Veterans of the Upper Clyde Shipyards work-in 
of the early seventies have declared their support for independence. Seven stalwarts of the anti-Tory government protest,led by the late Jimmy Reid, have written an open letter to present-day shipyard workers and related businesses urging them to ignore the scaremongering forecasts of the No camp and believe that the industry has a bright future after a Yes vote in September.
 
It was 43 years ago that the eyes of the world were drawn to Scotland, the River Clyde and audacious emergency action taken by men and women who were the lifeblood of an international brand.
 
The Pride of the Clyde was under what many saw as a death sentence passed by Edward Heath’s Tory Government in their refusal to make a £6 million working capital loan available to the yards that comprised the Upper Clyde Shipyards.
 
So they took what now would be called ‘direct action’ or even ‘civil unrest’ – not a strike, not a sit-in but a revolutionary work-in. Under the robust leadership of Reid, they took over the running of the five shipyards and, a year after his famous ‘no holiganism, no vandalism, no bevvying’ speech that was beamed around the globe, they forced Heath to back down. Their action received world-wide support, including John Lennon, folk singer Matt McGinn and comedian Billy Connolly, himself a former shipyard worker in his native Glasgow.
 
Veterans of that celebrated UCS work-in – some of them on the workers’ committee - are coming together to add their experience and voices in a bid to counter what they see as a scaremongering prognosis on their heritage.
 
They dismiss claims that independence is the new threat to an age-old industry. The ‘Project Fear’ mantra being trumpeted, despite the public unveiling of the UK’s biggest aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth at Rosyth, is wrong, wrong, wrong, they say. The veterans see that naming ceremony by The Queen as live testimony that the internationally recognised expertise of the Scottish shipyards workforce is very much alive and kicking. With a healthy future.
 
One veteran Jimmy Cloughley, UCS work-in co-ordinating committee member, a signatory to an open letter to all of Scotland’s shipyard workers, said: ‘The industry deserves more than being tied to BAE systems that will only build ships of war. When we have power to direct our industries as we did in the UCS, the shipyards on the Clyde will have a more fulfilling future if there is a policy of diversification and commercial shipbuilding. Bearing in mind, as Jimmy Reid said, ship transportation is the most efficient way of transporting bulk goods internationally.’
 
Davie Torrance, another member of the UCS co-ordinating committee and a former shop steward at the Govan yard, said: ‘When we were in the UCS, there were four yards building world-class ships. Now, after years of decline, a Yes vote is about giving the yards a new start and a healthy future, and bringing the powers to do it from London to Scotland.’
 
Another signatory Betty Kennedy, UCS telephone supervisor, who refused to disconnect phones when the work-in began, said: ‘Of course the work in the Clyde’s shipyards will continue after a Yes vote. It’s the workers who guarantee that shipbuilding will thrive when we are independent, and who should get the respect they deserve rather than these job-threats from Westminster.’