Scotland

Campaigners against the government's identity cards scheme sometimes warn that it will become Labour's Poll Tax. There may be more truth to this than people realise.

For the past two years Labour's Scottish Executive in Edinburgh has carried out an ID card experiment on the million elderly and disabled people of Scotland. Deeming this a success, Labour is now rolling the thing out in England.

Most will be familiar with Transport for London's Oystercard - a chipped “smartcard”…

Hundreds marched up Edinburgh's Royal Mile on 4 November to say: “No to Trident”. The demo had support from the Scottish Trade Union Council, churches and the Scottish National Party and was organised by Scotland's for Peace. Alex Salmond, the new SNP first minister, has stated his opposition to Trident replacement. Scottish CND and other lobbyists will be expecting to see action. Watch this space in 2008, the year of CND's fiftieth anniversary.

No review could ignore the success of the Save Crichton Cam- paign in September, where united action by the University and College Union (UCU), International Workers of the World (IWW) and others stopped the closure of the Dumfries Campus of Glasgow University.

Ben Franks, UCU Dumfries: "The most successful actions embarrassed the Principal and his officials at prestigious events. As a result, the new Scottish government made the Crichton campus a top priority.…

This summer, Edinburgh-based Protest in Harmony and Glasgow socialist women's choir Eurydice combined with other political choirs for the “Rise up Singing” Faslane 365 blockade.

One of Faslane 365's aims was to bring people together to impede the nuclear base where Britain's nuclear weapons are deployed. The choirs' blockade achieved this by assembling many singers who were new to the peace movement and witnessing nonviolent direct action for the first time.

They will be…

In February, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (the Western Islands Council) approved plans for a giant “wind factory” with 181 super-size 140meter-high turbines on the north west of the Isle of Lewis.

With another planned 57 turbines on the island, this would mean a 40-mile stretch of wind turbines across the island, making it the largest wind farm in Europe.

The top-left-hand corner of the British Isles might seem like an ideal spot in which to tuck away such a wind farm. But for…

Until the May elections, the existence of a presence in the Scottish parliament of both a united left party and the greens (with six and four seats respectively) had been presented by commentators as evidence of a deep-rooted rad icalism amongst significant sections of the Scottish populace.

Whilst a particularly nasty split in the Scottish Socialist Party contributed to the loss of all their seats in May 2007, and, quite separately, the Green Party's representation halved, the…

The Scottish Centre for Nonviolence in Dunblane has closed after ten years of existence. Scotland and the peace movement have lost a unique resource for nonviolent education and networking. Camouflaged by woodland trees, the Centre was situated in a prefabricated building, tucked behind Scottish Churches House, the Scottish Churches Ecumenical Conference Centreat Dunblane Cathedral.

During my time as a local peace activist, I will remember it as a special space, with a powerful…

Later in the month, groups from Ireland, Leicester, Staffordshire and Stoke all blockaded successfully. Trident Ploughshares blockaded with the help of Faslane Peace Camp, who used nine-year old concrete barrel lock-ons to great effect. One group from TP attempted to use bikes to blockade. These tactics are part of the continuing effort to overcome the large numbers of police officers and resources.

Christmas crackers Scottish Students blockaded the week before Christmas with steel…

November saw 16 different groups covering 20 days at Faslane, clocking up a mighty 148 arrests. The total number of arrests since 1 October 2006 stands at 330, but still only one prosecution so far.

Cumbria and North Lancashire started the month on a Halloween theme, handing over to the Iona community and the Clergy Action Group. By all accounts the police found it a surreal experience to be arresting so many church ministers. CND and Stop The War were next in line, with small but…

Five of the 17 Prestwick weapons inspectors were acquitted on 1 December after the Crown failed to prove that they did not have permission from the US Air Force to be on their plane!

The five had entered Prestwick Airport on 7 August this year looking for evidence of bomb shipments from the US to Israel. Prestwick is an apparently civilian airport near Glasgow, but it also has military traffic. At the height of the bombing of Lebanon it became clear that the UK authorities would not…

Recent months have seen an upsurge in activity within the road protest movement, particularly in Scotland, reinforcing existing camps and campaigns - such as the ongoing occupation of Bilston Wood since 2002 and a legal challenge brought by Friends of the Earth to the extension of the M74 - and establishing new camps such as Dalkeith, near Edinburgh and, in southern England, at Camp Bling in Southend.

The Dalkeith bypass was first discussed in 1992 and approval was finally given in…

Early on 11 March officers from Lothian and Borders Police dismantled a large model Trident nuclear weapon submarine which had blocked the street outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh for 14 hours in a challenge to the Parliament to take a stand against Britain's weapons of mass destruction.

At 10am on 10 March the submarine had approached the Parliament building and, as it crossed the Canongate, peace activists on the inside, from Trident Ploughshares and the Theatre of War…

Trident Ploughshares (TP) activists seem fuelled by something as long lasting as radioactivity, never ceasing in taking bites, sometimes mosquito size, at the bases and companies in England and Scotland that manufacture and protect Britain's weapons of mass destruction.

In February, Lockheed Martin, the world's largest manufacturer and exporter of weapons, had their London offices visited by four TP women who locked staff out of the arms giant's HQ for six hours. Amazingly there were…

Trident Ploughshares activists, in the face of the failure of the British government to fulfil its promises to get rid of its nuclear weapons, undertake that responsibility themselves, by peaceful and nonviolent and accountable direct action. In the four years of the campaign there have been 1803 arrests, 398 trials, 1711 days have been spent in jail (not counting time in police cells) and fines totalling £56,490 have been imposed, though rarely paid.