The Point

Last updated: 27 June 2022.

Hope Over Fear - Why you should vote SNP on May 7th

Tommy Sheridan says get to the Hope Over Fear event in Freedom Square, Glasgow - and argues that socialists and progressives should lend their vote to the SNP on May 7th.

The #HopeOverFear event planned in #FreedomSquare next Saturday #April25th will attract thousands from the #YES community across Scotland. The Square will be jumping with Hope and Expectation. There will be live music and speakers from 11am until 4.30pm. Some will assemble at Glasgow Green and march to the Square. This part of the day has been organised by All Under One Banner who decided to bring their planned event forward a week to join up with Hope Over Fear. We will also have #Bikers4YES arriving in an organised cavalcade from Stirling. There will be a foodbank collection to be administered by Loaves and Fishes just like the last one on October 12^th last year.

Over several hours speakers and musicians will urge those in attendance and the whole of Scotland to recognise the unique nature of the May 7^th General Election and unite behind the slogan of #LendYourVote2SNPinMay. There will be many SNP members in attendance and speaking but this is not an SNP event. This is a YES community event organised by the grassroots #HopeOverFear Campaign. The groups who make up #HopeOverFear include Indy Girls, Yes Helensburgh and Lomond, Fiery Scots, Yes Hamilton, the Solidarity party, Yes 45Fife, Yes Alliance 59Gordon, Veterans for Scottish Independence, YesBikers, Yes(Storm)Holytown, Ayrshire Against Fracking, Yes Carfin and Newarthill, Independence Climber, Yes Livingstone, Cumbernauld Against Poverty, Yes Connect, Yes Clydesdale, All Under One Banner and others.

This is a grassroots event that hopes to convince tens of thousands that a vote for SNP on May 7^th is a progressive and positive vote for Scotland and for ordinary folk across the UK.

A vote for the SNP is and #AntiAusterity vote. It is and #AntiTrident vote. It is an #AntiEstablishment vote. And it is of course a #Pro-Independence vote. Other smaller parties may also be against Austerity, Trident and the Establishment but in an election that is clearly going to be very close and unpredictable EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTS. A smaller party may attract a few hundred votes. None of them will come anywhere near winning a seat. Yet those few hundred votes diverted from the main challenger to the blue, yellow and red Tories could actually tip the balance and allow one of the cuts and austerity parties to survive. That is a negative outcome. That is a high risk. Hope Over Fear accepts the SNP is not the only progressive voice in Scotland at this election. But they are the only voice with a chance of winning. We appeal to all the other parties to put their party interests aside for this one unique election and concentrate on building an unstoppable and united YES and Anti-Austerity force to bring down the walls of Westminster.

Hope Over Fear appeals to Scotland to recognise this exceptional opportunity to upset the cosy and corrupt political consensus of the rich and powerful at Westminster. We aim to send a clear and unbending anti-austerity, anti-Trident, anti-Establishment and anti-poverty message to that den of iniquity. Westmonster presides over and promotes grotesque inequality, low pay, poverty and injustice. Let’s send a team of SNP dragons to slay that monster. Let’s also emphasise that those dragons are being sent there not to settle down but to settle up.

Next year voters in Scotland will have 2 votes to distribute. All the other progressive, radical and socialist parties and individuals can compete for at least one of those votes then. On May 7^th we all have only one vote. If you are anti-austerity, anti-Trident, anti-Establishment and/or pro-independence please do not waste your vote. Lend it to the SNP. It is the ONLY party with a realistic chance of defeating the blue, yellow and red Tory parties who are all signed up to further cruel austerity and a new generation of immoral and illegal nuclear weapons. This chance for change is too good to pass up.

On May 7^th vote SNP. On April 25^th come to Freedom Square in Glasgow. Stand together with thousands of others and fill the Square with HOPE NOT FEAR. Listen to Gerry Cinammon live and declare with one united voice: ‘Hope Over Fear – Tell Westminster Tories That Scotland’s No Longer Your Slave’. Be in Freedom Square on April 25^th.

Let’s break the Tory chains together. United for Peace, Justice and Freedom.