Scotland’s Extra Second Poetry, a monthly meet-up group based in Glasgow, is about to launch a six-month series of events on basic income. The inaugural event will take place on Friday, August 19 at the social enterprise café For Fika Sake.

Over the course of five hours, the event will feature a variety of speakers from the Scottish National Party (SNP), Green Party, and trade unions, as well as academics and activists. It will additionally feature some artistic performances, including the spoken word of Bibi June Schwithal and music of Caitlin Buchanan.

Biographies of all speakers are available on the Facebook event page.

The event will be live-streamed, and there will be time for open discussion between the speakers and audience–both those who are physically present and those listening online. Attendance is free.

Basic income has enjoyed recent popularity in left-wing Scottish politics, with both the SNP and Scottish Greens endorsing universal basic income in the past two years. Last spring, BIEN cofounder Guy Standing delivered the Angus Millar Lecture on the topic of basic income in relation to Scotland.

More information about the event:

Maxine Blane, “Events campaign exploring universal basic income launches“, CommonSpace; August 16, 2016.

Facebook event: “Exploring a Universal Basic Income – Glasgow“, hosted by Extra Second Poetry.

Livestream: “Exploring a Universal Basic Income“, Independence Live.

Background about the Scottish political context:

Jonny West, “SCOTLAND: Scottish National Party Conference calls for universal income“, Basic Income News; March 29, 2016.

Toru Yamamori, “SCOTLAND: Greens Manifesto 2015 refers to BIG“, Basic Income News; April 13, 2015.

Photo: CC BY-NC 2.0 Giuseppe Milo