Left Unity observers’ report from Radical Independence conference
[fusion_text]Gioia Coppola, Steve Freeman and Sharon McCourt report from the conference, which took place on 22 November.
On Saturday 22nd November Left Unity sent three observers to the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) conference in Glasgow. What follows is a report based on our comments and observations. Comrades arriving early had a chance to see people arriving, registering and talking. It was obvious there was a definite mood of optimism and defiance, hardly the feeling of the defeated half in a referendum.
Three thousand gathered in the Glasgow Exhibition Centre. Across the road an estimate 12,000 came to hear Nicola Sturgeon at an SNP rally. These numbers may serve as a rough estimate of the balance of activists in the national democratic movement between nationalists on one side and internationalists on the other.
We took our seats for the opening plenary and the positive mood was reflected in the speakers. Suki Sangha began with the RIC slogan “That another Scotland is possible”, argued that now “radical ideas are not that radical anymore”. She said that RIC had helped break politics away from politicians and brought it back to the people. She stressed that RIC is not a party or based on individual people but on the idea of a different future which brought people back into politics. She said the trade unions would have to change and that unions in Scotland should not pay for Labour to rousing applause. Again to massive applause she asked why the bankers were not in jail, and for banks to be run for the ordinary people. “Britain is led by the rich for the rich”, the campaign needs to continue and women must lead in creating a more diverse culture.
Patrick Harvie MSP (Scottish Greens) said that the argument over whether Scotland could be independent had now been won and the fear factor had been overcome. Despite the referendum people refuse to be dejected as they had changed the political landscape and now the challenge is not the same. He wanted to hear Scottish ministers stand up against TTIP. We cannot afford to allow politics to stay broken. We need to fix it.
Aamer Anwar talked about Jim Murphy being sent to try and hypnotise the people of Scotland, but it was not business as usual, that we need to continue to build a movement to unite. He said that Scotland should punish Labour and Miliband should sack Gordon Brown. Miliband had only one job to do and he didn’t do that. He asked who wrote the rule book to say we only get one chance at it. They had smashed apathy. Labour lost its soul long ago and now there are two themes, austerity and racism, and they compete to attack migrants. To rousing applause he said Better Together may have won the battle but not the war.
Colin Fox pointed out it is not always the victors who make history and the 1.6 million people who had not been fooled were the ones who had made history. Again he stressed that what they had built was a movement not a party although the issue was political. He said that they were not defeated. The issue was simply deferred and an Independent Scotland was coming for all that.
Next was 17 years old Saffron Dixon. She said she was born in 1997 and had never known a time without wars, without poverty and slaughtering people for profit. She wanted to build a better Scotland and that no one should allow themselves to be silenced. She urged people to fight and vote for the babies of the future. She never wanted to see another child beg for their future. As she is 17 despite all she had done she would not be able to vote at the general election and she called for votes for 16 year olds as Scotland had done. We should build homes not punish the homeless and whether you are 16 or 60 your colour or country should not determine your benefits or home. She finished with the call to politicians – there is NO excuse for foodbanks.
Myshele Haywood finished up this session explaining that she had originally come to Scotland as an exchange student and had made it her home. She said sometimes it is easy to feel alone as an activist but that Scotland was a country full of activists. She called on people to be nice to each other. She told of how the Yes campaign had taken on a life of its own and had drawn people together who had more to unite them than to divide them and that we didn’t have to worry about all the small detail. She said the campaigns strength was in its diversity and that there was no hierarchy as they were not a party. She called for people to keep together to take the campaign forward. Lesley Riddoch finished the session. Her work had made her one of the ‘stars’ in the campaign. She made clear she was not going to stand for parliament.
An impressive array of speakers continued in the next session with some very good analysis of the current situation not least from the young revolutionaries of ’68 – Tariq Ali and Bernadette McAliskey. Bernadette was talking about the situation in Ireland and the campaign against water meters there which was bringing people together in a mass campaign. She talked of how the independence campaign was getting people to ask the right questions that we all need to be asking. Scotland had reminded us how to do it.
Tariq Ali opened by saying that whether it was in 5 years or 10 years Scotland will be independent. He joked that imposing Murphy (contender for Scottish Labour leader) was a bit of a gift from Miliband to our side and referred to Labour as a monolithic rump! He said that all over the world people were becoming fed up with the “extreme centre” of politics with a right centre and left centre all saying the same things. He said it was the end of an era for the Labour Party which on one level was sad but politically was good. He talked of a political vacuum where Labour had been. He warned against the SNP going into any sort of coalition with the main parties.
During the day there were many different workshops to choose in three different sections plus speakers continuing in the main auditorium. We had been invited to book places on workshops prior to arrival so this is where we went our various ways. We cannot report on all the sessions but mention three.
First was one on Opposing Austerity Now, Racism, UKIP and scapegoating: How do we repel Westminster divide and rule? Second was one on community organising with a national strategy. Comrades found these interesting and informative with a few speakers and contributions from the floor in each. Community organising was especially interesting with ideas which could be useful in Birmingham and other local branches.
A third session had platform speakers from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. There were only two contributions from the floor because of time constraints and these concentrated on the problem of England and why the gap between the two countries would widen dangerously unless the left in England began to take the matter seriously instead of sitting on the fence as the majority had done during the referendum.
At the end the conference heard from London in the guise of Ritzy cinema workers and Focus E15 mothers with their banner “from London to Glasgow one struggle one fight decent homes for all”. They spoke brilliantly about their campaign to a packed auditorium and received a well deserved standing ovation.
Overall view
The conference left observers feeling inspired and uplifted by the progress that had been made. Without doubt this is a growing movement despite the referendum defeat. The conference was essentially the radical movement getting ready for the next stage of the war. There was emphasis on RIC becoming more organised and professional. It had since it began two years ago re-established the position of the Scottish left in the mainstream of Scottish politics, which it had briefly enjoyed after 1998 with the rise of the Scottish Socialist Party. Now the left had made a comeback. The conference mood could be called the ‘triumph of defeat’. The left had been through its downturn and was now back in national politics. It convinced us that independence will come for the people of Scotland. It is more a question of when.
Left Unity intervention
Left Unity observers did have some discussion with Scottish LU members who attended the conference. There is political divide among LU members in Scotland shown by members’ approach to this event. Some LU members, including the chair of LU in Scotland, were at the conference and supportive of the event. Other members were outside leafleting.
There was an LU leaflet in the name of Glasgow South. This leaflet condemned nationalism and noted that RIC was demanding free childcare, scrapping Trident, creating 200,000 new jobs, ending benefit sanctions and the bedroom tax. The leaflet said these aims were laudable but impossible. Reforms, it argued, could not be won because of the crisis of capitalism. It was either socialism or barbarism.
Socialism or barbarism is not what LU argues in England. But the argument from this branch in Scotland was suggesting that RIC was a waste of time because of the impossibility of reforms. It gave the impression that LU was opposed to the democratic movement rather than being part of it. So on one hand LU is sending observers, and implying some interest and potential for support, whilst another section is opposing it.
The LU national leadership cannot write all the leaflets for every branch up and down the country. It is neither possible nor desirable. However in Scotland this was a national event and needed a national leaflet. Instead the politics of LU was represented by an LU leaflet from one branch. This is not credible.
Discussion with the LU members from other branches leads to the conclusion that LU is very damaged and possibly finished in Scotland. It is very difficult to see how LU can recover from its failure to support RIC and the democratic movement during the referendum. Now in the face of the changing political landscape the gap has widened.[/fusion_text]
53 comments
53 responses to “Left Unity observers’ report from Radical Independence conference”
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Well done to Glasgow South Left Unity for having the political strength and guts to reject the SNP-tailing Left Nationalism that much of the Scottish Left has collapsed into, and to issue a leaflet with solid socialist politics in it, to the no doubt horrified Left Nationalists at the RICs Conference..
The price in the short term for Left Unity not jumping on the nationalist bandwagon in Scotland may well be isolation from much of the now hopelessly SNP-tailing class collaborationist Left Nationalist Scottish Left – and indeed short and medium term unpopularity with those workers (not ALL the working class in Scotland by any means of course, in fact , despite the illusions of the “Yes” campaigners, obviously not even a majority of the Scottish working class – or the majority vote would not have been a “No”) ,who have been seduced by the ludicrously unrealistic promises of the SNP and its fellow travellers. In the long term though sticking to an internationalist socialist line and fighting for workers to unite across all artificial capitalist borders, particularly as a united UK-wide working class, to fight the Austerity Offensive, is the ONLY way to build a principled socialist party in Britain.
Those now in Left Unity who wish to pursue the Left Nationalist agenda might be better off forming an English supporters branch of the SNP. The RICS people would certainly be best advised to follow the logic of their current political decline and join the SNP as its “radical wing”.
Yawn! Not a single comment on an informative report, just a standard reiteration of timelsss Trostskyist orhodoxy. Doing politics differently dissed once again in such a predictable way. John, I think you need to unlearn such a lot of jargon and self-evident homilies in order to engage in discussions rather than just come in, shout for a bit and then leave the room.
John Penney,
While I agree with your analysis of nationalism, i have now relectantly come to believe that LU only has a future in Scotland as part of a successor to the RIC, or maybe by just disbanding in favour of any such party that is founded. Whatever my views on the capitulation of the left to nationalism, I don’t believe that LU standing outside the main left party, which is bound to have an independence agenda, on an anti-nationalist position, could be seen as anything other than utterly pointless sectarianism. the issues are bigger than “our” party. LU needs to now just become the LU party of England and Wales.
While you are right that the Yes campaign did not win a majority of the population, or even (possiblly) a majority of the working class voters (however defined) they DID win a clear overwhelming majority of active left campaigners and of the most radical sections of the working class.population. The issue has been settled in that regard, and your side, JP, and mine lost convincingly among the audience that really matters for our work.
Labour is set to be destroyed at the election in Scotland. I don’t believe the issue of independence or not should now be an obstacle to building a mass opposition party to both Labour and the SNP. The left in Scotland is going to be nationalist, and we should just accept it.The internationalist left in Scotland just have to take it on the chin, move on and build as much solidarity with workers in England and Wales and of course of Europe and the World, as they possible can. Our job in England is to preserve as much workers’ unity as we can in the face of a potential anti-Scotland English backlash, fuelled by the press and UKIP and also fuelled by Labour’s failure to offer any alternative vision, just as they failed so spectacularly in Scotland.
Just one note to John Tummon. – I think all of Left Unity have now seen your particular version of doing politics differently, and we clearly showed that we were not interested. We are still trying to repair our reputation as a party after our too-democratic constitution allowed your and Mark France’s little piece of foolishness at conference that was voted down with only about 2 or 3 votes in favour of it. Instead we passed a clear and sensible policy on ISIS and the middle east that we now desperately need to publicise.
As the saying goes, a period of silence from you would now be much appreciated.
Ray
I will carry on working on the issue of the Middle East within the International Commission, which I was before – quietly and long-term. I now realise I should not have ended this policy commission discussion so soon and come out of it to conference with a proposed policy change which no-one was ready for or to think through. Long-term and radical changes in the direction of the Left’s internationalism are difficult, particularly during this War on Terror and I have to work with that fact.
On Scotland and other issues, there is no need for me to be silent or to have my amendment used to belittle my other contributions.
Nicola Sturgeon is well to the left within the SNP and has promised to take on the big landowners of Scotland in the interests of the common good and the environment and the RIC is capable of pushing her and her executive to a similar radical left position on other issues – as part of fthe SNP (80% of people at the RIC conference have joined the SNP) and as a Podemos-style grassroots movement rather than a party. Oh! – if we could only take on the landowners in England, where their wealth is astounding and their control & ownership of car parks, mineral wealth, office blocks and entire cities (one Cambridge College owns the land Manchester is built on) echoes the fact that most coal mines were on their land and made them so much money throughout the industrial revolution. This really is doing politics differently – only small voices on the Left have ever raise land ownership before.
That and the huge surge of popular working class support for the SNP, RIC, SSP and Greens since the Referendum is the kind of difference that the ‘Yes’ campaign has made in Scotland – now an incredibly politicised country moving left in horror at New Labour’s historic class betrayal and having to put up with Tories it never elects.
This is such an exciting time to be political in Britain now that the old mouldy mould has been challenged and consitutional issues are on the agenda as never before. Yet some old soaks are still peddling negative old Trotskyist formulae as if all this has gone horribly wrong. You are too kind to JP and too unkind to me!
Anyone who has an hour to spare should read this, the most authoritative, deeply researched, article on why and how the movement towards Scottish Independence has changed the political landscape so fundamentally, so progressively and in such a rare way. Some of the case studies within this – like the one on the women of the village of Farr – is up there with Podemos’s surge forwards.
The article is instructive on how the Scottish Left has stumbled across new strategical horizons and perpectives through this campaign. If we turn our eyes and ears away from this, we are guilty, guilty guilty of letting down our central mission – to do politics differently:
http://thepeopledemand.org/?p=325
A long article which i have only scanned quickly. I note at the end he is calling for an independent scotland to leave the EU and have “a Scottish currency unencumbered by the Bank of England”. This seems like a suicidal course for the working class in scotland to follow and for that reason it wont do so. There is no scottish road to socialism but there is a scottish road to social disintegration and a nationalist dystopia. A separate scottish currency in a situation where the oil price has plunged 40% over the past period might not be a good idea. The only positive way forward for Scottish workers is in united struggle with our comrades to the south against the british ruling class and capitalism It is obvious that Neil Davidson has lost what political bearings he had and has now gone over to nationalism. He has got caught up in the nationalist euphoria of the independence campaign. When he changed a few years back from opposing independence to supporting the call for Scottish independence he wrote it was only tactic which would be abandoned if the working class in britain engaged in a major fightback.. Now demanding Scottish independence is no longer a tactic it would seem. It is a strategy. However the idea that the working class can come to power in scotland by championing scottish independence is a ridiculous idea. And the idea that the working class can come to power in scotland separately from the working class coming to power in britain is risible. The struggle for scottish independence can only mean the struggle to subordinate the working class to the scottish establishment. It is has no other meaning in the real world. Tariq Ali’s call at the RIC event for the left in scotland to support the SNP and not stand against them in the general election shows the practical outcome of left nationalist politics- the subordination of the working class in Scotland to the scottish establishment. And this at a time when the Scottish establishment are viciously attacking the living standards of the working class
Of course those leftists who want to back the SNP and their campaign for an independent capitalist scotland are opposed to left unity organizing in scotland since we argue for a british wide socialist party and the unity of the working class in britain in the struggle against the bosses. The referendum campaign and the “left” support for scottish independence has produced a big increase in SNP membership. No new left party is being launched in scotland and there has been no significant increase in people joining the left groups despite the hype. Of course left unity in scotland supports all reforms that benefit the working class- despite the claim in the report above that we think reforms are impossible. Reforms are possible if the working class shows it strength.However Scottish independence is not a reform that benefits the working class but rather splits the working class along national lines. In seems that a section of left unity in England would prefer if left unity in scotland simply disappeared. That is not going to happen. There is no scottish road to socialism but there is a scottish road to social disintegration and a nationalist distopia. A separate scottish capitalist state in a situation where the oil price has plunged 40% over the past period might not be a good idea to say the least. The only positive way forward for Scottish workers is in united struggle with our comrades to the south against the british ruling class and capitalism
Sandy, let’s see if it does indeed split the class on national lines. The disillusion with Westminster runs deep in the northern and midland working class and among the socially cleansed workers of London; very many want to get away from this through powers of their own. Once the SNP tackles the landowners and reveals distributive tax plans, this feeling south of the border could likely increase – why can’t we have a bit of that down here?
Tito devised a Yugoslav road to somehting like socialism in the midst of cold war manoevrings all around. Whilst it was far from perfect, it marked a distinctive break with Capitalism and Stalinism. I agree that socialism in one state is hugely problematic, but attempts to bring it about can catch fire elsewhere.
Ok further to my comments above – Clearly for the new left party if and when it is created, to support the SNP would be disgraceful and outrageous, even for the opportunists lefts who were behind the RIC.
My view regarding LU Scotland joining a new left party, regardless of its position on the independence question, does not, of course stretch to suppport for the SNP. If the SNP are elected at Holyrood again, which seems inevitable, they will impose an austerity agenda but blame “England” or “Westminster” (whatever that is supposed to mean in reality. They will attempt to rally workers on national lines and not class lines. For the left in Scotland to be part of the SNP would be a disaster, and in such circumstances LU should preserve its independence, however small a voice we are.
Firstly, if John Tummon thinks that Tito’s Yugoslavia represented “a distinctive break with Capitalism and Stalinism” then his understanding of what “socialism” and “Stalinism” are differ very widely from mine ! For Goodness sakes, John, Tito’s Yugoslvia was a repressive . police state, “Stalinist” dictatorship every bit as much as the mainstream Soviet Bloc. As the interesting Yogoslave theorist, Djilas, in the late 1940’s accurately described the Stalinist bureaucracies in the repressive statist dictatorships, as “a new class”.
As to either the core Soviet Bloc, or Toto’s Yugoslavia, somehow “transcending capitalism” . Come on John – that might have been credible to some Lefties in about 1947 – but in the light of the full restoration of bourgeois capitalist structures and free market relations over the last few decades, without a murmur from the working classes – it must now be quite clear that the various , often mutually hostile, stalinist bureaucracies ruling the various claimed “communist” regimes , were in reality a historically aberrant, and quite short lived, counter-revolutionary, collective bureaucratic state “proxy bourgeoisie”, always destined to return those states eventually to conventional bourgeois capitalist forms. In all these states , but particularly the Yugoslav one, with its various market experiments in mutually competing factory units, the capitalist market ,was always operating in the background.
Believing a Stalinist dictatorship (like Tito’s), can usher in a non-socialist proto socialist society is a defining example of what is called “substitutionism” – the curse of the Left for generations – always looking for some agency to replace the working class as the vehicle for the destruction of capitalism – and furthering progress to socialism. You , of course, have taken this recently to a new level, going far beyond your extraordinary belief that the petty bourgeois nationalist SNP will introduce a progressive taxation system in Scotland, and introduce real land reform, to claim that even the fundamentalist theocrat barbarians of Islamic State are also a vehicle for progressive change in the middle east !
I hope Left Unity will continue to offer itself as a rallying point for internationalist self-organising , independent, working class unity in action against the austerity Offensive in Scotland , even if in the medium term this leads to slow growth North of the border. The reality is that the global capitalist crisis is actually getting deeper, day, by day. The SNP will soon be implementing swingeing cuts in Scotland just as the next government, Tory, Coalition, or Labour, will do in England, and Wales. In times of profound crisis the fairy tale petty nationalist fantasy of the SNP will soon be found wanting by the Scottish working class – who also wont be going back to Labour. Our time , as a party of working class solidarity across all borders is not quite yet – but our time lies not far ahead if we keep our internationalist politics and our nerve. The socialists who have been seduced into Left Nationalism will eventually have to decide whether to return to socialist politics – or go down the slippery slope to complete nationalism – the dire end point often being versions of Strasserism. if history teaches us anything about the political route of some socialists infatuated with nationalism
John P, as usual, this, like all your recent contributions, is full of old-fashioned jargon and difficult to read. Then, you keep on mis-quoting me on the Middle East in everything in order to demonise me and anything else I say and reiterating your unsupported claims about the direction Scotland is going in.
I know that you are still an unrehabilitated adherent of the SWP’s ‘state capitalist’ theory about the old USSR and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, but it remains a fact that these societies represented in many important ways a break with the trajectory of global capitalism. The fact that they also failed on so many levels represents the mixed reality they had at the time. There were aspects of socialism, like jobs for life and housing as part of the social wage, which explains why Die LInke has a nostalgic base in the former DDR today.
But don’t let this mixed reality get in the way of dogmatic ‘truth’ and the need to demonise anyone who says different and to spout old-school Trot jargon, John – that’s your way of doing politics differently, so keep at it.
Ray, how do you know all this in advance? Like Sandy, you just assume the worst is going to happen, regardless of the chance for the RIC and the working class communities it has worked so well in to push the SNP all the way on socio-economic issues. It seems you pair just want reality to conform to your tired old analysis – abstract internationalism based on timeless truths found in tomes of the imagined socialism of the past. A lengthy report not engaged with – just refuted as if it had never been written. What is this discussion forum for – swapping & counterposing reveived wisdoms or engaging with each other’s arguments. You owe the starters of this thread more than that.
Here is my assessment of the RIC conference ( a letter to Weekly Worker) which is somewhat more negative than the article above. I do accept that any socialist party must try and engage and work with the forces attracted by RIC and support all campaigns that RIC supporters initiate that are in the interests of the working class. If all you do is denounce you can come over as a bit sectarian.
sandy
The purpose of last weekend’s Radical Independence Campaign conference was …? Certainly, it provided a platform for various nationalists, ex-leftists, middle class ‘anti-establishment’ self-promoters to present their confused projects to a large audience. At least two and half thousand attended the event.
The struggle for working class unity to transcend capitalism did not feature in the discussions. (Or, if it did, it was only so it could be rejected in favour of national unity in the struggle for a ‘fairer’, less ‘unequal’ Scotland.) How can it be otherwise, when the project of promoting an independent capitalist Scotland, which is ‘business-friendly’ and competing on the world market, necessarily means splitting the working class in Britain along national lines? Scots workers are to be lined up to support their own bosses and their struggle for business on the world market.
The main effect of RIC’s referendum campaign has been to win workers to the Scottish National Party and help create a mass nationalist movement in the heartlands of the working class. The SNP now has 90,000 members. On the same day, in Glasgow, next door to the RIC event, Nicola Sturgeon, the new leader of the SNP, was addressing a mass nationalist rally of 10,000 flag-waving supporters. Despite the hype, there has been no growth in the socialist left or any rise in class-consciousness. Rather the opposite. The Marxist groups (Socialist Workers Party, Committee for a Workers’ International, International Socialist Group) who campaigned for a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum are in decline. It would seem that the ISG – the SWP split which launched the RIC – has all but ceased to exist.
No structured debates or votes, of course. There never are at RIC events. That would tend to break the spell of unity and undermine the controlled show the organisers strive to preserve. The actual outcome, for all the promotion and waffle, is less than zero. No perspective for working class advance. No political programme, other than ‘Vote SNP and drive Labour out of Scotland’. As to the general election in the UK in 2015, who cares who wins, as long as Scotland has a strong voice to use in Scotland’s interests?
The ‘People’s Vow’ announced at the end of the event is largely vacuous and was not debated, but rather announced from on high. Who wrote it, we are not told. Not much else was on offer other than opening a few radical coffee shops. Certainly, no pro-working class political project was on offer and no perspective on how we can fight for the political independence of the working class from the forces of capital.
RIC’s actual purpose is to win workers away from their traditional loyalty to the British labour movement towards the independence project of the Scottish establishment, led by the SNP, and, in passing, possibly get some well-paid positions for RIC movers and shakers. In the coming period, RIC will lead no political fight against the SNP government and its attack on working class living standards. Rather they will attempt to provide ‘Nicola’ with a left cover for her attacks on the working class. And these attacks will be massive. The SNP government’s draft budget for next year has £500 million of cuts in government expenditure. This is on top of the massive cuts already implemented over the last seven years of SNP government.
Workers in Scotland, as in the rest of Britain, are facing increasing poverty and growing social inequality. It is not just that the SNP government has no answer to this; it is rather that they are actively pursuing austerity and attacking working class living standards and they are doing this in the interests of capital and the Scottish establishment. Yet much of the left in Scotland is calling for a vote for the SNP – a party that has always been hostile to the organised working class movement.
What is needed is a class-struggle socialist organisation that firmly opposes nationalism of all varieties and unites with our comrades to the south to provide a working class political alternative to the decay and disintegration of capitalism.
John,
Advising RIC supports to join the SNP is a capitulation to nationialism It is the Scottish equivalent of advising LU members to join the Labour Party. It is typical of a “leftist” line. At first it takes an ultra hard line condemning Scottish nationalism as some kind of fascism or UKIPism. Then realising the masses are not taking any notice of this nonsense because workers are much more sensible than left rhetoric, the ultra hard liners flip over and start advising people to join the SNP!
I see that Ray G has thrown in the towel and admitted he has been defeated by the Scottish working class and started to talk some sense at last. Let’s hope one repenting sinner is starting to see the light. As for LU in Scotland it is now a dead duck. The only way it could have survived the refendum with its credibility in tact was if LU had voted to support the resolution on Scotland narrowly defeated at confernce 70-68. By not supporting that resolution LU signed its own death warrant in Scotland. The body is still warm and twitching as shown by the Glasgow South leaflet. But not for long is my prediction.
It is an irony that the one chance LU had to build a cross border party in Sciotland has been wrecked by the Ultra anti-nationalists or Unioniist left in LU who now advise the Scottish left to join the SNP
Hello Sandy,
First things first, Happy Birthday! not only that but I have a birthday present for you – I have resigned as vc of the Glasgow branch, and there are four others who have also resigned their positions. I have terminated the interim Scottish Regional committee after all those officials agreed to resign their posts. To further thrill you and possibly even make your day, I have resigned from Left Unity.
I have abandoned a project that I have worked towards for over 10 years, the formation of a united left party, almost entirely down to your efforts. So lets look at them, shall we?
1. You walked out of a branch meeting for no other reason than you disagreed that we should vote on a formally tabled motion (support for the yes vote in the referendum). You’re timing was not great, as was your understanding of how a branch is run. You forgot that the motion had been accepted by me as chair, and there had been some discussion by two other members. So, even though your walking out made us inquorate, the motion had been tabled and the rules state that it must be the first business at the next quorate meeting, a meeting that you and your cohorts chose to boycott, it was raised, discussed and it was passed unanimously. It was then taken to the next interim Scottish Regional committee meeting. A meeting that you and your cohorts again chose to deliberately boycott, so it should come as no surprise that the meeting voted 9 to 1 in favour of accepting the motion. This is an important wee bit here now Sandy, since it was passed it became the policy of Left Unity in Scotland. The reason that this was not taken to the NC was because Matthew Jones (the NC member for Scotland) has NEVER attended a meeting of the interim Scottish committee! I wonder how the membership will feel about that information, and who was he representing when he was at the NC, I wonder? I will move past the complaints raised by us and completely ignored by the DC, past the large volume of evidence that I supplied (and which was, in the opinion of a lawyer friend, enough to make a watertight case), past the statement by the DC that they “refused to forensically examine the evidence” and past your involvement in the naming of the present Glasgow chair, and the publication of his name. An action that I am convinced was an act that brought the party into disrepute.
2. You decided to form a new branch calling yourselves “Left Unity Glasgow South” unfortunately you forgot to check the constitution (again). The constitution gives two reasons for forming a branch in an area that is already represented.
a) If the membership grows to such an extent that it becomes too difficult to maintain control, so it is allowed to split.
b) If the area is too big and it is geographically better to have two easy to reach branches, again it is allowed to split.
However, the idea that you can just swan off and start another branch because you disagree with one of the first branches policies is laughable. So for that reason, and no other reason, your “branch” was never going to be recognised by the ‘Glasgow’ branch. The matter was also discussed by the Scottish interim committee officials and they agreed that they would not support recognision of the “Left Unity, Glasgow South” branch for the same reasons. We also note that the branch was not recognised by the NC, in fact I find no evidence that they even bothered to apply for recognition. What arrogance!
3. We move on now to the ric conference in Glasgow, a conference that attracted 3,000 people (when did LU ever come close to that!) while the SNP held a rally with 12,000 in attendance NEXT DOOR! You will remember that the policy of LU Scotland was to support the vote for yes (while not specifically supporting the “Yes campaign”. With that in mind I arranged to meet some people from ric just before the lunch break, one being a close personal friend. When I met them my friend became red faced and shouted “WTF is this!” and threw a flier at me. It was a flyer that had been distributed outside the conference. I am not sure whether Matthew Jones saw me but he moved very quickly and scurried out the door. The content of the flyer completely contradicted everything that had been constitutionally agreed in LU Scotland. So you not only acted outside of the constitution you acted in a manner that leaves no doubt in my mind that you brought the party into disrepute once again.
In all three instances there is a complete disregard for the rules, the constitution, or even for agreed policies. You somehow think its ok to completely disregard all of these things, and make no attempt to change your ways. The betrayal of the party by your unrecognised group at the ric conference was discussed in detail. We arrived at the decision where we agreed it was pointless to raise another dispute with the DC, who failed us so completely the first time, and clearly would again do nothing. We also noted that there was a meeting advertised on the flyer where there would be the election of a Scottish Committee. We discussed this at some length, and decided that the idea of a Monty Pythonesque “People’s Front for Judea” versus the “Judean People’s Front” was a new and hideous amount of contempt for the members in Scotland and we would have no part in it.
So there you have it Sandy, Happy Birthday, you have the field! You are completely out of step with almost the entire left in Scotland, and you have made Left Unity the laughing stock of the left. A position that would need some sort of miracle to happen for us to be able to crawl out from under the weight of contempt you have brought on us. I said at the start of this that I was convinced that you were out to destroy Left Unity and you have been completely successful in that. A sad end to a potentially great idea, goodbye!
Best Wishes,
Joe Barr,
Formerly Chair of LU Glasgow
Formerly Chair of the interim Scottish Regional committee.
http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org/ssp-announces-party-will-stand-candidates-2015-general-election/
According to this statement, the SSP (now with 3,500 members I believe) is standing candidates across urban Scotland in May 2015. I wish them all the best. I recommend also the Scottish Left Project and Bella Caledonia websites for comrades who want to keep up to date with developments and debates on the Scottish left. I also think fracking is going to be a big test for the SNP, given that they have powers to stop it in Scotland but haven’t said they’re going to. Anti-fracking groups are springing up all over.
I am being allowed the right of reply to Joe’s post? It is highly inaccurate to say the least. I have posted a short reply but it seems to have been deleted
sandy
Feel free to reply to the politics. As we have established previously, however, we can’t allow back-and-forth exchanges about disputes cases.
So Tom , joe attacks me personally and makes untrue allegations about left unity in Scotland and you won’t let me post my reply
You can post what you want, but not about disputes. It shouldn’t be difficult for you to respond to Joe without referring to disputes about individuals.
No need to respond to me Sandy, I am now officially an ex member of Left Unity and I will not be responding to any more questions or statements. Left Unity in Scotland has already been destroyed. You have nothing left to attack, there is only the unrecognised branch you formed left as the only active part of Left Unity in Scotland. As I said, you have the field, do with it as you will, there is noone else actively involved. There is no chance of me taking part in a discussion about either the past or the future of Left Unity in Scotland. I will have no part in it, I have resigned. My only thought was to leave with a statement of what actually happened for the information of anybody who follows on. If you want to challenge the politics of that you can go ahead, but no matter what you have to say, I will not be responding. You and your unrecognised group are a part of my history now, a part that I have no intention of revisiting. So, for the final time, I say “goodbye” to you all.
Joe Barr.
I am currently Edinburgh Organiser. I want to hear the other side of this dispute before deciding what to do next. Please can Sandy make his reply, particularly about Joe’s allegations that the Glasgow South branch did not follow constitutional procedure, and that the NC failed to discipline them because the main leadership of LU is pro-Union.
Joe
Your resignation comes as no surprise. The Glasgow North branch has not been functioning for sometime and there has been no meetings of the so called Scottish interim committee that we have been informed of. Certainly you have not organized any public meetings or Scottish meetings for the last six months ( and this is at a time of heightened interest in politics during the referendum campaign) and your branch ( possibly just you) has not been present at any marches or demos that we know of. What has your branch of Left unity actually done during the ref campaign? It has been invisible.
The Glasgow branch split because of a serious complaint about sexism that the chair ( you) would not allow to be discussed at the branch meeting. That is why we had to walk out and set up the Glasgow south branch which included comrades who argued for a YES vote and still does. We did not walk out due to any dispute re Scottish independence. We tried to sort things out with you but all our approaches were rejected as were any suggestions for conciliation made by the dispute commission. The so called Scottish committee never met as far as we know.
Anyway good luck in any new left group you join. I must say I could never really understand why you wanted to build a british wide socialist party given your politics. And there are so many left Scottish nationalist groups to join. It seemed at times you were in LU just to try and stop the rest of us building Left Unity
best wishes
sandy
Thanks for that clarification of the actual situation, Sandy. I’m certainly a lot happier for Left Unity in Scotland to be represented by people with internationalist socialist politics .
Steve Freeman repeatedly chooses to cynically misrepresent those who stick to the socialist principle of building independent working class self-organisation – across all political boundaries , as “unionists”. Good try at misrepresentation , Steve – but none of us who believe in working class unity have any time for the capitalist British State either – any more than we have illusions in the potential of much smaller Welsh or Scottish states – under firmly pro capitalist Plaid or SNP political leadership, to further the struggle for socialism.
The point is to build a broad working class led socialist party which can actually fight for working class interests – not tail behind the petty bourgeois pro capitalist nationalists of the SNP. Better to take longer to build such a party in Scotland (and Wales) on the correct politics than enter the political swamp of class collaborationist Left Nationalism just because most of the (very small) Scottish radical Left have got stuck fast in that quagmire.
All these Trotskyist claims about what the SNP is and is going to do are falling apart. Nicola Sturgeon has said the SNP government will stop paying money towards the upkeep of the Royal Family as well as breaking up the land ownership of the cabal around the Royal Family who own most of the Highlands.
https://acenewsdesk.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/nicola-sturgeon-refuses-to-pay-the-queen-go-on-nicola/
So can all those who assume the worst about the SNP take careful note of what it is shaping up to be?
http://www.andywightman.com/?p=3987
John this report is erroneous and is being denounced by the nationalists themselves- see above link
sandy
Ok I’ve seen Joe’s response to Sandy, essentially denying your accusations. I am not a lawyer and my time is very short indeed as a new parent! So forgive me for refusing to take this quarrel any further.
I am suggesting this: for the sake of the movement we are all part of – seeking a fairer more just society, can we bury our differences and ditch the personal hurt and feelings? Can we unite against a horrible and insidious enemy, capitalism and the market, and try to build a reliable and sober body of public strength and activism, to follow the dynamic example of Syriza and Podemos and fight back next May?
If we break up in acrimony, it is exactly what our opponents want. The man whose film inspired this party also made a telling film about the Spanish Civil War, showing how the various Communist and capitalist forces had conspired to undermine the success of the first truly socialist democracy in Europe. Ken Loach premiered the film next door to the Labour party conference in 1996, just before their landslide win a few months later. The message was clear: that New Labour Blairism (and Kinnock) had snuffed out any hope of true socialism in Britain, by setting the left against itself. Let’s try to listen to that message, and be inspired again. Put our differences aside and start the long haul towards our own POUM, or Syriza, or Podemos… We owe it to our families, friends and our country.
I absolutely agree with Bruce that we have to put any personal differences aside and work together to build a real socialist party in britain
Joe has moved on and i wish him well. He has decided that he no longer supports the idea of a british wide socialist party It seems that there was no one else left in his Glasgow branch so we now have only one branch in Glasgow now. . Left unity members in Glasgow want to move forward and build a united branch in Glasgow and help comrades build branches in the rest of Scotland. The members of left unity in Glasgow have organized an aggregate and debate for this Saturday in Glasgow at Govanhill baths, Calder street for all Scottish members. No votes or binding decision will be made at this meeting at the request of Left Unity in London but it will give us a chance to meet up and discuss politics and the way forward and get to know each other. I understand that a further Scottish aggregate will be organized for late January where a Scottish committee will be elected. I urge you to attend this Saturday if you can
Oh dear what a depressing thread. I read this in the morning and it has stuck with me all day – An amazing awakening of left politics in Scotland with mass involvement has happened and is building. Something to celebrate and get involved with. I would have thought it was a no brainer.
To read that sectarians have taken over left unity in Scotland and destroyed it is very depressing.
I am based in London but have good friends in Scotland involved in radical independence. To read that members of left unity were outside leafleting against the conference is to be honest an embarrassment.
I really hoped Left Unity could rise above the old sectarianism and ultra leftism. We need to move beyond spouting off cliches in dark corners and get out there and engage with the working class. A lot of people on this thread should be ashamed of themselves.
Andy
We were not leafleting against the conference. We attended the conference. We oppose Scottish separatism as the way forward for the working class and that is what our leaflet said. It seems that some people on the nationalist left cant take any socialist opposition to their support for Scottish nationalism. We do not exist in “dark corners” but are open about our politics. We have a public debate with a RIC leader from Edinburgh ( Allan Armstrong) at our meeting this Saturday in Glasgow on the independence question. Unfortunately some on the nationalist left still seem to operate on a “control or destroy” basis, which was the discredited practice of the SWP for a number of years.and still seems to be the practice of a number of left nationalist groups which come from that tradition. Why do you find criticism from those who defend the political unity of the working class in Britain such a threat?
Sandy
Yes I know you oppose Scottish “separatism” and that is what your leaflet said – but as i understand from the original article, and what I particularly object to, is that this was a Left Unity leaflet.
Left unity does not oppose Scottish independence and a motion to support Scottish independence last march was defeated by only 2 votes. That vote showed that while there was not a majority then to actively support independence – things were very finely balanced. It did not mean that left unity branches could go out and actively campaign against independence.
I think this vote was unfortunate and served to hold back left unity whilst the vast majority of the left in Scotland campaigned for independence and democracy. (Your use of the terms “nationalist left” and “Scottish separatists” are inaccurate, loaded and, quite frankly, insulting).
Now the referendum is done the question is not going away and the drive for independence in Scotland is not going away. This is an issue that Left Unity are going to have to face up to and take and stand on.
Your leaflet according to the original article above (which you haven’t contradicted – so i assume it is correct) condemned nationalism (RIC is not a nationalist campaign) and accused its left wing program of being reformist.
I am appalled! This is insulting to many left unity comrades across the country and if it doesn’t break party rules then the rules are not strong enough. That is totally undemocratic to act in this way promoting a line in the name of Left Unity that the majority do not support.
I support the political unity of the working class and in my opinion Scottish independence enhances that unity. That was demonstrated at RIC very clearly with the presence of housing activists from London.
I joined Left Unity not to sit on the sidelines (in dark corners of pubs – in meetings of 3 people) building a party with “correct politics” waiting for the working class to wise up. No – I joined left unity because i want to be in a party that unites people against this increasingly rampant hostile capitalist system which is destroying people and planet – a party that moves the national agenda left, supports activists and is part of a mass movement for change.
I think this task is urgent – in terms of climate change we haven’t got long.
I think you might call me a reformist. I don’t use that label. I support the radical left in Europe and the advances made by Syriza and Podemos and I feel the RIC in Scotland are the closest thing we have over here to that.
I have a suspicion that you may well call Syriza and Podemos reformist (as you use that label for RIC) and to be honest I do not want to be in a party with people that hold that view.
Ignoring where the working class is now and building a “correct” party to somehow lead us to nirvana is the sort of politics which has held back and divided the left for many years
Left unity does not mean uniting various strands of ultra leftism – It was Ken Loach’s call for a “UKIP of the left” that attracted me and I am dismayed that our project may have been hijacked by sectarian forces once again.
Andy
Are you for a british wide socialist party? I am. I suspect you are not from what you write. I joined Left Unity because it was organized on a british wide basis and was attempting to provide a political voice for the working class in britain. If I had wanted to join a left nationalist organization or an organization that only organizes in scotland I could have joined one of the left nationalist groups like the SSP, Solidarity or the ISG etc who support Scottish independence and believe that scottish workers should organize their own political party independent from workers in the rest of Britain. That is a big break from the tradition of the working class movement in Britain which has always organized on an all British basis. Left unity in scotland supports the creation of a british wide socialist party that fights for the working class in britain to take power. RIC oppose a british wide socialist party- as do the ISG and the SSP and Solidarity. The majority of RIC supporters are members of the SNP and support the Scottish government which is attacking our living standards. What you call ultra leftism seems to be simply defending the political unity of the working class in britain in its struggle against the bosses. I agree that left unity will have to decide if it wants to build a british wide organization that fights for the working class in britain to come to power or instead dissolve itself in Scotland into a scottish left nationalist group.From your perspective what is the point of Left Unity organizing in scotland? Surely from your perspective socialists in scotland should all join the SSP or the scottish left project etc and not be in Left Unity?
It’s a good question Sandy
Should Left Unity be organising in Scotland or not?
The left is making a breakthrough in Scotland and Left Unity should be part of that. Discussions are ongoing on how to organise locally and how to prepare for elections in order to further that breakthrough and fight austerity and the attack on living standards.
Left Unity should be part of that conversation.
You neglect all this because for some reason you want to preserve the unity of the British state because you see that as preserving the unity of the working class. We live in the 21st century – an independent scotland does not mean working class disunity. I live in London, with my wife who was born in, and grew up in Scotland – I have many Scottish friends. Modern communication means they are in some ways closer to me than my next door neighbours.
I could join an independent Scottish party while living in london if i wanted. Another example is the way Podemos are organising in London – this is the modern world and the ability to organise internationally is now a real prospect. After all our enemy is organised internationally. We are not all atomised entities sitting in our localities. I really believe that if the Scots get independence it will firstly be better for Scots and will inspire real unity across the working class on these Isles instead of some phoney unity that exists because we are all living under the rule of Westminster.
For the first time in years people in Scotland are turning up in their thousands and engaging in politics – Left Unity should be part of that.
Instead it now seems Left Unity are not part of that and seem to be organising against it.
I notice that you do not defend your decision to leaflet the RIC conference accusing it of reformism and nationalism. That is the thing that really upsets me because Left Unity have not given you a mandate to do that.
Well put , Sandy. There seems to be a collective adoption of the attitude of “words can mean whatever we wish them to mean” on the now largely Left Nationalist “radical” Left in Scotland (and sections of the now Left Nationalist Left in England and Wales too). A clasics example from Andy being his statement of , “I support the political unity of the working class and in my opinion Scottish independence enhances that unity”. Errrmm… don’t think so, …creating new mini capitalist state boundaries within what is currently a multi nation capitalist state, with all the mutual competition for investment that implies, and encouraging Scottish workers to identify with an intrinsically all-class “Scottish nationhood” as against international working class solidarity, is NOT the way to build working class unity, Andy.
Sadly, major sections of the (still tiny) Scottish radical Left have simply capitulated to the divisive and dead end wave of Scottish petty nationalism created by the capitalist crisis, Austerity, and decades of the divisive propaganda of the purely pro-capitalist SNP, and thrown whatever Marxist or even socialist politics they once had out of the window, and crossed over the political line to side with nationalism. It is a political journey doomed to end in tears.
And as to your question,Andy – yes Podemos and Syriza are indeed reformist parties, radical Left reformist parties , but reformist nevertheless. As is Left Unity. Nothing wrong with that in the current political context. It is the only way to build the struggle in the absence of any current revolutionary spirit in the working class. Let’s not kid ourselves that the politics of Podemos, Syriza or indeed Left Unity, can solve the capitalist crisis , though – These parties can significantly raise the level of working class consciousness and struggle however – so at this point in time socialists of all hues should join them and support them. Not so parties which sidetrack the working class into petty nationalist dead end class collaborationism. RIC is nothing like either Podemos or Syriza – it is a subordinate movement (to The SNP) trying to seduce workers into support for a petty bourgeois pro capitalist political strategy and party – the SNP. The RIC is not reformist it is actively reactionary – in deed , if not in intent..
“for the sake of the movement we are all part of – seeking a fairer more just society, can we bury our differences and ditch the personal hurt and feelings?”
But *why* should people such as Sandy be allowed to behave in such a disgraceful way, helping to bring the party into disrepute, breaking the basic rules of the organisation etc.? Why should he be able to do that and then we say “oh let’s bury our differences”?
If this is how these people act over these kind of differences, do you honestly think they’ve got any interest in truly building Left Unity? If you ignore what they’ve done, in the interests of all being nice to each other, you will see them doing a lot more destroying.
Instead, why not ensure that people act with basic decency *first* – not forgiving all this bad behaviour in the name of unity after the fact. These people have proved that they won’t adhere to the rules (and, in the spirit of the sectarian left, will latch onto a small issue in order to force a split). When you say let’s ditch the hurt feelings, you’re saying “everyone did wrong, let’s move on”.
But that’s not true. Left Unity is now finished in Scotland as a result of this, and a large number of us think that this was exactly the aim of the behaviour of this group.
“I absolutely agree with Bruce that we have to put any personal differences aside and work together to build a real socialist party in britain”
It’s always easy to say “let’s work together” when you have just conspired to destroy a political organisation, broken the rules and ignored the constution. It’s like the SWP and its calls for “unity” – it always does this after it’s wrecked other people’s organisations.
John 208
I must apologize for helping my branch of Left unity produce and distribute a leaflet which criticized Scottish nationalism, the Scottish government and the radical independence campaign. I now realize this was a disgraceful action and can only apologize to the people of scotland for my heinous action
For the unity of the scottish people in the struggle for national freedom. Down with the trotskyite wreckers
sandy
That’s not what you did, not by a long shot – but this is the tactic of the person who wants their bad behaviour normalised and ignored: find a ‘normal’-sounding thing that they did, and make out that that is the thing people are getting annoyed about. The very fact that this is what you choose to focus on shows just what you’re trying to hide: if all you’d done was help produce a leaflet, well who can be against helping to produce a leaflet ha? So, to those reading this, ask yourself if people would really be that upset if all Sandy had done was “helping his branch of left unity produce and distribute a leaflet”. Of course not.
You deliberately engineered the destruction of a branch, you deliberately broke some fairly basic and sensible rules, and in my opinion you don’t care one bit about left unity.
Oh dear Sandy
If only i could believe your apology was heartfelt and sincere. I am guessing from the language you are using that it is not.
Sandy, John Penney and other opponents of Scottish independence seem intent in not only destroying left unity but trying to hold back the working class in Scotland on a vague concept of “preserving” working class unity across Britain.
Apart from all the insults you keep hurling of “class collaborationist leftists” and trying to pin a right wing concept of nationalism on us, you only seem to have one argument – that of “preserving” the unity of the working class in Britain.
John you say that there is a danger in “creating new mini capitalist state boundaries within what is currently a multi nation capitalist state, with all the mutual competition for investment that implies”
There is already competition for investment in case you hadn’t noticed – and it is all going south.
Scotland and the north of England have been neglected for years. Lets show some solidarity with workers in those areas.
Scottish independence is good for the working class in Scotland and will increase investment there – but at the cost of Workers in England?
Are you joking? – Are you saying we should halt the leftward march of Scottish working class simply because of possible competition for jobs and investment?
When you carry on to say “encouraging Scottish workers to identify with an intrinsically all-class “Scottish nationhood” as against international working class solidarity”
You are willfully ignoring the constant calls for international solidarity that the RIC and are making and showing.
Examples:
Part 5 of RIC statement Sept 2014 (http://radicalindependence.org/2014/09/28/ric-statement-moving-forward/)
– Internationalist and opposed to war, NATO and Trident.
– The presence of housing activists from London as guest speakers at the RIC conference
I could go on and on – this is a movement with the International Solidarity of the working class at its heart!
I really do not see where you and the few anti-independence left supporters are going with this.
John you say “Better to take longer to build such a party in Scotland (and Wales) on the correct politics than enter the political swamp of class collaborationist Left Nationalism”
That is not a strategy – You are condemning left Unity to the dustbin of history to be another far left sect.
I am glad that you recognise the importance of Syriza and Podemos as “the only way to build the struggle in the absence of any current revolutionary spirit in the working class” and add that
“These parties can significantly raise the level of working class consciousness and struggle”
as that is exactly what is happening in spirit and deed in Scotland with the RIC, National Collective,
Scottish CND, The common Weal, and a mass of other left groups not “tiny” as you claim – but they are a fast growing majority with membership figures in some cases doubling since the referendum.
It is a fact that these groups actually are significantly raising the level of working class consciousness and struggle
I really hope Left Unity can be part of that
The curse of nationalism … from the blog of Republican Communist Network in Scotland.
Was there a LU meeting in Scotland at week-end ? Any reports available ?
http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2014/12/14/the-curse-of-nationalism/
The level of political self delusion amongst RIC supporters about their actual role today in Scottish politics is really quite sad. Not the first time though that Lefties have jumped uncritically onto a non-working class bandwagon thinking it led to socialist transformation , eg, Stalinism, sundry charismatic leader Third World liberation movements. The regular purely nominal references to “international solidarity” made by the RIC folk has no actual real world traction I’m afraid – when set against the overwhelmingly divisive petty nationalist thrust of the rest of the RIC output – all tailing the main historical “Scottish victimhood” mythology and “anti Westminster ” non-socialist petty nationalist rhetoric of the SNP. Those on the self -described Scottish Left who now tail the SNP agenda, and therefore , despite your refusal to acknowledge this core point, Andy, quite blatantly encourage Scottish workers to identify their class interests with the Scottish capitalist class – as opposed to their shared class interests with the rest of the UK working class. That is simply a political fact. Deny it as much as you want.
The historical irony is that the European and US Big capitalist Bourgeoisie, who entirely created the modern phenomenum of the nation state – as a part of the rise of industrial capitalism, in the main long ago outgrew the nation state – and today operate on a global basis – leaving support for petty nationalism to small eccentric or cynically self interested segments of the capitalist class ( eg, Murdoch wanting a media monopoly in Scotland, The Stagecoach owners wanting to hang onto their privatised bus services ), and the small business petty bourgeoisie and petty bourgeois consultant and lawyer class of the SNP , and their misled working class supporters. When the European and US Big Bourgeoisie nowadays promote petty nationalism in their mass media or by supporting nationalist parties it is solely as a “divide and rule” tactic .
The RIC supporters are simply lost in the swamp of petty nationalism – fooling themselves that their “add-on” Left radical demands have any impact on the fully pro-capitalist policies that the SNP does and will pursue. You wrongly think you are part of a growing progressive mass movement, and it all seems so exciting – after years in the political wilderness , but tragically are just the Leftish “tail” of a very vicious petty nationalist SNP dog.
Gawd Blimey John Penney!!
I can hardly make out a word of what you are saying.
Its gobbledegook!
“Stalinism, sundry charismatic leader Third World liberation movements” !!!!!
What are you on about???
Its just a rant about nasty nasty nasty nationalist class collaborationist SNP dogs
Stamping your foot saying nationalists nationalists nationalists!!!!!
You just can’t see beyond nationalism – and refuse to see anything but a nasty monolith
just representing one strain of ideology (divide and rule) that must be opposed at all costs.
You are blind to any concepts of self determination, democracy and independence.
You haven’t addressed any of my previous points about working class unity not being threatened by Scottish independence
You admit the nation state is finished … but are unable to see what that means in terms of
people wanting to take control in localities where the old nation state is losing its hold.
Of course there are capitalist elements in the SNP but it looks to me and a growing number of people
like it is the left that is starting to set the agenda and the SNP following on.
It is very exciting John and a shame you and your anti independence friends ( I could call you unionists but I am not going to sink to your name calling level of debate) can’t see past old dogmas, learnt from being in the wilderness for too long.
John P, please show us clearly the political content of the ‘class collaborationism’ you allege before declaring it as an ‘undeniable’ fact. The SNP may have been a “non-working class bandwagon” up to mid -2014, but its new left of centre leader and the new right of centre New Labour leader north of the border are going in different political directions, such as on land reform, for starters, and the political space opened up by the transfer of so many working class areas to an allegiance with independence and the entry of RIC members and scores of thousands of newly-politicised people into the SNP represents a bandwagon of a very different hue. This bandwagon is so much more than ‘petty nationalist’, in its social base, its youth and in its demands for radically redistributive policies.
The nation state arose through the Bolivarian independence war against Spain in the early 19th century and only displaced the dynastic realms of European monarchs much later; in Britain, this process is still incomplete, as the people are not even formally sovereign, but ‘subjects’ of a monarchy that has significant control still over the military, judiciary and a massive formal and informal role within the controlling oligarchy. As for nation states being surpassed by Trans National Companies, I suggest you read your old SWP leader, Alex Callinicos, on this (‘Imperialism and Global Political Economy’) for a comprehensive rebuttal of this myth. The truly sovereign and radical independence of Scotland is there to be fought for and defined in the course of something called class struggle. Your ‘it is written’ view of the future is pure dogma based on the old theories and strategies that have failed the working class so many times in the past. Put simply, the British state is remote, powerful in relation to the people and benefits from a centuries-old inertia that places an overwhelming feeling that ‘business as usual’ is inevitable on all our horizons. The break-up of the UK removes that – new institutions, especially new republics, do not have this same power over people’s imagination, as French history shows, with 5 republics and counting.
Scotland represents the birth of new ways of thinking and doing politics – a bandwagon worth jumping on.
Furthermore, as the Guardian has now set out in some detail, senior figures in Whitehall and Downing Street became so fearful that the Scottish independence referendum could lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom that the Queen was asked to make a rare public intervention in the final days of the campaign.
Britain’s most senior civil servant and the Queen’s private secretary crafted a carefully worded intervention by the monarch, as No 10 experienced what one senior official described as “meltdown” in the closing stages of the campaign after polls showed growing support for a yes vote.
The discussions between Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, and Sir Christopher Geidt for the palace, led the Queen to issue an appeal to the people of Scotland four days before the referendum in September to “think very carefully” before casting their vote.
The delicate negotiations in the runup to the intervention by the Queen, which were described by one senior Whitehall source as a warning to voters that they were facing “a decision filled with foreboding”, are revealed by the Guardian on the final day of a two-part series about the Scottish referendum campaign.
The suggestion was made during the last few weeks of the referendum after a YouGov/Times poll on Tuesday 2 September reported a six-point fall in support for the pro-UK side in a month. Key figures in Downing Street and Whitehall, led by the prime minister and the cabinet secretary, assessed all the options they could deploy to halt what appeared to be the yes side’s momentum.
Cameron discussed the referendum with the Queen a week before her public intervention when he travelled to Balmoral with his wife, Samantha, for their annual visit. On that trip, there was a particular focus on the referendum when the campaign was electrified by the publication of another poll, a Sunday Times/YouGov survey on 7 September, the final day of the prime minister’s Balmoral visit, which gave the yes side its first lead – by 51% to 49%.
The Whitehall source added that the referendum was discussed during Cameron’s Balmoral stay and the final day of the Guardian’s Scotland referendum series also highlights Gordon Brown’s pivotal role in helping to save the UK in the final period of campaigning. Cameron let slip afterwards that the Queen had “purred down the line” when he told her the result.
This is the secretive, manipulative heart of the British oligarchy, desperately trying to save the future of what they depend on, at the epicentre of the British state – the same state used to smash the miners in 1984, to pour public money by the billion over several decades into Polaris and Trident without any talk of a referendum, to bail out the banks and make the people pay the price.
And yet old Trots fail to spot the fear-ridden class collaboration behind the No Vote yet choose instead to imagine the same thing underpins scores of thousands of newly-politicised working class Scots joining the SNP.
When the ruling class moves as decisively as this, it means they have good reasons to fear Scottish independence. They grasp historical process, that’s why – they know that radical constitutional reform is such a danger to a state based not upon deliberative thinking about how to organise a political structure, as in Republics, but instead on the slow evolution of precedent far from public acountability, light years beyonf transparency and reflecting the continuation & retrenchment of privilege.
In essence, John Penney, you are on the wrong side.
“The SNP may have been a “non-working class bandwagon” up to mid -2014,” . Quite priceless, John Tummon ! And now after being for its entire history an opportunist pro capitalist party of petty nationalism, the SNP is suddenly transformed into a vehicle for radical social – even socialist change – as a result of no more than a bit of Leftish verbiage to attract a working class base ? This , for your information, Andy – is a classic example of “political substitutionism” – ie , supposed Leftists latching on to a non working class-led opportunist bandwagon – in the belief that it will lead to radical social transformation. As the Left pursued its mistaken belief in the “progressive” role of stalinism , and a range of supposedly “progressive “anti imperialist” dictators like Nasser, Assad, Gadaffi , etc, , for so many fruitless decades.
Unfortunately, John Tummon, your judgemental credibility in assigning this “progressive role” to the SNP, on the basis of nothing but a bit of empty rhetoric (rather than the reality today of the SNP enforcing the Austerity agenda in Scotland for capitalism), is somewhat tarnished by your belief that the theocratic cleric fascist barbarians of Islamic State are also a historically progressive force in the Middle East !
John P, you talk on this board like a hack from the SWP version of The Thick Of It – always tarring me with the same jargonised accusations about Islamic State, whatever the subject I am debating. I NEVER said in my amendment that IS were progressive, but that the demand from Middle East Muslims for a Caliphate had progressive POTENTIAL. Get that straight and stop distorting my words – that is no way to do politics differently.
I see you have ignored my challenge to substantiate your charge of class collaboration and just about everything else that Andy, me and the original authors of this thread have argued.
A pile of jargon once again – I could write a dictionary of Left sectarian jargon based just on your posts, which devalue every thread you go on nowadays. The point of the Debate section is an honest exchange of ideas and information in order to get closer to positions we need to get towards, not jargonised point scoring. If that’s all you are intersted in, start your own blog!
It seems to me that the most important thing now is to maintain the independence of a left party in Scotland.
Left Unity was founded to provide an alternative to pro-capitalist parties like the Labour Party. It is surely just as important to establish a strong alternative to the SNP – which is social democratic (at most) and most certainly NOT anti-capitalist. Swapping decades of betrayal by Labour for more betrayals by a pro-capitalist nationalist party seems simply pointless.
Labour, due to the utter bankruptcy it has shown for decades and particularly its woeful, British nationalist campaign in the referendum, seems to be on the way to destroying itself in Scotland. Good riddance – its what it deserves.
LU members in Scotland need to be part of a new left party, which seems to be more likely after the RIC campaign (which I did not support). It is clear to anyone with eyes that the pro-independence lefts are in the overwhelming majority of the left in Scotland, and of the most progressive sections of working people. I feel disappointed by this but it is a result of the failure of the traditional left to offer a British-wide hope of socialism. It is born of despair – but it is still a fact of life. To allow rancour over the independence vote to prevent LU from joining in a new left project would be simply sectarian. This may even mean not having a UK-wide party at all, and for Scottish LU members to go where the class has gone, into a new Scottish Left Party.
John Penney, Sandy – I can feel your frustration with the growth of opportunistic nationalism on the left but the knowledge that you are “correct” is not enough to orientate correctly towards the majority of working people looking for a radical alternative. We need to focus on the main issue now – which is to build an alternative to pro-capitalist ideology and pro-capitalist parties in Scotland and (maybe separately) in England and Wales, working with as many other left groups as we can – whether they are pro or anti independence.
Very heartened to read the posts by RayG and Len Arthur. I do hope Scots looking for unity against Westminster austerity parties can join together under LU leadership and overthrow them here at least. That means ditching our personal issues and getting together to serve those who need us, those who don’t have the luxury of comfortable homes and enough to eat. Think about it people! Christmas is a great time to do that. Sandy, Joe, Mick, Sofia, love you all and want your power and passion against the real enemy. Peace and hope. xxx
I’ve no intention to intervene in this debate. As secretary of Left Unity Wales I wish to put on record for anyone who is interested that our experience in Wales has been quite different. We have established democratic structures and through the three Left Unity Wales meetings that we’ve had so far, have worked hard to reach an agreement on policy which, as far as possible incorporates the different views expressed, including those relating to devolution, referendum and independence. Here are the details of the policy statement which is now in the process of being developed into campaigning demands: http://chwithunedigcymru.blogspot.be/2014/12/left-unity-wales-policy-statement.htmls:
If you are interested take a look at the rest of our web-blog which contains the minutes of the meetings, earlier policy drafts and all our campaigning activity.
I hear what you are saying , Ray.G. I accept that the political space in Scotland for an all-UK socialist party of principled independent working class self activity and internationalism is today practically non-existent. Whether there will actually be a specifically Scotland-based new “Scottish Left Party” for radical socialists in Scotland to join is of course a pretty fundamental issue. There may well be some short lived energised pro-independence radical Left parties coming out of the Yes vote excitement – but as far as I can see the logic of the Left nationalist position (and the traditional mutual hatreds and factionalism of the Scottish radical Left) should rationally be to join the now 90,000 strong SNP – and be its radical Left wing. That is where I think most Left nationalists will end up eventually. Why wouldn’t they – if the SNP is in their opinion “a progressive , radical, political and social force” ? If I thought that I’d certainly join the SNP if I still lived in Scotland
That being my prognosis – I wouldn’t abandon hopes for eventually building Left Unity in Scotland as part of an all-UK party quite yet – though there may be a hiatus of a few years before the absorption of most of the current Left nationalists by the SNP happens – opening up a political gap for principled socialist internationalist politics.
Similarly I don’t know how Left Unity as party, as a party in favour of working class unity across all political boundaries will relate to Wales going forward either . The current pro independence stance of Left Unity Wales seems to me to lead logically to joining Plaid as IT’s radical Left wing. Though how socialists with any minimal grasp of economics think the Welsh economy could survive for 5 minutes as an “independent” economic entity, leaves me quite at a loss to comprehend. Needless to say, at the recent all-Wales policy meeting I was in a minority of one in opposing LU actually proactively propagandising for not just a independence referendum – but independence itself as a viable and desirable outcome ! This in a nation where in recent polls about 92% of the population think complete independence would be a really bad idea. In this case the majority are quite correct !
John – You see, I think you are wrong to think that the whole left will, let alone should, collapse into the SNP. Elements are advocating that but others are clearly feeling their way to a Scottish Left Party of sorts. The SSP, for example, is to stand against the SNP (admittedly after SSP’s disgraceful request for an electoral pact was refused by the SNP). Other elements are talking about a new left force and it would be suicidal sectarian madness for our forces not to be part of that, or to stand against it.
I opposed independence, from an internationalist perspective and because of the falsity of the argument that an independent Scotland could or would become a little leftie social-democratic haven, in the face of international financial pressure. However, we lost that battle, massively, on the left and in the class – so what now?
I do not agree that it is logical for the left to enter the SNP. There are plenty of examples of left parties supporting national independence without joining the main bourgeois nationalist party.
As I said, I do feel your pain and disappointment, but we must get away from this sourness and recrimination and win the workers of Scotland to socialism.
http://irishmarxism.net/2014/12/16/belfast-socialists-discuss-scotland-after-the-referendum/
Good article. It points out something that has been obvious for sometime- the left nationalist groups ( SSP, SLP, ISG, SWP etc) are driven by the logic of their politics to deny that the British working class exists as a real social entity. Far from struggling for the working class to come to power these “socialists” instead struggle to fragment and subordinate the working class to Capital to the extent of trying to “disappear” not only the actual collective existence of the british working class but also the memory that the British working class ever existed and fought great struggle against British Capital. It is indeed a strange type of socialist who base their political perspective on the continued defeat and atomization of the British working class movement
Yes, Sandy, that article from the irishmarxism.net blog is very good indeed. It raises all the key issues that the now increasingly Left Nationalist ex-socialists really don’t want to address at all . In fact the Left Nationalists really can’t afford to get into any real detail about the claimed “great leap forward” that the pro independence campaign is meant to represent for the Scottish (and via “inspiration” English and Welsh) working class. Flowery rhetoric steeped in nationalist imagery – but leavened with regular references to a claimed continuing “internationalist commitment” is all that today’s Left Nats can afford to engage in – lest the whole ramshackle ideological structure of Left Nationalism comes apart at the seams. Which is why today’s Left Nationalists get so hot under the collar to be challenged by still remaining Marxist socialist internationalists.
If some lash up of a new “Scottish Left Party” does emerge around the pro independence campaign – rather than the now firmly Left Nationalist “socialists” of RIC following the actual logic of their politics and simply joining the SNP, we shall see over the next year or so if this structure has traction . I don’t think such a party, based on a group of people who historically have proven capable of picking a fight with each other over any issue available, and now hopelessly lost politically in the swamp of petty nationalism – will ever amount to much..
The bigger picture of course is the ever deepening world economic crisis – now by the looks of it approaching yet another critical , potential meltdown, phase , of potentially 2008 proportions . “The global “perfect storm” of the new oil price crisis, and the subsequent new debt crisis of oil states like Russia and Venezuela, the instability in the Middle East, Eurozone stagnation, and the still unravelling , unresolved, dodgy asset and hidden losses problem of the global banking system, is not going to enable the SNP to avoid carrying out the most swinging cuts to the Scottish budget and social services on behalf of its ” capitalist market” masters .Iin this situation those who have hitched themselves to the SNP nationalist bandwagon are going to be increasingly drawn into a defence of petty nationalist class collaboration – as opposed to all UK worker solidarity.
Given the speed with which the growing global crisis is impacting the living standards of all UK workers I think the task of Left Unity is to ride out the Scottish and Welsh petty nationalist diversions of the moment – and before a few years are out there will be a political space for a serious all UK socialist party. Most of the current Scottish and Welsh Left almost certainly won’t be in it – but then the last 30 odd years of Neoliberalism have reduced the supposed UK “radical Left” to a hard core of people who all too often are stuck in such political cul-de-sacs and dogma that a new socialist party , seeking out masses of new blood working class socialists radicalised by the crisis, will be better off without most of em.
http://tinyurl.com/o6a7d73
The nationalist numpties and their “leftist” boosters will just ignore the facts but what else can you expect from those who base their politics on fantasy. But the majority of the working class will realize that we dodged a bullet when we voted No to an independent capitalist scotland. But there are lots of other bullets on the way so we better get organized if we are going to move forward. There is a real chance to create a European wide socialist movement in the next few years. It looks like the Greek working class will be in the vanguard and we have to mobilize in solidarity with their struggle against impoverishment
Oil rout would have wrecked an independent Scotland’s finances FT
Chris Giles, Economics Editor http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d97d49ce-877d-11e4-bc7c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3MZcgk6zn