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Police Scotland Ignored The Law At Livingston. They Better Step Up Their Game.

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There was an interesting sight the other night at Livingston. Interesting for the complete lack of media attention that it got, interesting for the absence of SFA condemnation and especially interesting for the lack of any statement from Police Scotland.

It was the sight of dozens of Sevco fans standing on the grassy verge which looks onto the pitch at that ground, and celebrating their team’s narrow win. The players even went over to give the fans a standing ovation. All very football, except as we all know well there weren’t supposed to be any fans and public gatherings are explicitly banned under the law.

This is what happens when you make it clear that the club itself is exempt from the regulations.

The fans believe they are too. If you let them away with it then you have a free-for-all and they already believe they have license to do what they want, hence the quite open discussions on their forums about how they want to take over George Square, law or not, to “celebrate” their title, and how some of them are even planning a march to the Celtic Way.

As I said in a recent piece – which you can read at this link – this is who they are; these numbskulls have forgotten what celebrating your own triumph actually means. If they can’t rub the rest of our faces in it then it doesn’t have resonance or meaning for them.

But this time, of course, it’s against the law … watching those scenes from the other night and seeing the pictures, you really have to ask if Police Scotland ever intends to actually uphold it. They should make it clear, right now, that gatherings of any sort aren’t on … and declare their intent to break them up by whatever means they have to.

I understand non-confrontational policing. I also remember that The Green Brigade don’t qualify for that; you sometimes get the feeling that if it wasn’t going to cause problems for Scotland’s reputation abroad they would be policed with dogs, batons and water cannons like civil rights marchers in the US during the 50’s.

We get the steel gloves; their fans get the kid gloves.

Something has to be made clear though; there will be a major backlash against both the policing and the government if Sevco fans are allowed to take over the streets in the coming weeks whilst the rest of us are locked in our homes.

This is an election year; the SNP has already pissed our fans off to the extent many are considering switching their votes.

We certainly won’t flip the election, and we’re not really going to alter the balance of power, but if enough of us switch our first and second preference votes to Green candidates that might be enough to rob them of a majority … and that makes Sturgeon especially vulnerable.

Look, there are things we’re prepared to tolerate and things we’re not.

Bad enough that they get Halloween in July when things are normal; the one consolation many of us took from the way this season’s ended is that lockdown removed the prospect of seeing them pissing and puking into every gutter and treating the city like it was their own.

Police Scotland has one job to do here; enforce the damn law.

Anything less and a whole lot of very pissed off people with the vote are going to want answers as to why.

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