SNP and Labour

[Pogue]

Which of these two parties do comrades prefer? The SNP claims a left-wing ideology, that is social democracy, which some have criticised as populist. They obviously have nationalistic tendencies, but are not fascists, their manifesto is supportive of immigration to Scotland and asylum seekers. Are they a party of left wing national liberation, or populist nationalist poseurs? Do you feel they are preferable to Labour, who, whilst having strong working class/trade union/socialist support and history, have recently been led to the right and neo-liberalism at the top by Blair, Brown etc?

[BobKKKindle$]

Are they a party of left wing national liberation, or populist nationalist poseurs?

Socialists should not advocate support for either party, because both parties are bourgeois organizations, as shown by the composition of the party leadership, and the way each party has behaved when placed in a position of power.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Both parties suck howler monkeys. Though SNP is a left wing, party. They used to be right wing, but at some point they tried to ally themselves with trade unions, even got the backing of a number of unions. The SNP are a social democrat party like Labor. Nothing too fancy really.

[YKTMX]

I support the SNP government here.

[thejambo1]

they are both a dead loss. the snp certainly used to be pretty right wing many years ago but have softened but i would call either left wing now. best to vote nobody!!

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

There are obvious differences between the left wing nationalism of the SNP and Plaid Cymru than compared to the right-wing nationalism of the BNP. I've encountered right-wingers in the past who've tried to insist otherwise... Funnily enough all of these nationalist parties seem to drum support from traditional Labour voters.

Scottish and Welsh Labour have never undergone the same metamorphises of the English LP, Blairism never took root nearly as much - but still they're being plagued by the unpopularity of the Brown government. At the same time the SNP has been able to capitalise off of that.

The SNP are not a party of national liberation, it would be puerile to try and tantamount them to genuine left-wing liberation movements. Scotland is not oppressed. The SNP don't even drum up anti-English sentiment, on the contrary they're insistant on maintaining close ties with England - they drum up anti-Labour sentiment for which they've been very successful.

They're more affable than the mainstream neo-liberal parties, but they're still just a mechanism of bourgeoise politics.

[Redmau5]

Labour have lost their Glasgow East seat to the SNP. Apparently it was considered to be one of their safer seats, so perhaps it's a preview of what will happen if and when Brown decides to call a general election.

From BBC News:

The SNP won Glasgow East - previously considered one of Labour's safest seats - by 365 votes, achieving a 22.54% swing. John Mason, the victorious candidate, said the result was "not just a political earthquake, it is off the Richter scale".
It followed Labour's recent loss of the Crewe and Nantwich seat, the London mayoralty and poor results in local elections.

Full article at - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7526328.stm

[spartan]

I think the break up of the UK is inevitable as we have Scottish nationalists governing Scotland and Welsh nationalists sharing power with Labour in Wales.

The Celtic regions have always been more left leaning than England so indepedence for these regions wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing from a leftist perspective as we could finally see a genuinely left wing government in the British isles (at the very least we would get reformist social democrats advocating keynesianism).

We never get this in the UK as the Tories always hold southern England preventing the rest of us from progressing.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Should Scotland ever become independent, the SNP will immediately ditch social democracy and turn into another Fianna Fail.

[spartan]

Should Scotland ever become independent, the SNP will immediately ditch social democracy and turn into another Fianna Fail.
Yep and the Scottish people will then vote them out for a party that actually is social democratic and wont try to dismantle their welfare state.

It really boils down to this, do you want a union which upholds free market capitalism and lets right wing public schoolboys like the Tories get into power by just winning most seats in southern England? Or do you instead want a union where left leaning politics are the mainstream and socialist groups and trade unions have a real opportunity at influencing policy and forcing the creation of a state that wont stab you in the back and try to dismantle your welfare state after a while?

Of course i would rather have a global revolution that immediately implements socialism but in the real world (where the majority of people aren't stockpiling weapons ready for the global revolution) i will take the lesser of two evils and a social democratic Celtic union is much more preferable to an English dominated free market shithole that is the UK which we never asked for in the first place.

As the people of nothern England, Scotland and Wales' voices aren't being heard we should rid ourselves from this forced union which doesn't represent our views only the views of some blue blood public schoolboys in southern England.

[Demogorgon]

Should Scotland ever become independent, the SNP will immediately ditch social democracy and turn into another Fianna Fail.

Not if they ever want to be elected again. Labour had such dominance over Scotland that it was effectively a one-party state for over fifty years. They managed to lose the last election due to abandoning Social Democracy. Scottish voters don't like assaults on the welfare state.

That's not to praise the SNP, they are better than Labour obviously, but that isn't saying much, but they won't be able to do a Fianna Fail. Far more likely they will dissolve after independence, some forming or joining socialist or Communist parties (there is a far left presence int he party due to entryism and its attempts to such up to Trade Unions), the pro business faction will probably form a new Liberal party or join with the Liberal Democrats and the rest will carry on for a while before merging with the remains of the Labour Party.

There is a lot of things that the party are doing that I don't like, but their moves towards free prescription medicine, removing debt for students and so on is benefiting people, including me, so it would be inaccurate to say that it is no different from Labour. Also having an openly anti-imperialist Government in power is a first for this country to say the least.

Anyway, the last year in Scotland has seen a somewhat surprise return to Social Democracy in Scotland, tempered of course by the ridiculously neo-Liberal Government in London, but as we both know, Social Democracy has a nasty habit of not lasting. So we will see where this leads in a few years time. I still maintain though that the party will cease to exist after independence, so whether it will abandon social democracy is a moot point.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

If Wales or Scotland gained independence I don't think it would matter if voters favored social democracy or not. At best you would get a very tepid social democracy liable to disintegration at any time. Why? Well pure numbers really. In terms of people, and capital England dwarfs both countries. In any independence scenario, Wales and Scotland would remain economically dependent on England for investment, possibly even for goods and services. And without the population of England you haven't got a tax base to fund social democracy much in the first place. How many billionaires live in Scotland and Wales? How many major corporations are HQed in Scotland or Wales?

Ireland swung hard neo liberal becuase its a tiny country in a sea of capital. Wales and Scotland are not much different. Finance capital will brutally punish any action by a social democratic Scottish government, just like Ireland or Iceland.

[spartan]

If Wales or Scotland gained independence I don't think it would matter if voters favored social democracy or not. At best you would get a very tepid social democracy liable to disintegration at any time. Why? Well pure numbers really. In terms of people, and capital England dwarfs both countries. In any independence scenario, Wales and Scotland would remain economically dependent on England for investment, possibly even for goods and services. And without the population of England you haven't got a tax base to fund social democracy much in the first place. How many billionaires live in Scotland and Wales? How many major corporations are HQed in Scotland or Wales?

Ireland swung hard neo liberal becuase its a tiny country in a sea of capital. Wales and Scotland are not much different. Finance capital will brutally punish any action by a social democratic Scottish government, just like Ireland or Iceland.
Scotland has north sea oil whilst Wales can rejuvenate it's steel and coal industries (which were oly ever shut down because that ***** Thatcher decided that it would be cheaper to import foreign coal than export our own coal).

If the Celtic nations work together then all it's people can prosper.

And independence doesn't mean that the Celtic nations would cut themselves off from England, if anything it will mean that they could finally come to the table as equals without resentment instead of their affairs being dictated to them by some blue bloods at Westminster.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

What north sea oil? How much of that is left? Britain's North sea production peaked back in 99, when is independence coming about? 2015? 2020? By then there won't be much north sea oil to speak of. And while you may have coal, its not exactly the fuel of choice these days. Do you want to base the welsh economy on the export of climate catastrophe? And where is the operating capital coming from for these new industrial ventures? England probably, since England does have those big, huge banks...which leaves us back at square one really.

[Sam_b]

Both parties, obviously, are ones of neo-liberalism and capitalism; and obviously, socialists should not throw their weight behind either. However, I think a deeper analysis has to be made in the current political climate.

The Glasgow East by-election (just a couple of miles from my house) was won last week by the SNP overturning a labour majority of over 13,500. I for one was pleased at the result for a number of reasons. This election was always going to be a two horse race, and was massively played up in the media as such. The fact that the SNP maneouvered a massive swing to their side, for me, shows a fundamental break from the Labour party in Scotland, and a much deeper one than the Scottish election which heralded the first SNP government last year. After many years of being let down by cuts in public spending, war, and poverty; and with unemployment being a huge issue in the East End of Glasgow, the Scottish electorate has finally had the courage to defect from the whole 'only voting labour in Scotland' spectrum.

And this has to do with the SNP being a much needed change in Scotland. The party is rising high in the polls and is widely supported. It was won into office on the back of labour incompetancy, and is against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and for scrapping nuclear weapons. Both these are a definite progressive step from Scottish Labour.

However, it was only a matter of time before the wheels on the squeeky-clean nationalist sweep were to ocme off. Up in Aberdeen, the SNP-Liberal council have orchastrated £9million of cuts to public services, including the Cyrenians, a homeless charity up in the North-East which now will have to close. Also in the north-east, not far from my hometown, Salmond and the Nats are also supporting Donald Trump's plans to build a multi-million pound golf course, which has faced large opposition as well as raising economic concerns.

The job of socialists as I see it in Scotland is twofold. Firstly, we support genuinely progressive measures that the government puts through as benefits for the worknig class (such as the planned abolition of presription charges). However, we will also take them into account over their u-turn on free education and the like. We need to keep making the arguments that the SNP are pro-business, and I think to an extent we did that well in Glasgow east where the combined vote total for the two socialist parties was over a thousand. Pressure needs to be kept up in order to keep them in check, which is why working with united front organisations in order to keep the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan at the top of the agenda. All in all the formation of an SNP government is a progressive step, but something we cannot see through nationalist glasses.

If that didn't make sense i'll edit it tomorrow, i've just checked the time and its an impressive 4.23am :lol:

[spartan]

And while you may have coal, its not exactly the fuel of choice these days. Do you want to base the welsh economy on the export of climate catastrophe?
Simple solution to the coal fossil fuel problem is to use those co2 hoover things which suck in the co2 emitted by these fuels making it either reusable or allowing you to bury it protecting the enviroment.

The world wont not be making use of things like coal for centuries despite what the vote seeking all of a sudden green politicians say.

And there is still 400 years worth of mining left in the south Wales valleys so...


And where is the operating capital coming from for these new industrial ventures? England probably, since England does have those big, huge banks...which leaves us back at square one really.

They will be nationalised and run by the state like they were for the second half of the twentieth century, whilst investment will come mostly from public funding (taxes) like it was in Britain (by the department of trade and industry).

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Simple solution to the coal fossil fuel problem is to use those co2 hoover things which suck in the co2 emitted by these fuels making it either reusable or allowing you to bury it protecting the enviroment.

The world wont not be making use of things like coal for centuries despite what the vote seeking all of a sudden green politicians say.

And there is still 400 years worth of mining left in the south Wales valleys so...

Clean coal is a big fancy myth. Its propagated by the coal companies so that they can continue one of the dirtiest fuels in human history. It's not even Co2, coal produces a laundry list of other pollutants. Sulfur dioxide and Nitrogen oxide generate acid rain and smog. Heavy metals like Mercury, thorium, lead etc. abound in coal. Its not a good option.



They will be nationalised and run by the state like they were for the second half of the twentieth century, whilst investment will come mostly from public funding (taxes) like it was in Britain (by the department of trade and industry).Where is this investment going to come from? Wales doesn't have an extensive tax base like Britain.

My point is that national liberation is a waste of time. There's an allure to build some independent left leaning state. But even that is a pipe dream. Capital calls the shots.

[Yehuda Stern]

I don't see why we should 'prefer' either party. Revolutionaries should not give any support to either bourgeois nationalist or to reformist parties. The only conditions under which we should have anything to do with either party is if there's a movement to the left in any of them. Seeing as today that is not the case, I don't see why we should be interested in which one is 'better' based on any abstract criteria.

[Colonello Buendia]

I would have to say that as both parties as bourgeois and are involved in bourgeois elections then neither deserve leftist support. however one can clearly see that Labour has abandoned social democracy and any progressive thought thus leaving the SNP with the banner of social democracy. I will say the SNP's stance on Palestine and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are much like those any self respecting leftist has. I agree with JHS over the independence issue. given that global capital is still strong the celtic nations would not be Economically viable. there is not enough in the way of raw materials and given the current shift towards green energy it won't get investment. on another note, the whole divide and conquer approach would serve to divide the proletariat and result in experienced activists being lost to the other nations. it makes no sense to start a global revolution when the working class is further divided along nationalist lines.

[Philosophical Materialist]

An independent Scotland on SNP terms would see Scotland emulate the 26-county Ireland economic model of low taxes and corporate-friendly policies. For capitalism it would the most preferential trading environment for an independent Scottish state.

Social democractic tendencies in Scottish politics are currently best represented in numbers by SNP's left-wing but it is balanced by a strong neoliberal wing in the SNP. I seriously doubt that the SNP right-wing would let the social democrats play a role in a Scottish state apart from the occasional trinket to appease them.

I am doubtful that a SNP-run Scotland would take the necessary steps to nationalise its territorial oil and implement a Nordic social democratic system. It would still gain from taxation on oil and licensing but in order to compete with capitalist rump Britain, it would be pushed by capitalism into adopting low taxation on the rich because it would need foreign investment to make up for short-falls in public sector investments and to keep labour costs down.

Even bourgeois social democracy would have difficulty being implemented in Scotland as long as the bourgeois media (and its propaganda) is controlled by monopoly capital. I doubt the SNP would want to nationalise its media or it would be confronted with a flight of capital and a ferocious campaign by the monied class to shut down its efforts. Hence the SNP can only implement neoliberalism in Scotland because under the current world capitalist environment, capital gives no quarter for anything else. This why conservative, liberal and social democratic governments in the world are all implementing neoliberal economic policies.

Hence without Marxism, Scotland will still be oppressed by monopoly capitalism and a lack of real democracy.

[Magdalen]

James Connolly's words on Ireland ring true with Scotland too.


If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.

[Red Solidarity]

I agree PaddyFD also the National Question and Class Struggle must be one of the same. Republican minded socialists like myself will always support revolutionary change not simply constitutional change. I support Scottish independence but as part of a process or genuine movement towards a socialist republic.