YES Scotland: Independence Referendum Campaign

[Jimmy Haddow (SPS)]

Socialist Party Scotland


YES Scotland: Independence Referendum Campaign

By Philip Stott 29th May 2012

The Yes Scotland pro-independence campaign was launched on Friday 25th May in Edinburgh. While Socialist Party Scotland will support a Yes vote for independence in the referendum, it will be critical support. The SNP’s proposals for Scottish independence are completely insufficient based as they are on the maintenance of capitalism and the dictatorship of the profit system that has brought us the biggest economic crisis in 80 years, unprecedented cuts and savage austerity.


For many who currently back independence it’s the fundamental issues of lack of jobs, low pay and cuts to living standards that are the driving force for the overwhelming demands in Scotland for decisive constitutional change. The SNP leadership’s plans would be unable to deliver. Therefore while supporting a Yes vote Socialist Party Scotland will also campaign for an independent socialist Scotland as the only viable solution to the fundamental issues facing the working class and young people.


Alongside the SNP who will provide the leadership and vast majority of activists and resources, the Green MSP Patrick Harvie, former Labour MP Denis Canavan and an array of Scottish actors, writers and musicians also attended the Yes Scotland launch. Backing for the campaign also came from former RBS chairman George Matheson, millionaire Tom Hunter and Brian Souter, owner of Stagecoach.


The referendum is due to take place in Autumn 2014 and currently around a third of people say they intend to vote for Scottish independence.


For many of the one million plus who currently support independence – and this is especially the case among the working class and young people - the referendum will be seen as a possible escape route from mass youth unemployment, poverty and permanent cuts and austerity.


Socialist Party Scotland has consistently supported demands for a referendum on independence; we would prefer a multi-option referendum in 2014, which would also include a question on maximum devolution.


Significantly, there was virtually no trade union or labour movement representation at the Yes Scotland launch. The limited and cross-class nature of the campaign is also reflected in its vague founding principles which supporters are asked to sign up to and which states, "I believe that it is fundamentally better for us all, if decisions about Scotland's future are taken by the people who care most about Scotland, that is, by the people of Scotland.” And goes on to say, “We can build a greener, fairer and more prosperous society that is stronger and more successful than it is today.


Behind the “mom and apple pie” saccharin sweet vision of what an independent Scotland would deliver, the Yes Scotland campaign is attempting to cover a fundamental and unbridgeable fault line.


Independence to make even more profits ?
The SNP leadership openly support the slashing of corporation tax for big business in an independent Scotland. They propose a full 3% lower rate than even the current Con-Dem coalition. Alex Salmond has also opposed any extra taxes on the multi-billion pound oil industry – never mind his extreme hostility to the calls for oil and gas resources to be nationalised in an independent Scotland. Ironically, the SNP would keep Sterling as the official currency with interest rates set by the Bank of England. The unelected, unaccountable and privileged monarchy would also remain as Head Of State in an independent Scotland.


In other words decisions about Scotland’s future would, under the SNP’s vision, still be taken in the boardroom’s of the multi-nationals, the banks and the corporate giants that dominate the economy – not with the people of Scotland.


Salmond wants to use powers over corporation tax to reduce the ‘burden’ on big business and encourage a low-tax enclave for inward investment. If this approach were taken inevitably 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 John Swinney the SNP’s finance minister 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 the EU institutions.


Against the backdrop of an unprecedented economic crisis, which is likely to last for many years, it is clear that the SNP leadership would bow to the dictates of the market. In the firing line would not be the bankers, oil companies and big business, but would be the wages, pensions, jobs and public services of the working class.


At best Salmond and Swinney call for slower cuts and a lessening emphasis on austerity. But in practice they have wasted little time in passing on the Tory cuts to communities across Scotland over the last few years.


The demand raised by the Socialist Party and the Scottish Anti-Cuts Coalition of refusing to implement the cuts and that the SNP government should demand a return of the £3.3 billion stolen from Scotland has never entered the heads of the timid SNP leadership.


While supporting a Yes vote in 2014 we will also put the demand for an independent socialist Scotland centre stage during the campaign.


The referendum on Scotland’s future relationship with the rest of the UK requires the voice of the working class and in particular the organised trade union movement to be heard.


We therefore support the convening of a trade union conference open to representatives of trade union branches, shop stewards committees, community groups, anti-cuts campaigns etc in late 2012.


The role of this conference should be to draw up plans to launch a campaign on how the powers, either of devo max and independence, could be used in the interests of the majority including trade unions members, their families and our communities. This should form the basis of a genuine trade union/labour movement campaign for the referendum period.


Such a campaign could demand that the powers of devo/max or independence be used to ensure:

• An end to cuts. No more attacks on jobs, wages, pensions, public services and benefits to pay for the banker’s crisis. The Scottish government should set no cuts needs budgets to protect jobs, services and communities and help build a mass campaign for a return of the stolen billions from our public services.

• Support for increased taxes on the rich and big business to help deal with the economic crisis – including a 50% capital tax on the uninvested profits of big business to pay for an emergency programme of public investment and job creation.

• Support for public ownership of the banks, oil and gas, transport and the renewable industry and other major corporations

• No to workfare – for real jobs and a living wage for all.

• For the abolition of all anti-trade union laws

• End privatisation in our public services.

• For a living minimum wage of at least £8 an hour

• For free education from nursery to university. No to tuition fees, increase the EMA and for a living grant for all.



Alongside such a charter of demands socialists and the trade union movement need to urgently discuss building political representation as an alternative to the parties of cuts. We need our own party to fight for interests in the same way as the pro-big business parties defend the rich and big business.


While supporting a Yes vote in 2014 Socialist Party Scotland will explain that on the basis of this crisis-ridden capitalist system there is no way out. An independent socialist Scotland as part of a genuine, voluntary and democratic socialist confederation with England Wales and Ireland, as a step towards a socialist Europe, is the only way to end the nightmare of austerity, cuts and capitalism once and for all.

[Igor]

You nationalists are so friggin cute.

[wunks]

Such a campaign could demand that the powers of devo/max or independence be used to ensure: well, I guess it could make those demands...

[ed miliband]

how surprising...

[Welshy]

You nationalists are so friggin cute.

Not only that but I think I have seen more radical demands come from the Democratic Socialists of America.

[Serge's Fist]

What a great idea! Break up the working class further along national lines because that will help build an international socialist movement. Oh wait...

[Igor]

Not only that but I think I have seen more radical demands come from the Democratic Socialists of America.

Yeah, not to mention that the article doesn't bother to tell us why somehow these demands would be more likely to be answered by Scottish ruling class instead of UK one. Hell, SNP is pretty much the only chance for Scotland to ever become independent, they even hold the Scottish parliamentary majority right now yet the article keeps mentioning how SNP are basically just like any other bourgeoisie party out there.

Good luck with all that, guys.

[campesino]

what is the point?

[Sten]

what is the point? They think they can estabilish a socialist(ic) state once they break off from the rest of the UK. Apparently.

[Q]

While supporting a Yes vote in 2014 we will also put the demand for an independent socialist Scotland centre stage during the campaign.
So, how is socialism going to work in an independent Scotland, surrounded by a capitalist world of hostility?


The referendum on Scotland’s future relationship with the rest of the UK requires the voice of the working class and in particular the organised trade union movement to be heard.
Agreed. But would it not be better if we instead campaigned for a voluntary union within a united (federal) republic of the British Isles? So, a republic consisting of Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland (North and South). Would not a greater unity strengthen the working class immensely more than to divide it with nationalist (thus anti-proletarian) ideas?

The national issue is very real in Scotland and the working class should have a say. But as communists I think we ought to propagandise for the biggest possible unity.


Such a campaign could demand that the powers of devo/max or independence be used to ensure:
• An end to cuts. No more attacks on jobs, wages, pensions, public services and benefits to pay for the banker’s crisis. The Scottish government should set no cuts needs budgets to protect jobs, services and communities and help build a mass campaign for a return of the stolen billions from our public services.
• Support for increased taxes on the rich and big business to help deal with the economic crisis – including a 50% capital tax on the uninvested profits of big business to pay for an emergency programme of public investment and job creation.
• Support for public ownership of the banks, oil and gas, transport and the renewable industry and other major corporations
• No to workfare – for real jobs and a living wage for all.
• For the abolition of all anti-trade union laws
• End privatisation in our public services.
• For a living minimum wage of at least £8 an hour
• For free education from nursery to university. No to tuition fees, increase the EMA and for a living grant for all.

Just asking the obvious: Is this "socialism"? Is this the programme we ought to fight for to free ourselves from capital? It sounds more like Labour anno 1945 to me, but maybe I'm missing something.


Alongside such a charter of demands socialists and the trade union movement need to urgently discuss building political representation as an alternative to the parties of cuts. We need our own party to fight for interests in the same way as the pro-big business parties defend the rich and big business.
Completely agreed. But based on what? Aforementioned programme?


While supporting a Yes vote in 2014 Socialist Party Scotland will explain that on the basis of this crisis-ridden capitalist system there is no way out. An independent socialist Scotland as part of a genuine, voluntary and democratic socialist confederation with England Wales and Ireland, as a step towards a socialist Europe, is the only way to end the nightmare of austerity, cuts and capitalism once and for all.
Ah, a catch all: First we argue to break away and then we argue for uniting again. I'm very doubtful it'd ever work like that. Once you divide the working class on such nationalist lines, which more probably than not involves drawing a lot of bad blood between peoples, the grounds for reunification would be spoiled for maybe generations to come.

I think we ought to argue for the right to choose but against actual secession and, instead, for the overthrow of the constitutional order in the UK and establishing a new order where the peoples of the British Isles are united in a single (federal) republic.

So, what do you think?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Ah, good old patriotic social democracy.

End the cuts, nationalise the heights of industry, increase the minimum wage, fly the red flag. Rahh rahh workers power Marx rahh rahh!

Come on. You surely cannot be such poor students of history as to think that an independent Scotland will be anything other than weaker, and its working class more fragmented (along nationalistic lines) and less able to seize power. And even if they did, as was said above, what would a powerful Scottish working class be able to do?

Really, horrific, horrendous politics here.

[Prometeo liberado]

So wait, do you mean to tell me that at this stage of the drive for national Independence that there are rumblings that all may not appear to be progressive? That national Independence may in fact just be a national re-alignment and further concentration of wealth in even fewer, yet domestic born, hands? This movement and the people behind it never had any intentions or care for those who build wealth there or anywhere? How about that!

[Jolly Red Giant]

Agreed. But would it not be better if we instead campaigned for a voluntary union within a united (federal) republic of the British Isles? So, a republic consisting of Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland (North and South). Would not a greater unity strengthen the working class immensely more than to divide it with nationalist (thus anti-proletarian) ideas?
Yet when the article does precisely this you state -



Ah, a catch all: First we argue to break away and then we argue for uniting again. I'm very doubtful it'd ever work like that. Once you divide the working class on such nationalist lines, which more probably than not involves drawing a lot of bad blood between peoples, the grounds for reunification would be spoiled for maybe generations to come.


It might be an idea to make up your mind.


I think we ought to argue for the right to choose but against actual secession and, instead, for the overthrow of the constitutional order in the UK and establishing a new order where the peoples of the British Isles are united in a single (federal) republic.

Try floating that one in Ireland and see the reaction you will get.

There is one thing having a free and voluntary federation of a socialist England, socialist Scotland, socialist Wales and socialist Ireland - but i can guarantee you that your 'single federal republic' is a non-runner in Ireland, Scotland (and probably Wales as well).

[Offbeat]

A minimum living wage of £8 an hour? Woah, slow down there crazy Mr Radical!

[Q]

It might be an idea to make up your mind.
It is not me that is inconsistent. It was the article that both wants to let Scotland secede and at some later unspecified date let it unite again in a confederation. Hence my "catch all" remark, after all you can (and probably will) simply reply to all critics that expose the nationalism inherent in the article here, that the article does have an internationalist perspective. In a safe distance of course, not being too concrete to scare the nationalists away.


Try floating that one in Ireland and see the reaction you will get.

There is one thing having a free and voluntary federation of a socialist England, socialist Scotland, socialist Wales and socialist Ireland - but i can guarantee you that your 'single federal republic' is a non-runner in Ireland, Scotland (and probably Wales as well).

Did you ever try it? No, you probably didn't.

Anyway, communist politics isn't about winning a popularity contest. If that was so, we should probably also get on board the racist bandwagon. No, communist politics is about building our class as a class-collective that is consciously fighting to attain power as a class and, therefore, overthrow the constitutional order.

How is a united Democratic Republic (to use Engels' phrase) so strange in that light?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ In this particular instance, comrade (and to introduce other comrades to my position on the scientifically defined British Isles), a critical Yes to support Scottish independence would be a good thing. In fact, the whole UK should be broken up, and a new union of the scientifically defined British Isles minus Little England should be formed (and, of course, within the EU).

[Crux]

So, how is socialism going to work in an independent Scotland, surrounded by a capitalist world of hostility?


Agreed. But would it not be better if we instead campaigned for a voluntary union within a united (federal) republic of the British Isles? So, a republic consisting of Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland (North and South). Would not a greater unity strengthen the working class immensely more than to divide it with nationalist (thus anti-proletarian) ideas?

The national issue is very real in Scotland and the working class should have a say. But as communists I think we ought to propagandise for the biggest possible unity.



Just asking the obvious: Is this "socialism"? Is this the programme we ought to fight for to free ourselves from capital? It sounds more like Labour anno 1945 to me, but maybe I'm missing something.


Completely agreed. But based on what? Aforementioned programme?


Ah, a catch all: First we argue to break away and then we argue for uniting again. I'm very doubtful it'd ever work like that. Once you divide the working class on such nationalist lines, which more probably than not involves drawing a lot of bad blood between peoples, the grounds for reunification would be spoiled for maybe generations to come.

I think we ought to argue for the right to choose but against actual secession and, instead, for the overthrow of the constitutional order in the UK and establishing a new order where the peoples of the British Isles are united in a single (federal) republic.

So, what do you think?
Why don't you tell me what the CPGB's position is on Scottish Independence, comrade?

As for the part I bolded, no in fact I don't think it works like that, and perhaps you'd do well to study the CWI's position vis a vis the right to national independence and the call for a voluntary socialist federation.
And I think you're largely fighting strawmen.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

In fact, the whole UK should be broken up, and a new union of the scientifically defined British Isles minus Little England should be formed (and, of course, within the EU).

What does this even mean? What is the 'scientifically defined British Isles', and what is 'Little England'?

[Crux]

What does this even mean? What is the 'scientifically defined British Isles', and what is 'Little England'?
When the social-proletocrat movement rises you will find out.

[Q]

^^^ In this particular instance, comrade (and to introduce other comrades to my position on the scientifically defined British Isles), a critical Yes to support Scottish independence would be a good thing. In fact, the whole UK should be broken up, and a new union of the scientifically defined British Isles minus Little England should be formed (and, of course, within the EU).
If I remember correctly this was based on your notion of "destroying imperialist England". I don't think it would be a good thing though and be based on a false notion. After all, you'd "punish" not only the English working class, but also the working class of the other nations as they'd be mortally weakened without the strong English working class.

[Q]

As for the part I bolded, no in fact I don't think it works like that
How else would Scottish independence be attained if you want to avoid nationalist ideas amongst large masses of people?


and perhaps you'd do well to study the CWI's position vis a vis the right to national independence and the call for a voluntary socialist federation
I'm well aware of the position, I just happen to disagree with it as I think it is putting the alternative (a socialist federation) off far beyond the horizon of the concrete. I'm considering writing an article for Socialism Today, but I'm pretty constrained in time.


And I think you're largely fighting strawmen.
Please explain.

[Geiseric]

Well they need to overthrow capital first, then hopefully it'll happen in england, then without a doubt in Ireland (in debt as shit) so if the Scottish Socialists pushed for the end of capitalism I'm sure their socialist federal union would work...

[Jolly Red Giant]

It is not me that is inconsistent. It was the article that both wants to let Scotland secede and at some later unspecified date let it unite again in a confederation.
No - the article supports the right of the Scottish working class to self-determination and argues that a socialist Scotland is necessary to ensure the emancipation of the Scottish working class. The artilce also argues that international solidarity is a necessity for the working class of all nations.


Hence my "catch all" remark, after all you can (and probably will) simply reply to all critics that expose the nationalism inherent in the article here, that the article does have an internationalist perspective. In a safe distance of course, not being too concrete to scare the nationalists away.
This is actually hilarious - the CWI has been the butt of unrivalled criticism for its internationalist approach to the national question for 40 years - just have a look at a few of the threads on this forum. Now you are accusing us of pandering to nationalism :laugh:



Did you ever try it? No, you probably didn't.
The Socialist Party has campaigned in Northern Ireland for a free and voluntary federation of a socialist Ireland, socialist Scotland, socialist Wales and socialist England for 40 years and has been accused of being pro-loyalist and pro-imperialist by everyone from right-wing nationalists to maoists. And you suggest that calling for a united (federal) republic of the British Isles would be easier? excuse me while I :laugh:


Anyway, communist politics isn't about winning a popularity contest.
No it's not - it's about winning the support of the working class on the basis of a socialist internationalist programme - your proposition could be accused of being pro-imperialist.


If that was so, we should probably also get on board the racist bandwagon.
And let's all go back and accuse the striking Lyndsey workers of racism.


No, communist politics is about building our class as a class-collective that is consciously fighting to attain power as a class and, therefore, overthrow the constitutional order.
And you suggest that can be done by pandering to an imperialist entity?


How is a united Democratic Republic (to use Engels' phrase) so strange in that light?
After 700 years of political, economic and social domination by English feudalism and British imperialism I can assure you that your democratic British republic would get zero echo from the working class in Ireland (and after 400 years of domination - zero from Scotland as well)

And by the way - if you want to quote Engels - how about this representation of Irish immigrants in England -

These Irishmen who migrate for fourpence to England, on the deck of a steamship on which they are often packed like cattle, insinuate themselves everywhere. The worst dwellings are good enough for them; their clothing causes them little trouble, so long as it holds together by a single thread; shoes they know not; their food consists of potatoes and potatoes only; whatever they earn beyond these needs they spend upon drink. What does such a race want with high wages? The worst quarters of all the large towns are inhabited by Irishmen. Whenever a district is distinguished for especial filth and especial ruinousness, the explorer may safely count upon meeting chiefly those Celtic faces which one recognises at the first glance as different from the Saxon physiognomy of the native, and the singing, aspirate brogue which the true Irishman never loses. I have occasionally heard the Irish-Celtic language spoken in the most thickly populated parts of Manchester. The majority of the families who live in cellars are almost everywhere of Irish origin. In short, the Irish have, as Dr. Kay says, discovered the minimum of the necessities of life, and are now making the English workers acquainted with it. Filth and drunkenness, too, they have brought with them. The lack of cleanliness, which is not so injurious in the country, where population is scattered, and which is the Irishman's second nature, becomes terrifying and gravely dangerous through its concentration here in the great cities. The Milesian deposits all garbage and filth before his house door here, as he was accustomed to do at home, and so accumulates the pools and dirt-heaps which disfigure the working- people's quarters and poison the air. He builds a pig-sty against the house wall as he did at home, and if he is prevented from doing this, he lets the pig sleep in the room with himself. This new and unnatural method of cattle-raising in cities is wholly of Irish origin. The Irishman loves his pig as the Arab his horse, with the difference that he sells it when it is fat enough to kill. Otherwise, he eats and sleeps with it, his children play with it, ride upon it, roll in the dirt with it, as any one may see a thousand times repeated in all the great towns of England. The filth and comfortlessness that prevail in the houses themselves it is impossible to describe. The Irishman is unaccustomed to the presence of furniture; a heap of straw, a few rags, utterly beyond use as clothing, suffice for his nightly couch. A piece of wood, a broken chair, an old chest for a table, more he needs not; a tea-kettle, a few pots and dishes, equip his kitchen, which is also his sleeping and living room. When he is in want of fuel, everything combustible within his reach, chairs, door-posts, mouldings, flooring, finds its way up the chimney. Moreover, why should he need much room? At home in his mud-cabin there was only one room for all domestic purposes; more than one room his family does not need in England. So the custom of crowding many persons into a single room, now so universal, has been chiefly implanted by the Irish immigration. And since the poor devil must have one enjoyment, and society has shut him out of all others, he betakes himself to the drinking of spirits. Drink is the only thing which makes the Irishman's life worth having, drink and his cheery care-free temperament; so he revels in drink to the point of the most bestial drunkenness. The southern facile character of the Irishman, his crudity, which places him but little above the savage, his contempt for all humane enjoyments, in which his very crudeness makes him incapable of sharing, his filth and poverty, all favour drunkenness. The temptation is great, he cannot resist it, and so when he has money he gets rid of it down his throat. What else should he do? How can society blame him when it places him in a position in which he almost of necessity becomes a drunkard; when it leaves him to himself, to his savagery?

[Die Neue Zeit]

If I remember correctly this was based on your notion of "destroying imperialist England". I don't think it would be a good thing though and be based on a false notion. After all, you'd "punish" not only the English working class, but also the working class of the other nations as they'd be mortally weakened without the strong English working class.

The post was aimed at comrades Ghost Bebel and Serge Fist, the comrades who "thanked" you, although perhaps it also reminded you of our comradely exchange on the subject of "punishing" Little England workers.

Anyway, I don't think the non-Little Englanders would be weakened if... if they united with the Continental working class (again, that goes to my independence-plus-EU immediate stance for the non-English peoples and Englanders outside the reactionary Little England).


What does this even mean? What is the 'scientifically defined British Isles', and what is 'Little England'?

People in Ireland don't like the scientific nomenclature of their island belonging to the British Isles. :rolleyes:

"Little England" is an ethnic nationalism you of all people should be aware of. It's your country; it's the culture pertaining to every indigenous person south of Scotland and northern England, but outside non-English territories such as Wales. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Englander)

[Geiseric]

it seems like it's the same as quebec nationalism though... Seperating a bourgeois state from a larger bourgeois state isn't productive.

[Die Neue Zeit]

it seems like it's the same as quebec nationalism though... Seperating a bourgeois state from a larger bourgeois state isn't productive.


After 700 years of political, economic and social domination by English feudalism and British imperialism I can assure you that your democratic British republic would get zero echo from the working class in Ireland (and after 400 years of domination - zero from Scotland as well)

That's why I support a new union of all the "British Isles" minus Little England.

[Igor]

That's why I support a new union of all the "British Isles" minus Little England.

Little England isn't a geographic area, it's basically just the idea of yearning for the days of splendid isolation and belief in English supremacy. I suppose you mean south England here or something, but I have no idea why you'd exclude them from this supposed union of British Isles.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Class movements in Little England have been inhibited time and again far more than elsewhere in the Isles, or in the Europe, for that matter. Little England politics yielded the third bastard that is Labourism (after the first two you mentioned).

[Grenzer]

I will be the first to admit I have no idea what the fuck is going on here. Yes to EU and yes to Scottish independence? Doesn't that seem contradictory?

I am not sure what his reasoning is exactly for supporting the Scottish independence movement, but Q does have a good reason for not advancing the idea of a "socialist federation". It amounts to revolutionary sloganeering and favors working class merger with capitalist movements.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I will be the first to admit I have no idea what the fuck is going on here. Yes to EU and yes to Scottish independence? Doesn't that seem contradictory?

The "independence" is relative to geopolitical relations with Little England. I don't support Scotland and all the other non-Little England British Isles nations going it alone.


I am not sure what his reasoning is exactly for supporting the Scottish independence movement, but Q does have a good reason for not advancing the idea of a "socialist federation". It amounts to revolutionary sloganeering and favors working class merger with capitalist movements.

Comrade, I didn't advocate any support for such tiny, left-nationalist "socialist federation," either, when a more democratic and certainly a way more social EU would be a better "federative" alternative.

[Geiseric]

We need a wider scope than just greece or scotland though if the crisis is to be resolved through revolution. we can't just be looking at things in terms of one country at a time, this "socialist isolationism," tendency is really dangerous in that it's misleading newly radicallised working class people into a pit of disaster.

[Grenzer]

The "independence" is relative to geopolitical relations with Little England. I don't support Scotland and all the other non-Little England British Isles nations going it alone.

I'm not sure what "Little England" is. I've never heard of the concept before I looked into this thread.




Comrade, I didn't advocate any support for such tiny, left-nationalist "socialist federation," either, when a more democratic and certainly a way more social EU would be a better "federative" alternative.

Well that part of my statement was aimed at Q's CWI comrade, who does support agitating for socialist federation right now. I am aware of the reasoning of the CPGB and others for their stance on the EU, and I agree with it. It is unsurprising that most official communist parties agitate on a "No to EU" campaign, which amounts to counter-revolutionary, nationalistic opportunism in my opinion. It is ironic that those who say they are most in favor of internationalism are also vociferously against the EU, even though the collapse of the EU would be a definite victory for nationalism and a blow against the framework for future international solidarity and integration. I don't think a third camp option is really acceptable in this situation, which is what the so-called "Ultra-left" calls for(against the EU, but also against nationalism, rhetorically speaking at least. It's a paradox, and one that definitely favors the capitalists).

[Grenzer]

We need a wider scope than just greece or scotland though if the crisis is to be resolved through revolution. we can't just be looking at things in terms of one country at a time, this "socialist isolationism," tendency is really dangerous in that it's misleading newly radicallised working class people into a pit of disaster.

I definitely agree with you here, but I think it's key to realize at the same time that some of the proposals we are seeing here are within the context of a Scotland construed in a way that fosters independent working class political organization, which it is being argued that the current arrangement in which Scotland is part of Great Britain cannot achieve this. I don't really have an opinion, but DNZ definitely isn't advocating some gung-ho, go-it-alone, socialism in one country kind of thing.

Which newly radicalized working class people are you talking about, by the way? I can't think of any nationally based segment of the working class which has achieved any significant degree of class consciousness; unless you are referring to the growth of trade-union consciousness. I don't think trade-union consciousness is helpful, and I don't think it advances class struggle either which can only really be understood as an explicitly political struggle in which the dictatorship of the proletariat is counterposed to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. How most people conceive of class struggle, "in the workplace against the bosses", isn't really genuine class struggle at all, but ordinary trade union struggle in which there is little potential for revolutionary growth.

For all the complaining about "reformism" some people make(not you I'm talking about here, Syd), it's kind of ironic that they essentially see the struggle for higher wages and working conditions as having the potential to be revolutionary somehow. In their view, it's only when this kind of struggle is being advocated by a party in terms of a concrete political programme that it becomes reformist. They are right about that, but it's key to realize that the struggle for better wages and conditions by themselves have little potential for revolutionary growth, whether it's "organic" or part of a reformist party's platform.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

People in Ireland don't like the scientific nomenclature of their island belonging to the British Isles. :rolleyes:

"Little England" is an ethnic nationalism you of all people should be aware of. It's your country; it's every indigenous person south of Scotland and northern England, but outside non-English territories such as Wales. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Englander)

Oh stop with your racism. There's no such thing as a 'little Englander'. It's not some group, some conspirational organisation. It's an attitude that exists amongst some English people, mostly English workers and the petit bourgeoisie. You think you can just legislate it away. I'm pretty offended right now by your continued shit that you clearly know nothing about.

[Crux]

Oh stop with your racism. There's no such thing as a 'little Englander'. It's not some group, some conspirational organisation. It's an attitude that exists amongst some English people, mostly English workers and the petit bourgeoisie. You think you can just legislate it away. I'm pretty offended right now by your continued shit that you clearly know nothing about.
Which would be most thing's related to actual politics no? Completely divorced from reality both in form and content. But hey one day we'll all be left-hand roman saluting the new kautskyian worker-class government caesar strongman left-putinist.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Oh stop with your racism. There's no such thing as a 'little Englander'. It's not some group, some conspirational organisation. It's an attitude that exists amongst some English people, mostly English workers and the petit bourgeoisie. You think you can just legislate it away. I'm pretty offended right now by your continued shit that you clearly know nothing about.


It is unsurprising that most official communist parties agitate on a "No to EU" campaign, which amounts to counter-revolutionary, nationalistic opportunism in my opinion.

The Boss: Whose nationalism do you think the No2EU campaign was trying to placate? I don't think it was Scottish/Welsh nationalism of left or right variety. Whose nationalism forms the basis of the Tory Euroskeptics, UKIP, and the BNP? Again, I don't think Scottish/Welsh nationalism is that basis. Don't forget that your Tories formed government way more often than Labour in the 20th century, and consider the geographic bases of Tory support.

"Many English people" would be a more accurate answer.

And no, it's not racist. I'm also wary of the Deep South culture in the US and the Albertan culture in Canada. Moreover, I distinguished between Little England and the northern parts of England, which should probably hook up in the new British Isles union that I proposed.

[Crux]

The Boss: Whose nationalism do you think the No2EU campaign was trying to placate? I don't think it was Scottish/Welsh nationalism of left or right variety. Whose nationalism forms the basis of the Tory Euroskeptics, UKIP, and the BNP? Again, I don't think Scottish/Welsh nationalism is that basis. Don't forget that your Tories formed government way more often than Labour in the 20th century, and consider the geographic bases of Tory support.

"Many English people" would be a more accurate answer.

And no, it's not racist. I'm also wary of the Deep South culture in the US and the Albertan culture in Canada. Moreover, I distinguished between Little England and the northern parts of England, which should probably hook up in the new British Isles union that I proposed.
Of course you are. How's that "Reformulating Marxist language in order to connect with the workers' movement" going? Had any connections so far?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The Boss: Whose nationalism do you think the No2EU campaign was trying to placate? I don't think it was Scottish/Welsh nationalism of left or right variety. Whose nationalism forms the basis of the Tory Euroskeptics, UKIP, and the BNP? Again, I don't think Scottish/Welsh nationalism is that basis. Don't forget that your Tories formed government way more often than Labour in the 20th century, and consider the geographic bases of Tory support.

"Many English people" would be a more accurate answer.

And no, it's not racist. I'm also wary of the Deep South culture in the US and the Albertan culture in Canada. Moreover, I distinguished between Little England and the northern parts of England, which should probably hook up in the new British Isles union that I proposed.

Firstly, 'many English people' would not be an accurate answer. Many English people are not inherently racist. It is the great propaganda machine, and the 'representation' of the people in parliament by imperialist parties that portrays the image of the UK as the imperialist, racist little jack russell by America's side.

Scottish/Welsh nationalism is not dominant and imperialist because it is the nationalism of weak nations. Similarly, black nationalism does not advocate imperialism, Cuban patriotism does not advocate imperialism, but it's still nationalism.

There is no such thing as left-nationalism. There is a patriotic left-wing of Capital that certainly exists and you, I believe, belong to it. But it has nothing to do with bona fide Socialist politics. And i'll also save you from making the point, there is no such thing as 'useful Nationalism'. There's internationalism or there is merely patriotic Social Democracy, or worse, right-nationalism.

As someone who has lived in the UK for 21 years, I can tell you firmly that you are really barking up the wrong tree on this one. Where there is racism and xenophobia in the UK, its explicit form is confined to the far-right who are ostracised and despised by most in England. Where there is 'implied' racism, it stems from the anti-immigrants propaganda of the media machine, it is not inherent in English people and we are not cheerleaders of historical British mercantilism.

[Jimmy Haddow (SPS)]

I have written this lengthy essay in answer to some of the genuine concerns on the question of the idea of an Independent Socialist Scotland. I do not believe in superficial sound-bite answers/statements as a means to explain complex social and political issues.


I believe ‘Little Englander’ is being thrown about like confetti at a wedding, without really fully understanding its connotation today.


I was born and bred for the first 23 years of my life in Scotland. For the next 31 years I lived in the South of England, Kent to be precise, and I have just returned to Scotland two years ago. I do not recognise the term Little Englander from my life/political/ trade union experience of living in England. I have more affinity as a Scotsman with ordinary working people in England that I have with Alex Salmond of the SNP or any other Scottish ruling class flunkey.


There are many sides to any equation and if one only sees the reactionary side and not the progressive and opposite side then socialists, and activists, will be derailed from advocating advanced/socialist policies to the working class. I concur with Karl Marx’s thesis in ‘The German Ideology’ that the ideas of the ruling class are in every period of history the ruling ideas. Marx postulates the “class which has the material production at its disposal, consequently also controls the means of mental production, so that the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are on the whole subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relations, the dominant material relations grasped as ideas; hence of the relations which make the one class the ruling one, therefore , the ideas of its dominance.” In other words the press, media, education and so on and so forth is used to manipulate the thinking of the working and middle class to the way of capitalist think; which is competition, stabbing ones neighbour in the back, individualism through, race, sex creed, etc. This all gives the multi-layered political consciousness to working, and middle class, people, which include the supposed ‘Little Englander’ philosophy, which can and is countered by trade union unity and a socialist programme.


It is up to socialists to put a programme in the epoch of mixed class and political consciousness to draw all the different strands together to one end, the socialist transformation of society. While political consciousness will be shaken and changed by the progression of events in this crisis ridden society, the development of a rounded out socialist consciousness, firstly of the most politically developed layers and then of the mass of working people, can be hugely eased by a class programme. This provides a bridge from the consciousness of working people today to the ideas of socialist change.


Now in this world of economic crisis, austerity programme, recession and depression, what programme, strategy and tactics should socialists apply in the component parts of Britain? Of course that is not a static and immovable question, but one that is constantly reviewed and discussed to see if there is a change in the objective and subjective conditions that has an impact on political and class consciousness of the working class.


It is important, however, to understand that a Scottish national consciousness has existed continuously - despite the union with England in 1707. It has gone through different phases with a strengthening and weakening of the national question depending on circumstances.


For an extended historical period, underpinned by the rise of the British Empire, the development of society and the economy in Scotland, which was tied by a thousand threads to British imperialism, the national question did not emerge as a dominant issue. Nevertheless, as a reflection of the strength of national consciousness, support for home rule did form part of the programme of the labour movement in Scotland from its inception.


Sections of Scottish society benefited significantly from the union with England. As well as the Scottish ruling class, the middle class played a big role in the military, the civil service and other parts of the British state. The decline of British imperialism and the destruction of the traditional industrial and manufacturing base of Scotland was a key factor that led to a strong revival of a national consciousness. The Scottish National Party – a middle class nationalist party which stood for an independent Scotland but had made a minimal impact up till then - won some spectacular election results in the late 1960’s and 1970’s.


With the discovery of North- sea oil and the “it’s Scotland’s oil” slogan the SNP hoped to show the economic basis existed for an independent capitalist Scotland to thrive. They made some impact, but they were unable to consolidate support among the working class, other than as a protest vote. Support for the SNP tended to be in the rural, middle class areas where the leadership of the party originated. This partly reflected the fact that the middle classes felt the demise of British imperialism with the loss of opportunity and status for them more keenly. At the same time the working class in Scotland were suffering blow after blow with the decimation of the mining, shipbuilding and engineering sectors of the economy.


There was growing support for constitutional change in Scotland. By 1979 the then massively unpopular Labour government finally agreed a referendum on a Scottish assembly. The referendum saw a majority vote in favour of the setting up of an assembly. But the vote was lost because of parliamentary gerrymandering by the British government with the insertion of an arbitrary rule, which meant 40% of the entire electorate had to vote yes. With large abstentionism this threshold was not reached.


Thatcherism – cuts, privatization, neo-liberal policies and attacks on the working class - dominated the 1980’s. Major class battles erupted. Most notably the year long British miners’ strike. As the class struggle intensified on an all-Britain level the national question was pushed into the background. It wasn’t until the late 1980’s that the national question re-emerged with force. The 1987 general election had seen Thatcher returned to power again, but in Scotland the Tories had been trounced.


The Poll Tax was introduced into Scotland first in 1989 which inflamed the national question. Not only did Scotland have a Tory government that it did not vote for, but now it was to be the guinea pig for the Poll Tax experiment. A mass non-payment campaign took off which Militant (CWI) played the leading role in organising. When the Poll Tax was introduced in England and Wales a year later it was also met with mass-non payment and also jailings of non-payers which did not take place in Scotland. Thatcher resigned and the poll tax was scrapped. The SNP leadership however played a negligible role in the poll tax campaign.


Nevertheless, the SNP moved to the left. Jim Sillars won the Govan by-election in Glasgow in 1988 denouncing the “feeble fifty’ Scottish Labour MP’s who were incapable of standing up to Thatcher and the poll tax. With Labour, soon to be new Labour, a capitalist party with a section of the working class voting for it, , moving further to the right the SNP with a “left” programme of limited nationalization and public spending increases were tapping into a mood to the left of new Labour. Support for the SNP and independence increased significantly around that time. The 1992 general election again saw a Tory government re-elected but Scotland had returned only one Tory MP. Again this underlined the “democratic deficit” as it became known.


The mood in favour of some sort of constitutional change was overwhelming in Scotland. A big majority of people backed devolution - the setting up of a parliament in Scotland but within the UK structure. A minority supported a completely independent Scotland. Even Blair’s New Labour was forced to bow to pressure and promised a referendum if they were elected in 1997. The Scottish parliament became a reality. But the national question remains unresolved.


Until capitalism is ended and a democratic, planned socialist society is built, free from compulsion and national oppression there can be no permanent solution to national, religious and ethnic conflicts. In the case of Britain and other “advanced” capitalist nations the creation of a modern nation state was a result of the victory of the capitalist revolution over the feudal societies it replaced. England, which was economically and politically dominant, effectively absorbed, with the backing of the Scottish ruling class at that time, Scotland into a union which formed the basis of the modern nation state of Britain.


As mentioned earlier by the late 1960’s there was the clear indication of a growth in national consciousness and in support for the SNP. In part this was a protest by sections of the working class at the abject failure of the Labour leaders to lead a struggle against a failing capitalist system. On the other hand the class struggle did not go away.


The miner’s strikes of the early 1970s involved thousands of Scottish miners. The famous Upper Clyde Shipyard occupation was a testimony to the determination of the working class to defend their livelihoods. It also had a big impact on the consciousness of the Scottish and British working class. It bolstered the left inside the Labour party. Tony Benn, who was beginning to break from the right wing Labour establishment, cited the UCS struggle as a defining moment in his political evolution to the left. Unfortunately the trade union leaders did not provide the solidarity, tactics and strategy to lead this movement to a victory.


The strengthening of support for national independence was, for sections of the working class, a searching for a way out of the nightmare that capitalism represented - a system that was hacking away at the past gains of the workers movement. This fact combined with the lack of a lead from the leadership of the traditional organisations that represented working class people left a big political vacuum.


As Trotsky commented in relation to national consciousness, the growth in support for Scottish independence was the “outer shell of an immature Bolshevism”. It was a searching for a solution to poverty, unemployment and insecurity. Some on the left, including the official Labour left in Scotland in 1979 dismissed the very existence of a Scottish national consciousness. People like Labour Party’s Robin Cook, who at that time stood on the left of the Labour Party, campaigned against devolution. Others equated support for national independence as a reactionary idea. This has led them to oppose calls for devolution or national independence as a diversion from the struggle for socialism. Some on the Left, as of today, based their analysis that there was no national question in Scotland because Scotland had not been a colonial exploited nation.


Scotland was not as clear cut an imperial colony as Ireland which was an agricultural reserve, a “bread basket”, for British imperialism. However, sections of the Scottish people suffered horrendous crimes at the hands of British capitalism. These included the Highland clearances and the brutal human cost of the forced destruction of the old feudal society. These crimes were indelibly ingrained into the consciousness of the Scottish people. It bolstered the feeling of anger and bitterness towards the “English” and is still a factor in the consciousness of today.


The “union” of 1707 was primarily one which was acquiesced by the feudal Kings, church and landlords who constituted the Scottish ruling class at that time. As industrial, manufacturing and finance capitalism grew in dominance Scotland became a central cog in the wheel that was to become British Imperialism. The Scottish economy was enmeshed into that of Britain as a whole. Not only the capitalist class, but significant sections of the middle class in Scotland benefited from the union and the world role played by British imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries.


However it would be a serious mistake simply to judge the criteria of a nation as one that has been a colony of imperialism. That would be to ignore the fact that Scotland has a clearly defined territory, a long history of a separate religious, legal and education system, and above all a strong national identity amongst its people.


It is true that national identity in Scotland has waxed and waned depending on circumstances. During the height of the powers of British imperialism a majority of the middle and upper classes and sections of the working class would have described themselves as primarily British and in some cases Scottish as well. That reflected the degree to which Scotland had been absorbed into the political and economic life of the British state.


However a Scottish identity has always existed and in the past couple of decades has strengthened considerably. Today around 70-80% of people now describe themselves as being Scottish as opposed to British. In 1979 this figure was 56%.


During the 1979 referendum Militant (CWI) campaigned for a Yes vote. I was not a member of Militant/CWI at that time but I voted YES for a Scottish Assembly. I believe there was even some debate among the Scottish membership of Militant over whether Scotland was really a nation. It was the British leadership of Militant who argued strongly in favour of the idea that Scotland was in fact a nation. We supported devolution because, like Lenin, we defended the right of nations to self-determination. In this concrete case 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 people.


However, Militant/CWI did not simply call for a yes vote; we also explained the limits of the devolved assembly and put forward a programme of public ownership and democratic working class control and management of the economy. We called for unity of the Scottish, English and Welsh working class and we put forward the slogan of a Socialist Britain with autonomy for Scotland.


Since then, support for independence has increased markedly as has national consciousness – which is not the same thing. A socialist party that wants to build a road to the working class has to take a principled position on the national aspirations of the Scottish people. The CWI have done this consistently throughout all the twists and turns around the national question over the last four decades.


At the same time account must be taken of the changing moods around the national question. One of the key tasks of a socialist approach on the national question is to win those workers and young people who are looking towards nationalist ideas to a socialist organization that is fighting to end capitalism. To do this it is necessary to prove that such an organisation will be the best fighters for national and democratic rights while at the same time defending working class unity and socialism.


The CWI’s programme has evolved as the moods and consciousness of the working class has developed. By the mid 1990’s we advanced a programme for a socialist Scotland as part of a socialist federation of Britain. The CWI in Scotland left open whether Scotland would be an independent state and would voluntarily join a socialist federation or whether Scotland would have a high degree of autonomy within a socialist federation of Britain.


This was also against the backdrop of a sharp fall in the class struggle, the collapse of Stalinism and the decisive shift to the right by the Labour and trade union leaders. These processes created a big political vacuum. Without a mass working class alternative to act as a counterweight it was inevitable that nationalist ideas would strengthen for a period.


By the late 1990’s the idea of independence for Scotland had the support of around 30-40% - in late 1998 one poll had support for independence at 50% - of the Scottish people. In particular a majority of the youth and a significant section of the working class supported independence. For many of them 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 of from key sections of the working class who could be won to socialist ideas.


If the SNP – a capitalist nationalist party – were left as the only ones advocating national independence, there was a real danger that if the mood around the national question hardened even further in the direction of independence whole sections could be lost to nationalism.


The SNP government has set the date for a referendum on Independence in 2014; it is a reality no longer in the realms of theory. So as a socialist organisation the Socialist Party Scotland/CWI has to have a policy to counter bourgeoisie nationalism and that is the referendum on Scotland’s future relationship with the rest of the UK requires the voice of the working class and in particular the organised trade union movement to be heard. We therefore support the convening of a trade union conference open to representatives of trade union branches, shop stewards committees, community groups, anti-cuts campaigns etc in late 2012. The role of this conference should be to draw up plans to launch a campaign on how the powers, either of devo max and independence, could be used in the interests of the majority including trade unions members, their families and our communities. This should form the basis of a genuine trade union and labour movement campaign for the referendum period.


However the socialist programme of the Socialist Party Scotland is an independent socialist Scotland as part of a genuine, voluntary and democratic socialist confederation with England Wales and Ireland, as a step towards a socialist Europe.

[Yazman]

Moderator action:


You nationalists are so friggin cute.

The only thing "cute" in this topic is somebody like you who thinks they can get away with worthless posts like these. It's trolling, and if you do it again I'm infracting you.

[Magdalen]

Yet again, it seems the usual efforts are being made to belittle the legitimate struggle of the Scottish people for self-determination. The fact that some here would so under the guise of 'internationalism' is frankly appalling. As Engels argued in 1872, while discussing the need for a separate Irish Section of the First International, 'If members of a conquering nation called upon the nation they had conquered and continued to hold down to forget their specific nationality and position, to "sink national differences" and so forth, that was not Internationalism, it was nothing else but preaching to them submission to the yoke, and attempting to justify and perpetuate the dominion of the conqueror under the cloak of Internationalism.' (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1872/irish-section.htm).

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Yet again, it seems the usual efforts are being made to belittle the legitimate struggle of the Scottish people for self-determination. The fact that some here would so under the guise of 'internationalism' is frankly appalling. As Engels argued in 1872, while discussing the need for a separate Irish Section of the First International, 'If members of a conquering nation called upon the nation they had conquered and continued to hold down to forget their specific nationality and position, to "sink national differences" and so forth, that was not Internationalism, it was nothing else but preaching to them submission to the yoke, and attempting to justify and perpetuate the dominion of the conqueror under the cloak of Internationalism.' (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1872/irish-section.htm).

1. A Capitalist saying something 140 years ago doesn't mean it holds true today.

2. Nobody is asking Scotland to 'sink national differences'. I don't think any Socialist can seriously support the current London-centric political system we have. But the issue is class-based, not nation-based. The working class of Britain and Ireland is stronger united than dis-united. Disunity of Scotland, Wales, England and the two Irish countries would simply result in economic catastrophe and the destruction of the working class in each country, especially the non-English ones.