You are not welcome here.

As sentences go, they don’t come much simpler and clearer than that, do they?

So, exactly what part of “you are not welcome here” does the Orange Order not get?

Why are they once again, and tiresomely so, trying to force a parade of bigotry on the quiet wee town of Stonehaven?

This time the sash-wearing tribe want a parade to commemorate the Battle Of The Boyne – a historical event that has much in common with Stonehaven as the storming of the Bastille or the Siege of Leningrad.

They seem to have forgotten another memorable event, even though it only happened two years ago.

That was when the people of Stonehaven successfully told the Orange Order “you are not welcome here” (there’s that phrase again) with 10,000 people signing a petition urging that permission be refused for a procession of triumphalist prejudice.

Aberdeenshire Council duly – and rightly – agreed.

And the Order had their bottoms handed to them on a plate when they appealed to the courts that they had a God-given right to transplant a bit of light bile into a peaceful town. The courts told them they didn’t.

Just in case the Orangemen really didn’t get the message, their opening of a lodge in Stonehaven on the same day as the banned march was greeted with every business in Stonehaven closing their doors for the day.

You are not welcome here

Pubs, shops, restaurants, even the pet shop, took a hit on their trade so they could say: “You are not welcome here”.

Yet here they are, back again – gosh is that a whiff of spite in the air? This time they are dressing up their proposal as a “smaller” parade. Sorry, but bigotry isn’t a thing you measure by size. The only measure is not allowing it at all.

And already the people of Stonehaven are expressing their outrage and urging our local politicians to do the right thing again. They are calling on everyone in the community to lodge their objections. Mine is in already.

Aye, nothing unites Stonehaven like protecting its special atmosphere as a tranquil place where all are welcome, if they arrive with tolerance in their hearts and a desire to be part of our peaceful community.

And why aren’t the Orange Order welcome? Well, this could be a time to rehearse what sectarianism brings to Scottish society and to the trouble and poison that follows in the wake of Orange walks in other parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Because it does, no matter what the Orange Order would like you to believe. This is an outfit that should be judged by the actions of its followers, not the empty words of its leaders.

But all of that is known so well it needs no rehearsal here.

Does the Orange Order have a right to assemble and parade? Well, no one is stopping them doing so in the many places where such practices are, sadly, established.

What they don’t have the right to do is bring bigotry and division to the north-east where there is zero history of it and zero desire to see it on our streets.

You were told two years ago and you are being told again.

You are not welcome here.

© The Press & Journal