Workers have a world to win, not a nation to fight for.

So the pro-Irish nationalists in Glasgow were met with opposition from British loyalists. The Irish Unity march, led by the James Connolly Republican Flute Band, was met by counter demonstrators which resulted, according to the police, in "significant disorder" along Govan Road and the deployment of riot police to separate the two factions. Once more the toxic politics of nationalism poisons the atmosphere.

Workers in Scotland need socialism, not independence. Nationalists do not want to abolish capitalist exploitation. A sovereign Scotland or an United Ireland can only serve capitalism. To pretend that the UK Union is the cause of all the problems is to deliberately fool the people. 

Nationalism is an attempt to rally the working class behind the cause of the local bosses seeking better profits or a more secure market. Nationalism does not oppose capitalism. Nationalists acts in the interests of an aspiring ruling class. There are no shortcuts to the socialist revolution, and those who followthe nationalist path set back the revolutionary movement by chasing fake enemies. Nationalism is predicated on the myth of a common identity uniting all the citizens of a given country. This has been cynically and opportunistically promoted by the Scottish and Irish nationalists.

The Socialist Party wants to abolish the private ownership of the means of production and expropriate the capitalists. Workers fight each other instead of attacking the system itself. Nationalism emasculates the workers. It is used to divide the workers among themselves so they can ignore their real enemy. Separatism would divide the workers of Scotland from their fellow-workers in England and Ireland. National divisions are a hindrance to working-class unity, and national jealousies and differences are fostered by the capitalists for their own ends.

It is nationalism that divides the workers so that the workers of one nationality struggle against the workers of another nationality for a few illusory crumbs the rulers throw out exactly for that purpose. If the working class divides its forces, this can only seriously hold back its victory. But if it remains unified, it will be able to triumph.

In the struggle to win the hearts and minds of the working class the Socialist Party has to contend with sacred beliefs and obstacles such as nationalism, the loyalty and patriotism felt by many for "their” country. Nationalism is at the top of the list of political illusions used to blind capitalism's victims. For the Socialist Party nationalist movements represent the interests of the capitalist class but politically they can take on a "right-wing" or a "left-wing" form. The Scottish nationalists choose to present themselves as the latter. However, once the native ruling class has captured and consolidated its power, then nationalism becomes a conservative force. Workers should reject the nonsense idea of nationalism and should unite for their common good to abolish capitalism and work for socialism.

The Socialist Party opposes all nationalist movements recognising that the working class has no country. Feelings of loyalty to a nation-state are purely subjective, having no basis in reality. The working class in Scotland has more in common with the workers in other countries than it has with a land-owning laird. We resolutely oppose the politics of capitalism in which some people support the British version of nationalism against the Scottish brand of nationalism. Since we hold that workers own no country, why should we care which section of the class of thieves owns which national portion of the world? Workers own no country, so why should we care which section of the class of thieves owns which national portion of the world?

You don’t enhance the power of workers in their economic struggles against the capitalists by taking the same side as those sitting opposite you at the negotiating table and fraternally regarding them as your 'fellow citizens'. Yet depressingly large swathes of the Left have opted for a course of action that effectively submerges and obliterates working class identity in favour of national identity. We witnessed the Scottish Socialist Party convenor sit alongside a hedge-fund manager in the 2014 referendum. And back in history James Connolly took the working class Citizens Army and allied it with those who only a few years earlier it was formed to resist. 

The obsession about Scottish independence is one which socialists meet all the time. We encounter it from Leftists who divide their time between paying lip service to the idea of workers of the world uniting and endorsing the nationalism of the SNP or Sinn Fein. Nationalists have always argued that workers would be better off in their own country, free from British rule. Socialists regard it as an irrelevance whether local capitalism is ruled by a Scottish/Irish capitalist state or by a British capitalist state or the multinational corporations..

For the worker in there is but one hope. It is to make common cause with the workers of other countries for the end of all forms of exploitation: saying to both English and Scottish and Irish capitalists: “A plague on all your houses."

For the true battle-cry of the working class is broader, more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rallying cry is:

THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

WORKERS FOR THE WORLD!

The real future of the Earth

Socialism is a call for sharing and caring, and is a product of love for people and desire for beauty. Socialism does not seek to rape the planet and does not worship profits at the expense of people and nature. It has its basis in social democracy and the nature-based, materialist outlook which grew out of a deep reverence for and understanding of the real, natural, ever-changing, material world.

Socialist philosophy places mind-feelings-ideas in their physical and historical context as effects, not as basic causes. Yes, ideas and feelings can change the world, but people must still have bodies before their minds and emotions can function. Matter itself can neither be created nor destroyed, but all matter–in nature, society and the human mind–changes constantly through tension and contradiction. All things are interdependent and in a continual process of coming into being, changing and passing away. The capitalist system itself was born, matured and will die, because of its inherently contradictory nature–social production (by large groups of workers assembled in one plant)on the one hand, and private, capitalist ownership and appropriation of profit on the other. The application of the materialist dialectic to history is called historical materialism–a revolutionary science of society. It is the sociology of institutional changes caused by the interplay and conflict between the developing productive forces and the kind of world created by this technology.

Historical materialism teaches that all social life is evolutionary and revolutionary, and that human beings can learn to understand nature, production and social relations, and change them in a rational manner. The kind of economy we live in determines the nature and level of our laws, government, culture, ideas, feelings and ethics. The competitive, class warfare system of capitalist production produces a destructive, anti-human science and culture. Socialism is infused with equality, fraternity and liberty.

Historical materialism promotes the synthesis of ecological balance, social harmony, personal freedom and material comfort that is mankind's birthright. A loaf of bread, the work of the farmer, the activity of a baker or the equipment for baking are not just material objects or processes. They are nodes in the network of social connections: the customer’s relationship with the baker, the farmer who produced the wheat, the engineering worker who made the machinery, and so on. All these lives are bound together. To be human is to be both social and at the same time a particular individual, a person. You have a unique place in the world: you speak a particular language in your own inimitable manner, you like food or music of a particular sort, and so on. None of the things which make you exactly who you are exists except through the entire history of humankind. We can be conscious of our own humanity only because, and to the extent that, we act humanly, and that means creating ourselves. We are not some kind of machine, nor are we passive victims of evolutionary history, governed by ‘instincts’ which can never be understood or controlled. What distinguishes humanity from the rest of nature is the conscious, active relationship we have with everything else, with each other and with ourselves. No human individual is an isolated entity. Each human is – potentially – a ‘social individual’, and a ‘universal individual’. The human individual is free, self-created, but only in his or her true, social being. 

Capitalism has produced many things, good and bad, in the course of its evolution. But the most vital and valuable of all the social forces it has created is the working class. The capitalist class brought into existence a vast army of wage workers and set it into motion for its own purposes, to make and operate the machinery, factories, and all the other production and transportation facilities from which employers profits emanate. The exploitation and abuses, inherent and inescapable in the capitalist organisation of economic life, provoke the workers time and time again to organise themselves and undertake militant action to defend their elementary interests. The struggle between these conflicting social classes is today the dominant and driving force of world and history. The class conflict is the motivating force of history. It is the working-class that, if mobilised, can change the direction of political activism.

Socialism is the anathema of the ruling class. It has become the powerful tool of the exploited and oppressed in the struggle to overthrow capitalism. The real battle line lies between capitalists (of all colours) and the workers (of all colours). The only alternative to socialist revolution is a bleak defeatism, to passively accept the inevitability of eco-catastrophe is not revolution. And nothing can be more impossible than the goal of nationalist self-survival on a ruined planet. This is the politics of despair, pie-in-the-sky. But scarcity and privation need not be the future. There is a better way for suffering humanity – to go forward together to establish the democratic common ownership of the means of producing life’s necessities. Many environmentalists are not yet ready for this and blame the conventional scapegoats of overpopulation for problems, blinded by all-too-commonplace prejudices and mistaken analysis. The Socialist Party does not retreat into a bunker mentality of isolationism but will strive to flourish along with a liberated humanity as a whole.

Rangers and Sectarianism Again

Rangers are "liaising" with Uefa after being sanctioned for "racist behaviour" during the first leg of their Europa League play-off tie with Legia Warsaw in Poland last Thursday. Rangers have already been ordered to close part of Ibrox for Thursday's second leg after a similar breach in their first-round tie against St Joseph's on 18 July. Rangers have to leave at least 3,000 seats empty and display a banner with "#EqualGame". Rangers could face a euro 50,000 fine and the prospect of playing a tie behind closed doors if there is a further breach.

Manager Steven Gerrard has "pleaded" with Rangers fans to "behave in the right manner." 

"Our supporters have been asked repeatedly by the club to refrain from indulging in this, and other forms of unacceptable behaviour," said a statement from the Scottish club. "Sadly, the warnings have fallen on deaf ears..."

Looking forward, not backward.

Capitalism creates a situation where large masses of the people are dissatisfied, embittered, emboldened by intolerable hardships. Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for social evolution. The overthrow of the the capitalist system, grows out of the misery brought on by the crisis of capitalism. When we struggle against capitalism we are doing what is right and just for the future of humanity. In a class-free society there is nobody to suppress or keep in check. Class distinctions are done away with and both riches and poverty are being abolished. Exploitation of man by man is abolished. The rule “let each person work according to ability; let each person receive from the common stock of goods according to need” is established.

A revolution in technology has occurred and is still in process. It is impossible for this system of private ownership and profit to function, to supply the needs of the population today. The capitalist system acts as a brake upon production so that, as the phrase goes, you have “want in the midst of plenty.” socialism is i a worldwide economy. Every effort to establish “planned” production under private capitalism breaks down, since the competition between rival capitalists, within a nation and capitalist groups in different nations disrupts such efforts.The expansion of capitalism comes from the accumulate profits. Profits can only be made by fiercer exploitation, cutting down the living standards, of the people, taking away even such concessions as were previously made.

 Capitalism today means environmental destruction, continuous conflicts, possibly leading to the eventual collapse of civilisation. The one road to security, to peace, to freedom, to cultural advancement is the road to socialism. This is your choice – capitalist chaos or world socialism. Socialism is the order of the day throughout the world. Only the working class is capable of saving humanity from barbarism.

For the reformists they all believe that the capitalist class (usually referred to simply as "business interests") creates wealth rather than legally steals it from those who do actually create it — the working class. They all believe that the free market and competition offers the most efficient and viable method of producing wealth ever conceived by humankind, despite the untold misery it has caused but can't do anything about. They all believe in state repression of those who try to resist the system or who are denied access to wealth on the grounds that they are not part of "the business community", and who commit terrible crimes like joining trade unions to defend their meagre interests in the market place. They all believe in the 
necessity of a "strong defence capability” to safeguard the interests of Britain and the British — a Britain where one person owns more wealth than nineteen of the rest of us put together on average and where the majority's stake in "the national interest" is little more than a huge mortgage and a second-hand car. And they all believe that they — the guides and beneficent manipulators of our economic and moral interests are capable of bringing wealth and success to the mass of the population. They do nothing to offer real hope, real encouragement or a real sense that things can be different. They merely reinforce the spread of scepticism and apathy among an already downhearted and dispirited working class.

The Socialist Party is a revolutionary Marxian party, whose aim is the organisation of the working class for the transformation of the existing social system. All of its activities and methods are subordinated to this aim and are designed to serve it. A political organisation that proclaims that it is the party of the working class will consider its primary task is to go talk to the workers, and will clarify socialist ideas by explaining the important changes in society, and the need for the workers to lead themselves in all their actions, not an outside party substituting themselves for the working class. The socialist revolution is the first revolution aimed at a consciously planned overthrow of existing society. That is, it does not seek to return to a previous era, like the slave, nor does it seek to merely legalise its political domination of society in a situation where an economic transfer of power has already taken place, as had occurred in England in the seventeenth century and in France in the eighteenth century. Like other revolutions, the working class revolution grows out of class antagonisms, but the workers’ revolution does not stop at the political seizure of power. It continues overthrowing all existing human relationships and brings the whole working class into self-activity. The socialist revolution can only conclude with the construction of a global class-free society. Those workers who today already recognise the necessity of socialism ought to take the next step and join the Socialist Party on its path towards the revolutionary goal. Our road is indeed not a smooth one. We are still faced with many hard tests. But in this great cause we have voluntarily dedicated ourselves. The Socialist Party does not constitute a huge political force and we are not as yet a political pressure to be truly reckoned with — but the Socialist Party offers one thing - the scientific and logically-arrived at view that is able to account for society as it is and has a clear, practical vision of how it really could be. Without us it would indeed be a cynical, cold and miserable outlook for humanity. With us — and more importantly with you — organising for genuine change, there could yet be a ray of hope. We still wait for the real, significant revolt of understanding and which will sweep away capitalism.

We can make the changes

Putrefying capitalism is deadlocked. They know their system has failed - and they have no answers. The capitalist class have no perspective to offer society other than even more of that which is causing the problems. Possibly the most profound trend that is now emerging and rapidly advancing is not necessarily the recent decline in profitability of the wages system of production, but a decline rather in the confidence of the ruling class to convince us of the validity of their system. Yet for its part, the working class has been unable to implement its own historic solution to the contradictions of capitalist society – world socialism. How much longer can this malaise continue? Only as long as we want it to! There is a solution. It is founded firstly in an understanding of the basis of our insecurity and exploitation, which is the world system of production for profit. That is the Capitalist Mode of Production. We must think and discuss this fundamental fetter upon humanity constantly in a spirit of openness, and keep in close touch with what other people are thinking. And it is to be found in a rejuvenated working class solidarity which rejects reforms and palliatives in order to keep us a bit sweeter in the short term. It also resides in a genuine desire to learn and to educate ourselves about the potential we have within us.

 We need not sell our bodies and mental capacities to mendacious capitalists. Make no mistake, the wealth of the ruling capitalist elite is founded upon extracting surplus value from the labour of workers. We can make the world for the majority and no longer be slaves to the wages system of production. Our common endeavour can create a democratic world society in which production will be based upon need and not elitist profit, we can abolish money and utilise the resources of the earth for the benefit of all, no matter how disempowered some of our fellow world citizens may seem to be today. Rather than acquiesce to the ruling class which will only see us sink further into the gutter, let us aspire to a new form of society in which hope trumps desperation and the world socialist future is the only way forward for all of us.

It is a disgraceful indictment of a so-called civilised society. Poverty can be replaced by plenty, war, hunger and worry can be supplanted to the past as a rational, state-free, money-free, co-operative world society becomes the true expression of our common will. A form of society which has never before existed. And the Earth will belong to us all. It's our choice. If we vote for more rulers and the continued ownership of the world by a handful of people then it doesn't really matter how politicians share the spoils. But if the workers of the world used the vote to positively reject false choices we will be further on the road towards a truly democratic society.

If we vote to make the wealth of the world common property in which we all have an equal say, then we can finally have socialism - on a world scale. We can put an end to minority rule, and we can organise our common affairs in our own interest. Capitalism can be defeated once everyone decides it can be beaten. And then we can set about organising a higher and more human form of society in a completely new way. We can collectively build and create a new and truly democratic world society in which production is for need and not for profit, in which people co-operate rather than compete to produce the necessities of life.

The Socialist Party stands for a world society in which human ingenuity and creativity will be placed at the secular altar of majority Human need and not the pyre of minority Capitalist expropriation. It is not about trying to reform or regulate a social system which has reached its useful objective limits, it is about creating a new world society. We therefore need to keep in touch with what other people who share our thinking that the only viable future for the human race lies – in that post-capitalist society of common ownership of the world. It is impossible to be neutral in this debate.

Come on - Lets do it!

Our Planet. Our Future

CLIMATE CHANGE v. SYSTEM CHANGE

Scottish environmentalists have submitted their wish-list of reform demands to the Holyrood government. They include:

• A ban on petrol and diesel-powered cars in all city centres by 2030
• Establishing four green, low-carbon city investment deals
• A £100m fund to decarbonise farming

• Regional land use plans to maximise the countryside’s role in cutting CO₂ emissions
• A public information campaign to promote climate-friendly, lower meat and dairy diet

The Socialist Party tries to explain that  the climate change crises are not exceptional aberrations but are an inevitable consequence of the capitalist system. We say society's prosperity and the planet's well-being can only be guaranteed by world socialism. We perceive a dark future when we witness how national self-interest as in the case of Brasil's Bolsonaro permits the willful burning of the Amazon rainforest and how the America First policies of Trump can dismiss and disregard environmental concerns. 

 No part of the world is unaffected by climate change. In contrast to the destructive anarchy of capitalist competition which reinforces the divides between countries, classes, and cultures, a cooperative worldwide commonwealth would put an end to the unchecked power and authority exercised by both governments and corporate powers. New techniques of transportation and communication should facilitate a world in which the entire population could be cooperating in the creation of the good society. Of course, nothing of the kind is taking place. 

The Socialist Party recognises the urgent need to tackle global warming and climate change but views the proposals presented to the Scottish government by the environmentalists as a mere well-intentioned gesture.  It is fiddling while the world burns. 

People have to understand the cause of global warming. Capitalism is the impersonal process of the accumulation of capital out of the surplus value produced by the wage-working class and involves competition to transform this surplus value into money by selling the products in which it is embodied. This battle is won by those enterprises that can sell their products at the lowest price due to their employment of more productive methods. This investment in new productive methods depends on making enough profits (converting enough surplus value into money). So, capitalism is the pursuit of profits to accumulate as more capital. Such “growth” is built into it and cannot be stopped. If ever it was, the whole system would seize up and there would by massive worldwide economic crises. What is required to stabilise the rise in temperature is a global political and social revolution to end capitalism and put “mankind” in full charge of its interaction with the rest of nature (production). Which can only be done on the basis of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources becoming the common heritage of all humanity. To this end, the Socialist Party is organised.

1) If we do have a chance of survival, it is contingent on the establishment of world socialism. If capitalism continues indefinitely, then sooner or later we are doomed.

2) The sooner we establish socialism the better. But better late than never.

3)  The climatic and environmental threat to human survival will come to occupy central place among the concerns that inspire people to work for socialism, overshadowing all else.  

GOVERNMENT ACTION

FALSE HOPE  DESPERATE DREAMS

Our Struggle is for Socialism

Socialism is the direct opposite of the capitalist system. It is no more possible to have "a little bit of socialism" within a world based on minority class monopoly of the means of wealth production and distribution than it would be to be a little bit pregnant. A "little bit” amounts to a programme to reform capitalism and these efforts have repeatedly come to very little except cosmetic superficial changes. Such hopes are illusory. Progressive liberal left-wingers if elected to run capitalism cannot but bow to the needs of profitability. If the only feasible road to socialism is through reforms, and if, after seven decades, capitalism is still here, where is the evidence that the road is anything but a dead-end? The naive plans to reform capitalism through cooperatives are merely to decentralise and democratise capitalist exploitation. There will be no wage labour-capital relationship in socialist society. It would be ludicrous to envisage world socialism as a command economy run by a bureaucracy on a central plan. Clearly, common ownership will require a democracy organised by the majority, where decisions about society by its citizens are made on the basis of full information and consultation.

You are the men and women who run society from top to bottom; who belong to class which produces wealth but does not posses it. We address you for two reasons:

Firstly, because it is only by spreading ideas to the majority that we will ever achieve real social change – leaders can’t do it for us; and

Secondly, because socialists know that only when workers raise their political sights will they achieve a society capable of satisfying human needs.

The struggle against the exploiters is part of the class conflict endemic to capitalism. As socialists, we recognise that the task before all workers is not to win this or that skirmish or gain a few concessions which the capitalist class can well afford; our objective in the class war is to win it. Capitalism is a worldwide social order and workers of all lands have a common interest in joining together against the common foe. The ownership of the land and the means of production and distribution gives the capitalists their power. The only way to break that power is to force them to relinquish their hold upon the means by which all the people live. The capitalist class are irreconcilable enemies, not only will we have to fight them as such always but we will have to end their existence absolutely, before we can all enjoy of the full fruit of our labour.

What is a job, fellow workers, but wage slavery? Fighting to be exploited – to be dependent on a wage at the end of the week – having to sell your labour-power to the highest parasitical bidder. Is that really the most that we can ask for? As Marxists, we fight not for jobs but for emancipation from a system which turns useful work into wage slavery. There will never be fair capitalism. There will still be a class-divided society, with the wealth-producing majority living in an economically inferior condition. The fact is that there is a bigger battle to be won.

The Socialist Party does not put forward any already devised blueprints, but will leave it to the workers who establish socialism to make the plans. We agree that most plans can be made locally but, under capitalism, workers’ initiatives are constantly inhibited by the fetters of the profit system. We have a policy which is to abolish capitalism and establish a world free of class division, exploitation, property relationships, poverty, war and wage slavery. Those aims are urgent and we are not going to be deterred in struggling resolutely for them by those who tell us we should unite with the opportunists on the Left who only seek to eradicate the “nasty little bits” of capitalism and leave the rest of it intact. The Socialist Party appeals to our fellow-workers join the party which defines socialism with clarity, fights for the new system with enthusiasm and remains uncompromisingly hostile to the apologists for capitalism. Work with us for the capture of the political machinery as the necessary preliminary to the capture of all the machinery of wealth production.

There are no answers short of social revolution will do if the problems of the working class are to be abolished from the face of the earth. Society should be run for the wealth producers, but under capitalism that can never happen. One thing our fellow-workers can be sure of: when employer and employee are in open conflict, the Socialist Party takes the side of the robbed against the robbers. For it is only through the conscious solidarity of workers, that the system of legalised robbery will be compelled to make way for the reign of united humanity.

A SOCIALIST WORLD

The Socialist Party openly declare our aims, our perspective, and our attitude. We have come together to work for socialism. Everything we do is a step towards socialism. Today all roads should lead to socialism.

The world today is a place of bewildering contradictions. The greatest industrial and agricultural power in history cannot feed, house and provide a decent life for billions of people who toil away just to survive, while billionaires squander fortunes. Poverty and economic insecurity exist alongside extravagance. Our world suffers horrible degradation and exploitation. Why is there such an agonising gap between what is and what could be, between the promises and the potential. The stark reality and our despair cries out for the welfare of humanity. The capitalist system under which we live is responsible. Its exploitation, violence, racism and war stifles our lives. The rich have one basic goal in life: to make more and more profits, and they accomplish this by dominating economics, politics, and culture. Capitalism thrives on the private or State control of society’s wealth and production. It is an irrational and unjust system. But need not have to be this way.

We can change our lives and society. We can end exploitation and injustice, by overthrowing the capitalists. We can replace capitalism with a rational and humane system – socialism. Socialism where social wealth is controlled by society and for the benefit of society; where the common good, not profits, is the chief concern; where working people run society. It is time to bury the miseries of capitalism and we are its grave-diggers. The socialist revolution has not only become a possibility, it is now a necessity. There is no other choice today but for the working people to organise to struggle and, one day, win socialism. By fundamentally changing the social system socialism will qualitatively improve the lives of the working people. The people’s movement is stained with the blood of martyrs as the creativity and toil of workers tried to improve their position in society, and those struggles can never be fully extinguished while injustices remain. The people demand a society without exploitation and discrimination. People protest against pollution and environmental destruction; the grave dangers of nuclear war.

Every person is faced with the choice of either enduring the suffering brutalisation of capitalism; or joining with others who are dissatisfied and know that a better society is possible. Women and men, young and old, and people of all lands are realising we must unite to survive, to be able to work, eat and live as decent human beings. If working people, and not the capitalist class controlled the great resources of our society, we could improve all our lives. We guarantee a healthy quality of life for all. We could have a society which basis is equality built on a foundation established for complete emancipation. We could live in a society that is not preparing constantly for war and self-extinction.

These are the hopes of the Socialist Party. These are the aspirations that encourage us forward. Much has changed since our organisation saw the light of day one thing is still the same: There are classes and exploitation of the working people is continuing. As long as there are class-differences there will be need for a revolutionary socialist party. The party’s aim is socialism where all oppression and exploitation of man, all class-differences are vanished. Our party therefore will fight with peaceful means for the interests of the working people. In its struggle for a new society, the Socialist Party seeks to attain its objectives by peaceful and orderly means. The Socialist Party asks all workers who agree with us, to contact us and join in the party’s work. We must carry on the class struggle against capitalism, until we are in control as workers of all political and industrial power.

Quarter of employed struggling

A survey for Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) found the number of workers finding it hard financially has risen since 2017.

Of employed adults in Scotland polled, it found 24% were either finding it difficult or very difficult to live on their present income. 

6% said they were very comfortable.

The charity said the latest figures highlight a "continuing squeeze" on incomes from the rising cost of living, stagnant wages and cuts to social security.

CAS chief executive Derek Mitchell said: "These figures highlight the strain that people are under in Scotland and reflect what our advisers see every day. Many people who are in work are finding it hard to pay their bills and put food on the table..."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-49452682