in.

Now that the campaign itself is over I have the opportunity to focus once again on the financial challenges facing the Council, which are considerable.

We are holding a special meeting of the Policy & Resources Committee on 30 September to discuss our budget strategy for the next 3 years. Irrespective of the outcome of the referendum we would have faced huge challenges.

The continuing pressure on the public finances at a UK level, the impact of our falling population on the amount of funding we receive from the Scottish Government, the ongoing Council Tax freeze and our growing elderly population all combine to create a perfect storm. Some very tough and unpopular decisions will be required.

There is however one chink of light.

Whether they voted Yes or voted No, the majority of the Scottish people clearly believe that the Scottish Parliament should have far greater control over the amount of money it can raise through taxation.

New powers have already been approved and enacted by the Westminster Parliament and more have been promised.

The challenge to the Scottish Parliament is whether or not it will actually use these powers to protect public services and to tackle poverty and deprivation given that it has failed to use the 3p in the pound tax power we the people voted for in 1997.

The Parliament should also be challenged to end its fixation with controlling local government finances and allow Councils greater freedom to raise their own revenue without the threat of punitive sanctions from the Scottish Government.

The further devolution of power should not stop at Holyrood.

The week ahead...

Monday
My only Council commitment is a meeting of the Kelburn Task Group in the evening.
Tuesday
I am attending an autism strategy event in the Beacon Arts Centre in the morning. In the afternoon I will be chairing a meeting of the Policy & Resources Committee. In the early evening I hope to attend the AGM of St Michael's Primary School Parent Council.
Wednesday
 In the afternoon I have my weekly meeting with the Chief Executive followed by a meeting of the Labour Group. In the evening I will be attending the St Stephen's High School Awards Ceremony.
Thursday
In the afternoon I have a meeting of the Riverside Inverclyde Board. In the evening I will be attending the Port Glasgow High School Awards Ceremony.
Friday
No Council commitments.

Councillor Vaughan Jones...

The claim made by SNP Group Leader Chris McEleny on national radio on Friday morning that Councillor Vaughan Jones was forced out of the Labour Group is a down right lie.

Mrs Jones left the Labour Group entirely of her own volition and at no time has she claimed she was forced out by her former colleagues. The reason she gave for resigning from the Group was her unease at the political direction of the Labour Party.

At all times Labour Group members respected Mrs Jones position on the independence referendum. At no time did we put pressure on her to support the position of the other nine members of the Group.

Indeed we withdrew a motion that we had intended to submit to the full Council in support of Scotland remaining within the UK despite Mrs Jones indicating that she would vote for it although she was undecided at that time. We did not want Mrs Jones to be under any pressure to support a motion that she had reservations about.

When Mrs Jones went public with her support for independence her former colleagues at no time criticised her decision. When she started to publicly campaign for Yes - despite having told us privately she did not intend to do so - we said nothing. When she agreed to speak at the public meeting organised  by another political party - the Scottish Socialist Party - again we said nothing.

Councillor McEleny should withdraw the unfounded allegation he has made against the Labour Group and issue a public apology to each and every one of us.

The people have spoken...

On Thursday's Scotland silent majority finally made its voice heard as the people of Scotland rejected the break up of Britain by a margin greater than most commentators had predicted.

Much has been made of the success of both campaigns in engaging with people who have not been involved in politics before. While this is to be welcomed we should not sweep under the carpet the unsavoury elements of the campaign that have shamed our nation.

In my 31 years involved in politics I have never known a more acrimonious or divisive campaign.

Overt sectarianism has entered our politics for the first time in my political life as demonstrated all too clearly on the streets of Glasgow on Friday night. The genie is out of the bottle and it will be difficult to put him back in.

Of course this sectarianism has not been confined to Glasgow. I have experienced it on the streets of Inverclyde and on social media.

Those who should know better have exploited the religious divisions within our community for their own narrow nationalist ends. They have sought to align the natural sympathy of sections of the local Irish Catholic community for a United Ireland with their campaign to break up Britain. By voting No you are voting with the Orange Order we were told.

The divisions however run deeper than just religion.

They have set neighbour against neighbour, work colleague against work colleague, friend against friend and family member against family member.

We have seen a break down in respect for the views of others. No voters were queueing up at Boglestone Community Centre on Thursday to tell me how intimated they had felt during the course of the campaign.

I and my colleagues experienced this at first hand.

Complete strangers saw nothing wrong with walking up to us in the street and calling us traitors to our country or Tory supporting scum.

Young and not so young men saw nothing wrong with driving past us tooting their horns and shouting obscenities.

A postman, taxi driver and social care worker out with a vulnerable client saw nothing wrong with taking time off from their duties to let us know exactly what they thought of us.

On social media we were subjected to constant abuse and lies, culminating with false stories circulating on Thursday that the MP had been thrown out of a polling station for being abusive to voters and I had been arrested for various misdemeanours. These lies are continuing to be spread on social media with no concern for the reputations of those affected.

And of course we are now facing threats of retribution against the Labour Party because we supported the No campaign.

I was warned just after the count on Friday morning by a nationalist that I was one of the two most hated men in Inverclyde politics (Iain McKenzie being the other) and that my political career is over.

While this could in part be put down to the heat of the moment a look at social media over the past couple of days suggests that the threat is very real indeed.

A whole generation seem to have taken leave of their senses.

While the people have spoken, the divisions of this campaign could take a very long time to heal.

My latest Greenock Telegraph column: an appeal to Labour voters in Inverclyde...

This is the most important column I will write during my political life.

A week tomorrow the people of Scotland go to the polls to make the most significant decision in the history of our country.

For make no mistake: the choice we face on 18 September is of momentous proportions. If the majority of Scots vote to separate from the rest of the United Kingdom it will change our lives for ever and in ways that many of us probably don’t currently realise.

The full implications of our separation and divorce from England, Wales and Northern Ireland will only become clear after we vote and by then there will be no turning back.

The latest polls suggest that the outcome of the referendum is on a knife edge and that voters in traditional Labour supporting neighbourhoods will determine the final result.

The Nationalists have been working extremely hard to convince Labour supporters in such areas that by voting Yes they will see an end to Tory governments for ever in Scotland and that once Scotland is independent we will always get the government we vote for. These arguments may be superficially attractive to some but scratch beneath the surface and they don’t hold water.

The majority of people in Scotland did not vote for the SNP in 2011 but we still ended up with a majority SNP Government. There is every reason to believe that following separation and the realignment of political parties Scotland will be ruled by governments of the centre right.

For despite what many people think, Scotland is not and has never been a socialist country. The only party to ever win a majority of the popular vote in Scotland was the Conservative Party.

As a Council Leader I meet with Leaders from all parts of Scotland and I know only too well that the political views and traditions of many of them are far removed from my own.

The advances made by working people in this country in the past 100 years – such as universal suffrage, the welfare state, the national health service, workers’ rights, equal pay and  the national minimum wage – were achieved by working people in every part of these small islands coming together in solidarity through the Labour and Trade Union movement.

It held true 100 years ago and it holds true now: working people in Greenock, Port Glasgow and Gourock have more in common with working people in Liverpool, Cardiff and Belfast than they do with the SNP’s big business backers like Stagecoach owner Brian Souter, former RBS Chairman Sir George Mathewson and even multi-millionaire tax exile Jim McColl of Clyde Blowers.

Does anyone seriously think they are supporting Yes because they want to turn Scotland into a socialist state?

The one tax policy in the SNP’s independence white paper is a cut in corporation tax designed to benefit big business.

The break-up of Britain will only serve to weaken the working class and the Labour and Trade Union movement. It is likely to lead to more Tory Governments at Westminster controlling key levers of the Scottish economy, whether or not we have a currency union, and an economic race to the bottom as Scotland and the rest of the UK compete for jobs by cutting taxes, wages and workers’ terms and conditions.

I am confident that the majority of Labour voters in Inverclyde will vote No to separation. I would appeal to those currently planning to vote Yes to think again.

If you want to build a fairer and more just Scotland the best way to achieve that is to vote No on 18 September 2014 and vote Labour on 7 May 2015.