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Image: Amanda Grimm.

Yesterday I and 3,000 others made our way to Glasgow to attend the Radical Independence Conference.  To many of you reading the name ‘Independence’ may seem a bit dead or somewhat of a joke.

“YOU LOST. GET OVER IT”.

I can understand why someone would say this. I can understand why still clinging on to the dreams of independence might seem counter productive, we were fighting for social justice not just independence, right?

Yes, right. We were. And yesterday the RIC conference instilled this into me even more than ever.

I was nervous attending the RIC conference, I was worried that it would be a room full of “45 Nat’s”. But I was wrong.

What I was greeted with was a room full of aspirations for a better future. I don’t just mean a Glasgow auditorium packed with lofty statements about how we could make the world a little bitter better, blah blah blah. But I mean people who are so demoralised and sickened by the growing inequality between the uber rich and the poor, that they want to fundamentally change our society.

I’m not just talking about the usual lefty theory circle jerk. I’m talking about socialism in practise.

The Focus E15 Mothers mothers, who are as we speak, occupying, protesting and organising for a decent, fair and just housing system.

I’m talking about the A Living Wage for Ritzy Staff campaign who have taken industrial action to achieve a living wage. Where they have been trying to challenge the odious idea of low pay, which is and should be considered a and social in-justice. As a result they have been threatened with redundancy. They are only one cinema and they are the only unionised cinema within their cinema group. They are an inspiration.

For those of you who voted NO, don’t be fooled into thinking that yesterday’s conference was ‘”JUST ABOUT NATIONALISM”.

Yesterday’s conference was about equality.

Yesterday’s conference was about justice.

Yesterday’s conference was about how we no longer have to quietly suffer the abuses of our economic market.

Yesterday was about how we can, together, change this wee country we live in.

We all agreed that we wanted a more just Scotland and now we have to build the movement that will bring this change.

Campaigns like the Living Rent Campaign are on your doorstep and happening RIGHT NOW (literally). Go and use them. Go and organise.

Solidarity!