Conference Timetable & Speakers

Below is the full timetable and list of speakers for the Radical Independence Conference 2014. A PDF of the timetable can be downloaded here. The conference will take place across the Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow Science Centre and the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Saturday 22 November. Registration opens 8.30am at the Clyde Auditorium. All ticket holders will receive an email over the weekend to pre-book their workshop preferences, as spaces at each workshop will be limited due to venue capacity. The Mass Forums taking place in the main auditorium throughout the day do not need to be pre-booked.

A list of speaker biographies is below.

Speaker Biographies

Saffron Dickson – Saffron is a young pro-independence activist. She articulated the ambitions of many young supporters of independence: “we don’t want supremacy, we want equality!”

Myshele Haywood – Myshele is an Aberdeen-based activist, writer and public sociologist who has been involved with the Radical Independence Campaign since early 2013.

Suki Sangha – Suki is a member the general council of STUC and a member of Unite the Union

Patrick Harvie – Patrick is an MSP in Glasgow region and co-convenor for the Scottish Green Party.

Colin Fox – Colin is the co-spokesperson for the Scottish Socialist Party and has held that position since 2005. He is a former MSP for the Lothians region.

Aamer Anwar – Aamer is Scotland’s leading Human Rights Lawyer. He is a longstanding anti-war campaigner and advocate of immigrant rights.

Maggie Chapman – Maggie is the Scottish Green Party’s co-convenor. She has been an Edinburgh Councillor since 2007, for the Leith Walk ward. She was the first Scottish politician to demand a Living Wage in 2008. Born and brought up in Zimbabwe, she is a peace activist and believes an independent Scotland will create the opportunity for a more equal Scotland in a more just world.

Janet Moxley – Janet is a professional environmental scientist. She is the founder of the Friends of Burnbraes Park group which has improved play equipment and planting in the park over the last five years.

Professor Andrew Watterson – Andrew is the Director of Research Director of Centre for Public Health and Population Health Research and Head of the Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group.

Gillian Wales – Gillian is involved in community activism in Lanarkshire and Glasgow. She and has degrees in both Business and Human Geography, from University of Strathclyde

Andy Wightman – Andy is a writer and land rights campaigner. Previous books include The Poor had no Lawyers and a new book, Elite Rule and Radical Democracy is due out in 2014.

Jen Stout – Jen is a community activist from Fair Isle, Shetland.  She writes and campaigns on land reform, political engagement and Scottish politics.  She is the Regional organiser for 38 Degrees.

Kathrine Trebeck – Katherine is global research policy adviser in Oxfam’s research team where she is exploring an economy that delivers social justice, good lives, vibrant communities and which protects the planet.

James Meadway – James is the senior economist at the New Economics Foundation, where his work focuses largely on developing responses to the recession and austerity. He formerly worked as a policy advisor at HM Treasury, covering regional economic development, science and innovation policy.

Living Rent Campaign – are a group who campaign against spiralling rents in the private sector, for rent controls, for ethical landlord schemes for ethical lettings agencies, for standards of service and rent levels associated with ethical landlords and letting agencies.

Jenny Morrison – Co-author of Scottish Independence – A Feminist Response.

Jeane Freeman – Jeane is one of founding members of Women for Independence, and former senior political adviser to Labour First Minister. Currently a public affairs and policy adviser.

Carolyn Leckie – Carolyn is a co founder of WFI. Not a party member. Recent law graduate. Ex MSP. Previous UNISON branch secre#tary representing health workers. Ex Midwife.

Duncan McCann – Duncan works in the money and finance team at NEF specifically on monetary reform and complementary currencies.

Stuart Fairweather – Stuart is a Dundee based Unite Shop Steward. He is Chair of the Dundee City Council Unite Branch and of Dundee Trades Union Council. He has been active in his local RIC branch from its inspection. He is convener of Democratic Left Scotland.

Dr. Daniel Gay – Daniel is a political economist who works as a United Nations adviser in developing countries. He writes regularly for the media and his book, Reflexivity and Development Economics, was published in 2009.

Yiannis Bournous – Yiannis Member of the Central Committee of SYRIZA and the Executive Board of the European Left.

Amal Azzudin – Amal is a community development worker and campaigner for human rights and social justice. She has a master’s degree in human rights and international politics at the University of Glasgow. She was one of the Glasgow Girls, a group of seven school girls from Drumchapel High School that got organised and stood up against dawn raids, detention and deportation of asylum seekers in Glasgow.

Professor Geoffrey Whittam – Geoff has an international reputation for his work in enterprise and regional economic development. He has published work in leading international journals such as Regional Studies and the International Journal of Small Business.

Angela O’Hagan – As a Research Fellow in the Institute for Society and Social Justice Research, Angela is a member of the Inequality, Gender and Public Policy Thematic Research Group.

Gemma Rae Moncrieff – Gemma is an Edinburgh based LGBT activist and a member of Beyond Gender.

Angela Convery – Angela is on the national LGBTI committee for Unite the union

Dave Moxham – Dave is the STUC Deputy General Secretary

Mary Lockhart – Mary is an Ex Chair of the Co-Operative Party

Susan Archibald – Susan is a disability rights activist and the founder of the Archibald Foundation. She is currently a Non Executive Director for NHS Fife; member of the DWP’s Equality Reference Group; steering group member of the Human Rights Consortium in Scotland and sits on four cross-party working groups in the Scottish Parliament.

Jean Urquhart MSP – Jean is an Indpendent MSP and a longstanding peace campaigner

Scrap Trident – is a collation of various Groups who Campaign to rid Trident nuclear weapons

Stop the War (Pete Cannel) – Stop the War is a coalition

Gerry Hassan – Dr Gerry Hassan is research fellow in cultural policy at the University of the West of Scotland and author of Caledonian Dreaming: The Quest for a Different Scotland. His previous books include The Modern SNP: From Protest to Power; After Blair: Politics after the New Labour Decade; and After Independence, co-authored with James Mitchell. He is also a Demos associate

Neil Davidson – Neil is a lecturer in Lecturer in Sociology at University of Glasgow

John Wilson MSP – John is and independent MSP representing central Scotland

Isobel Lindsay – Isobel is vice-chair of Scottish CND, convenor of Scotland for Peace and and is on the editorial board of Scottish Left Review.

SNP TU Group – Trade union organisation of the SNP

Hillary Wainright – Hilary Wainwright is a British sociologist, political activist and socialist feminist, and is the editor of Red Pepper magazine

Paul Holleran – Paul is the Head of the National Union of Journalists

Nick Dearden – Nick is the director of the World Development Movement. WDM is a democratic social justice organisation working, as part of a global movement, to challenge the political elites and big business who have subverted our democracy and are fuelling poverty and inequality. WDM campaigns for economic and social justice – where the world’s resources and decisions about how they’re used lie in the hands of the many, not the few.  From January 2015, WDM will be changing its name to Global Justice Now

Jamie Maxwell – Jamie is a freelance journalist who writes for the New Statesman

Bernadette McAliskey – Bernadette is an Irish socialist and republican political activist. She served as a Member of Parliament at Westminster from 1969 to 1974 for the Mid Ulster constituency, infamously slapping the Tory Home Secretary in the face for arguing that British soldiers only fired in self-defence at Bloody Sunday. In recent years, McAliskey has played a leading role in human rights campaigning. She is a founding member of the Free Marian Price campaign.

Angela Haggerty – Angela is a journalist, broadcaster and editor based in the west of Scotland and works at The Drum magazine and Common Weal

Liam McLaughlin – Liam is a member of the SSP and co-founder of the RIC Glasgow North East branch. He has spoken at various public meetings and has intervened on Question Time, often to point out the hypocrisy of the panel.

Robin McAlpine – Robin is the Director of the Common Weal Project that aims to build a new political philosophy for a better Scotland.

Dhelia Snoussi – Dhelia is a member of Unite the Youth, a London-based group of young people fighting for the interests of marginalised, misrepresented and disenfranchised youth. She is studying South Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and works as a community events trainee at South Kilburn Studios.

Frances Curran – Frances is the chair of the Scottish Socialist Party and a former Member of the Scottish Parliament for the West of Scotland region

David Miller – David is a Professor of Sociology at Bath University. He has undertaken research in partnership with a range of organisations including Unison, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Friends of the Earth, Cordoba Foundation, Scottish Islamic Foundation, Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner and others. He has given advice and expert testimony in a number of terrorism related cases in the UK, Australia and the US. He is co-founder of Spinwatch, a website devoted to public interest reporting on spin lobbying and political corruption.

Anum Qaiser – Anum is the former chair of the Muslim friends of Labour.

Roza Salih – Graduated in Law & Politics degree – Vice President Diversity & Advocacy at Strathclyde Students’ Union.Chris Bambery – Chris is a Scottish political activist and commentator. He currently works for the Islam Channel in London

Alan McCombes – Alan has been a leading member of the Scottish Socialist Party for several years, and was the editor of the Scottish Socialist Voice until 2003

Tricia McAfferty – Tricia is a lecturer and Course Leader in Sociology. She has a particular interest in class and work since the post war period especially the changes of the last two decades. She has looked specifically at working life in the context of neo-liberalism and the ‘Third Way’ ideology.

Tariq Ali – Tariq is a British Pakistani writer, journalist, and filmmaker. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and regularly contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books.

Sarah Glynn – Sarah is an architect, a political activist and a lecturer in sociology at the University of the West of Scotland. She is author of ‘Where the Other Half Lives: lower income housing in a neoliberal world’

Dr Liam Kane – Liam is a senior lecturer in modern languages and adult education in the University of Glasgow, in the Centre for Open Studies. He researches the theory and practice of ‘popular’ adult education, an approach to education which is committed to supporting marginalised and ‘oppressed’ groups work for progressive social change. Liam is particularly interested in what can be learned from the experience of Latin America, where popular education has a rich heritage, and he is author of the book ‘Popular Education and Social Change in Latin America’.

Sean McVeigh – Sean is a Community and Radical Independence activist.

Stop TTIP (Cornelia Reetz) – Cornelia is Campaign Manager of the European Citizens’ Initiative “Stop TTIP” against TTIP and CETA. Stop TTIP is supported by an alliance of 290 civil society organisations in 23 EU member states and has gathered more than 750,000 signatures in less than four weeks after the campaign start in early October. Cornelia has been active as a campaigner and filmmaker on social, environmental and human rights issues for many years. She is also on the Board of Trustees of the Bewegungsstiftung (“movement foundation”), which funds and supports social movement organisations.

Mike Small – Mike is Editor of Bella Caledonia.

Helen McCourt – Helen is an activist from Glasgow east end and was involved in the Save the Acord campaign.

Lynne Henderson – Lynne is Scottish Secretary of the PCS union.

Tam Brotherston – Tam is a veteran of the UCS work-in.

Angharad Tomos – Angharad is a Welsh author and independence activist.

Adam Ramsay – Adam is the editor of Open Democracy.

Sarah Collins – Sarah is a trade union activist in Unison and is a regular speaker at trade union events and conferences. She is the Chair of the Scottish Trades Union Congress Youth Committee.

John Davidson- John is RNC assistant group secretary Scotland committee of the PCS Union.

David Jamieson – David is a writer and Radical Independence activist.

Lesley Riddoch – Lesley is a writer and broadcaster.

Jonathon Shafi – Jonathon is a co-founder of the Radical Independence Campaign.

Cat Boyd – Cat is a co-founder of the Radical independence Campaign and author.

Peter McColl – Peter is Rector of Edinburgh University and member of the Scottish Green Party.

Alan Bissett – Alan is a writer and independence activist.

David Hayman – David is an actor and independence activist.

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