EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - NOVEMBER 30: The Celtic fans show the board the red card during a William Hill Premiership match between Hibernian and Celtic at Easter Road, on November 30, 2025, in Edinburgh, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
It is always faintly amusing, as a member of the Collective, to hear from the ignorant and uninformed about who we are and what we supposedly do. Still, there was a genuine moment of surprise the other day when Lawrence Donegan popped up on Twitter to dismiss the Collective as a bunch of Trots and SWP radicals, uninterested in reforming Celtic and instead pursuing some bizarre political agenda of their own.
As ignorant commentary goes, it was right up there with the best of it.
The whole thing practically got on its hands and knees and howled at the moon. It was a jumble of words with no coherent meaning, rambling for the sake of rambling, and bearing no relationship to reality whatsoever.
It represented such a profound misunderstanding of who the Collective is and what it exists to do that it had to be wilful. Nobody can be this clueless by accident. As a smear attempt it failed completely, managing only to make the speaker sound ridiculous.
I can speak with some experience here.
Because I was involved in left-wing politics for years, going back to my teens. I have bounced around the fringes of the Scottish far left, been a Labour Party member, been a trade unionist, and been labelled everything from Stalinist to Leninist to Trotskyite and worse. In my time, I have dabbled in hard left politics and I have been a centrist. I went from being a hardened Labour battler to being an SNP-voting independence activist.
Thus, I know the landscape. I know the ground.
On top of that, I know what a fringe takeover of an organisation looks like.
I also know what an actual fringe organisation looks like.
So, when people with no understanding of any of this chip in as if they are experts, it does not annoy me so much as it embarrasses them.
The other day I went after Celtic Supporters Limited, not because I think they are a bad organisation, or an evil one, or run by bad people, but because they chose to criticise the Collective and they have more than a whiff of the People’s Front of Judea about them.
For anyone unfamiliar with the reference, it comes from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where a collection of near-identical political factions sit around sniping at each other despite having indistinguishable aims and objectives. As someone who spent a long time immersed in left-wing politics, I find the joke both painfully funny and uncomfortably accurate.
If there is a meaningful difference in aims and objectives between Celtic Supporters Limited and the Celtic Trust, I am genuinely unsure what it is.
That alone makes the existence of the former somewhat baffling, except perhaps for the fact that they do not particularly like the leadership of the latter, which is fair enough. Still, when you represent a tiny group that has appeared out of nowhere, you sound faintly absurd claiming to speak for the silent majority, especially when that phrase originates in US politics with Richard Nixon, one of its most cynical exponents.
They are entitled to criticise the Collective as much as they like. The difference is that the club knows we exist. We have made noise and forced movement. We have helped remove a Celtic chairman. The Collective is not talking about what might happen in five or ten years’ time.
We are talking about what is happening now.
There is absolutely a place for a shareholder-led organisation that focuses on the long game. When the Collective started, many of us were clear that it needed a multi-track philosophy. Pressure had to be applied from multiple directions at once. Legal scrutiny. Shareholding leverage. Activism on the ground. Media pressure. Quiet engagement where useful. The Collective has all of that.
The reason I am harsh on critics is simple. They wilfully misrepresent what the Collective is, how it is structured, and how it operates. They misunderstand, or pretend to misunderstand, its leadership and its decision-making.
I have seen countless political organisations spring up over the years. I even wrote a lengthy piece on what a Celtic fan congress might look like, deliberately modelling it on the Labour Party’s National Executive. For all its many faults, that structure exists to bring together a broad church with wildly differing views.
Holding together any major coalition is incredibly difficult. The thing about the Collective that its critics either do not understand or do not want to understand is that it is a minor miracle that it exists at all. Even more remarkable is that it functions. That is a credit to every organisation involved and every individual who supports it. It works because it acknowledges difference of opinion, even within its own walls, and remains focused on the correct goal, the betterment of Celtic.
For those too dim to grasp it, or too dishonest to admit it, that is why it holds together.
It brings together not just different political viewpoints but different strategies. It consciously tries to appeal to the broadest possible cross-section of the support.
One of the more hilarious aspects of CSL presenting itself as the voice of the silent majority is that there is no way to prove it, because the defining characteristic of a silent majority is that it does not speak.
The Collective has never claimed to speak for people who say nothing. It’s a foolish claim. It’s a cynical claim because it’s a meaningless claim. You may as well claim to speak for the generations of dead fans who came before us.
What the Collective does understand is that one day it may have to go before the wider support and argue for a radical course of action. Its honesty, its openness, and the fact it has already put proposals to the fanbase speaks for itself.
So, let’s finally kill off this nonsense about the Collective being a coalition of left-wing splinter groups with a political agenda detached from Celtic.
Everything about the Collective is about Celtic.
Since Mr Donegan wants to talk politics, let’s indulge him.
Let’s do a little People’s Front of Judea versus Judean People’s Front, and show just how broad a church the Collective actually is.
Start with the revolutionaries. I’m one of those. These are the people most associated with Not Another Penny. They believe compromise is surrender and that pressure only works when it hurts. If you want to lazily label any section of the support as Trotskyite, it would be them. Permanently mobilised. Permanently suspicious They are always convinced the next escalation is the one that matters.
Before anyone starts stamping their feet, that description is satirical.
Not Another Penny was not the brainchild of a fringe. It was the result of serious internal debate between people with very different views. It only looks revolutionary because fans are asking other fans not to spend money on the club.
That is precisely how pressure movements have always worked.
Celts for Change in the 1990s did exactly the same thing.
Next come the institutional reformers. Shareholders. Lawyers. Governance obsessives. People who read Articles of Association for fun. I have been one of them. I did that before the US takeover at Ibrox. These are the people who believe in rules, process, leverage and long games. Call them the democratic socialists of the support. Change the structures and behaviour will follow. I count myself among them too.
Then there are the Labourists. Supporters’ clubs. Community organisations. People rooted in tradition.
They do not want abstract purity or ideological theatrics. These folks want better communication, respect, accountability, and recognition that the club exists because supporters built it. They are about as far from radical revolution as it is possible to get, and they are absolutely essential. My people also.
There are also the social democrats. They believe this can be fixed if everyone behaves sensibly. Pressure should be applied, but not so hard that it damages the thing we are trying to save. Relationships matter. Dialogue matters. These are the people accused of being soft by hard-liners, yet they are often the last ones standing, keeping the lights on when others burn out. I am obviously on their side.
Even the Starmerites are here. Fans who hate conflict, crave calm, and think tone matters more than confrontation. They want everything resolved quietly, with minimal fallout, and preferably with everyone agreeing it was all a misunderstanding. I may not agree with them, but I understand them, and I know their instinct comes from love for the club.
Pull your head out of the sand for a moment and look properly, without trying to sow division, and you will see that the Collective has pursued every one of these paths. Pressure without harming the team. Openness to dialogue. Clear objectives around transparency and accountability. A democratic structure that includes fan representation, with the Celtic Trust already part of it. And pressure. Unrelenting pressure.
Put any one of these factions in sole control and the Collective would collapse. None of them wants to be ruled by the others. That is precisely why the structure matters. Leadership is drawn from across the support. Decision-making is democratic. Voices are respected. That is why the Collective endures and why it delivers results.
Everyone agrees on the fundamentals. Celtic belongs to the supporters. The board must be accountable. Fan culture matters. Collective punishment and contemptuous communication are unacceptable. We broadly agree on the club’s ambition and where it should be. Beyond that, disagreements exist, but progress beats paralysis every time.
If it looks like chaos, it is productive chaos. We have helped remove a chairman and forced change. We have shifted the terrain. Others stand around insisting that all this cannot be done. But popular movements have brought down governments who can deploy tanks and guns. A boardroom full of accountants is not an immovable object.
Sneer if you like. What critics mistake for incoherence is pluralism. Pluralism is messy, frustrating, slow, and infuriating. It is also resilient. It gets things done.
The Collective works because it is multi-track. Protest here. Legal scrutiny there. Media pressure elsewhere. Quiet negotiation when useful. Noise when required. A single-ideology movement would be easy to isolate, discredit, and wait out. A broad church regenerates. When one wing tires, another steps forward. The irony is that the very thing our critics mock is the thing that makes the Collective dangerous.
At its best, the left has always understood this. You do not need everyone in lockstep. You need enough people agreeing on enough things for long enough to force change. That is how real progress has always happened.
That’s why the Collective endures. That’s why it will win.
James F — You personify the failure of the next generation of progressive politics to move beyond the student’s union in all its gory detail.
Starmer might be politically clueless but he is a grown up trying to do grown up things to improve the lot of the bottom half of society in the face of the rise of identity politics / hyper individualism / might is right morality / rampant attention seeking / the rise of a middle class leftism.
It is a tough gig to move things forward after 14 years of Tory dog boiling austerity / the self harm of Brexit / Donny John’s daily mentalism / rancid social media / concert party of media right wing Yetis — no men who shout shit* at everything.
Consequently cut the guy some slack.
But I fear you are an omelette lover who won’t break an egg.
I don’t think I have ever read one of your comments – and there are many long winded diatribes – that don’t stink of superiority complex.
Man vs ball — at least we know the game you play.
To form an opinion you at least had to read them.
So progress of a sort.
Starter the human rights lawyer that backed a genocide. The man is a tory
Cheap student union / immature gum bumping.
Gaza is many things — mostly bad — but the actions don’t match the intent.
Playing murderous games / toying with a community — better start there.
Hamas learned a hard lesson — the Anders Breivik vibe is not what they needed.
Their day out brigade went mental and ended their credibility in one morning.
Grown ups try to understand it and it is complex.
Infallible political toddlers just shout slogans.
Nurse!!!!!
Do you know what “Hamas” learned more than anything? They learned they have more friends and allies worldwide now than Trump & Netanyahu combined can muster a million times over. Please educate yourself on what the Hannibal Directive carried out on Oct 7th was which is known all across every section of society in occupied Palestine and has been reported extensively in Zionist daily publications ever since that glorious day rescued the fight for a free Palestine for all indigenous groups that survived the initial nakba from extinction.
Get it from “Israeli” sources only. As vile and despicable their presence in Palestine, and this world as a whole is, the Zionists are very open and honest about what occurred and what didn’t on October 7th – at least compared to anything you’ll see or read in the global West.
I used quotes for “Hamas” as that was your word. Anyone with half a clue would have used Ezz el Din al-Qassam brigade to describe the heroes who breached the cement walls that have carved an ugly partition between them and the rest of Palestine on 7th October.
Named after the sheikh who in 1935 – long before the dark entity would bomb itself into UN recognition – was martyred by Ashkenazi white supremacist terrorists from Eastern Europe, and whose death led to nationwide labour strikes, uprisings against the colonial Brits and their acolytes including the notorious Black & Tans who’d had enough of the Irish rebels back home to last a lifetime and so chose to move to Palestine for what they thought would be an easier fight. lol
Lets see you proudly fly the dying bastard statelet of “Israel’s” flag at the next Celtic match and see how popular you are among your own kind eh? Celtic fans are your own kind aren’t they? Good luck a chara!
Wait till you read syemor hersh expose of the lies and cover up of flat out murder of women , kids. Its coming and with hard pictorial evidence that will make you weep.
This is a place for discussion of football matters. Please spare us your virtue signalling diatribes. Better yet go to Gaza and help them shake off the yoke of the oppressor. I’m sure they’ll welcome a true believer like yourself with open arms.
eldraco
It’s admirable your compassion and outrage regarding the murder of woman and kids. How do you feel about the murder of jewish woman and kids on oct 7th? G. Fhloyd has put his cards on table and says he celebrates the atrocities of oct 7th. He also loves the regime in Iran because of their hatred of Israel despite them currently murdering their own woman and kids. Are you with Fhloyd on this also?
Fhloyd.
Even the GB are not openly celebrating Hamas antics on 7th oct. though Im sure many do privately. To say Hamas have massive support in the world is delusional. They dont even have massive support in Gaza where they rule with terror, openly executing their own people as soon as Israel withdrew.
Fhloyd..if you were captured on oct 7th by Al Qassam brigade, despite being one of their fanboys, I think you would be praying for Israel to implement the Hannibal directive instead of the fate that would be in store for you.
…if you know yer history!
I looked at CSL when they started out and found it quite a strange concept. Fair play for trying to trace shareholders or shares that have fallen off the radar, but trying to attract members by charging a monthly subscription, and asking them to sign over their proxy votes to the company, who’s stance they might not agree with come voting time, seems a bit off putting when you can just vote online or go along to the meeting. If they asked a question of shareholders such as are you prepared to vote for an EGM? it would make more sense. Maybe I’m looking at this too simplistically but this can’t be fixed by shareholders alone, not when Desmond and his mates control the majority. It has to be fixed by Celtic supporters.
I’ve watched numerous interviews with David Lowe and Duncan Smillie but I’ve never heard any of them criticise the Collective. They’ve stated they were supporting a different approach, but they didn’t say the Collective’s approach was wrong, it just wasn’t what they wanted to adopt. Maybe I’ve missed a negative comment somewhere, but from what I’ve listened to from them both there was understanding of the Collective’s agenda.
Dixie, i think James was referring to Lawrence Donegan. I don’t recall him mentioning David Lowe or Duncan Smillie. Sincerest apologies if i’ve got that wrong.
Good article James, what these accountants and corporate lawyers don’t seem to realise is that a football club isn’t a normal business and especially a football club with the history of Celtic. They themselves show how hypocritical they are by talking of “The Celtic Family” and “a club built for all” on one hand, whilst they hoard cash and show only direspect towards the Celtic fans.
Good Luck to The Collective, as a guy who would describe myself in politics as a Social Democrat, I just hope you can respect one and other and debate rationally rather than argue. Keep the heid and in the long run change will come, just remember at the end of a long race there is a sprint to the line and that could happen here regarding changes within our club.
“…independence activist”?
I knew there was something good about you. It could also explain why some folk seem to have it in for you. Usually ones hiding behind anonymous fake usernames. Personally, i do my utmost not to respond to anyone hiding behind a fake identity.
Anyway, that’s my one and only non-football comment on these threads. Well, i’ll do my best not to deviate from football. LOL!
As for the rest of your article, i haven’t a clue who Lawrence Donegan is. Possibly someone looking for attention. Looking to make a name for himself. I’m not a member of The Collective but i support their endeavours to drive meaningful change at our club. More power to them.
History will not be kind to those who stood in the way of transformation,
NOT ANOTHER PENNY
Your support for the Collective and not spending another penny is your membership card Richard. I don’t think you need to show any official ID or anything to take and be a part. At least I hope not or I’ve been doing it wrong myself. 🙂
ITS time to step up not another penny and hit the other clubs now.
Lets face it they cut allocations too us so why not go full monty and buy no tickets for away games at all. That means no income for any team, no food beveridge ,bospitality of any sort in any town.
We still of course pack out paradise buying no food nor merch but we keep all this going untill the GB are back and an entire new board in place.
The pressurs from the other club and retailers will be jnbearable if the green pound
Is removed entirely while the support sit at home or snug from the pishing rai in pubs.
To suggest that the Celtic Collective are Trotskyite or members of the Socialist Workers Party is a joke. I personally know some of the membership and when I highlighted Donegan’s claim they simply sounded bemused and laughed. What next, forming the CCS (Celtic Collective Soviet) who will move towards seizure of power, firstly- Barrowfield, Lennoxtown then Celtic Park. Are the CCS gearing up for a ruction to seize the capitalist means of production? Lunacy from Donegan. ???
A good article James. I have followed a similar path in politics and trade unionism as you. Though I dont entirely agree with you I certainly respect the point of view.
Some comments are truly disturbing though, some of the posts on here which wouldnt be out of place in Nazi German. Celebrating 7th october and the regime in Iran which is currently murdering its own people is truly extraordinary and has no place anywhere near Celtic.
For some people anything is acceptable if it means the destruction of jews!
Truly truly disturbing!
That’s an outright lie.
Fighting against the people who steal your property and illegally occupy your land and kill your people is not ‘ the destruction of jews’ because it isn’t Jews who do it.It is far right Zionists.
A huge amount of Jewish people also want the far right Israelis to stop stealing Palestinian land and create a sovereign country of Palestine.
So don’t do your sneaky lying by attempting to conflate far right Zionists with ‘jews’.
We see what you are doing.
All I can say James is…
Thank Fuck you seen sense and ditched The Butchers Apron loving Labour Loyalist Bastards…
And you’re now with The SNP – SAOR ALBA !!!
Still we could do with Scottish Sinn Fein as The SNP are too soft…
PS – Shame on any Celtic supporter these days since The Scottish Parliament that votes for Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, or Reform !
Volp. Are you reading the comments. G Fhloyd said he celebrated the murder of Israeli citizens on oct 7th, men, woman and children (the vast majority jews) were murdered by heroes according to Fhloyd. He previously said he loved the current iranian regime because of their stance on Israel. Iran is currently murdering their own people.
Hamas also excuting their own citizens as soon as Israel pulled out. Fhloyds heroes rule by terror!
The far right zionists as you call them are all jews.
Regarding Israel. Why shouldn’t the jews have a homeland. There are many Islamic states in that area, practically all of them fucked up places where human rights abuses and oppression is the norm.
Gaza will eventually rid itself of Hamas and make peace with Israel because the plan to eradicate the jews just isnt working.