During the start of the journey I could hear two young guys who were sitting opposite me, who were talking about their various projects they were involved with. One of them was on the local Railway forum and the other was talking about his degree where instead of taking one module, they instead work with students from across year groups to look at the impact of their engineering projects on the environment and on European citizens etc. An EU Project ! All these little things that we could lose.
Anyway I got to Edinburgh and met up with the group from the North East of England who I had met previously. We then eventually left Waverley station and headed up to the start of the March at the end of Princes Street at Waterloo Place. We would walk from there, up past Calton Hill where the Scottish Parliament was going to be at one point, then walking onwards with views of Arthur's Seat, and then finishing up down at the Scottish Parliament. We sat there or stood there in the sun listening to some excellent talks from a variety of people.
I met a woman who works as a translator and who may have to move abroad if Brexit happens as most of her work is in Euros and she expects she may have to move. I met an astrophysicist who has now had to put on hold a project to create a solar observatory in Europe, as things are now so uncertain with regards to whether people can be employed or will have citizenship abroad etc. How sad is that - these are concrete victims of Brexit and it hasn't even happened yet ! I met a scientist who comes from mainland Europe but is working and living in a University in the North of England who assured me that quite a number of her colleagues are seriously contemplating moving to Scotland ! I met some French people and lots of other lovely and interesting people from all over the UK and abroad. I heard from a German scientist all about her work on the environment. It sounded interesting. And she explained how Germany has the equivalent differences as the UK or France does - a sort of North / South divide. Always interesting to hear new things ! Two SNP "Yes" supporters were speaking French to a French lady next to me ! I also met up again with the Perth for EU group. (I used to live in Perth !) They have a thriving Remain in EU group based in Perth.
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| Gathering at the start - looking back to Princes Street and the Scott Monument |
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| Past Calton Hill - |
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| Arthur's Seat in Background |
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| Perth for Europe |
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| Excellent knitted EU Hats ! |
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| Past the Gates of Holyroodhouse - wonder what Her Majesty really thinks re EU ! |
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| Edinburgh - always a stunning backdrop ! |
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| Arthur's Seat in background |
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| Past the Scottish Parliament |
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| This is possibly the best photo I took from a photography perspective and meaning too ! |
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| Listening to the speeches - another EU hat too ! |
Things then proceeded, and in typical British style someone started their speech - "We must Remain in the EU - its brought us peace, prosperity .... and .... and " (stutter) - someone in crowd shouts "cheese" !!
Then a return to fluency ! We heard from a rebellious Labour group who have not been listened to by Jeremy Corbyn, but number 5,000 Labour party members who support Remain and had signed a letter to Jeremy, with no response ! One speaker had lived in Berlin just after the second world war and was reminding us how the European Union had kept a peaceful Europe, and he was reminding us how it is not difficult to slip into a non peaceful situation. Most of the individual country flags have been involved in something disreputable over time, but the European flag of yellow stars on the blue background had only presided over peace. We heard from a retired Edinburgh judge (born in Perth !), David Edward who was a former Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, working on panels with colleagues from Finland, France etc. ( And we heard from Joanna Cherry of the SNP who had been taught law by this judge 30 years ago in Edinburgh ! We heard about the lack of any response from Theresa May from the large White Paper of questions from the Scottish Government. Scotland has been given tax raising powers, yet now the method of controlling their economy in the way they see best has been taken away from them. Oh yes and from another speaker, another slightly amusing correction when someone listed all the "industries" Scotland is good at and which prosper in the EU - finance, IT, farming, food and drink etc were listed - but they forgot science - that was shouted out from the crowd - there were a number of scientists certainly that I spoke to over the day ! And Scotland is famed for science and industry - these areas are thriving at the moment as is the University sector, brining in many from abroad as well. In fact today they said that EU students would have guarantees to complete their studies in Scotland ... And for me the most stirring talks were from the organisers - a French guy and a woman called Vanessa Glynn, Chair of the European Movement in Scotland, who gave a fantastic speech which had the crowd cheering.
You can read it here: http://www.euromovescotland.org.uk/documents/VanessaMarch4EU.pdf
Some of the gist of what was said that I can remember - We want to Remain in the EU - We value our EU citizenship - the Young people deserve their future. If it came to it, Scotland would love to offer EU citizens the right to stay. And how the Europeans are quite open to having a country like Scotland, who are keen to be in the EU. There was a lot of negative feeling about the influence of the Daily Mail. And who is really going to benefit in the so called return of powers from the EU - straight into the hands of those who will happily have deregulation etc...
But first things first - today was the Anniversary of 60 years since the Treaty of Rome. UK was not in the group immediately, but tried three times to get in and finally got in. Yet now we could give all this progress away. The EU has kept peace for 60 years in Europe.
The blue sky overhead could almost have had yellow EU stars on it. The flag of the EU has reigned over countries which have worked together and kept peace together. Yes, there are issues - but we need to be a positive force and get in and work to sort out the EU. And the UK argued to bring in the Eastern countries - yet now we are quitting - join our club - but actually we are leaving the club.
Let's hope not - let's hope Theresa May sees sense and does not sign Article 50 on Wednesday. Guy Verhofstadt is apparently to be the EU negotiator. He understands the people who were with me on the March better than our own government. Let's hope Guy can fight our cause - we are EU Citizens. Many of us have been born as EU Citizens - we have ALWAYS BEEN EU CITIZENS.
Oh yes and I heard two good jokes today - well a couple of cheesy ones anyway !
Question - How do you entice a bear out of a cave using just cheese ?
Answer - you say "Camembert" !!
and ... even worse
Question - How do you hide a horse using cheese ?
Answer - you "Mascarpone" !!
(Thanks to the Newcastle group for those - keeping us entertained at the Station!)
Videos of Edinburgh March:
http://breakingbrexit.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-eu-march-in-edinburgh-25th-march.html
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQtUExB-XI0&spfreload=5 (I am sure there are more than 2000 here !!)
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