Category Archives: Op-eds

Last Thursday,the European Movement held a “Lead not Leave” rally in Edinburgh in support of a Remain vote. Just before the event started, the news that Jo Cox had been shot came through but at that time we didn’t realise the full horror of what had happened.

All the contributions from the cross-party panel were superb. The Greens’ Sarah Beattie-Smith was passionate on women’s rights, climate change and the EU having the power to make sure multi-nationals pay their taxes.  Tory Jackson Carlaw said he’d been surprised by how much a Remain vote had come to mean to him. North East Fife SNP MP Stephen Gethins, who had been disgracefully misquoted on the Vote Leave leaflet was passionate about membership of the EU. Kezia Dugdale was warm and talked about some very practical reasons we need to stay for social justice and workers.

The final speaker was our own Nick Clegg. He was pretty stark. He talked about the reality of Brexit, waking up to discover that the Leave lot don’t know what’s happening, the Tories are immersed in a bloodbath, there’s constitutional gridlock and the economy is, frankly, down the toilet. It was one of the best speeches I’ve heard him make.

It was very different in style to his tremendous resignation speech, but no less powerful and compelling. The scenario he sets out is very plausible. He wasn’t trying to appeal to the audience. He knew that he was at an event where most people were going to be pretty passionately in favour of Remain. He wanted to address his remarks to the waverers. Your mission, dear readers, for the next few days is to play this to as many waverers as you can.

Now, the whole thing is definitely worth watching, but if you just want Nick, go to about 25:55.

I had recorded his speech (and Kezia’s) on their own. It was my first time using Periscope and to say that I screwed it up royally is an understatement. For a start, I didn’t realise you had to type in what your were broadcasting so people had a clue what the random video was.

I had  meant to embed the tweets in which they were broadcast on Thursday, but it obviously wasn’t appropriate to do so and they only last for 24 hours.

By some miracle, the recordings are still on the app, and I’d love to shove them on You Tube but I can’t work out how. If you know, please tell me.

Enjoy. The text (more or less) of Nick’s speech is under the cut but listen to it if you can. The energy of his delivery really brings it alive.