Scottish National Party gains majority in Scottish Parliament

[Rooster]

The SNP have gained a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament. This means that the referendum on independence will no doubt go through. Labour and LibDem support collapse throughout the country, many old "safe" Labour seats have gone over to SNP. Anyone want to speculate on the implications of this?

[StoneFrog]

For a referendum to go through for independence it still has to be get the stamp of approval from Westminster if i'm correct. So idk if much would come from it.

On what ground is the SNP calling for independence? Since im not in Scotland idk really too much about them.

[Tim Finnegan]

What's interesting is that Labour seem to have retained a similar number of votes with a roughly similar distribution (although correct me if I'm wrong on that!), so the SNP victory seems to have been primarily on the backs of a Lib Dem massacre. I guess that shows the strong desire for a centre-left populist party, something which Labour, despite being the natural candidate for the role, has staunchly refused to pursue. The entirely predictable failure of the far-left parties is yet another signifier of the dismal state of the party-left, as if we're at all surprised by that, and their complete incompetence in capitalising on the ground laid by the non-party-left in the anti-cuts movement.


For a referendum to go through for independence it still has to be get the stamp of approval from Westminster if i'm correct. So idk if much would come from it.
If it's all done by the books, then Westminster isn't in much of a position to refuse while still maintaining the pretence of democratic legitimacy.


On what ground is the SNP calling for independence? Since im not in Scotland idk really too much about them.Well, they're a bourgeois nationalist party, so it basically boils down to an ideology which disregards Britain as a legitimate national construction, and instead holds Scotland to be the highest level of legitimate nationhood, and so of a legitimate basis for statehood; the argument for independence springs naturally from that. Of course, that in itself doesn't win elections, so they've built up various rationalisations, some faulty, some reasonable, to defend their program. The backbone of their case is, at present, energy and public services, arguing that North Sea gas- of which an independent Scotland would be entitled to a majority- combined with the future development of sustainable energy will keep the Scottish economy ticking over, and allow the maintenance of a healthy welfare state that the Westminster-based parties, it is quite apparent, have very little interest in maintaining.

[Wanted Man]

Wow, that's surprising. It was expected that they were going to win big, but it seemed that everyone, including the Nats themselves, totally excluded the idea of winning a majority. Systematic underestimation on the part of their competitors and media, and deliberate downplaying of their chances by the SNP themselves?

Separate from the discussion on whether independence is officially A Good Thing or not, it seems to me that this result means that UK politics can no longer run away from a referendum. But can they simply ignore the result, should it be positive? Not sure how that works, maybe someone can explain.

Another thing I noticed in another thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/no-vote-galloway-t154126/index.html) is that a lot of people were confident that Galloway could make a big splash. It's easy to talk now that he has only got a measly 3.5%, but did people seriously expect him to stand a chance?

EDIT: I forgot about the weird voting system they have. Obviously, on a regional list he did actually stand some kind of chance. Point stands though.

[Rooster]

I haven't seen a proper break down of the votes yet but I do agree that Labour appears to have maintained it's previous support. I imagine that because many of the left parties also campaigned for independence that justified people voting for the more popular SNP, maybe with the hope that an independence bill (which I think the SNP are justifying on economic and social grounds) getting passed that it will clear the way for more left wing activity. Maybe because there won't be a tactical need to vote just to prevent a Tory majority in Westminster, which I think it apparent in this years and previous years voting results. One of the politicians (I think LibDem) said that the traditional base of their votes in the highlands came from non-unionised working class people, saying that's why they don't vote Labour and why the LibDems have collapsed as a result of the coalition in Westminster with the Tories. I thought that the mere mention of class conciousness here was a real surprise.

[Wanted Man]

Today, one year ago (give or take a few days):


"As well as being a dramatic result for Scottish Labour, with over a million votes, we also saw that the Tories are going nowhere in Scotland. Their much-vaunted and talked-up campaign went absolutely nowhere."
He added: "The SNP went backwards. It's clear Scotland turned its back on the SNP and they have no mandate to claim to speak for Scotland."
But with the UK result unclear, Labour refused to celebrate. Instead, they vowed to use their success as a springboard for next year's Holyrood election.
Murphy said: "Scottish Labour goes into the build-up to the Scottish parliament elections with all of the momentum, a lot of confidence and none of the arrogance."
And Labour's Holyrood leader Iain Gray said: "Last night was a good result but we are now shifting our focus immediately towards a year from now ... and our objective of making Labour the biggest party in Holyrood again."

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics-news/2010/05/08/election-2010-jim-murphy-s-joy-as-scotland-says-no-to-david-cameron-86908-22243267/
:lol:

[Cencus]

Labour have lost seats in Strathclyde their heartland. Their leader in Scotland has already jumped.

The Lib Dems got a kick in the nads for their support for the Tories.

The Tories are an irrelevance in Scotland as ever.

The Nats cleaned up, and will probably try n get their referendum through.

Expect protracted battles with Westminster for the next few years with the nats blaming the tories for anything & everything, it's gonna be a long campaign of misinformation from both sides.

If the referendum goes against independance expect a lib/lab coalition in 4 years.

Other than that same shit different window dressing.

[Tommy4ever]

Disappointing performances from the leftwng parties. I know Galloway didn't get it but he wasn't that far off getting enough votes for a seat.

Still very disappointing.


As for the result - a referendum is a certainty. However, it seems unlikely that it will pass through (judging by polls most put the pro-independence vote at something like 30-40%). I'd also imagine that the referendum might be set up in such a way that in order to declare independence the vote would require a greater than 50% Yes vote (perhaps 60% or higher).

[Jimmy Haddow (SPS)]

I put this article in another thread when it should have been here on the Scottish elections.

The Socialist Party Scotland (CWI) politcal analysis of the Scottish Election


SNP landslide – but it will be a government of savage cuts, by Philip Stott, 6 May 2011


The Scottish National Party (SNP) has won the elections to the Scottish parliament by securing an unprecedented 69 MSPs, an increase of 23 on 2007, gaining an overall majority. This is the first time any party has been able to hold more than half the 129 seats in the Scottish parliament since its establishment in 1999.

The SNP’s share of the vote was 45.4% (+12.5%) in the constituencies and 44.1% (+13%) in the regional lists. This is the biggest vote ever for the nationalists and was achieved largely due to the collapse of the votes of the Con-Dem parties in Scotland. Between them the Tories (-3%) and LibDems (-8%) lost 11% of their constituency vote, almost all of this went to the SNP. The Lib Dems in particular were mauled, losing 11 MSPs and ending-up with just 5.


The swing to the SNP meant that although the Labour vote did not collapse, the SNP won scores of seats in former safe Labour areas. For the first time ever the SNP have won a majority of seats in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and across the central belt of Scotland. Every seat in north east Scotland, including those in Dundee and Aberdeen were won by the SNP. Five of the six Edinburgh seats as well. While in the past, the nationalists were restricted to wining first-past-the-post seats in the more rural parts of Scotland. They now hold 53 of the 73 local constituencies - a huge gain of 32 seats from the 21 they won in 2007. They also picked up 16 seats on the PR based regional lists.


The SNP’s historic victory was a result of a number of factors. Alex Salmond’s minority government postponed the bulk of the spending cuts until after the election to try to avoid being fully exposed as a government of cuts. The £600 million cuts to the Scottish budget as a result of the June 2010 emergency Con-Dem were put-off and wrapped up in the £1.3 billion cuts for 2011-12 voted through by the SNP, the Lib Dems and the Tories in February. This meant that a majority of these cuts have still to be fully felt. The SNP will now, however, attempt to use their parliamentary majority to attempt to carry through the deepest and most savage spending cuts in decades. Their plan is to pass on the Con-Dem austerity and axe £3.3 billion from jobs and public services in Scotland over the next four years.


Ironically, with a Con-Dem government in power in Westminster, many people will have voted SNP as a protection from the cuts that are looming like a tsunami over the jobs, benefits and wages of millions of people in Scotland. In reality this new SNP government will arouse mass opposition if they attempt to implement the Tory cuts on the working class communities across Scotland.


The SNP re-built a significant electoral base in Scotland from the late 80’s on, as a radical nationalist party positioned to the left of Labour. While they moved to the right and in a more neo-liberal economic direction during the nineties and the noughties, they have still maintained the veneer of radicalism


To an extent the support for the SNP in this election was based on the carrying through of some relatively progressive policies from 2007 - 2011, including the freezing of council tax, the ending of prescription charges, the abolition of the back-loaded tuition fees and the reversal of plans to close A and E services at hospitals. For a layer of people, the SNP are still seen as a more radical alternative to Labour. This reflects the potential for the development of a new mass workers party, especially as the SNP will now be exposed in a way that did not happen in their first 4 year term.


Labour’s catastrophe

If the election was a triumph for the SNP, it was a catastrophe for Labour. Bad enough was the overall loss of 7 seats, but worse, and more significant, was the loss of 20 first-past-the-post seats, leaving Labour with only 15 MSPs from a possible 73 available constituency seats. It was only the top-up section of the regional vote that allowed Labour to retain a total of 37 MSPs overall.


It’s an open question as to whether they can ever recover from their worst result in Scotland in 80 years. Added to a pitiful campaign, which began by stealing the SNP policies on the freezing of the council tax, opposition to any form of graduate tax or tuition fees and prescription charges, Labour were undermined again and again by the weakness of their leader, Iain Gray, compared to the populist oratory and debating skills of the SNP leader Alex Salmond. With virtually no policy differences, except on independence and a referendum, the outcome of the election came down for many between a choice between Gray and Salmond as First Minister. A contest that could have only one winner. This was reinforced by Labour’s incapability of exposing the SNP over their spinelessness over the cuts – because Labour support austerity and are making deep cuts as well. In the run-up to the 2010 Westminster elections Labour promised to make cuts even deeper than Thatcher’s.


Iain Gray has indicated he will resign as Labour leader after the summer. Who replaces him is unclear. Labour have also lost many of their “leading” MSPs. The new crop of Labour MSPs, are widely seen as the “third eleven” - totally inexperienced and devoid of any real connection with the trade unions and the working class. As such they will also reinforce Labour’s long term decline as a political force in Scotland. The outcome of the election underlines the analysis of the Socialist Party Scotland and the CWI that Labour is no longer seen as a party of the working class by big sections, especially of younger people. Although it can still maintain an electoral base as a “lesser evil” as we saw in the Westminster elections in 2010.


SNP and big business

Following the election Alex Salmond said, “We are now the national party of Scotland – acting in the interests of all of Scotland.” But in reality Salmond and the new SNP government will be a party acting in the interests of big business and carrying out savage cuts. It was no accident that a series of leading business figures backed and bankrolled their campaign. This included Brian Souter, head of Stagecoach who donated £500,000 to the SNPs election funds, Tom Farmer, millionaire founder of Kwik-Fit and a long-term donor, George Mathewson, former Chair of the Royal Bank of Scotland and many others. The SNP have proved again and again that they are prepared to defend the priorities of capitalism – which is to unload the costs of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class. The widespread support for the SNP by the billionaire owned press, including Murdoch’s Sun, the News of the World as well as the Scotsman, the Herald and Express groups and others, are also a clear signpost to the political direction of the new SNP government.


Independence referendum

One of the most important consequences of the outcome of the election, is the inevitability of a referendum on independence. At this stage, the SNP have only said that the referendum will be held “at some time over the next 5 years.” Moreover, in the last parliament the SNP advocated a bill for a multi-option referendum, including a vote for more powers as well as full independence. They are likely to want to adopt a similar approach towards a new referendum bill.


It is also likely that in the first instance the SNP will use their election victory to wrestle concessions on the Scotland bill that is currently being debated at Westminster. This bill proposes extending, in a limited way, the powers available to the Scottish parliament. But this election outcome will apply extra pressure on the ruling class and the Con-Dem government to concede further powers, possibly over borrowing and even control over corporation tax.


The SNP have been very careful not to “antagonise” the interests of the majority of the capitalists who are opposed to independence at this stage. Opinion polls indicate a minority of people back full independence, with a big majority for stronger powers. For the SNP a multi-option referendum would still be their preferable course of action – which, even if the independence option was defeated, would deliver extra economic levers to the Scottish government. As one of their MSPs, Kenny Gibson, commented, “more powers are an important staging post on the journey towards independence.”


Socialist and anti-cuts candidates

While no socialist/anti-cuts candidates were elected, the highest left vote on the regional lists was achieved by the George Galloway – Coalition Against Cuts list in Glasgow, which also involved Solidarity, Socialist Party Scotland and the Socialist Workers Party. This campaign, which stood on a platform of opposing all cuts, supporting the setting of needs budgets and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with trade unionists and communities fighting the cuts, polled a very respectable 6,335 (3.5%) of the vote. This was 3,600 votes short of seeing George Galloway elected, although it did defeat the Lib Dem’s list and came 5th out of 15 parties.


Alongside the Coalition Against Cuts, Solidarity also stood on its own in the other seven Scottish regions. As expected, Solidarity’s votes were very low and averaged around 0.2% - a total of 2,837 votes in the seven regions. The jailing of the Solidarity leader, Tommy Sheridan, earlier this year after being found “guilty” of perjury was a major factor. Many people, even those who supported Tommy, felt that it was a wasted vote to back Solidarity with Tommy in jail and unable to take part in the election. There is also no doubt that the public standing of Solidarity has been affected by the unrelenting campaign by the Murdoch press, the police and the legal establishment against Tommy Sheridan and other members of Solidarity. Also, without a presence in the parliament, the profile of Solidarity has dipped considerably since its high point in 2007. Nevertheless, the Solidarity vote added to the Coalition Against Cuts list in Glasgow (which also involved Solidarity) polled more than 9,000 votes for clear and principled anti-cuts platform.


The votes for the Scottish Socialist Party, who had six MSPs as recently as 2006, fell even further compared to their 2007 result when they lost 90% of their vote and all their MSPs. The SSP polled 0.4% of the national vote with 8,200 votes. Nevertheless, these votes also reflected support for a fighting anti-cuts platform. However, for the SSP leadership, who were instrumental in the state’s prosecution and jailing of Tommy Sheridan, and who believed they would gain electorally from having “told the truth,” this result was a damning public verdict on their criminal role and actions. An indication of their deluded belief that they would gain significantly in this election was the SSP’s boast that they would “push the Lib Dems into 6th place in Scotland.” In addition the Socialist Labour Party achieved a vote of 16,847 (0.8%).


Urgent task to build an alternative

The results for the socialist left were undeniably poor, with the exception of the George Galloway – Coalition Against Cuts list in Glasgow. The primary responsibility for having thrown away an important electoral position for socialists with parliamentary representation from 1999 until 2007 lies with the political mistakes and actions of the leadership of the SSP. It is a vital task now to work to rebuild a viable socialist and anti-cuts movement in Scotland.


With the election of an SNP government prepared to make huge cuts to jobs and public spending this task is urgent. Alex Salmond and his new government are demanding public sector workers accept year-on-year wages freezes – pay cuts in reality - as well as attacks on their terms and conditions. Tens of thousands of jobs in the public sector will be lost if these cuts go through. Services that communities rely on will be butchered unless a struggle is built to oppose them. The trade unions must organise national and coordinated strike action and quickly against the cuts, rather than accept the cuts. Working class communities need to be organised in the local anti-cuts campaigns and through the Scottish Anti-Cuts Alliance to oppose all cuts and fight for the a return of the money stolen from us to pay for the bail-outs of the bankers and capitalism.


As part of this anti-cuts struggle, that can spread like wildfire in the months ahead, a political alternative to cuts and capitalism must be built. Socialist Party Scotland will be advocating that the anti-cuts movement, socialists, trade unionists and communities work to build a fighting coalition against cuts that will stand in the council elections next year. To elect councillors who will refuse to make cuts and will stand up to the Con-Dem government in London, the SNP in Edinburgh and the councils who are wielding the axe across Scotland. This can be an important platform to help build a powerful socialist alternative to the parties of cuts in the year ahead.

[Buitraker]

Greetings from Basque Country


We have elections at 22 of May

[Demogorgon]

Wow, that's surprising. It was expected that they were going to win big, but it seemed that everyone, including the Nats themselves, totally excluded the idea of winning a majority. Systematic underestimation on the part of their competitors and media, and deliberate downplaying of their chances by the SNP themselves?

Separate from the discussion on whether independence is officially A Good Thing or not, it seems to me that this result means that UK politics can no longer run away from a referendum. But can they simply ignore the result, should it be positive? Not sure how that works, maybe someone can explain.

Another thing I noticed in another thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/no-vote-galloway-t154126/index.html) is that a lot of people were confident that Galloway could make a big splash. It's easy to talk now that he has only got a measly 3.5%, but did people seriously expect him to stand a chance?

EDIT: I forgot about the weird voting system they have. Obviously, on a regional list he did actually stand some kind of chance. Point stands though.Well nobody was expecting an absolute majority. The electoral system is basically MMP so getting a majority in Scotland ought to be as hard as getting a majority in Germany so it is extremely rare. The opinion polls had the SNP doing well, but not so well that they won outright, but that is what happened.

Incidentally, some people are wondering why Labour did much worse than last time while also losing a few votes, the reason is you are only looking at their constituency votes, not their list votes. Labour doesn't really understand MMP. It thinks it is FPTP with a bit of PR tacked on and so long as you do well in the constituencies the lists don't matter. Indeed because it won so many constituency seats in the past and the Scottish electoral system deals with overhangs by taking seats from other parties, their strategy paid off then. The trouble is with FPTP it is the difference between you and the other party, not your share of the vote. Labour fell back slightly but the SNP absolutely surged forwards meaning it had a huge lead and Labour hadn't compensated. if it had campaigned properly for list votes this wouldn't have mattered so much. It would have lost out a bit because the overhangs in Glasgow and the West of Scotland would have been gone and it would have been back to its proportional share, but it would still have been okay.

However Labour never understood that the list vote was so important and didn't really ask the electorate for it outside of the Highlands where it didn't win constituencies, so it was always lower than its constituency vote, unlike the SNP which keeps both votes very close. That would always have spelled trouble for Labour, but this time the List Vote fell even lower. The constituency vote was only down slightly, but the already lower list vote was down a lot more. I suppose some former Labour supporters switched their party vote to the SNP, but still voted for their constituency Labour candidate because they had been a good MSP on something like that. In the first election where Labour relied on the list over the constituencies, this proved catastrophic for them.

Another problem for Labour incidentally with regards to the list is that it doesn't normally run their constituency candidates on them. It gets its seats through constituencies so the lists are filled with non entities who don't actually want to be elected and are only there to pad out the list. However with the election moving Labour's seats from constituencies to the list it means most of their serious candidates in the constituencies are gone and its fourth rate list candidates are now representing the party in parliament. This is going to be a problem for them. The SNP and Tories run the same candidates on both constituency and list so it doesn't matter where their seats come from. no such luck for Labour.

BTW on the subject of an electoral system 53 of the SNP's 69 seats were from constituencies. In 1999 Labour won 53 constituency seats, but that only took it to 56 overall. In other words in FPTP terms what is proportionally worth 56 to labour and 69 to the SNP count as the same. In other words Labour need far less votes than the SNP to win big on the constituencies. Indeed in 2007, when the SNP was only slightly ahead, Labour won far more constituency seats. This doesn't really matter in the Scottish parliament where MMP cancels out the problem, but under the pure FPTP of Westminster elections, it makes any pretence of elections representing the will of the people a joke.

As for whether the UK Government could ignore an independence referendum, the answer is no. Technically following a successful referendum vote the Governments of Britain and Scotland would need to negotiate the terms of Scotland's exit from the Union and Westminster would pass the legislation to give this formal effect. but in practice if Westminster refused to do this after the people of Scotland had voted for independence there would be the mother of all constitutional crises and there might even be a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

Don't hold your breath for the referendum resulting in a vote for independence though. People will probably vote no. That is why we won't be seeing it for three years or so. In the meantime there is legislation going through Westminster to slightly increase the powers of the Scottish parliament. The SNP says that their immediate priority will be too change the legislation to substantially boost the powers, especially on fiscal matters. Only once they have done that will they go for full independence. In other words they are going for what they know they can succeed at before they go for what might fail.

[Jimmy Haddow (SPS)]

Socialist Party Scotland analysis of the SNP victory.


Scottish National Party (SNP) wins landslide election victory…
But majority government of savage cuts will meet working class resistance

Philip Stott, Socialist Party Scotland (CWI), Dundee

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has won the elections to the Scottish parliament by securing an unprecedented 69 MSPs, an increase of 23 on 2007, gaining an overall majority. This is the first time any party has been able to hold more than half the 129 seats in the Scottish parliament since its establishment in 1999.

The SNP’s share of the vote was 45.4% (+12.5%) in the constituencies and 44.1% (+13%) in the regional lists. This is the biggest vote ever for the nationalists and was achieved largely due to the collapse of the votes of the Con-Dem parties in Scotland. Between them, the Tories (-3%) and LibDems (-8%) lost 11% of their constituency vote, almost all of this went to the SNP. The Lib Dems in particular were mauled, losing 11 MSPs and ending-up with just 5.

The swing to the SNP meant that although the Labour vote did not collapse, the SNP won scores of seats in former safe Labour areas. For the first time ever, the SNP won a majority of seats in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and across the central belt of Scotland. Every seat in north east Scotland, including those in Dundee and Aberdeen, were won by the SNP. The SNP won five of the six Edinburgh seats, as well. While in the past, the nationalists were restricted to wining first-past-the-post seats in the more rural parts of Scotland, the now hold 53 of the 73 local constituencies - a huge gain of 32 seats from the 21 they won in 2007. They also picked up 16 seats on the PR-based regional lists.

The SNP’s historic victory was a result of a number of factors. The SNP leader, Alex Salmond’s minority last government postponed the bulk of the spending cuts until after the election to try to avoid being fully exposed as a government of cuts. The £600 million cuts to the Scottish budget, as a result of the June 2010 emergency Con-Dem, were put-off and wrapped up in the £1.3 billion cuts for 2011-12 voted through by the SNP, the Lib Dems and the Tories, in February. This meant that a majority of these cuts have still to be fully felt. The SNP will now, however, attempt to use their parliamentary majority to attempt to carry through the deepest and most savage spending cuts in decades. Their plan is to pass on the Westminster government Con-Dem austerity package and axe £3.3 billion from jobs and public services in Scotland over the next four years.
Ironically, with a Con-Dem government in power in Westminster, many people will have voted SNP as a protection from the cuts that are looming like a tsunami over the jobs, benefits and wages of millions of people in Scotland. In reality, this new SNP government will arouse mass opposition if they attempt to implement the Tory cuts on the working class communities across Scotland.

The SNP re-built a significant electoral base in Scotland from the late 1980’s onwards, as a radical, nationalist party positioned to the left of Labour. While they moved to the right and in a more neo-liberal economic direction during the nineties and the noughties, they have still maintained the veneer of radicalism.

To an extent, the support for the SNP in this election was based on the carrying through of some relatively progressive policies from 2007 - 2011, including the freezing of council tax, the ending of prescription charges, the abolition of the back-loaded tuition fees and the reversal of plans to close A and E services at hospitals. For a layer of people, the SNP are still seen as a more radical alternative to Labour. This reflects the potential for the development of a new mass workers party, especially as the SNP will now be exposed in a way that did not happen in their first 4 year term.

Labour’s catastrophe
If the election was a triumph for the SNP, it was a catastrophe for Labour. Bad enough was the overall loss of 7 seats, but worse, and more significant, was the loss of 20 first-past-the-post seats, leaving Labour with only 15 MSPs from a possible 73 available constituency seats. It was only the top-up section of the regional vote that allowed Labour to retain a total of 37 MSPs overall.
It is an open question as to whether they can ever recover from their worst result in Scotland in 80 years. Added to a pitiful campaign, which began by stealing the SNP policies on the freezing of the council tax, opposition to any form of graduate tax or tuition fees and prescription charges, Labour were undermined again and again by the weakness of their leader, Iain Gray, compared to the populist oratory and debating skills of the SNP leader, Alex Salmond. With virtually no policy differences, except on independence and a referendum, the outcome of the election came down for many between a choice between Gray and Salmond as First Ministerm - a contest that could have only one winner. This was reinforced by Labour’s incapability of exposing the SNP over their spinelessness over the cuts – because Labour support austerity and are making deep cuts, as well. In the run-up to the 2010 Westminster elections, Labour promised to make cuts even deeper than Thatcher’s.
Iain Gray has indicated he will resign as Labour leader after the summer. Who replaces him is unclear. Labour also lost many of their “leading” MSPs. The new crop of Labour MSPs are widely seen as the “third eleven” - totally inexperienced and devoid of any real connection with the trade unions and the working class. As such, they will also reinforce Labour’s long term decline as a political force in Scotland. The outcome of the election underlines the analysis of the Socialist Party Scotland (CWI) that Labour is no longer seen as a party of the working class by big sections, especially of younger people, although it can still maintain an electoral base, as a “lesser evil” as we saw in the Westminster elections in 2010.

SNP and big business
Following the election, Alex Salmond said: “We are now the national party of Scotland – acting in the interests of all of Scotland.” But, in reality, Salmond and the new SNP government will be a party acting in the interests of big business and carrying out savage cuts. It was no accident that a series of leading business figures backed and bankrolled their campaign. This included Brian Souter, head of the Stagecoach company, who donated £500,000 to the SNPs election funds, Tom Farmer, millionaire founder of Kwik-Fit, and a long-term donor, George Mathewson, former Chair of the Royal Bank of Scotland and many others. The SNP have proved again and again that they are prepared to defend the priorities of capitalism – which is to unload the costs of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class. The widespread support for the SNP by the billionaire-owned press, including Murdoch’s Sun and the News of the World, as well as the Scotsman, the Herald and Express groups and others, are also a clear signpost to the political direction of the new SNP government.


Independence referendum
One of the most important consequences of the outcome of the election is the inevitability of a referendum on independence. At this stage, the SNP have only said that the referendum will be held “at some time over the next 5 years.” Moreover, in the last parliament, the SNP advocated a bill for a multi-option referendum, including a vote for more powers, as well as full independence. They are likely to want to adopt a similar approach towards a new referendum bill.
It is also likely that in the first instance the SNP will use their election victory to wrestle concessions on the Scotland bill that is currently being debated at Westminster. This bill proposes extending, in a limited way, the powers available to the Scottish parliament. But this election outcome will apply extra pressure on the ruling class and the Con-Dem government to concede further powers, possibly over borrowing and even control over corporation tax.
The SNP have been very careful not to “antagonise” the interests of the majority of the capitalists who are opposed to independence, at this stage. Opinion polls indicate a minority of people back full independence, with a big majority for stronger powers. For the SNP, a multi-option referendum would still be their preferable course of action – which, even if the independence option was defeated, would deliver extra economic levers to the Scottish government. As one of their MSPs, Kenny Gibson, commented, “more powers are an important staging post on the journey towards independence.”


Socialist and anti-cuts candidates
While no socialist/anti-cuts candidates were elected, the highest left vote on the regional lists was achieved by the George Galloway – Coalition Against Cuts list in Glasgow, which also involved Solidarity, Socialist Party Scotland and the Socialist Workers Party. This campaign, which stood on a platform of opposing all cuts, supporting the setting of needs budgets and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with trade unionists and communities fighting the cuts, polled a very respectable 6,972 (3.3%) of the vote. This was 5,600 votes short of seeing George Galloway elected, although it did defeat the Lib Dem’s list and came 5th out of 15 parties.

Alongside the Coalition Against Cuts, Solidarity also stood on its own in the other seven Scottish regions. As expected, Solidarity’s votes were very low and averaged around 0.2% - a total of 2,837 votes in the seven regions. The jailing of the Solidarity leader, Tommy Sheridan, earlier this year, after being found “guilty” of perjury, was a major factor. Many people, even those who supported Tommy, felt that it was a wasted vote to back Solidarity, with Tommy in jail and unable to take part in the election. There is also no doubt that the public standing of Solidarity has been affected by the unrelenting campaign by the Murdoch press, the police and the legal establishment against Tommy Sheridan and other members of Solidarity. Also, without a presence in the parliament, the profile of Solidarity has dipped considerably since its high point in 2007. Nevertheless, the Solidarity vote added to the Coalition Against Cuts list in Glasgow (which also involved Solidarity) polled more than 9,000 votes for clear and principled anti-cuts platform.

The votes for the Scottish Socialist Party, who had six MSPs as recently as 2006, fell even further compared to their 2007 result, when they lost 90% of their vote and all their MSPs. The SSP polled 0.4% of the national vote with 8,200 votes. Nevertheless, these votes also reflected support for a fighting anti-cuts platform. However, for the SSP leadership, who were instrumental in the state’s prosecution and jailing of Tommy Sheridan, and who believed they would gain electorally from having “told the truth,” this result was a damning public verdict on their criminal role and actions. An indication of their deluded belief that they would gain significantly in this election was the SSP’s boast that they would “push the Lib Dems into 6th place in Scotland.” In addition, the Socialist Labour Party achieved a vote of 16,847 (0.8%).


Urgent task to build an alternative
The results for the socialist left were undeniably poor, with the exception of the George Galloway – Coalition Against Cuts list in Glasgow. The primary responsibility for having thrown away an important electoral position for socialists with parliamentary representation from 1999 until 2007, lies with the political mistakes and actions of the leadership of the SSP. It is a vital task now to work to rebuild a viable socialist and anti-cuts movement in Scotland.

With the election of an SNP government prepared to make huge cuts to jobs and public spending, this task is urgent. Alex Salmond and his new government are demanding public sector workers accept year-on-year wages freezes – pay cuts, in reality - as well as attacks on their terms and conditions. Tens of thousands of jobs in the public sector will be lost if these cuts go through. Services that communities rely on will be butchered unless a struggle is built to oppose them. The trade unions must organise national and coordinated strike action and quickly against the cuts, rather than accept the cuts. Working class communities need to be organised in the local anti-cuts campaigns and through the Scottish Anti-Cuts Alliance to oppose all cuts and fight for the return of the money stolen from us to pay for the bail-outs of the bankers and capitalism.

As part of this anti-cuts struggle, that can spread like wildfire in the months ahead, a political alternative to cuts and capitalism must be built. Socialist Party Scotland will be advocating that the anti-cuts movement, socialists, trade unionists and communities all work to build a fighting coalition against cuts that will stand in the council elections next year - to elect councillors who will refuse to make cuts and will stand up to the Con-Dem government in London, the SNP in Edinburgh and the councils who are wielding the axe across Scotland. This can be an important platform to help build a powerful socialist alternative to the parties of cuts in the year ahead.

[Coggeh]

For a referendum to go through for independence it still has to be get the stamp of approval from Westminster if i'm correct. So idk if much would come from it.

On what ground is the SNP calling for independence? Since im not in Scotland idk really too much about them.

And it will get the stamp of approval. Scottish independence on the basis of capitalism is no threat to the English establishment.

[Cencus]

For a referendum to go through for independence it still has to be get the stamp of approval from Westminster if i'm correct. So idk if much would come from it.

Westminster would find it very hard to refuse an indpendence referendum since doing so would make it look like an overbearing parent. Afaik Westminster has not blocked a single act since the setting up of the Holyrood parliament. Add to this the fact that it would be in the Tories favour to get rid of Scotland. (They hold 1 Westminster seat in Scotland Labour has about 50 out of 73)


On what ground is the SNP calling for independence? Since im not in Scotland idk really too much about them.On just about every any excuse they can find. Primary is always the way North Sea oil revenues have been spent. Anything that is popular north of the border is claimed by the SNP as their personal triumph anything that is unpopular is blamed on the Westminster parties. Add to this the fact that the Tories have not won a majority of seats in my lifetime (they didn't even win 1 seat in the 97 general election) and throw in a bit of nationalism you get a recipe for a rise in the call of independence.

Back in the Thatcher years I was very much pro-independence just because I really didn't want to be ruled by that evil witch and her party. The drawback of that is that we'd be leaving our friends south of the border to the mercy of more & stronger Tory governments.

[SolidarityScot]

Bear with me for a moment, but being a Scot myself, I think independence would actually be a step forward for the left in Scotland.
Scotland has always been a fairly left-leaning country, and most far left parties in Scotland support independence so if an independence referendum is passed, we may be able to focus on an abundant variety of left-wing ideas without the petty distractions of parties calling themselves "socialist" like New bloody Labour. I fear that England may remain trapped in the eternal Labour-Lib Dem-Tory cycle for a long while, so us Scots might as well try to break away and get to some progression. Yes there is the risk that the economy may suffer, but at least there will be rapid change instead of the stagnating mainstream politics tied that come around as a result of being tied to Britain. I know SNP isn't exactly the most popular choice for some of us leftists, but they're the biggest pro-independence around that could provide some change and they're social democrats, which even though its a sort of impotent, primitive socialism, is preferable to anything else offered by the center-left or right.

[Q]

I found this article (http://cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004386) helpful. It argues against independence (we should be striving towards European unity, at the very least), while defending the right of self-determination and raises the possibilty of Westminster actually calling for a referendum while support for independence remains low, thus dealing a huge blow to the SNP:


Constitutional crisis beckons

Labour's defeat at the hands of the SNP is hardly a cause for celebration, argues Sarah McDonald

While the May 5 elections across Britain saw an overwhelming rejection of a change in the electoral system, the results in Scotland most certainly open up the possibility of a substantial change to the constitutional status quo. Electoral reform: no; constitutional reform: perhaps.

While Labour made gains in local council elections in England and secured 50% of Welsh assembly seats, it met with a humiliating defeat in the Scottish parliamentary election. The Scottish National Party won a landslide victory (though largely making their gains on the back of the collapsed Liberal Democrat vote), even though one of the arguments against any form of proportional representation is that it makes a clear-cut majority less likely.

Yet, as readers will know, the SNP won the first ever outright majority in the Scottish parliament since its creation in 1999, with a total of 69 seats. Labour won 37, the Conservatives 15, Liberal Democrats five, Greens two, with Margo MacDonald remaining as the sole independent candidate.

The SNP had failed to mount a real challenge in the Scottish parliament until 2007, when resentment against the unpopular, Blair-led Westminster government saw it reap the benefits as the largest party, forming a minority government for the last four years. Its outright victory this time around can be put down to various factors. First Nick Clegg’s capitulation in Westminster led to the virtual wipe-out of the Lib Dems in Scotland. Secondly the SNP won seats from Labour across Scotland’s cities (including traditional Labour strongholds such as Glasgow Anniesland, former first minister Donald Dewar’s old seat). In part these gains may be down to the SNP trying to present itself as an anti-cuts party (which it clearly is not). But it completely controls the North East, including Aberdeen and Dundee, and holds a majority of seats in both Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Thirdly a large section of the media, ranging from the Scottish Sun to the Scotsman, backed the SNP to one degree or another - in the Sun’s case support for the nationalists sat incongruously alongside support for the Tories. Finally, in an election campaign that has been widely regarded as dull and uneventful, the SNP’s Alex Salmond came across as by far the most charismatic, capable politician among the party leaders, greatly outshining Scottish Labour leader Ian Gray, whose most memorable media moment during the campaign came when he was chased by a small group of protesters into a Subway sandwich shop. Gray held onto his own seat by a mere 151 votes and promptly stepped down from the leadership.

Referendum

So what are the implications of this nationalist victory? It is certainly not something to be celebrated, as some on the Scottish left are doing. It is true that the SNP vote is often a protest vote - anti-Labour, anti-Lib Dem, anti-cuts. But, anti-cuts or not, it does not represent a move to the left, compared to Labour.

This result will push the call for a referendum on Scottish independence to the foreground of Scottish politics. Salmond has claimed the “moral right” to call such a referendum within the next five years - and indeed he must, otherwise his party will lose all credibility. Whatever Salmond’s five-year plan is, he will have to play this one very skilfully if he is to succeed in winning a vote for secession.

The SNP’s triumph in no way equates to a vote for independence. Opinion polls still show that only 25%-35% of the population is in favour of separation. Ironically, many who vote SNP are actually opposed to independence - its very raison d’être. The Labour Party, in fact, changed tactics in the last week of its campaign to remind voters that the SNP does advocate independence.

If the SNP managed to hold a referendum - despite the obstacles that Westminster will erect - and lose, it will likely put the separatist movement back quite significantly. Salmond will perhaps try to win over support among the unconvinced by offering a third option on the ballot paper - for fiscal autonomy within the UK, with responsibility for the military and foreign affairs remaining with Westminster. He will obviously delay the referendum in order to buy some time, as he knows full well that he would not win support for independence in present circumstances. Whether conditions would be more favourable for him a few years from now remains to be seen.

Of course, Alex Salmond may well have the “moral right” (or - let us be little more political about it - the democratic mandate) to call a referendum, but he does not actually have the constitutional right to do so - that is the reserve of Westminster. Salmond has stated he want an “indicative referendum”, where a ‘yes’ result would not legally sanction Scottish separation, but rather add weight to the demand for it. But this hardly displays confidence in the outcome.

David Cameron has said: “If they want to hold a referendum, I will fight to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fibre I have.” Presumably this means opposing the very idea of a referendum on the subject if there was a possibility of a ‘yes’. Of course, the British state will seek to do everything it can to hold the union together. It would perhaps be in Cameron’s best interests to insist on calling a referendum himself very soon. Not only are current indicators strongly against separation: he would be able to choose the phrasing of the question. A ‘no’ vote could put the establishment’s Scottish headache onto the backburner for the foreseeable future.

We communists are also opposed to the idea of Scottish separation, but for very different reasons from David Cameron’s unionism. We are for the greatest voluntary unity of the working class, rather than seeing it further divided on national lines. After all, to be successful we need to make revolution on a world scale; therefore we need to take power within the largest possible units, not the smallest (eg, we favour a united states of Europe, not fragmentation of the existing states) to avoid immediate defeat.

Self-determination

As communists we are consistent democrats. We believe that the people of Scotland should have the right to self-determination, up to and including the right to secede. But that is totally different from advocating separation. For some unfathomable reason there are some on the left who equate self-determination with independence.

The right to self-determination is a democratic demand. We would certainly support the Scottish people’s right to a referendum on the question of independence, should the UK state attempt to bar it, while at the same time vehemently opposing separation. The call for a federal republic links the demand for republicanism with the democratic demand for self-determination, while at the same time promoting the voluntary unity of the working class in Britain.

As readers will be aware, we have consistently fought for this position on the national question - a position which promotes the unity of the working class. Sadly, this is not the view of the Scottish left, which has embraced nationalism in varying degrees over the last 15 years or so. The Scottish Socialist Party is an organisation defined by nationalism, where Scottish independence has become central to all its work. Solidarity has a nationalist position on independence too, but to a greater or lesser extent depending on who it is you are talking to and what kind of mood they are in.

The Committee for a Workers’ International has two ‘affiliated parties’ in Britain - the Socialist Party in England and Wales, and the Socialist Party Scotland. Chris Bambery was able to pull away a substantial section of the Socialist Workers Party in Scotland to his International Socialist Group split, linked to the John Rees Counterfire grouping. These separate Scottish entities are symptomatic of the left’s failure to properly address the national question - leading to outright nationalism on the one hand and directionless opportunism on the other.

This will doubtlessly lead to utter confusion, as Scotland faces the prospect of a referendum campaign. The SSP will, of course, not only support a referendum on independence, but agitate for a ‘yes’ vote - no great shock there, given that it is a left nationalist organisation. If Solidarity does not drop its own pro-independence position, it too will end up campaigning for a ‘yes’ vote. The Socialist Party Scotland has commented in its post-election analysis that a referendum is on the cards, but avoided offering a position on the matter.[1]

Abysmal

The left’s performance in the election was as abysmal as expected. In an article on Counterfire’s website Ben Wray quite correctly comments: “We have lost our roots within working class areas. Galloway’s vote in the east of Glasgow (where youth unemployment is running at 50%) and Pollok were particularly weak.” His solution, however, lacks vision. He argued: “The need for a Scotland-wide voice that argues the capitalists should pay the price for the crisis and that the solution is a bigger, not smaller, public sector is paramount.”[2]

SPS, while calling on the unions to build a fightback and urging the working class to organise in local anti-cuts groups, is hardly offering a political and organisational lead. Better though than the social-imperialist Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. Essentially the AWL argued that the left vote might have been crap, but at least we can all take solace in the fact that George Galloway wasn’t elected! (The AWL’s contribution to the election campaign was to actively campaign against Galloway).[3]

Galloway was the best chance that the left had of getting someone elected, but his result was poor - his Coalition Against Cuts picked up a disappointing 3.5% of the list vote in Glasgow. Even if there had been no other left candidates standing against him and he had picked up the entire vote of the Socialist Labour Party (1.1%) and SSP (0.7%), he still would have been some way short of picking up the final proportional representation seat, which was won by the Tories with just over 6%. Elsewhere in Scotland the SSP and Solidarity proved they are completely finished, trailing far behind even the SLP. How long will it be before the likes of Alan McCombes find a comfortable home in the SNP? Entertainingly, the Socialist Equality Party failed to pick up a single vote in the West of Scotland region - presumably its candidate failed to persuade himself he was worth voting for.

What is needed is not a “Scotland-wide voice” to oppose cuts in public services. While the anti-cuts movement is a key area of work, it cannot provide a political alternative. What is needed is a Britain-wide party armed with a Marxist programme. The brief coming together of the sects at election time to offer uninspiring statements on the NHS and suchlike will not lead to electoral breakthroughs. It will continue to reap the same results as it has in the past few years: around one percent of the vote and little or no profile between elections, when comrades can go back to being SWP, CWI, etc (the vanguard in waiting).

Our advice - to vote for anti-cuts candidates of the workers’ movement, both inside and outside the Labour Party - was correct, but it arises from the position of extreme weakness that our movement finds itself in. In the absence of a credible partyist project we called for support for working class anti-cuts candidates in order to agitate for independent working class politics in the election, while at the same time arguing for the need for a Communist Party across Britain.

Notes

1. www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk/news-a-analysis/scottish-politics/300-snp-landslide--but-it-will-be-a-government-of-savage-cuts
2. www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/analysis/12184
3. www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/05/07/poor-showing-scottish-left

[Sam_b]

Scotland has always been a fairly left-leaning country, and most far left parties in Scotland support independence so if an independence referendum is passed, we may be able to focus on an abundant variety of left-wing ideas without the petty distractions of parties calling themselves "socialist" like New bloody Labour.

Isn't this just pure reformism though? Why would you support this organ of an independence referendum, being called by a party of wealthy backers that are going to be implementing the cuts in Scotland over the next four years?


I fear that England may remain trapped in the eternal Labour-Lib Dem-Tory cycle for a long while, so us Scots might as well try to break away and get to some progression.

I'm sorry, but this is bankrupt analysis. It's basically writing off the working class in the rest of the UK to further some sort of material, reformist gain up north; and frankly that doesn't wash here. Instead, let's look at the real challenges to power that are being organised by working people. I would first of all look to the student movement up-and-down the UK that really kick started a large tier of resistance to cuts. Despite the £9,000/year charges that were not being brought in in Scotland, 2,000 Scottish students went to the initial demonstrations and were monumental in leading the events at Millbank, which became a catalyst in this context. Similarly, the five figures that went down from Scotland to the TUC demo on the 26th of March, which was one of the largest demonstrations seen since the Iraq War and attracted over 500,000 workers, students and Trade Unionists. I'm not going to write-off the TU or student movement due to scisms in the corrupt parliamentary organs - which will not ever bring around any concrete gains for the class.


Yes there is the risk that the economy may suffer, but at least there will be rapid change instead of the stagnating mainstream politics tied that come around as a result of being tied to Britain

Why are you obsessing over electoral politics?


I know SNP isn't exactly the most popular choice for some of us leftists, but they're the biggest pro-independence around that could provide some change and they're social democrats, which even though its a sort of impotent, primitive socialism, is preferable to anything else offered by the center-left or right.

So your argument is revolving around the working class settling for less than it should do. Do you really think these 'social democrats' will not be overseeing job losses and cuts to public services in office?

[Sam_b]

Ben Wray (International Socialist Group)- analysis of the Scottish elections: http://www.internationalsocialist.org.uk/analysis/election-analysis


Only a few months ago, the result of the Scottish election looked to be following Labour's script. The theory went that a Conservative led government in Westminster bent on all out class war combined with the SNP presiding over four years of economic despair would be enough to see Labour to the finishing line.

Britain needs a powerful opposition to the Con-Dems and victory in Holyrood will be the perfect platform to start the fightback, so the story went. And it was backed up by poll figures, with the Sunday Herald's poll on February 27th suggesting that Labour were 'on course for a resounding victory'.

Sixty-six days later, the SNP have the biggest margin of victory since the Scottish parliament came into being, they have taken seats across Scotland that were considered Labour heartlands- including five in Glasgow. Alex Salmond is not wrong when he calls the victory 'historic', never before have Labour been so emphatically dismantled. So why did it go so horribly off script?

Gray's Gaffe

The Salmond factor has been talked up, and there's no doubt that his personal talents are far superior to the entirely unpleasant, charmless Iain Gray. But this only begs a bigger question: how did Labour get sucked into a straight contest between Gray and Salmond? The sight of Scottish Labour's leader dashing from Glasgow Central station into the nearest sandwich bar (Subway, inevitably) to escape the wrath of a few anti-cuts protesters did not just provide a few laughs at Gray's buffoonery, it exposed an ugly truth: Labour are completely incapable of redefining themselves after thirteen years at the helm in Westminster.

You can imagine the confusion Gray's gaffe caused amongst Labour hacks, spin-doctor's and think tank's: 'Ok, that was a mistake, but how do you respond to a couple of elderly radicals with a homemade banner and an enthusiastic tone shouting about Tory cuts when the camera's rolling?' The student revolt and half a million on the TUC demo haven't convinced Labour's top dogs that the answer may be to turn round and explain to the concerned people of citizen's against public cuts that they won't simply enforce the Tory cuts in Glasgow.

The response to the Con-Dem's of 'too hard, too fast' sums up the crisis within Labour: they want to get past New Labour but 'Red Ed' is trapped within a right-wing parliamentary party and he along with the rest of his allies have no intellectual alternative to put forward to the age of austerity, with a neoliberal consensus spanning across the party's factions.


The union vote for the younger Miliband was intended to increase trade union weight in the party, instead it has prompted Labour's not so bright young hope to constantly emphasise distance between him and the radical words of the likes of Len McCluskey, the new leader of Labour's biggest backer, UNITE. Consequently Ed ends up hurting his base of support in the party, even going as far as to hint that the very voting system that got him elected should be changed for the next Labour leadership election to limit the Union link.

At the same time he recently appeared as the keynote speaker at the 'Progress' think-tank’s conference- the very think-tank that did so much to get his brother David elected and feeds the right-wing of the party with ideas and information. Ed is stuck between an understanding that Labour needs to reinvent itself without having any of the tools to make it happen. The outcome of this bind is Gray- negative, grumpy and boring.

Outflanking Labour

Labour has barely been able to lay a glove on the SNP over the past four years and have no distinctive economic or social policies to the nationalists that can muster the enthusiasm of its working class base. There may never have been an election previously where the two main parties have went in with such similiar manifesto's, and in that situation the Scottish electorate look to their recent history: the SNP can point to a few progressive achievements in Holyrood (no tuition fees, no NHS prescription charges, free personal care for the elderly, free school meals for all 5-8 year olds, as well as rhetorical opposition to war and Trident); when one thinks Labour thirteen years of war, privatisation and finally economic crisis under Blair and Brown spring to mind.

The SNP have, remarkably, been able to outflank Labour to the left. Not so long ago that didn't seem very likely: Salmond pre-crash made a big deal of Ireland and Iceland's 'arc of prosperity' as an example to follow and that Scotland's banks were respected worldwide. Despite these glaring contradictions, voters that broke from Labour in 2007 for the first time have been given no reason to return and left Lib-Dem voters fleeing Clegg's shipwreck saw the SNP as a more natural home than Labour.

But let’s be clear- the SNP have been successful at appearing left primarily by rhetoric and skillful use of minority government, as opposed to any principled basis. They are opportunists and are dedicated to the needs of finance capital: 'the Sun' doesn't flip from all out war on the nationalists in 2007 to calling for a vote for them in 2011 unless Mr Murdoch believes that capitalism's interests are at heart. Big business doesn't want a Labour government in Scotland as it puts too much heat on the Con-Dems in London.

The financial elites are confident the SNP won't put up any serious opposition to the cuts agenda (none of their actions have suggested they would so far) and they are banking on Salmond being unable to turn a minority for independence into a majority at a referendum. They have been helped by the fact that Osborne agreed to respect the SNP's budget when the Con-Dems came to power and consequently Scots are yet to suffer as much as in England, with the real pain on its way. But this is no fluke; they have played the classic populist game to perfection- pose left whilst keeping big business happy, thus outflanking Labour on both sides of the political spectrum.

Scottish Distinction

However, there remains one question: if that was the case in the 2011 election why did Labour convincingly beat the SNP in Scotland in the 2010 general election? The reality that can no longer be ignored is that the Scottish electorate vote on the basis of whether they're electing a British government or a Scottish one.

This may sound obvious but, as I said in my introduction, the consensus was that a Labour campaign based on being the only people that can challenge the Eton boys would be a no brainer. Labour strategists believed this too, with a campaign focusing on Westminster only abandoned when it was clear the plan was heading for disaster. It was an understandable strategy, after all the same Scots elected just one Tory to Westminster in 2010.

But, as the statistician John Curtice has analysed, there is a consistent trend of Scottish voters taking the Scottish parliament seriously. This shouldn't be confused with rising support for independence, as Curtice points out '24% backed independence when the SNP came to power, slightly below the 27% who did so in 1999.' What it does suggest, however, is that the SNP under devolution are working under much more favourable terrain than pre-1997 as there now exists a Scottish political establishment which opens up a space within Scottish society for a distinctive Scottish politics, or as Curtice puts it a 'forum for the mobilisation of Scottish identity'.

Combine this with the fact that the PR electoral system substantially increases SNP representation and that the nationalists in government can pose as the opposition to unpopular policies from Westminster, and you can see why Tony Blair privately admits he made a huge mistake in giving Scotland and Wales devolution.

Reformism Displaced

SNP governments will not be a short-term trend whilst the current devolution agreement stands. This doesn't mean that there will be an invincible march to independence, the trend may follow that of Quebec where the nationalists are continually elected to power but continually lose referendums on independence. However, it does mean that the traditional grip of Labour over Scotland has been decisively broken, as the momentum is towards further devolution, rather than back to the Union.

Consequently, reformism as an organised force in Scottish society is weakening- many working class people who have looked to Labour as the source of social change have become displaced. Where else can these people (who constitute potentially hundreds of thousands) go? The Scottish Socialist Party provided a radical home for many before its meltdown in 2005, which the SNP and the Greens have taken most advantage of.

We are now six years on from the left's implosion and the need for a Scotland wide voice that argues the capitalists should pay the price for the crisis and that the solution is a bigger, not smaller, public sector is paramount. It is easy to forget that both SNP and Labour have systematically concealed what cuts they will make in their election manifesto's as it is such common practice, but we should be under no illusion: the welfare state is going to face a massacre and if the left is going to rebuild it has to first prove it's worth its salt.

George Galloway's vote of 6335 was respectable considering he was stuck in the middle of a Labour-SNP war in Glasgow, but it only serves to underline the fact that there is no magic wand to solving the left's problems: We have lost our roots within working class areas, Galloway's vote in the East of Glasgow (where youth unemployment is running at 50%) and Pollok were particularly weak.

We have a big challenge- widen the cracks in the Con-Dem government to breaking point and make the opportunists in Holyrood feel like they can't afford to do the Tories dirty work in Scotland- but if we live up to it, the left, as well as the working class, will reap the rewards. By providing the necessary leadership and unity to build an anti-cuts movement that is both broad and militant, we can seize the initiative just as the pain of austerity starts to bite in Scotland.

[SolidarityScot]

I don't support the party itself, merely the referendum and independence. I'm still very wary of the people that make up the party. Actually I'm wary of any party in general.

I'm not dismissing the efforts of the working class throughout the UK. I fully support their struggle and their action in England and every other country that falls under our wee "kingdom". I just don't feel that British politics allows for the radical left to make any progress whatsoever. Its just an endless cycle of New Labour, Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. Its monotous, repetitive, mind-numbing and largely uneventful. I just feel that this cycle is not likely to end anytime soon until the people realise all the parties are full of shit, backed by corportate interests therefore corrupt and hopefully come to their senses.

I'm not obsessing over electoral politics, I just really dislike mainstream politics and Britains political system in general. In fact I oppose all of it; I'm an anarcho-communist.

Of course I would prefer for a party like the Scottish Socialist Party (although some of the folks really annoy me) instead of the SNP, but the SNP are curently the most popular party and I don't see any left parties becoming the most dominant in the near future, especially after the particularly dissapointing results recently. This doesn't mean I agree with SNP, and I expect that the SNP will indeed bring cuts, job losses etc.

Please don't let us get off on the wrong foot, especially as you're the first other Glaswegian I've found on here. I simply have my beliefs that may or may not be shared by others, and I don't particularly want to get into an argument especially after having to listen to the bullshit of self-righteous American right-wing "libertarians" and anarcho-capitalists all day.

[Jimmy Haddow (SPS)]

An analysis from the Socialist Party Scotland/CWI on the Scottish Independence debate. (from the Socialist Party/CWI theoretical journal Socialism Today, March 2012)




Scotland’s referendum on independence

The direct interference of Britain’s Tory prime minister, David Cameron, into plans for an independence referendum in Scotland, sparked anger and outrage. It was seen as an arrogant attempt to dictate policy – and rekindled painful memories of the savage anti-working class policies of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. The tactic immediately backfired, however, with polls showing increased support for independence or enhanced devolution. PHILIP STOTT assesses the situation.


ONE THING IS clear following the blundering, bullying intervention of David Cameron into the Scottish independence referendum debate: support for independence and the Scottish National Party (SNP) has increased markedly. The other certainty is that, despite the Con-Dem’s earlier demands for a referendum "sooner rather than later", the vote will take place in the autumn of 2014. For the first time since the partition of Ireland and the formation of the southern Irish ‘Free State’ in 1921, the British establishment is facing the possibility of the secession of a nation from the UK.
Cameron’s attempts to control the timing, wording and running of the referendum have created a huge backlash in Scotland. It also earned him the displeasure of the majority of the capitalist press who fear for the future of the union. The Daily Mail displayed "deep reservations about Mr Cameron’s threat to impose conditions on the format and timing of an independence referendum" (10 January). "The more Mr Cameron tells the Scots what they can do, the easier it is for [SNP leader] Mr Salmond to make the case for independence", warned Philip Stephens in the Financial Times (11 January).
Apart from Cameron’s colonial-type arrogance, the major resurgence of the national question in Scotland is due to a number of factors. A severe economic crisis, savage cuts in public spending, huge alienation by the mass of the people from the political elite, allied to the semi-radical populism of the SNP, have all led to this unprecedented conjuncture for the British ruling class.
The possibility of a majority vote for Scottish independence is a nightmare scenario for British capitalism. It would represent a major blow to the international prestige of a power with pretensions of still being a world player. But it would also inflame the national question in Wales, deepen sectarian division in Northern Ireland and, potentially, strengthen English nationalism. For these and wider economic reasons it will campaign ferociously for a defeat of the independence referendum. Cameron’s attempt to force an early vote was driven by the calculation that it would maximise the chances of defeating the SNP, rather than allowing a long drawn out campaign until late 2014.
The increasing centrifugal forces tending towards pulling apart the United Kingdom are rooted in the inability of a crisis-ridden capitalism to offer any viable alternative for the majority of the working class. This is an international phenomenon, with the national question sharpening in Spain, Belgium and Italy among others in the last period.
Public support in Scotland for independence is still a minority, albeit a bigger minority than it was before Cameron’s crass intervention. A plethora of polling evidence shows that backing for an independent Scotland has risen to around 40%, with one or two showing support for independence as a majority.
Analysis of these polls also indicates a marked differentiation in support for independence based on class and age. Ipsos/Mori for example, on 30 January, found that support for independence was 39% in Scotland as a whole. However, among 18- to 24-year-olds this rose to 45%. Among those from ‘deprived backgrounds’, 58% backed independence, as opposed to 27% for those from ‘affluent backgrounds’. This underlines the Socialist Party’s understanding that, for a significant section of the working class, independence is linked to the searching for a way out of poverty, mass unemployment and savage cuts.
The SNP’s rise

THE ACCUSATION BY SNP leader, Alex Salmond, that Cameron was ‘Thatcheresque’ and ‘dictatorial’ in the way he has attempted to control the referendum resonated with many in Scotland – indicated by the 10% rise in support for independence within a week. The SNP is polling around 50% in voting intentions, with Salmond miles ahead of the other party leaders in terms of public standing. His public ‘satisfaction’ ratings at 58% are significant. Moreover, he is the only party leader with a positive score when ‘dissatisfied’ is subtracted from ‘satisfied’ (+22%). In contrast, Cameron languishes at -28%. So many people failed to recognise the Scottish leaders of Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories that they were excluded from a recent poll.
Salmond, a skilful populist, is widely perceived as the outstanding capitalist politician in the UK: "a shark swimming in a sea of minnows", according to the Financial Times. The important caveat is the array of nonentities he is up against – as the 15th century philosopher Desiderius Erasmus put it: "in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king". Nevertheless, given the semi-collapse of Labour and the outright hostility to the Tories, which boasts fewer MPs in Scotland than there are Giant Pandas in Edinburgh zoo (there are two of those), the British bourgeois face significant difficulties in finding suitable authoritative candidates to lead an anti-independence campaign in the run-up to 2014.
The outcome of the 2011 Scottish elections saw the SNP win an unprecedented overall majority, supposedly impossible given the mixed-member electoral system introduced for the Scottish parliament. Labour, traditionally the largest party in Scotland since the 1950s, was humiliated in its traditional working-class heartlands, polling less than a third of the Scottish vote. The SNP won a majority of the seats in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and across the central belt of Scotland. Since then, support for Labour has haemorrhaged and currently stands at 23%. The May council elections are likely to see the SNP capture the Labour citadel of Glasgow. It is increasingly unlikely now that Labour can recover its position in Scotland.
Setting out to disprove the saying that ‘two Eds are better than one’, Balls and Miliband made the catastrophic announcement that Labour would not promise to reverse any of the Con-Dem cuts if it returns to power. No less a calamity for Labour in Scotland was the pledge of its new leader, Johann Lamont, to share a platform with Cameron as part of the anti-independence campaign.
The rise of the SNP is in part due to the fact that it has partially filled the space to the left of the main establishment parties. There is a vacuum that needs to be filled by a genuine mass party of the working class with a fighting anti-capitalist and socialist programme.
Two sides of the SNP

BETWEEN 2007 AND 2011 the SNP carried through some relatively progressive policies. The abolition of tuition fees in Scotland was popular - now partially reversed by allowing the charging of massive fees for students studying in Scotland from the rest of the UK. As was the scrapping of prescription charges and the reversal of the previous Labour/Lib-Dem coalition plans to shut A&E units in a number of hospitals.
The SNP has shunned the market-driven madness of the Con-Dems in relation to the health service and education. It has come out against the savage Welfare Reform Bill, using these attacks to justify independence.
However, the SNP leadership has implemented, to the penny, the public-spending cuts passed on from Westminster – all £3.3 billion of them. This has included pension contributions increases for civil servants, teachers, fire-fighters and NHS workers in Scotland. SNP ministers, including John Swinney, SNP finance secretary, and Salmond, made a point of crossing the PCS picket lines on 30 November. Swinney claimed it was his "duty as a government minister" to break the strike.
The SNP regularly displays two faces. On the one hand, a radical populism aimed at the working class. On the other, a determination to make cuts and prove itself as a safe pair of hands for capitalist interests. Its economic models for a capitalist independent Scotland were Ireland and Iceland, which have collapsed. Now there is more emphasis on the ‘Scandinavian model’ of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. However, mass privatisation and deep social cuts are being implemented in Sweden and Denmark.
The absence of a mass workers’ party in Scotland has contributed to the SNP getting a ‘free run’ for its mainly phoney radicalism.
A multi-option referendum?

THE SNP GOVERNMENT has, as of the end of January, published its proposals for an independence referendum in 2014. It has also made clear its preference for an option of ‘devolution max’, or enhanced devolution, to be included on the referendum ballot. And it has asked the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), and other organisations dubbed ‘civic Scotland’, to formulate a third option during the consultation period that runs until the middle of May.
A multi-option referendum would suit the SNP leadership. It believes that, even if independence was defeated, the current majority public support for ‘devo-max’, involving a major extension of powers over tax, benefits, the minimum wage, etc, would see it in a win-win situation.
Devolution max is a safety net for the SNP, which it would claim as another step towards independence at a future stage. Ironically, despite Cameron, Miliband and their Scottish equivalents’ insistence on a single question – for or against independence – a multi-option referendum could also be beneficial for the British ruling class under certain circumstances. If the run-up to 2014 saw a significant rise in support for independence the ruling class could be forced to back a third option to act as a lightning conductor, in an effort to avoid a majority for independence.
The Socialist Party Scotland fully supports a multi-option referendum and will oppose any attempts by Cameron and company to undemocratically block a devo-max option being put forward. We will campaign for an independent socialist Scotland and for a parliament with full powers that could be used in the interests of the working class.
The SNP leadership, pro-capitalist to the core, has long accepted a ‘gradualist’ path to independence. It would happily settle for an accommodation with the British capitalists for a form of extreme autonomy, within a newly designed federal UK state. In many ways, the SNP proposals for independence are a form of maximum devolution in themselves.
A safe haven for big business

"WE WILL SHARE a currency, we will share a monarch, we will have a social union", Salmond said on 22 January, making it clear that an independent Scotland would maintain the queen as head of state, and sterling as the Scottish currency, with monetary policy run by the Bank of England.
The previous SNP policy, to hold a referendum on joining the crisis-ridden euro, has been blown out of the water by the European crisis. "I can’t foresee a set of circumstances that will see the economic conditions being correct for the euro for some considerable time", said Swinney. (8 February)
Fiscal independence, with all tax and spending decisions taken by the Scottish government, including over welfare benefits, pensions, etc, is the aim of the SNP. But the SNP’s vision of an independent Scotland would also be as a safe haven for big business. Salmond wants to use powers over corporation tax to reduce the ‘burden’ on big business and encourage a low-tax enclave for inward investment. It would be one where the interests of the rich and powerful would predominate over those of low-paid workers, the unemployed and pensioners.
As Swinney commented in a recent interview: "Whoever you are – Greece, Germany or an independent Scotland – you must have fiscal discipline". In other words, cuts and austerity would continue to be dictated by the banks, bondholders, and the policies of the Bank of England and EU institutions. Swinney has said that Scotland would have to demonstrate its creditworthiness to prove its AAA status to the rating agencies – which would demand savage cuts to public spending as a result of any downgrade.
Whose Scotland?

AGAINST THE BACKDROP of an unprecedented economic crisis, which is likely to last for many years, it is clear that the SNP would carry out the dictates of the market. In the firing line would not be the bankers, oil companies and big business, but the wages, pensions, jobs and public services of the working class.
The SNP referendum document was dubbed ‘Our Scotland’, and yet the nationalists cannot have it both ways. They either stand up for the interests of the majority of the people, made up overwhelmingly of the working class alongside the increasingly insecure middle class, or they back the interests of a system intent on making us pay for a crisis created by the bankers and billionaires.
There is a gaping chasm that separates ex-sir Fred Goodwin, Sir Tom Farmer, Sir Tom Hunter and the rest of the Scottish elite, and the lives of working-class families across Scotland. Unfortunately, Salmond has shown whom he prefers by cosying up to Goodwin, Rupert Murdoch and their ilk, while imposing wage freezes and attacks on the pensions of public-sector workers.
"We will provide a secure, stable and inclusive society. And by doing so we will encourage talent and ambition. Doing this has required some difficult decisions – such as major efficiency savings and a freeze in public-sector pay. But those are easier to implement if your policies clearly have fairness at their heart". (SNP statement, www.snp.org (http://www.snp.org))
What is fair about cutting the wages of low-paid workers while wining and dining the bankers who precipitated the crisis in the first place? How do you "encourage talent and ambition" by axing thousands of college places for young people and carrying out billions of pounds of Con-Dem cuts as the SNP government has done?
Shifts in consciousness

THE SOCIALIST PARTY (previously Militant) has consistently defended the right of the people of Scotland to decide their own relationship with the rest of Britain, up to and including the right to form an independent state. During the 1979 devolution referendum, Militant campaigned for a ‘yes’ vote. It was clear that significant layers of the working class supported devolution as a democratic advance. This in turn was bound up with an outlook that more devolved power for Scotland could assist in the struggle to change the lives of working-class people.
The genuine method of Marxism has always been to defend the right of nations to self-determination – which does not mean advocating separation in every circumstance. In 1979, support for Scottish independence was no more than 7% – it would have been wrong for Marxists to have advocated independence. We linked the struggle for the democratic rights of the Scottish people to the need for socialism. In 1979, this was summed up in our slogan: For a socialist Britain with autonomy for Scotland.
The 1997 devolution referendum took place in the wake of the experience of Thatcherism: the poll tax and mass de-industrialisation in Scotland. As a result, there had been a qualitative strengthening of Scottish national consciousness. The slogan of a socialist Britain with autonomy for Scotland had long been insufficient to take account of the changing outlook of the majority of the working class. Therefore, the demand for a socialist Scotland as part of a voluntary socialist federation with England, Wales and Ireland was necessary to reach workers and young people at that stage.
We did not simply call for a ‘yes’ vote for devolution. We also explained the limits of the powers of the parliament. We stood for a parliament with real powers over the economy, the powers to nationalise big business and implement socialist measures in the interests of the working class. Linked to this was the need to fight for a socialist majority inside the parliament and to build mass opposition to capitalist policies in society as a whole.
By the late 1990s, independence for Scotland had the support of around 30-40% - in late 1998, one poll showed 50%. In particular, a majority of the youth and a significant section of the working class supported independence. For many, this was intimately linked to finding a solution to poverty and the inequalities under capitalism. In other words, it was a class outlook wrapped up in a national consciousness. To turn our backs on this mood would have led to the danger of cutting ourselves off from key sections of the working class who could be won to socialist ideas.
To take account of this change in consciousness, in 1998, Scottish Militant Labour, the then Scottish section of the CWI, updated our programme on the national question. With the support of the CWI internationally we put forward the slogan of an independent socialist Scotland as part of a voluntary and democratic socialist confederation with England, Wales and Ireland. This change was a reflection of a hardening of the mood and an anticipation of future developments.
In the first period after the setting up of the Scottish parliament in 1999 there was a falling back in support for independence as wider class issues came to the fore. The initial electoral success of the Scottish Socialist Party between 1999 and 2003 was a reflection of this and the SNP were pushed back.
The 2014 referendum

AS WE APPROACH the 2014 referendum what should the approach of socialists be? The political establishment, with the backing of the overwhelming majority of the capitalist class, will ferociously oppose the breakup of the UK. This campaign can have an effect on layers of the working class fearful that an independent Scotland would be in an even worse economic position outside of the UK. For example, in the initial phase of the banking crisis in 2008/09, support for independence fell in Scotland as major Scottish banks had to be nationalised by the then New Labour government. The instinctive opposition among many workers to the dangers of deepening national divisions emerging among the working class can also be a factor in cutting across support for independence.
By 2014, the economic and social crisis will have deteriorated even further. Years of cuts, recession and mass unemployment can lead many to draw the conclusion that independence can offer a route out of the prison of austerity. The SNP will lose no opportunity in arguing that only with the powers of independence can the cuts agenda be at least slowed down.
It is still most likely at this stage that, if a multi-option referendum were held, the devo-max option would command majority support, perhaps with a significant minority vote for independence. In approaching workers and young people, socialists will need to take account of the different outlooks among the working class. What is clear is that the mood for a significant strengthening of powers for Scotland, either devo-max or outright independence, form the overwhelming majority opinion in Scotland.
If the referendum were a straight yes or no to the SNP’s independence proposal, it would be correct for the Socialist Party Scotland to advocate a ‘yes’ vote for independence. However, while being sympathetic to workers and young people who support independence, we will campaign to expose the SNP’s pro-big business agenda. An independent Scotland locked into a nightmare of cuts and austerity, inevitable on the basis of capitalism, would not be ‘secure’, ‘stable’ or ‘inclusive’. An independent socialist Scotland linked to the struggle for socialism internationally would be the only long-term viable future.
Even in a multi-option referendum, depending on the proposals on offer, we could support both maximum devolution and independence as legitimate expressions of the desire for a parliament with real powers to tackle austerity and the cuts agenda.
We would demand that the powers of devo max or independence were used for the interests of the majority. For a start, bringing the oil resources of the North Sea into democratic public ownership. This would create a real ‘oil fund’ by releasing hundreds of billions in resources to invest in an emergency programme of job creation, as well as increasing the minimum wage, improving schools and public services.
The SNP’s timid proposals for independence would leave multi-national oil companies with over 70% of the revenue from the North Sea, salted away for private profit. The SNP leadership would scream the house down if even a penny of tax increases were threatened on the oil companies’ profits.
Socialist demands

SOCIALISTS STAND FOR all major industry, including large-scale renewable energy projects, and finance to be publicly owned under the democratic control of the working class and society as a whole. The ruinous policies of privatisation, which drain millions from public services, should also be ended.
We campaign for the minimum wage to be a living wage, not a guarantee of being locked into poverty pay. All anti-union legislation should be abolished. It is being increasingly used against workers taking action to defend themselves against the onslaught on their pensions, jobs and working conditions. We would ensure free education and a living grant for young people and all those studying at college or university - not a life of debt. Everyone should have a living income to end the scandal of poverty and welfare cuts. In short, we stand for a socialist Scotland as the only sustainable answer to the nightmare of cuts and austerity.
In the debate over the future of Scotland, we will fight for the interests of the working class, young people and the elderly to be heard centre-stage. We call on the trade union movement to help build a campaign, independent of the establishment parties, to fight for the necessary powers for the Scottish parliament, up to and including independence, and for those to be used in the interests of the working class.
However, with the SNP and the rest of the political establishment committed to defending the interests of capitalism, we also need to build a new mass party of the working class to fight for a socialist majority in the parliament.
Central to this is the need to stand implacably for the maximum unity of the working class across Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland. We oppose any attempts to divide the workers’ movement on national lines. A socialist Scotland as part of a genuine, voluntary and democratic socialist federation with England Wales and Ireland – and as a step towards a socialist Europe – is the only way to end the nightmare of austerity, cuts and capitalism once and for all.
For further reading:

Scotland and the national question (http://www.socialistpartyscotland.org.uk/news-a-analysis/scottish-politics/158-scotland-and-the-national-question) (September 2003 - Socialist Party Scotland website)

The end of the union? (http://www.socialismtoday.org/107/scotland.html) (March 2007 - Socialism Today No.107)