Rally: Scottish independence – why the left must say Yes
Saturday 6 September, 1pm, London South Bank University SE1 0AA. More details in the leaflet below. Click here to book your ticket.
Note that this meeting is not officially supported by Left Unity, but is supported by the Scottish Republic Yes Tendency within Left Unity.
For a Yes vote [text from the reverse of the leaflet]
On September 18 David Cameron faces one of his biggest tests in the Scottish Referendum. If there is a Yes vote, he and his Coalition will suffer a major defeat. Nobody can tell in advance all the consequences. It will certainly undermine the credibility of the government and give encouragement to all who are fighting Cameron’s programme of austerity.
This is reason enough to vote ‘Yes’. But it is by no means the only or even the main reason. A ‘Yes’ vote will end the 1707 Act of Union and bring the biggest constitutional change since 1922 when the ‘Irish Free State’ was set up. The Scottish people will win the right to self determination and with it the right and possibility of becoming a sovereign democratic republic. This is not simply a Scottish issue. It will impact on how people see the future of democracy in the remainder of the UK.
Ken Loach, the socialist and film director says “For a few hours, Scottish people have control over their future. They can choose to keep that power or give it back to a state dominated by the British ruling class. Independence would not solve the problems but it would give Scottish people the power to start to create a more just, more fair, more sustainable society.
When the Sandinistas in Nicaragua kicked out a dictator and began to build hospitals and schools and take industries into public ownership, they were opposed by the U.S. They were the ‘threat of a good example’. If Scotland leaves the UK, we in England will face a Tory majority. But if an independent Scotland is a success it can be, for us, the threat of a good example and show that a progressive government can improve lives now and make the future sustainable.
A Scottish government that reproduces a pale version of Westminster politics will be a wasted opportunity. A Scottish government that puts the long term interests of the people first could move the centre of the political debate to the left and do us all a favour”.
The present political system is unsustainable. By voting to abolish the Act of Union the Scottish people will become freer to decide their own constitution and with it their own political, social and economic future. Capitalism will still exist in Scotland as at present and with it all the social evils that currently blight our cities, towns and villages. But Scotland will have a new and better chance to change the old conditions.
This will be a wake up call for the rest of the country. We should take inspiration from their efforts and set out to win some real democracy for ourselves.
39 comments
39 responses to “Rally: Scottish independence – why the left must say Yes”
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Sorry, but being a socialist internationalist, interested only in uniting ever larger sections of the working class – around a shared radical socialist programme on a European scale at the very least, with no illusions that there is any advantage for the Scottish (or Welsh) working class in a breakup of the current British state into ever smaller , fragmented, political and organisational units – around the delusion of a distinct “Scottish cross class national interest”- even less able to withstand the power of international capitalism and its Austerity Offensive – I’ll give the meeting a miss thanks.
Abstract internationalism, with its off-the-peg Trotskyist truisms, hardly ever drills down beyond the mainstream news coverage of international developments, cannot explain the expected 80%+ turnout for the Referendum, the re-emergence of a vibrant Left in Scotland doing genuine grassroots work in deprived communites, the politicisation of a new generation of Scots or the damage independence would do to the British state, its unionist parties, its nuclear arsenal and its hold on the increasingly marginalised & alienated population outside the South East & the City State.
You are so good at analysing domestic politics free from the baggage of our past certainties, John, but so jargon-riddden and unimaginative when it comes to anything beyond that – what you serve up are precisely those old certainties based on the early 20th century.
What about the marginalised working class people in the South East and the City State. London is every bit as working class and poor as Scotland. Maybe we should declare independence too.
Errr, Abstract internationalism? There’s no unity in Left Unity if you’re with the Bosses is there?
Sadly, you NO guys in LU are not working class socialists. You’re looking for a way out that is essentially the Labour Party. Indeed, lots of working class people I know think LU is part of the Labour Party. What separates you from the LP? Nothing!
You are the Labour Party! Is this the future for Left Unity? I think so. All your ideas are based on some sort of historical mantra – not real working class life.
Rupert you honestly don’t know what you are talking about. If people think LU has anything to do with the Labour Party then they need to just spend 3 minutes reading our website or coming to a meeting to see that it isn’t.
Anyway there are bosses on both sides of this independence debate — many Scottish capitalists want independence as well so they can better exploit their own workforce, as these 130 plucky entrepreneurs are saying
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28944255
I agree. Anyone on the left going along with this farce of supporting/campaigning for Scottish independence has forfeited the right to call themselves a socialist or Marxist. Most socialists in Scorland are providing a disgraceful left cover for nationalism, pure and simple. I hope in years to come the working class in Scotland treat them with the utter contempt they deserve. There’s only one sound reason for supporting a movement of national independence – that’s if you’re oppressed as a colony by another country. That is clearly not the case with Scotland. So, it’s sheer opportunism by the Scottish left, hanging on to the SNP’s coat tails. They have no faith at all that socialism can occur through the mass action of workers in and beyond Scotland, so they go for a short cut. Which is in fact a blind alley into another version of noeliberalism and the people who’ll pay the price will be the working class in Scotland.
Quite. Well said, Doug and JP.
Colouring by numbers politics strikes again! Internationalism, in the hands of Trotskyism, amounts to simplistic eurocentrism. ‘The fewer the borders, the greater chance of solidarity’. Hmm, let’s think – the biggest states – the USA, USSR, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, etc; what is their record? Most of the minorities in these states are or were repressed – the central Asian Muslims in the USSR, the Blacks in the urban centres of the USA, the Tibetans and Muslims in China, East Timoreans in Indonesia, the Chiapas in Mexico, the Amazon indians in Brazil – no doubt each of these groups are enormously grateful to not having to forego the solidarity of their fellow citizens!
Doug,
We are talking about a nations right to self determination and to become a sovereign nation not about the right to call yourself a Marxist! The right to call yourself a Marxist is not recognised in international law nor by any working class organisation. Here it is the right to call yourself a democrat which was an essential part of Marx and Lenin’s politics. It is not calling yourself a democrat but acting democratically in practice. Not all democrats are Marxists but every revolutionary Marxist must be a revolutionary democrat.
You deal with the Act of Union as a conservative, who comes up with socialist reasons for preserving the status quo or as a revolutionary democrat who says junk the junk and fight for greater democracy by mobilising the working class especially in England.
Yes, well said Doug. You are really scraping the “Straw Man” barrel with your completely inappropriate global examples of oppressed minorities, John Tummon.
Scotland has NEVER been an oppressed “nation” or a colony. The oppression of Scottish workers and peasants was done by Scottish aristocrats – firmly united in a unified British ruling class. The originators of the modern “nation State” , the Big Bourgeoisie, have now largely outgrown the nation state – as a now globalised series of sometimes competing, often collaborating, Big Bourgeoisies – tied together by globalised interconnected share ownership.
Petty nationalism is now just the arena for petty bourgeois nationalists and opportunist politicians – encouraged now and then by the Big Bourgeois owned mass media on a purely tactical “divide and rule” basis.
The tragedy of the Scottish (and others) Left is to once again fall into political “substitutionism”, ie, in despair at the current retreat of working class self-activity around socialist politics, to “tail” a bunch of opportunist petty bourgeois politicians and supporters in their pursuit of a petty nationalist fantasy of “Scottish independence” . The fantasy nature of this nominal independence will quickly become clear when to compete within globalised capitalism , under the thumb of the Westminster control of the currency, a SNP led Scotland has to compete to be the lowest tax rated tax shelter in Europe , and the country with the greatest “labour market flexibility” – and the next (now imminent) global financial crisis once again bankrupts the Scottish banks. The Scottish welfare services wont survive long under that pressure.
The Scottish Left, as Doug says, will not be forgiven by the working class for their unprincipled collaboration in spreading the toxic dead end myth of progress via petty nationalist division.
John, you don’t grasp the essence of twentieth century neo-colonial imperialism – why do you think the US spent all that energy putting regimes in power that would act as partners in ripping off the people? Why is that the prevailing pattern in the imperialised world?
If you do understand why this has been the preferred modus operandi of imperialism, why do you come out with the line that “The oppression of Scottish workers and peasants was done by Scottish aristocrats – firmly united in a unified British ruling class”.
This is and has been the norm in the world!
As for your economic prognosis of doom – “To compete within globalised capitalism, under the thumb of the Westminster control of the currency, a SNP led Scotland has to compete to be the lowest tax rated tax shelter in Europe , and the country with the greatest “labour market flexibility” – and the next (now imminent) global financial crisis once again bankrupts the Scottish banks. The Scottish welfare services wont survive long under that pressure” – I note you do not mention Scotland’s oil reserves. Presumably, you accept that foreign (western) control of middle east oil reserves is central to exploitative imperialsim, so why do you not see the anti-imperialist significance of Scotland taking its offshore oil under its own control, like Chavez did?
Competing in modern capitalism takes many forms, not just the Anglo-American Klondike version, and many if not most of these offer more protection to workers and other citizens than Westminster or Washington. To slightly change the emphasis of what Marx said, people may make history not in circumstances of their own choosing, but they nevertheless make it and choose from the options available to them.
Scotland has been a suppressed nation since 1707. It has never been a sovereign or republican nation. It was sold into marriage by a few aristocrats. Just because you are forced into marriage doesn’t mean you might not grow to accept your status especially if it makes you rich. But all forced marriages should be immediately annulled and declared illegal. Scotland has no right to self determination. This confirms her second class status and hence she can be threatened and bullied by the British ruling class.
If socialists in England had one ounce of democratic understanding and internationalist principles they would have ended the act of Union a long time ago. They wouldn’t be waiting on Scotland to do it. They have done nothing to condemn forced marriages. They gave become part of the problem and not the solution.
And why Socialists should say NO. Extract by John Wight see link for full article:
“No matter, as September 18 approaches we are witnessing a Yes grass-roots campaign intoxicated with an increasingly US-style happy-clappy attachment to enthusiasm and positive thinking in order to inoculate its adherents from reality. There is undoubtedly something inspiring about being inspired and exciting about being excited, but nonetheless however much you choose to ignore reality it won’t ignore you. There is no escape hatch from the real world, as harsh as it may be. Nationalism, unless rooted in national oppression, is a perniciously hollow doctrine. It succeeds to the extent that political forces on both left and right place their belief in it as a vehicle to advance their respective political and economic interests at a given time. It is the child of illusion and the parent of disillusion. To paraphrase Nye Bevan, “Nationalism is akin to walking backwards with your face to the future.”
Constitutional struggle as a substitute for class struggle is at bottom the product of despair and lack of belief in socioeconomic change. It signals a victory for neoliberal orthodoxy, offering up the possibility of yet another state and national economy competing for the same investment. It is no accident that every small state that has separated from a larger state in Europe over the past three decades has shifted to the right.”
see: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-wight/scottish-independence-obscures-real-divide-_b_5714057.html?fb_action_ids=10152206221217583&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B617347235049532%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D
Both official campaigns are anti working class. The fact we are having the referendum is a sign of the significant defeat that the working class has suffered over the last 30 years. Support for independence and scottish nationalism is growing within the working class in the absence of any significant socialist force putting forward the arguments for the unity of the working class. Much of the erstwhile left are simply lackeys of the Scottish establishment and push the con job of an “independent” capitalist scotland where Capital will be firmly in control and the existing british working class movement divided on nationalist grounds. Ordinary people are suffering and looking for change. The official No side are offering nothing but the same austerity plus a few more powers for the Scottish establishment and its parliament. Yes are at least offering hope- even if that hope is based on anti working class and bogus politics. If the vote is close, which looks likely, there is a real danger that national antagonism will grow and we might see the development of a bash the Scots attitude in England and calls for the cutting of the block grant to the scottish parliament. The growth of nationalism on both sides of the border can become a reinforcing vicious circle in the absence of a significant socialist alternative. Socialists have to hold firm to the perspective of workers unity as the only positive way forward. We need a united socialist response to the assault on our living standards. the working class in britain needs a political voice that can combat the offensive of Capital. If we divide on the grounds of nationality we will be weaker. We dont just need to defend the unity of the working class in Britain but we need to build active European working class solidarity in order to defeat the austerity offense of the EU
The ordinary working class Yes voter is not to blame for the growth of nationalism since the official NO campaign offers nothing beyond continuing austerity (and the socialist case for working class unity hardly has a voice in the referendum campaign) but the erstwhile socialists who bang the drum for Scottish nationalism and seek to divide the labour movement on nationalist grounds in order back the neo liberal project of the SNP and to win a few seats at Holyrood are culpable. They are unlikely to draw back from the trajectory they are on- whatever the result of the referendum.
sandy
John Tummon mentions ‘Abstract internationalism, with its off-the-peg Trotskyist truisms..’ Actually it’s concrete Leninism.
What does John Tummon offer instead: ‘the damage independence would do to the British state, its unionist parties, its nuclear arsenal and its hold on the increasingly marginalised & alienated population outside the South East & the City State.’ This is pure speculation, fantasy and wish fulfilment. I notice also that he says nothing about how independence is going to benefit workers in Scotland, particularly in the long-term.
An independent Scotland will be neoliberal business as usual – except it will participate in the race to the bottom as an independent country. Why do you think Salmond is going to lower corporation tax? Do you think foreign businesses will be attracted by the possibility of a unionised, well paid workforce with good terms and conditions and pension schemes? Holding up independence as a panacea for the ills Scottish workers are suffering is a cruel deception and a shameful abrogation of a socialist’s duty to be honest with our fellow workers.
“I notice also that he says nothing about how independence is going to benefit workers in Scotland, particularly in the long-term”.
Read the original threads on Scottish Independence to find what I defined the benefits as, then come back and say sorry or show they are not.
Unionist parties will have failed, won’t they, if ‘Yes’ wins? They will be facing Welsh pressure for autonomy next, according to Leanne Wood, president of Plaid Cymru, who last year, in the run-up to the second RIC Conference, the Edinburgh branch put forward a proposal to organise a session on ‘Internationalism from below and the break-up of the UK. Nuclear subs will have to be found a new home other than Faslane within 5 years of independence.
‘Neoliberal business as usual’ may be the starting point of the new country, although it is already a less harsh version than in England, but the point of self-determination is to place the people in charge of their destiny and Scotland has for many decades been well to the left of the rest of the UK, so the chances are certinaly there for a re-alignment of the Left. The Unionist Labour Party will probably break up after campaigning against independence for so long, opening up the space for a proportionally bigger version of Left Unity there.
Ray G
It is getting to the stage when I cannot mention the City State or the South East in policial discussion without being accused of dissing the London working class. For the umpteenth time, my daughter lives in one of the poorest areas of Stratford, I lived in London for 6 years, I have nothing at all against the London working class who are being socially cleansed from the inner areas of the city.
Try arguing politically instead of cheap shots!
John Tummon
Um ….i believe it is just the second time we have discussed the issue the London working class, as part of lengthy, detailed, serious political and historical rebuttals of your left nationalism on several threads in this website – so not really cheap, eh? Still at least you did not have the cheek to accuse me of being a Trotskyist or Leninist.
Wherever your daughter lives or whether or not her politics are the same as yours, or whether some of your best friends come from London, the issue is that you are so rooted to the nationalist viewpoint that you constantly see things in bizarre, purely geographical terms. By referring to London’s poverty and working class communities I am seeking to draw your attention to the issue of CLASS divisions WITHIN Scotland, within Yorkshire, within Wales, within the Midlands and within London etc etc. The issues of nation or even your desire to see the regional breakup of Britain/England are not the causes of the misery being infllicted on working class communities from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, but the interests of the capitalist class in all parts of the country, and the united interests of the working class and other sectors of society thoughout the country in uniting to oppose them.
The only part of the island of Great Britain that has experienced NATIONAL oppression is actually Wales, which was indeed conquered and supressed and its language and culture actively crushed by the English (well – the Norman French aristocracy actually). You could even make a case for Cornwall on the same grounds, but not Scotland, which is why Scottish Nationalism is reactionary and should have been opposed, but Sandy hits the nail on the head as to why the Nationalist (left, right and centre)have made ground over the last few decades.
The vote will be close and Labour are doing their utmost to lose it, and their betrayals are responsible for the nationalist cul-de-sac in the first place. If the vote is NO, which, thankfully, is possible, I will not be celebrating, as the damage has already been done. A whole layer, possible a generation, of Scottish activists have been whipped up to think that the problems of Scotland are down to “Westminster” which, if it means anything at all, is code for “the English”, or maybe, John, “London”. The left will have to work that much harder to re-establish that the real enemy is capitalism. I hope that LU can continue to organise on a Britain-wide basis to try to rebuild that vital class unity of all those crushed by this system. I look forward to working with you in the future to achieve that.
If the vote is YES then the expectation will be enormous and will result in massive disillusion and those lefts who wrapped themselves in the cross of St Andrew will have a responsibility to explain why Scotland is still a bourgeois nation at the mercy of international capitalism, just a smaller and weaker one. You often accuse me of lack of political imagination. Well its just as well, as you have proved by your illusions in nationalism that you have more than enough imagination for the both of us.
Ray G
I do not see things in purely geographical terms, let alone nationalist ones. My thinking is Marxist and therfore based on class analysis. However, only a foolish, simplistic Marxism would discount important geographical and national variation; I take it you have heard of the Leninist / Trotskyist concept of ‘combined and uneven development’? Well, that is what I am talking about!
So, according to your argument, Scottish self-determination not only is but always will be reactionary because its aristocracy and bankers forged the union at the turn of the 17th / 18th century. Nice piece of essentialism there!
‘Westminster’ may be seen as code for ‘the English’ in your English imagination, Ray G. Actually, to Scots, it is shorthand for the UK electoral system, which has delivered Tory governments over two decades and New Labour governments, too, that have ripped up the society based on the post-war settlement between labour and capital that Scots have consistently voted overwhemingly to keep. The entire modern independence movment comes out of this bitter, undemocratic experience.
What is at stake here is self-determination; put simply, this is the ability, obviously within the constraints of how the world is configured, to take policy options that ameliorate the worst effects of capitalism. Scots do not have this within the Westminster system. It is therefore politically oppressive, something I thought mattered to Left Unity?
If there is a YES vote or a close vote in Scotland’s Referendum, Left Unity NO crew will look silly: Tory Cameron could be the PM who oversaw the break up of the once strongest imperialist state, the United Kingdom. Yippee! The crack that will open in the Ruling Class is most important, Indeed, who lead calls for a NO vote – Obama, the EU and the bosses. Is Left Unity now siding with them? Crazy if so.
And quoting Nye Bevan on the ‘national question’ portrays the NO Left Unity Problem: are you guys just another attempt at a Labour Party, for Bevan was the greatest betrayer of the working class in 20th C history.
Join me in Norwich in hopeful celebrations that Tommy Sheridan is finally proven right and that a YES vote in Scotland is an opportunity for working class people in England to bash their bosses and end Britain’s lickspittle relationship with US imperialism.
I’m for all the YES guys in Left Unity – but with a NO group – and the CPGB group calling for no vote – I think the LU is barking. This isn’t “unity.” To me, as a working class socialist, a YES vote in Scotland is a given. If LU finally ends up supporting Cameron on this issue I can’t see working class people anywhere in Britain voting for LU.
Hi am I right in thinking that a yes vote is for self determination for the Scottish people,if so I would support it.I would also like to see a vote on the E.U.The way the T.T.I.T IS pushed through secretly. should show us what it really is.I have heard a lot of people saying we should stay in and change it, but. I haven,t heard anyone say how
Someone once said. The further you take decision making away from people. The less democracy they have.
Rupert Mallin: ‘Bevan was the greatest betrayer of the working class in 20th C history.’ And people in LU are barking!
I know the referendum is a reality and people are saddled with the Yes or No alternatives. In my opinion principled socialists should be exposing the referendum as offering two false choices, for all the reasons I and others on this thread have pointed out. In other words having an independent stance based on the interests of all workers – in Scotland and elsewhere. Sadly, people like Sheridan have ditched a class analysis for populist tub-thumping and for him to say ‘a YES vote in Scotland is an opportunity for working class people in England to bash their bosses’ is more fantasy wish-fulfilment. All that will happen is that there will be pressure on workers in Scotland and England to fall in ideologically behind their own ruling classes to compete for dwindling resources.
Why are so many on the left so hostile to Scotland achieving national liberation from England if that is what the people of Scotland want? There has never been an equal partership. Generations of Scots have gone South because the UK is London based. If the vote is yes I trust that decision will be respected and move. Independence was good enough for Ireland and the rest of the British Empire, why not Scotland?
Scotland was not part of the British Empire – it ruled it in partnership with England and did very nicely out of it, by the way.
If there is a Yes vote in three week’s time, the question facing us(regardless of your position on the independence debate) will be how does LU in England and Wales express international solidarity with Scottish workers? Let’s take up John’s point about Trident. We would have to support Scots who want to kick nuclear weapons out of Scotland affter indepedence. And also stand with Leanne Wood of Plaid (and no doubt, with CND) in resisting any attempt to dump Trident on Milford Haven – or for that matter, Falmouth.
And, for example, if Brian Souter of Stagecoach, who’s a Yes supporter, wanted to sack bus workers in Scotland, we’d also support solidarity action by workers in England against him. In that situation, by the way, we’d be on the same side as many (most?) Yes voters, including the socialists in the Radical Independence Campaign.
This is an issue that has presented Left Unity with a dilemma. The debate has been difficult showing that while on Palestine there is a consistent position of sorts on internal UK debates of such importance as this we are unclear. I know there are strong feelings either way but as a Republican and anti imperialist party we need to side with the yes vote. We cannot support the struggle for an independent unified Itelsnd and yet support the dominance of Westminister and the Etonian-Islington southern elite over the richness and struggles of these islands. I don’t like Salmond and there is a bourgeois elite in Scotland too but this is a moment where we can redefine this nation. The idea that a unified imperial and Anglo Saxon dominated UK is the basis for a new worker state is difficult to conceive and colleagues conflate geographical state unity with class unity. Well that’s what I think – I hope the Left will support different federations and structures. Its also about thinking of other Europes. It’s time to think ahead. Miguel – Leeds
Miguel, you say “as a republican and anti Imperialist Party we need to side with the Yes vote”.
I have some bad news for you. The Queen will still be queen of an “independent” Scotland. No-one has suggested otherwise, certainly not the SNP. No gains for Republicanism there.
Since Scotland isn’t a colony of England , and never was, and the Big Bourgeoisie of Britain have been a fully amalgamated all-British ruling class ever since the Act of Union – and in many ways well before then, why is Scottish separation any sort of victory against “imperialism” .Whose imperialism ? How does it weaken the hegemonic power of US imperialism in any way to divide up Scottish from Welsh and English workers through new political and organisational barriers and by the Left reinforcing all the petty nationalist old bollocks about workers having a common interest with their bosses ?
“An Anglo Saxon dominated UK ” For goodness sakes, Miguel, Where did you dredge that non-historical nonsense up from ? In fact the aristocratic part of the British ruling class and its landed wealth in particular dates back more to the Norman conquest than the even older “Anglo Saxon” past. Harold and the Anglo Saxons LOST the Battle of Hastings, Miguel. But so what ? – that you, a claimed socialist even use the term “Anglo Saxon dominated UK” in todays globalised capitalist reality shows vividly how once a Leftie has stepped on the slippery slope of petty nationalism its downhill all the way – to ever madder divisive terminology – hiding the only real divisions that matter in a capitalist society – CLASS. Tragic stuff.
Absolutely JP – right again!
John,
It is not just the SNP that are not republican but neither is Left Unity which is why I think Miguel is wrong. To be a republican is not to say oh of course I don’t like the queen and one day when the revolutionary socialist utopia arrives there will be no queen. But meanwhile sit on you fat royal arses doing nothing,.
Left Unity has the politics of 1945 and the next three decades of social monarchy. The Labour Party like the Tories and SNP stinks of monarchy. Where Miguel is right is to look beyond September 18 and see that republicanism is brewing up. If no wins the republic is delayed. If yes wins the republic is on the march and I will be surprised if Salmon can stop it.
John you still haven’t broken with the old SWP economism that thinks political struggle for clearly defined political democratic aims is irrelevant to the working class. So Scotland for you is just a diversion from the class struggle and this whole thing should not be happening. But it is! Perhaps the working class voters and activists are wrong or perhaps it is SWP economism that is up the spout.
Queen Anne’s Act of Union 1707 has got to go as soon as possible. It is a barrier or damn to block democratic advance for the working class. I can hear the sound of the damn busters. If they hit the target and the dam breaks watch out for a tidal wave of dissatisfaction sweeping into northern England.
Unionists like Sandy can hear the ground rumbling under his feet!
http://irishmarxism.net/2014/08/30/yes-a-non-nationalist-argument-for-scottish-independence-part-2/
Good article
On the ground in Scotland the momentum is with the YES side. A yes vote is now a real possibility. The official No campaign has been anti working class, out of touch and hopeless- which was predictable but they have been even worse than expected. To have Alistair Darling as your front man is just asking for a beating. What has been missing is a significant socialist campaign for a No vote and for workers unity in the fight for a socialist Britain. Galloways campaign “Just say Naw” ( although a positive development) has been a one man band and it lacks activists and a long term perspective.
The forces of nationalism are on the rise in scotland and the nationalist division of the working class looks as if it is going to deepen even if the vote is No. Building a British wide socialist party and a British wide challenge to the bosses offensive on our living standards is going to be more difficult with the forces of nationalism in the ascendant
Sandy, I think you are seeing the position more clearly now than during the debate we organised in Manchester, where you spoke. As Andrew gets close to saying above, whatever the result is, we need to work as hard as possible on both sides of the border to make sure that the fears you have epxressed about mutually hostile nationalisms kicking in afterwards do not become a reality. I think the debate should now turn to how best we can do this a) if the Yes side wins and b) if th eNo side wins.
Yes John -whether it is Yes or No we will have to try to limit the development of national antagonism following on from the referendum campaign and defend and develop working class unity on both sides of the border in the struggle against Capital. Even if it is a yes vote I would favour Left Unity continuing to be a british wide socialist party which takes it crucial decisions at british wide conferences. However I think many on the left in Scotland will reject this and favour a “sovereign” Scottish only left party and that some left unity members south of the border will also favour two fraternal parties rather than a united left party covering the whole Island
sandy
Ah well, the predictable has happened – http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/03/scottish-republicans-orange-order-parade-yes-campaign
The RIC needs to make sure that this is used to fulfill the fears that the march will alienate the Don’t Knows.
http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2014/09/04/scotland-yes-or-no/
useful article
http://tinyurl.com/ksfu5v9
Socialist Democracy statement
Scotland: Independence and the Working class
http://tinyurl.com/qjpxvmf
Yes’, a non-nationalist argument for Scottish independence. Part 1- 3
An excellent marxist demolition of Neil Davidson’s ( ex SWP- now RIC) arguments for a YES vote
sandy
The possibility of a Yes vote in scotland and the possibility that the UK may leave the EU are signs that the ruling class is losing control of their system. It is increasingly clear that the system has little positive to offer ordinary working people- particularly young people. Capitalism is showing clear signs of disintegration not only in the UK but world wide. However socialists are for the positive transcendence of capitalism by the forces of socialism ( the organized working class) not the disintegration of capitalism into failed states etc. The growth of nationalism in Europe is not a positive sign. Populism is not an ally of socialism but its reactionary opponent.
he capitalist system is in crisis. The capitalist class is refusing to invest. They have lost confidence in the future. Trillions sit in the bank and tens of millions of workers are unemployed. Money is not acting as Capital but is horded by the capitalist class. There seems to be no way out from continuing decline- deflation threatens Europe and quantitative easing in Japan and the USA is not working to reinvigorate the system. In large parts of the world barbarism is winning. The USA can destroy but it cant create. Neo liberalism is obviously failing but the capitalist class are unable to break with it as an ideology. Capitalism is not offering a future that works. It is a system in decline. The growth of imperialist conflict is a sign of decay not strength. It is socialism or barbarism and the only strategy of the capitalist class seems to be to try to stop the working class coming together and providing a rational, planned, pro human response to capitalist disintegration. The capitalist class have nothing positive to offer humanity. New capitalist states formed to compete on the world market offer nothing real to the working class
Absolutely correct, sandy. Well said comrade.