“These are our neighbours, let them go”

This is the source of my celebration. A celebration of hope in, and for, the people of Scotland. An ongoing celebration of belonging here and feeling at home in Scotland. Kenmure Street, of Pollokshields, Glasgow on the 13th May 2021 should be recorded in the Annals of Scottish History. A stand-off – not a battle, except of wills – that stopped the UK state apparatus in its tracks, albeit for a day. A street full of protesters blocking the Home Office immigration van after a "dawn raid" in which two men had been removed from their homes and placed in a van for deportation. Both were Sikhs who had been living and working, as a chef and a mechanic, in Scotland for many years. And finally after eight hours, the police chief ordered their release and people could go home. This is in celebration of the "van-man" who crawled under the immigration van and stayed there for the duration, of the man who quickly sat at the back of the van to block it reversing, of all those who rushed to stop the van, of all those who joined, of all those who stayed, and of those who provided sustenance to the gathered. And how they declared, 'These are our neighbours, let them go.' A throng and surge of marvellous humanity. And next day, Tricia Marwick, a former MSP and presiding officer of our Parliament captured the mood when she ended a tweet: 'We are all Scotland.'