At the end of last month, I attended the first of Dundee City Council’s consultation meetings over the closure plans for Menzieshill High School. More than a hundred parents and pupils packed into a hall to hear education director Michael Wood and others try to explain why closing the secondary school would not, in fact, tear the heart out of the local community.

The Courier later wrote that “tempers flared” at the meeting. This understates the sheer anger which was directed at the council from anxious parents who felt betrayed and marginalised. There was openly voiced doubt as to whether this was a genuine consultation at all, and not a sham co-ordinated by a council that had already made up its mind.

I attended the meeting primarily out of personal curiosity. As a young boy, I lived in Charleston and went to Charleston Primary School, which was demolished in 2013 after a cost-saving merger with Lochee Primary. My mother worked for some time at Charleston Community Library and I enjoyed canvassing my former neighbourhood ahead of last year’s independence referendum. In another life, this could have been my school.

Moments after the consultation meeting ended, I pulled aside a Courier journo and told him there would be a hard-fought campaign to save the school. There was no way the defiant parents who filled the hall would allow it to be closed.

I also told him what I overheard the disheartened woman next to me mutter as Cllr Stewart Hunter spoke: “And I was actually thinking of voting SNP in May…”

There is a profound contradiction between the SNP’s declared anti-austerity stance ahead of the UK general election in May and the cuts which they are implementing at a local level. Dundee City Council is an SNP majority administration, ruling over the city that voted overwhelmingly for independence in September 2014. It could, conceivably, be the most radical local authority in Scotland — instead, it has decided to sow fear and uncertainty among hundreds of working class parents.

In conjunction with nonpartisan activists and our friends in the Dundee RCG, the SSP supported calls for a public meeting at Menzieshill Parish Church on Tuesday 3 February to launch a campaign to save the school.

As more than seventy people filled the hall, a panel was hastily convened to address the crowd of parents, pupils, residents and community campaigners. I chaired the meeting with the help of the local minister, whose own children are affected by the closure plans, and introduced Dave Mundt, who clashed with the council over education cuts as a Morgan Academy pupil in 2011; Mike MacGregor, who fought to save Linlathen High School from a previous local Labour administration; and SSP co-spokesperson Sandra Webster, who grew up in Dryburgh.

Remarks from the top table were kept brief as we sought the views and suggestions of local residents incensed by council plans to close the school. We heard from parents still seething from previous primary school closures and mergers, heard concerns about travel costs and new school uniforms, and welcomed the support of those campaigning to save the Young Mums’ Unit (YMU) from what would be a devastating restructuring.

The remark that stood out the most was from one angry mother, who articulated what many in the room felt: “We did not vote Yes for the SNP to turn around and close our schools!”

Experienced activists from other left-wing and community organisations in Dundee pledged their support, and parents were promised the backing of Dundee City Unison.

The black sheep in the room, however, was SNP Cllr Jimmy Black, an unlikely visitor who struggled to justify his administration’s decision to back the closure ‘in principle’. He was given the opportunity to answer questions from the assembled crowd. The dynamic was certainly very different from the council-organised consultation meetings, where the council could simply ignore difficult questions, such as those regarding the Young Mums’ Unit. Not coincidentally, Cllr Black used this platform to encourage parents to engage with the official consultation process — a convenient distraction from the confrontational approach advocated by others in the hall.

The most concrete proposal that came out of the meeting was the need for a public lobby of Dundee City Council’s budget meeting on Thursday 12 February. Trade unions are often present as councillors set the budget for the coming year — we promised that this time, there would be a ‘Save Menzieshill High’ banner alongside theirs.

The Scottish Socialist Party is calling for everyone in the city to join the planned lobby of Dundee City Council.

We will send a clear message to the SNP administration of Dundee City Council, to the Scottish Government in Edinburgh, and to the masterminds of austerity at Westminster: working class people say no to cuts, and no to the closure of Menzieshill High School!

CITY SQUARE DEMO – SAVE MENZIESHILL HIGH

DUNDEE CITY SQUARE

THURSDAY 12 FEBRUARY, 2PM

https://www.facebook.com/events/788750031172310/