THE following is a guest article by Paul Cooper of Edinburgh Yes Hub

THE Edinburgh Yes Hub is making use of the fact that stage 7 of the Tour of Britain cycling race is passing by the Hub’s front door this Saturday as it wends its way from Hawick to Holyrood Park in Edinburgh.

Taking advantage of it being broadcast live on ITV4, we are looking to line both sides of Lasswade Road in Liberton, where the Yes Hub can be found, with Yes flags and banners. This would be a simple and Covid-19-safe way to gather Yessers together and make a clear statement that the movement is still here and is as strong as ever.

This political flag-waving idea follows the long tradition that occurs with the Tour de France and La Vuelta a España.

The Tour’s website estimates that the cyclists should pass the Hub sometime between 3pm and 4pm (but more likely closer to 3pm) and the road should be closed by 2:30pm so anyone wanting to come along bring your flags and banner to meet by the Yes Hub by 2:30pm at the latest.

So we don’t just look like supporters of Scottish cyclists – we can be both) – we ask people to bring flags and banners that are clearly pro-independence, if they can. Further we hope to have some music to entertain.

For more information, please check out the Edinburgh Yes Hub’s blog at www.edinburghyeshub.info/news. We hope to see you there.

As a final note the last stage of the Tour on Sunday is from Stonehaven to Aberdeen (via Ballater) so it would be good if people could do something similar on that stage.