John McAnulty of  Socialist Democracy (Ireland) provides an example, from the Stormont administration of education, to show  how the reformed set-up  helps to still maintains sectarianism  in Northern Ireland .

The journey from republicanism to administration of the Northern state rested on two main planks. One was the thesis first advanced by Michael Collins in relation to partition – that it was a transitional arrangement – a stepping stone to a united Ireland.

That plank was abandoned during the last election, when Sinn Fein came out of the closet as a populist Catholic party. What was left was a belief in the second plank – a belief that the Northern state can be gradually reformed – made more democratic and with greater rights for workers. It is a very popular and widely held view.

A key plank of this perspective was advanced by Sinn Fein when they took the education portfolio and announced that they would abolish the 11+. Alas, the reform fell on its face.

The Shinners were suckered out of millions for school building by the Catholic hierarchy, who first indicated that they would end selection and then expressed amazement at a “revolt” by Catholic grammars. The revolt was so acute that a member of the reform commission was simultaneously a governor of a “revolting” grammar.

Unofficial transfer tests were instituted. This being the North, the claim of a dying sectarianism was refuted when we ended up with two tests – one Catholic and the other Protestant.

At the beginning of May Sinn Fein education minister John O’Dowd attempted to breathe life into the reform by announcing that “action would be taken” against primary schools preparing pupils for the unofficial tests. The statement was purest bluster. The action proposed was writing a stern letter. The purpose of the statement was to remind Sinn Fein supporters of the party’s claims of radicalism.

Unfortunately for Sinn Fein, First Minister Peter Robinson also has obligations to the DUP. These are to assure them that Sinn Fein’s position is entirely subordinate and that the system of sectarian and class privilege that the DUP defend in education will be preserved. Within days he announced that there was no prospect of agreement on transfer and that he would take steps to introduce a single official transfer test.

So absolutely no sign of reform in an area where a large section of the population would support it. Even where reform is agreed, as with the creation of a single Education Authority, the process is hollowed out by building the old sectarian interests inside the new body. Even then fine tuning of the different class and sectarian interests means the agreement may never be implemented.

If reform isn’t working there are plenty of things that are working. The Sinn Fein programme of austerity and of privatization of school building and of nursery provision means thousands of teacher redundancies and many school closures, with the minister reduced to rare press announcements where limited spending is counted twice or three times to announce recycled  initiatives. The massive cuts agenda rolls on. In the absence of reform of the 11+ grammars will be protected and the cuts will fall on secondary schools and on working-class areas.

The mechanism that keeps the whole show on the road is the system of sectarian privilege sponsored by the British. Sinn Fein no longer blather about taking the first ministers position – such a development would be likely to collapse the agreement. Indeed recent amendments bar them forever from the justice ministry and they no longer bid for major financial ministries. The party has become a sinecure in education because of the endless opportunities for patronage. In outside society the community relations council report progress while recording the rise of sectarian peace walls from 22 to 88 and the increasing racism in civil society.

Claims of reform and of progress are now the new ideology.  Even suggestions by members of the administration of the humdrum banality of sectarianism and class war in golf clubs led to roars of disapproval and hasty retractions. All is well is the best of all possible worlds while sectarianism festers and austerity bites.

 16 May 2012

http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2012/03/26/scottish-independence-referendum/

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THE FOLLOWING MOTIONS ON THE SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM WERE PASSED AT THE ANNUAL SSP CONFERENCE AT GLASGOW ON 31.3.12

1. An Independent Scottish Socialist Republic

Conference reaffirms the Scottish Socialist Party’s commitment to the establishment of an independent Scottish socialist republic.
In doing so, Conference welcomes that the Scottish Government has announced the Independence Referendum will be held in autumn 2014: commits the Scottish Socialist Party to working with other pro-independence organisations and individuals in campaigning for the best constitutionaloutcome for the people of Scotland – independence.

Believes pro-independence political parties and organisations should not be distracted by options short of independence, such as ‘Devo-Max’ or ‘Independence Lite’, but instead should concentrate on persuading Scots of the benefits and merits of restoring to Scotland the status of a normal independent nation.

Conference also agrees there would be little point in securing independence for Scotland, only to remake our new country along the lines of the failed British capitalist model.

Instead, Conference recognises the best option for the people of Scotland is the creation of a democratic Scottish socialist republic.

Ayrshire Branch

2. Independence Campaigning

This Conference declares that the SSP must help to maintain an independent working class perspective in the Scottish Independence Referendum campaign. This means that throughout this campaign the SSP should:-

1.             Maintain our class’s political independence and not be gagged or limited in our actions by cross-class organisations seeking Scottish ‘independence’ under  the Crown, economically subordinate to the City, or within NATO and British military alliances.

2.              Actively defend the actions of our class (e.g. strikes and occupations) against the austerity measures imposed by Westminster, Holyrood or Scottish local  councils, whether Con-Dem, SNP or Labour.

3.             Highlight and be prepared to take part in protest actions directed against NATO or  British armed forces (including Scottish army regiments) for imperial ends.

4.             Publicly oppose any attempts by pro-Independence campaigners to win over religious support by appeals to reactionary social sentiment, e.g. on anti-gays, anti-abortion.

5.             Call on people to oppose and to resist all attempts by the UK state to resort to bureaucratic or anti-democratic methods (especially under the Crown Powers) to  deny the effective right of Scottish self-determination.

6.             Counter British unionist attempts to mobilise reactionary and anti-democratic sentiment and forces cross the UK by extending our campaign to England, Wales             and Ireland (including Northern Ireland) for support and solidarity.

Edinburgh South Branch

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THE SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

Eric Chester

The independence referendum scheduled for 2014 will be a critical moment for the Scottish Left. We remain committed to an independent socialist Scottish republic, and yet the SNP has advanced proposals that fall far short of this. Indeed, in my view the SNP envisions a Scotland that is neither independent, nor socialist, nor a republic.

Some of those on the Left have argued that socialists will still have to advocate a yes vote on the referendum, since the SNP plan for an “independent” Scotland represents a step forward, no matter how minimal. Once again, socialists are being cajoled into supporting a “lesser evil” choice. I would suggest that, instead, we as revolutionary socialists refuse to join any organization or coalition that promotes a yes vote, especially one that includes the SNP. Our role is to remain independent of such groupings while presenting a critical analysis of the situation, along with our vision of a genuinely independent Scotland.

Salmond is attempting to make Scottish “independence” palatable to Westminster and the English ruling class. Thus the servile praise of the monarchy. This ploy announces loudly to all that Scotland will remain closely linked to England even after it becomes nominally independent. Furthermore, Salmond has declared that he hopes that Scotland will continue to use the British pound, which would cede control over monetary policy to Westminster and City of London financiers.

Still, the global context has markedly changed since Britain engaged in a process of decolonization after World War II. Scotland must also negotiate an acceptable transition with the United States, through NATO, and Germany, through the European Union. NATO will never agree to let Scotland to close its military bases now being used by U.S. troops as a waystation to military adventures in the Middle East and beyond. The decision of an “independent” Scotland to withdraw from NATO, and to steer clear of U.S. imperialism, would represent the type of challenge to the power structure that the SNP leadership is so anxious to avoid.

And then there is the European Union. This is no longer just a common market, but rather an increasingly tightly integrated economic unit in which power is becoming more centralized, with the Germans wielding the real clout. An “independent” Scotland seeking to remain within the EU will almost certainly have to sign on to the new fiscal treaty that greatly restricts a country’s ability to determine its budget. It is highly likely that Scotland will have to join the Eurozone after a probationary period, if it is determined that it is entering the EU as a “new” member.

In a globally integrated economy dominated by transnational corporations, the entire question of national independence becomes problematic. Only a transformation to socialism can provide a meaningful solution to this problem. Still, the difficulties confronting Scotland go beyond this. As the SNP attempts to negotiate a smooth exit from the United Kingdom, its leaders will enter into deals that entangle Scotland in a dense web of agreements that place this allegedly independent country in a subordinate position. In the end, it is probable that the Scottish working class will be no better off than before, and it is possible that the working class will be worse off, confronting even more drastic austerity measures, than if Scotland had continued to move toward a devolved autonomy.

Given the choices being offered, our role as revolutionary socialists is to reject all of them and to, instead, advocate a positive alternative to the existing situation, a choice in which Scotland becomes truly independent. The referendum being offered has all of the characteristics of the usual election in a capitalist country in which voters get to choose between an array of parties with similar policies. In Scotland, this means the sham choice between the SNP and Labour. The RCN rejects this as a meaningful choice. We should do the same for the independence referendum.

A yes vote will only provide Salmond and the SNP with a blank check to negotiate the terms of independence with Westminster and the European Union. It would be different if voters were presented with a series of referendums in which Scots had the opportunity to decide on the key issues. Without this, promoting a yes vote is merely assisting the SNP to create the facade of an independent country without any of the real substance.

Perhaps an historical example will be helpful. In 1921, the British government grudgingly presented an independence option to the Irish Republican Army. Britain would grant independence to much of Ireland, but Ulster would remain an integral part of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, Ireland would still be ruled by a monarchy, Britain would retain control of its military bases and the new state would not have total control over its taxes. A majority of the IRA leadership accepted this deal as a step toward full sovereignty. The radical minority rejected the deal as a sham. There was no popular vote on the deal, which remained in place for more than two decades. Of course, the six counties are still ruled by Westminster.

We don’t have the strength that the Irish radical left had in 1921, but there is no reason to quietly acquiesce to a fraud. If we refuse to enter the SNP-led coalition to promote a yes vote, we can still be actively involved in the debate on the referendum along the following lines:-

We can write and distribute literature presenting our vision of a truly independent Scotland, and pointing out the vast gap between this vision and that of the SNP.

We can join with others in calling for a referendum now on key issues such as the monarchy.

We can attend forums on the independence referendum, presenting our perspective in a nonsectarian and yet straightforward manner.

We can join with other groups throughout Europe who are demanding that their country leave the European Union.

We can take part in coordinated solidarity actions that oppose the cuts and condemn the role of the EU in enforcing these cuts.

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Allan Armstrong replies to  to Eric Chester

I think Eric’s approach here represents a retreat into socialist propagandism (e.g. if it is not Socialist independence, it is irrelevant). What socialist propagandism seeks to do is to win over individuals to small organisations (e.g. SPGB), but is extremely wary of becoming involved in wider campaigns with others who might not agree with all their politics. One thing that socialist propagandists want to be able to say is that they have never betrayed their principles; but that is because they don’t engage in the actual struggles of our class.

It is certainly the case, that if you if do engage in class war, you will take casualties and there will even be some who pass over to the other side. That is why we need united fronts with a strong republican communist pole of attraction to counter this. Being an activist within a particular struggle can certainly be a hard business, and there are no guarantees that you will win. However, the most profound lessons are learned in ‘the school of struggle’. Offering ideal paper plans from the sidelines (propagandism) will certainly lessen the casualty rate amongst those adopting such a stance, but will most likely be seen as irrelevant to those actively involved in struggles.

The issue of Scottish self-determination is a very hot political issue, with a lot of wider implications – e.g. the UK’s continued presence on the UN Security Council. In other words, the division that has opened up amongst sections of the Scottish Establishment provides us with an opportunity to press considerably further than the very tame constitutional proposals made by the SNP.

Furthermore, the issue of Trident is very important. The Unionist bloc has been vehement in its opposition to the ending nuclear bases, with Scottish Labour playing a particularly obnoxious role – arguing that it would lead to the loss of thousands of Scottish workers’ jobs (using such arguments they would have opposed the closure of the Nazi death camps, because of the impact it had on gasfitters’ and train drivers’ jobs!).

Meanwhile, the SNP leadership, which long ago abandoned any real opposition to NATO, is now making moves to get the party to adopt a pro-NATO position (this follows on from their acceptance of the British monarchy). Noises are already being made, particularly by SNP Defence spokesperson (and party campaign manager), Angus Robertson, to ditch opposition to Trident too. This is one area where Socialists could make real headway.

Like Eric, there is little that enthuses me in the SNP’s actual constitutional proposals. What arouses my interest is the opportunity to engage in a struggle, which can significantly alter the current terms of the political debate. However, there would be a big difference in the future political situation if the British unionist bloc was able to significantly defeat even the SNP’s very mild proposals. It’s not for nothing that the Ulster Unionists, Loyalist organisations and the BNP have thrown their weight behind the mainstream Unionist counter-offensive, hoping to push things even further down the road of reaction. As in 1979, any significant referendum defeat would lead to a major ramp up of the British unionist, imperialist and anti-working class offensive.

I voted ‘Yes’ to Labour’s even milder Scottish devolutionary proposals in 1979, despite the background of Callaghan’s capitulation to the IMF, imposition of the Social Contract, and criminalisation offensive in the ‘Six Counties’ – because I could see what bleak future was in store for us if Scottish devolution was defeated. And so it proved to be – with knobs on!

Now, if there currently was a mass movement that was able to break free from the constraints of the SNP government’s constitutional nationalist approach to ‘Scottish independence’ through a Holyrood initiated (and Westminster and Crown Powers limited) referendum, I would be for bypassing their constitutional road, and for organising a mass movement to organise a Scottish Constituent Assembly in defiance of the UK. Unfortunately this is not the case.

The best opportunity we have of creating such a movement, or the seeds of such a movement, is to form a Socialist Campaign for a Scottish Republic, which engages in the ongoing struggle for Scottish self-determination. This would be based on the principles of the SSP Edinburgh South branch motion (see motions passed at the 2012 SSP conference above) . It would also use the opportunity to constantly challenge every political retreat the SNP makes (and those they already have made) in the face of unionist and imperialist pressure. Whereas the SNP will always be looking to key elements of the Scottish Establishment and corporate capital, and be constantly ready to strike deals with the UK state and US imperialism, Socialists would be basing their campaign on meeting the needs of the exploited and oppressed.

I think that Eric is partly aware of the unsatisfactory nature of a purely propagandist campaign, that confines itself to highlighting the benefits of a Scottish socialist republic free from the constraints of US and British imperialism and the EU bankers. Yes, some outside current Socialist organisational ranks in Scotland may well agree with us that such a proposition is a very nice idea, but will then say, yes, but how do we get there? They don’t believe this can be done just with an ideal plan.

Eric does realise that something else is required. However, Eric’s alternative of campaigning for a series of referenda – e.g. end the monarchy, or break with NATO – is in effect trying to use the existing UK constitutional machinery to achieve ends that can never be won in this way. Furthermore, there is no constitutional mechanism for people to set up any of these referenda. It needs a party to win a parliamentary majority to do this. Even if this is done, the British ruling class still has all the Crown Powers at its disposal to ensure any such referendum is conducted on lines that benefit them.

Ending the monarchy will come in one of two ways – either a mass movement that completely defies the existing constitution (prompting the ruling class to consider ditching the monarchy – probably by abolishing the actual monarchy, but handing over the substance of the Crown Powers to a new President – a bit like in the USA!). Or, there will be a genuinely revolutionary government (and that rules out the SNP!), which simply abolishes the monarchy and the Crown Powers.

In practical terms, I think we should be throwing our weight behind getting a genuine united front organisation set up, e.g. Socialists for a Scottish Republic. This would include the SSP and the ISG, probably ex-SSP and ex-Solidarity members, possibly even open republicans in the SNP and working class campaigning organisations. The RCN would be involved in a continuous political struggle against those of a Left nationalist persuasion (who would indeed be pulled towards Salmond) within such a campaign. However, people can change and we are far more likely to have some influence in the wider struggle by becoming involved in such a campaign, than by confining ourselves to the role of a propaganda organisation.

Allan Armstrong, 17.4.12

Also see my articles at:-

http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2012/03/26/scottish-independence-referendum/

2. A Socialist Strategy for the Scottish Democratic Movement.
4. Some Proposals for Socialists working in the Scottish Democratic movement.

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ON SELF DETERMINATION

by James Kelman

In an American journal I read a prominent English writer was described as ‘very British’. What can it mean to be ‘very British’? Could I be described in this way? Can my work be described as ‘very British’? No, not by people in Britain, or by those with a thorough knowledge of the situation. The controlling interest in ‘Britishness’ is ‘Englishness’. This ‘Englishness’ is perceived as Anglo-Saxon. It is more clearly an assertion of the values of upper class England, and their validity despite all and in defiance of all.

Power is a function of its privileged ruling elite. To be properly ‘British’ is to submit to English hierarchy and to recognize, affirm and assert the glory of its value system. This is achieved domestically on a daily basis within ‘British’ education and cultural institutions. Those who oppose this supremacist ideology are criticized for not being properly British, condemned as unpatriotic. Those Scottish, Welsh or Irish people who oppose this supremacist ideology are condemned as anti-English. The ‘British way’ is sold at home and abroad as a thing of beauty, a self-sufficient entity that comes complete with its own ethical system, sturdy and robust, guaranteed to outlast all others.

British people are led to believe that the Royal Family are admired, loved and glorified across the globe. Should another Solar System contain life upon any of its myriad planets its inhabitants will not only accede to the Christian church but also acknowledge the Head of the English Royal Family as Defender of the Faith, in competition with the Pope, standing next in line to God.

Writers like myself are guilty of being ‘too Scottish’; our ‘Scottishness’ is as an attack on ‘Britishness’ and acts as a disqualification. It is assumed that Scottish experience is homogenous whereas English experience offers a wide-ranging and worldly heterogeneity. Our work is attacked in pseudo literary tones for its perceived insularity. This also happens within Scotland; anglocentric Scottish critics condemn Scottish writers for their ‘lack of diversity’.

Being ‘too indigenous’ is the same as being ‘too working class’ and, predictably, the closer we move to the realm of class the clearer we find concerns of race and ethnicity. No one remembers that ‘Briton’ has something to do with Celticness. Being ‘too Scottish’ is seen as an assertion of a Celtic rather than Anglo–Saxon heritage. The marketability of certain individuals derives from the arousal of this racial stereotype. The proof of the English footballer David Beckham’s marketability is in his Anglo-Saxon ‘provenance’.

A colonial or imperial context helps clarify the argument. The key is class. ‘Scottishness’ equates to class and class equals conflict. Even within Scotland we can be criticized for this. The work of writers deemed ‘too Scottish’ shares a class background. Occasionally we are condemned for confining our fiction to the world of the urban working class. This suggests that for working class people cultural boundaries are fixed in place. Their world is an entirety of experience, culturally as well as economic. None can step beyond the limits of that world. It is a world barren of the finer things in life which are not only material but spiritual. Working class people cannot engage with art and philosophy. In their world there is no art and philosophy.

This elitism is straightforward and at the heart of the hostility but, as with racism, is seldom remarked upon within the establishment and mainstream media. It rarely occurs to critics that working class people might read ‘proper’ books or look at paintings as opposed to ‘pictures on the wall’. When it does occur to them it is treated as a phenomenon. They do not progress to the discovery that the life of one human being is as valid as another, that the life experience of one section of society is as diverse as another.

The bourgeoisie tend to go with the colonizers and the imperialists as a means of personal and group survival, and advancement. They quickly buy into the culture of the ruling elite. Indigenous languages and cultures are kept alive by those at the lower end of society. In India and much of Africa, as well as Australasia and North America, the voice of authority continues to be English. The lower order groups keep alive the local, the richness of the indigenous languages, the indigenous aesthetic, the culture – as best they can, not necessarily by choice or intention. Typically education is denied them, their languages and cultural markers proscribed, regarded as weapons. To use these language or cultural markers is seen as cultural vandalism or acts of terrorism, something the Kurdish people must contend with in order to survive.

Since the 18th century the cultural and linguistic movement of the Scottish bourgeoisie and ruling elite is total assimilation to Britishness where Englishness is the controlling interest. Scotland has its own languages too, and these are ‘living languages’, kept alive by people using them who, generally, are working class. Scottish literary artists have worked in these languages for centuries. Even where the writers are not themselves working class in origin the subject matter of the work is, as we see in some of the writings of Walter Scott or R.L. Stevenson.

Scotland also has its own philosophical, legal, religious, literary and educational traditions, and most of this too is marginalized. Scottish educators have to fight Scottish institutions to find a place for Scottish philosophy, literature and education itself. Many English people sympathize with their struggle but see the context to include the marginalized cultures and traditions of English counties like Yorkshire, Cornwall, Northumbria, Cumbria, Somerset and Lancashire. The difference is that Scotland is not an English county, it is a full British country. Many English people fail to grasp this point. Scotland will continue to be a British country whether or not we are governed from London, England. Great Britain is a geographical entity.

People are right to treat nationalism with caution. None more than Scottish people who favor self-determination. Any form of nationalism is dangerous, and should be treated with caution. I cannot accept nationalism and I am not a Scottish Nationalist. But once that is said, I favor a ‘yes or no’ decision on independence and I shall vote ‘yes’ to independence.

Countries should determine their own existence and Scotland is a country. The decision is not managerial. It belongs to the people of Scotland. We are the country. There are no countries on Mars. This is because there are no people on Mars. How we move ahead here in Scotland is a process that can happen only when the present chains are disassembled, and discarded, when the majority people seize the right, and burden, of self-determination.

The Scottish Nationalists have exposed its weakness here. Under their leadership once ‘independence’ is achieved they intend “to share Her Majesty the Queen as Head of State.” This is like the 17th Century when a tiny bunch of aristocrats ruled Scotland but shared kingship with England and Wales. The truth is the majority of Scottish people have never experienced self determination at any time in history. Injecting this anachronistic hierarchy into the proceedings is an absurd and backward step.

I am not a patriot. A ‘patriot’ is one who accepts national identity as grounds for a primary solidarity. It is patently absurd that the majority people should expect solidarity from the ruling elite and upper classes. In Scotland there is no justification for such a hope let alone expectation.

The British establishment left, right and centre are as one in their opposition to Scottish self-determination. This applies to the many Scottish politicians of the Tory Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal-Democrat Party who ‘cross the political divide’ to stand together in defense of the Union. It is useful to see this priority expressed so clearly. This type of united front is common in situations of war.

The Scottish Nationalists’ push to subject the majority people to a Royal Family pays homage to another tradition associated with ‘Scottish identity’: submission and servitude to the ruling elite. Manna for Empire builders and Colonialists. Dependency is at the root of this aspect of ‘Scottish identity’. There may be a ‘right’ of self-determination; on the other hand there may not. Even if there is such a right it need not be exercised. Siding with the imperialist is a better option: dogs brought to heel can be robbed of their bones.

Scottish people are encouraged by the establishment to take pride in their service to the Monarch, the Royal Family and all of its subjects. Scottish children are taught to glorify submission and servitude, embodied in the myth of “the Scottish soldier who wandered faraway and soldiered faraway” in the retention of British authority and the denial to the majority people both foreign and domestic, of the right of self-determination.

There are centuries of imperialist myth-making, misinformation and propaganda to disentangle. Clan allegiance has been strong in the highlands and islands of Scotland, as has religious difference throughout the country. This continued throughout the 17th and on through the 18th century until the Battle of Culloden in 1746 when the clan system and Jacobitism were effectively destroyed.

The British State has sought to deny the right to self-determination consistently over the past few hundred years in Africa, the Americas, Ireland, the Indian Sub-continent, South East Asia or Australasia. The State has used every argument it can to cling onto power and when necessary applied the requisite dirty tricks, and finally moved in the army to achieve their objective, at whatever cost, including the slaughter of innocents.

Unfortunately religious difference remains significant into the 21st Century. The Scottish Nationalists support for such an intrinsically British institution will appears as a sop not only to Unionist sympathizers but to ‘the Protestant vote’. This opens a nasty sore on the Scottish political and cultural scene. Traditionally, Protestants are anti-Republican Unionists who regard the King or Queen of England as Defender of the Faith. Roman Catholics are believed to favor Republicanism. In Scotland many people confuse ‘Republicanism’ ‘Roman Catholicism’ and ‘Irishness’. Some believe them to be one and the same thing. The subtext to their ‘pro-Unionist, anti-Republican’ stance is sectarian racism: anti-Catholic, anti-Irish. Others in Scotland will view the Nationalist retention of the British Monarchy in these terms.

The continuing debate in Britain is led by the establishment and mainstream media and focuses on whether or not independence is ‘good for Scotland’. This is a red herring. It is an argument from self-interest and therefore secondary. The economic consequences of self-determination are important but are not and cannot be the central issue. Experts and specialists debate on the deployment of capital resources; defense and foreign policy, business & industry; health and welfare issues, religions and secularism. Shall Scotland seek to enter NATO, the UN, the British Commonwealth, and the European Union? What will happen to ‘our’ soldiers and ‘our’ army-towns, ‘our’ battleships, warplanes, tanks and submarines. What effects will independence have upon our relationships with the USA, with England, Wales and Ireland, not to mention Spain, Italy, Israel, Turkey and all those other countries keeping the lid on their own governance issues.

How we progress as a people will depend on how we contend with those and other matters. A people cannot be asked to settle in advance of independence how they shall act in hypothetical situations. We are being asked to provide a priori evidence of our fitness to determine our own existence before the freedom to do so is allowed.

Imperialists and colonizers lay down the judgment that there is no ‘right’ of self-determination. But that judgment has no place in the 21st Century. The right to self-determination inheres in every adult human being and distinguishes us from animals, mammals, birds, fowls or fish. No one grants us this right. It is not allowed to us by a benign authority. People exercise the right. It can only be denied to us, as it is denied to the vast majority of the world’s population.

Ultimately there is only one issue: the right to self-determination. Underlying the ‘good for Scotland’ debate is the denial of that right.

We are talking about freedom. We exercise freedom. If freedom be denied us we seize it as our right. Neo-fascism is illustrated where the burden of proof is placed upon human beings to provide evidence of their humanity. Some fall into the trap of accepting the burden of proof. They seek to provide evidence to establish their own humanity. They can only fail. Humanity cannot be ‘granted’ or ‘allowed’ them. They already are human. Their humanity is being denied. No one gives us our freedom. We take it. If it is denied us we continue to take it. We have no choice. If it is taken from us and we allow it to be taken from us then we are colluding in our own subjection.

The Scottish Nationalists pay allegiance to the concept of ‘hereditary subjection’ (and spiritual degradation), as embodied in the Queen of the British Kingdoms and I find this repugnant. The question is of historical as well as contemporary relevance. People have fought and died for a political freedom inclusive of Republicanism. They would turn in their grave. No one has the right to represent the voice of the Scottish people in a matter of such gravity. It is a massive setback but not insurmountable. It is my belief that the Nationalists’ brand of independence should still be grasped. We can learn from the past. Sooner or later the right to self-determination will be exercised by the majority of people in my country. When I vote ‘yes’ to independence I shall be voting towards that end.

James Kelman’s article can also be found at:-

http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/reviewed/on-self-determination

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The 2011 elections in the North of Ireland marked a substantial victory for capitalism. It marked the first point where one Stormont administration morphed into another via

election, without the  collapse of the government.

That modest success quickly became a much more substantial victory. The election was preceded by the killing of a Catholic police constable by republicans and the election

was settled in advance in a wave of hysteria where, church, state, political parties, sporting and cultural bodies, and trade unions all united to indicate rabid support for the

new dispensation and to assert, yet again, that the only alternative to the sectarian and colonial settlement was bloody war.  The election result saw the consolidation of Sinn

Fein and the DUP in power and the continuing decay of the other capitalist parties. The small socialist movement no longer opposes the settlement and the candidates looked

to be Left representatives in the assembly rather than a focus of opposition to it. The republican organization, Eirigi, staged a political opposition in some limited areas but has

yet to consolidate that  base.

The election victory was all the more substantial when one considers that the DUP and Sinn Fein went into the election promising an austerity programme of £400 million.

The new administration faced a major public sector strike and mass demonstrations in November, but the union leaderships, with a long history of partnership, quickly

returned to negotiating the implementation of the cuts.

So, on neither the grounds of the national question and democracy, nor on grounds of austerity and class oppression, does the Northern administration face any serious

opposition.  This however is not enough to guarantee the final victory of imperialism. To assess the stability of the settlement we need to look at the underlying mechanisms.

One element of instability is the increasing sectarian polarisation of Northern society. In a political system organized around sectarian rights, support gravitates towards the

most effective exponents of these rights. As a result the SDLP and Ulster Unionist parties are in terminal decline, with the most recent leader of the Unionists resigning after 18

months in office.

Politics has simplified itself to two large confessional blocks of the DUP and Sinn Fein. The Alliance Party, which claimed to stand outside sectarianism, has been plugged in

as permanent “neutral” holders of the justice ministry. In fact they act as proxies for the DUP.

The sectarian structure is usually in a state of paralysis. Only reactionary legislation which is in the class interest of both groups gets through ­ relaxation of planning laws,

reduced rates for small business, a plan to subsidize corporation tax and, of course, a £400 million austerity programme. A promised “peace dividend” boom

turned out to be a property bubble that has now imploded.

The original claim of Sinn Fein, that the settlement was a stepping stone to a united Ireland, has been discredited. Owen Paterson, British Secretary of State, announced that

there were no plans of any sort to hold a referendum on the ending of Partition, much to the displeasure of Sinn Fein. The news caused hardly a ripple. In the aftermath of

the election, Sinn Fein came out of the closet as a fully formed bourgeois Catholic party. The evolution is exactly in line with the new middle class, who accept British rule and

that Unionists will get the majority of any share­out, but are perfectly content as long as their share of patronage is guaranteed.

The general view is that the northern statelet will gradually evolve through slow reforms towards a less sectarian society.  The evidence is against this also. A programme of

cohesion, meant to be top of the agenda, has been stalled for years and initial drafts heavily criticized for their sectarian content and indifference to human rights. Provocative

Orange marches lead to annual crises. The jewel in Sinn Fein’s crown – a non-­selective education system – has proved impossible to deliver.

In fact the stabilizing mechanism in the current set­up is the willingness of Sinn Fein, and nationalists generally, to recognize unionism as top dog.  A British commission

suggested that there be a reform of the prison officers, almost entirely Protestant, mired in brutality and sectarianism. That reform would be purely symbolic. It was

immediately ruled out by first minister, Peter Robinson, who indicated that traditional imperialist symbols would remain.

The prison reform was supposed to mirror the Patton reforms of the police, but just how spurious that reform was, was revealed when it was disclosed that 500 officers, at

the heart of an organisation seen to be involved in sectarian killing and removed by the payment of what was described as the world’s most lavish redundancy package, had

immediately been rehired as civilian advisors in the same posts. A report by the Joseph Rowntree foundation in February has indicated that the composition of the police

force is in any case falling from the high point of 33% Catholic recruitment, with Catholic police more likely to leave the force.

The freedom for the DUP to set the agenda is not reflected in similar freedom for Sinn Fein.

Shortly after the police row the Sinn Fein mayor of Belfast, Niall Ó Donnghaile, was forced to make an abject apology when, while awarding Duke of Edinburgh medals, he

arranged for someone else to present an award to a British army cadet. In case the apology did not stick, Martin McGuinness repeated it in Stormont.

The top dog mechanism does not stop in the Assembly.  It extends to the streets. In June last year the UVF staged a mass attack on the nationalist enclave of Short Strand.

The organizers were rushed to meetings with the First and Deputy First Ministers and offered major concessions.  UVF trials involving almost the entire leadership

collapsed  when the judge interpreted the evidence on the narrowest of grounds, allowing them to continue as the “representatives of the protestant working class”  and to

set up to head  civic society and receive grants in loyalist areas. Recently a feud has broken out in the UVF, with attempted assassinations and bomb attacks ignored by

the authorities. A  shocking event, where a film crew were attacked by a mob because some extras were Catholics and one young man almost beaten to death, was quickly

covered up. One Unionist MLA dismissed it as a storm in a teacup.

Similar tolerance is not extended to republicans. Protestors against Orange demonstrations face punitive sentences. Marian Price is interned in solitary confinement for

holding a piece of paper.

The picture painted above is one of corruption but not of collapse. There are many mechanisms supporting the settlement. Much of the complacency in the face of corruption is

based on widespread bribery and the distribution of peace funds.

The system has the frantic support of the Irish bourgeoisie, as evidenced by their hysteric adulation of the British Queen and by the campaign to support the Shinners by joining

Ireland’s foremost cultural event, the Fleadh Cheoil, to the British ‘City of Culture’ in Derry.

The nationalist population, who used to have an anti­imperialist and democratic tradition, has largely internalised the confessional understanding on which the political

institutions are based.  Many believe in a benign sectarianism where resources can be shared out while avoiding violence and conflict. Capitulation is presented as cultural

reconciliation.

The Irish trade union movement is highly bureaucratised and linked to the state. It gives unconditional support to the new institutions and is rabidly hostile to any challenge.

There are elements that indicate that the life­span of the new statelet is not indefinite. The prestige of the Irish bourgeoisie is in decline. At the time of the peace process they

rode the ‘Celtic Tiger’. Now they lead a merciless offensive on Irish workers. The price paid by Sinn Fein has been the decay of their northern working class base. This has

expressed itself as apathy, but there are signs of a minor resurgence in republicanism that may eat away at the Shinners. They hope to continue their advanceby becoming the

new Fianna Fail party in the South, but even in the remote event they are successful, they will quickly be forced to give up their attempts to base themselves in working ­class

areas.  The dominant factor is the crisis of the working­ class organisations. The traditional organisations have been unable to adapt to the crisis of capitalism.  A new

movement is on its way that will head a massive confrontation between labour and capital on a world scale. This renewal, expressed in Ireland, will pose a major challenge

to the imperialist settlement.

In any case Marxists have the duty we have tried to express in this article, to strip away the mask of hypocrisy and pretence that obscures the Irish peace process and unveil

the savage mechanisms of sectarianism, colonialism and class interest that lie beneath.

(see http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins.html#SD%20Bulletin%20March%202012)

At its formation the United  Left  Alliance (ULA) appeared to represent a new  resurgence of the Socialist  Movement in Ireland. It brought together a number of different socialist groups, obtained a significant number of votes and representation in the Dail, and put forward an uncompromising revolutionary position with the call to repudiate the  debt  – that Irish workers would not pay to save capitalism to save bankers and speculators.

Politically and organisationally it has retreatedfrom that early promise. The first convention in June was large but politically confused and the main economic discussion centred on a return to the punt rather than repudiation of the debt. Its energy was dissipated in workshops while the real decisions were made elsewhere. Attempts to build a mass demonstration against the budget in September led to a relatively small demonstration subordinate to the trade union bureaucracy.

Early attempts to build a rank and file movement were replaced with much more moderate and a political calls to reclaim the  unions. Attempts to increase ULA representation by campaigning for Ruth Coppanger in the Dublin West by­election were stymied. The major attempt to build a mass campaign around the household charge was not organised by  the  ULA  –  indeed a section of  that campaign insisted that  it was non­-political and  demanded that the ULA be invisible.

However, a statement  by  the Socialist  Party (SP) ruling out  the  possibility  of the ULA being the vehicle for a new party set a sharp brake on the project. The  mid­-January statement  said:

 “Moving to establish a party without the actual involvement of significant numbers of ordinary working  class  people, would lead to it becoming  an  irrelevant  political  sect.  The ULA is not the new  party,  nor  is  it  likely  to  just  become  the new party at some future date.  The ULA is  an  alliance  that  fights  on  issues,  outlines  a  left  and  socialist  alternative  and  crucially  popularises  the  idea  of  a  new  party.  A new party will most likely come from the likes of  the  ULA combining with  community  and  workers’  campaigns  and  struggles.  The Household Tax campaign can involve thousands of people in political activity up and down the country, creating the potential basis for a new party.  ULA members should get fully involved in this struggle”.  

The statement ended with a call  for  activists  to  join  the  Socialist Party.

Yet, in truth, the ULA was  not  operating  as  an  alliance.  The level of co­operation between the constituent  groups  is  at  a  much  lower  level  than  that,  with  each  group  running  their  own  campaigns:  the  SP  and  a  referendum  campaign  and  a  partitionist  trade  union  front  in  the  North,  the  Socialist Workers Party  (SWP) and  their  “Enough”  campaign.  The groups compete for recruits, convinced  that  they  themselves will be the new party of the  working class.  The alliance has in fact  established  itself  as  a  brand  name  or  franchise.   It has established an effective website that carries  a  flood  of  statements  from  TDs,  without  any  coherent  connection  between  them.  Its operation is through an ad ­hoc  “steering  committee”  which  raises  questions  over  the  democratic  credentials  of the group.

Many of these weaknesses  are  recognised  and  acknowledged  by  activists  inside  and  outside  the  ULA.    What is  not  so  clearly  seen  is  that  there  has  been  a  political  retreat  by  the  socialist  movement on the basis for a workers resistance.

The problem is that the ULA, in a December  budget  statement, had  retreated from a wholesale call to repudiate the debt to the much more limited call for a halt to all payments related to paying  for the  private  debt of  the banks.  The major thrust of the statement, not open to general discussion by the membership  in advance  of  its  publication, was  a  thoroughly  reformist  call  on the  capitalist  government  to  invest  for  growth  –  something  totally  impossible  for  a  government  committed  to  austerity,  to  the  bailout  and  under  the  control  of  the  troika.  The effect is to put  the  ULA  alongside  the  trade  union  leadership  who  claim  that  there  is  a  better  fairer  was  for  capitalism  to  operate,  while  in  practice  actively  implementing the austerity.

The ULA steering committee has now  agreed  a  conference  at  the  end  of  April.  It appears that diplomatic agreement  has  been  reached  to  include  individual  branches  in  the  steering  committee  and  to  some  extent  increase  the  level  of  democracy inside the alliance.

In the view of Socialist Democracy this is not sufficient. The ULA cannot balance between an organisation with individual members and branches on the one hand and an alliance  of  existing  groups  on  the other.  Much more important  is  the  need  for  a  working  class programme. It is time  to  stop  pretending  that  the  coalition  and  the  troika will adopt an investment for growth programme and stop pretending  that  the  union  bureaucracy’s  “better  fairer  way”  has  any  meaning.  We must stop ignoring the fact that the country has been occupied by the ECB and IMF.

Our focus must be the working  class. We must call on the workers to repudiate the  debt, to wage unremitting war against  cuts  and  closures,  to  set  up  new organisations  independent  of  other  class  forces,  to  seize  control  of  resources  and  capital  abandoned by the capitalists.

People can unite or not unite  as  they  choose. They can build any sort  of organisation. What they must  do  is  try to represent the interests of the working class. This is the burning issue.

(see http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/Bulletins.html#SD%20Bulletin%20March%202012)

________________________

Appeal from Socialist Democracy (Ireland) to the United Left Alliance members for a new working class party, May 2012

The crisis of capital and the all-out offensive on the working class continues to unfold. The failure of traditional leaderships means that the workers must develop new structures, new forms of struggle if they are to resist being crushed. The most important structure to unite struggles is a new working class party.

Socialists in the United Left Alliance should fight for such a party. They should fight for the most democratic structure possible, allowing the fullest discussion and analysis closely linked to common action and exploring all the possibilities of resistance open to the working class.

The central elements of the resistance should be:

Opposing utterly the austerity policy pursued by successive Irish governments and supervised by the Troika. 

We oppose the immediate aim of the austerity – that the workers pay the debts of the bondholders or any part thereof.

We oppose the goal of restructuring, aimed at driving wages, services and conditions down in an indefinite race to the bottom.

We assert that there are no “better, fairer ways” to pay the bondholders. A worker’s economic programme to provide jobs and services would require immediately the tearing up all promissory notes and the expulsion of the troika.

The ULA should oppose the trade union leadership’s collaboration in the imposition of austerity. We call for the scrapping of the Croke Park agreement and urge the building of a rank and file trade union network that will unite workers across union structures and allow them to organize against collaboration both inside and outside the unions.

 WE HAVE NOT STOPPED THE CAPITALIST OFFENSIVE

 WE NEED TO LISTEN, LEARN, THEN MOVE ON

In our lifetime there has never been a greater need for unity of socialists and communists, nor has there been a greater fragmentation of the Left.

What we have had under capitalism is as good as it was going to get. Now employment protection, pensions, health services, housing provision and education are under sustained and organised attack with a disproportionate effect upon youth and women.

The post World War II gains are under attack by all the pro-capitalist parties, not just the Tories; yet still union representatives and various sects call on workers to oppose TORY or CON-DEM cuts.

Doesn’t it make you want to weep? It’s not just that these cuts are being implemented by all parties, it’s that all parties are doing so because capitalism requires it and they have no alternative to capitalism.

Capitalism is not in crisis in the sense that those who ‘run’ it have made mistakes; capitalism is doing what it has to do – subject economies to periodic painful depressions in order to survive.

This is the point. It is not possible in the long term to humanely manage or reform capital! Capitalism can be forced to grant limited concessions by organised militant action, but as soon as we let our guard down they will snatch them back as is currently happening.

We need to move beyond capital’s parasitic stranglehold on human society. We need to find a way to organise to that end.

PAST FAILURES

Many groups/organisations/parties on the Left point to achievements of which they are proud – recruitment, a prominent role in key struggles, electoral successes or producing quality publications are examples. Yet the Left is weaker and more fragmented than for many decades and, in Scotland, the once strong SSP is a shadow of its former self*. Self-proclaimed revolutionary ‘parties’ or proto-parties put most of their efforts into fighting each other. Why is this?

• Gurus, self appointed leaders and media attention seeking personalities have set up and controlled too many of our organisations. Democracy has not been open or even practised.

• Members and recruits are ‘given the line’ to repeat. They are told what to think instead of being encouraged how to think.

• Front organisations are set up with little if any democracy mainly in order to recruit.

• Broad Lefts share this same democratic deficit and limiting aspirations.

• New activists become disillusioned and misdirected – just think of some of the slogans (and weep again) ….

….Fight The Con-Dem Cuts.. it’s capitalism we are fighting against and all the parties supporting it and all the organisations supporting them, including the Labour Party, the TUC, STUC and the SNP.

…Make Poverty History… you mean, make capitalism history and all the parties and organisations supporting it.

We need to move beyond populism, reformism, electoralism and egotism.

CONDITIONS FOR REGROUPMENT

A fundamental issue is the democratic and interpersonal nature of how we interact. We won’t get far without open, comradely and non-sexist behaviour.

We need a framework that lays out rights and responsibilities of individuals, groups, platforms, networks and organisations that come together. We need a style of discussion and debate that allows us to listen, reflect, and question. We need to discourage the sectarian ‘We have our line and we will vote en-bloc’ behaviour.

We need to start from a few fundamental realities:-

It is the capitalist mode of production that constitutes the underlying problem. It is a system of exploitation with its wage slavery and domestic drudgery, and its denial to the majority of the guaranteed material means to provide a decent living. It is also a system of oppression with its patriarchy and consequent sexism, its competitive states, national chauvinism and racism, and its denial of real democracy and human dignity. It is a system of necessary and recurring crises, continuous wars and environmental degradation.

Capitalism promotes a selfish individualism based on ‘having’. We must offer an alternative, based on that aspect of being human which capitalism suppresses – our shared social existence. Then we can prioritise ‘being’ over ‘having’. Therefore, it is not enough to fight against capital. We must fight for a system of human emancipation and liberation – i.e. communism organised on the principles:-

1.  “From each according to their ability; to each according to their needs.”

2.  “Where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

We need to develop an Immediate Programme based on meeting our real needs which, through the development of independent working class politics and organisation,  allows us to fundamentally break with capitalism and move towards the first phase of communism, i.e. socialism.

We should lead by example. We will be judged by the way we behave within our organisation.

 NEXT STEPS

We in the Republican Communist Network are joining in the call for a regroupment of the Left and will help to facilitate this.

We are NOT suggesting the setting up of another Party – that would be a decision for those who had come together under this regroupment, once a sufficient base of support had been won amongst the working class.

We ARE suggesting that the points within this leaflet should form part of the discussions for a regroupment. Others will certainly have additional points to discuss.

A fuller description of our current thinking can be found at:- http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2011/12/23/beyond-the-ssp-and-solidarity-forgive-and-forget-or-listen-learn-and-then-move-on/

Please contact us if you are interested in joining the call for a new regroupment at RCN, c/o PO Box 6773, Dundee, DD1 1YL or www.republicacommunist.org/blog. This is NOT a recruitment tactic (although we would like to hear from you if you are interested).

Please add your voice to the call for a regroupment at whatever meetings/demos/strikes you participate in.

UNITED WE STAND A CHANCE OF A BETTER FUTURE

 DIVIDED WE FACE INCREASING BARBARISM UNDER CAPITALISM

 WE MUST LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES AND MOVE ON

* see http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2012/02/11/the-rcn-platform-and-the-ssp/

The gap between revolutionaries and reformists is fundamental and widening as the economic crisis deepens. This gulf in underlying perspectives is reflected in the conflicting approaches taken to an array of specific issues. Specific differences in strategy and tactics should be viewed as elements in a recurring pattern that in varying forms is being constantly repeated.

Historically, reformists have held that the transition from capitalism to democratic socialism would occur through a series of small, incremental steps, with each successful reform building seamlessly on previous victories. In this scenario, there would be no need for a revolutionary break, or even popular insurgencies. Instead, inexorably capitalism would be superseded by a new economic and social system that would be obviously superior to it.

Many “orthodox” Marxists accepted this position during the heyday of the Second International prior to World War I. It has now become all too clear that socialism is not inevitable, and that the current ruling class will cling to power with ruthless determination. Thus, while it is important to reiterate that capitalism cannot be reformed, and that a revolution is an essential moment in the transition to socialism, such a statement does not sufficiently demarcate a revolutionary perspective. Many of those on the Left would agree with some version of such a formulation, and yet their practice remains determinedly reformist. Certainly most of those in the various Trotskyist cadre groups operate on this basis.

One argument that is frequently advanced is that leftists need to organize around narrowly focused issues that can be won by placing pressure on the authorities. The argument holds that each victory, no matter how small, increases the confidence of the working class. As the working class becomes more confident of its power as a class, it is able to organize around another, slightly more challenging, issue. Such a policy of incrementalism is necessary, so it is argued, given the intense demoralization of the working class following upon a series of major defeats over the last 25 years.

Arguments such as this were advanced by the International Socialist Group in their role as leaders of the Coalition of Resistance as they gave uncritical support to community activists protesting the displacement of the Accord Centre for the disabled by a car park built for the Commonwealth Games. Any effort to widen the scope of concern, for instance to discuss the absurd priorities that allowed vital social services to be cut while hundreds of millions of pounds went to build elaborate sports stadiums, was ruled out of order.

This argument epitomizes the reformist approach to politics. Progress is made on a step by step basis. Popular mobilizations are organized, but the limits are carefully drawn to avoid ruptures and confrontations. In fact, there is no evidence that such an approach has ever worked. Quite the contrary. Organizations that rally around a narrowly focused issue soon lose their initial impetus and usually become thoroughly integrated into the prevailing system.

Furthermore, this strategy fails to grasp the entire point of the current crisis. The wages, benefits and working conditions of the working class are becoming worse, not better. This reflects a fundamental shift in the balance of class forces. In the current period, a policy aimed at winning incremental reforms will prove to be a failure even within its own terms.

We should certainly point out that only a militant mass movement can have any impact on the immediate situation, and that organizations that avoid confrontations, and that operate within the rules are bound to be dismissed out of hand. Yet we also need to be clear that, at best, a militant working class can only slow the corporate onslaught. Previous defeats can only be reversed by moving beyond the framework of the capitalist system and preparing for the revolutionary transformation of society. Small victories in this context are certainly desirable, but they are bound to be infrequent in this period and they will soon be swamped in the general downward spiral.

Revolutionary class consciousness does not depend on winning victories, but rather on the growing realization within the working class that there is no choice, that capitalism can only bring misery and catastrophic disasters. An immediate transition to a socialist society is thus a vital necessity. As the system unravels, reformism loses its hold on working class consciousness and the opportunities for a revolutionary movement increase. The situation in Greece provides a compelling confirmation of this proposition.

Single issue campaigns can provide a starting point for radicalization if they avoid the reformist trap. The campaign around ATOS provides a case in point. ATOS is a French company hired by the British government to push the disabled off of benefits. Demonstrations have been held at its Glasgow offices in conjunction with similar actions around Britain. Protestors have made a point of linking the protests at ATOS with the broader campaign to stop the cutbacks and have also presented a broad anti-corporate critique.

Reformism appears in other guises as well. One variant appears when leftists engage in electoral politics. The argument starts with the premise that the primary purpose of a political party is to elect its candidates to office. With this as the strategic goal, the platform and propaganda of the party are designed to maximize votes. The rationale holds that electing representatives to the legislature will increase the credibility of the party within the working class. Thus, the party will grow, making it likely that even more candidates will be elected in the next election. This upward spiral will make the party a significant social force, thereby bringing the transition to a socialist society even closer.

Obviously the Scottish Socialist Party operated along these lines during its heyday prior to the Sheridan debacle. Many who have remained continue to believe that a new upsurge along these lines is possible. The problems inherent in this strategy are many. Elected candidates become the focal point of the party, setting the agenda and determining the tactics. In addition, creating celebrities becomes a centerpiece of party politics. There is no question of the party mandating the actions of its elected officials since winning electoral victories has become the paramount objective.

The RCN was among the first to object to this style of politics. We need to go further and see electoralism as yet another version of reformism. Instead of developing a socialist perspective, radical politics is jettisoned for a diluted liberal reformism in a drive to win short-term marginal victories. We need to connect with the heritage of Guy Aldred and others who made it clear that they were using the electoral arena to present a socialist vision and not to win votes on a diluted program of reforms.

Broad Left formations within trade unions represent yet another variant of reformism. A wide range of “progressive” union activists come together on the basis of a minimal program with the goal of replacing the current crop of bureaucrats with a new set of “left-wing” officials. Once again socialist politics is downplayed in order to gain short-run victories.

In several unions the Broad Left has been able to unseat the old-time moderates. Once in power the leftist officials follow the many of the same patterns as before. Loyalty to the current leadership becomes the essential prerequisite to a full-time staff job. Progressive unions, while critical of the Labour Party, still remain within its orbit rather than definitively breaking with it. Opposition to the continuing wave of cuts is confined to top-down one-day national strikes, while rank and file actions are discouraged.

The recent wave of protests by electricians presents a positive alternative. Organized at the grass-roots level these protest push the bureaucrats to take action. Site Worker magazine, put out by militant electricians some of whom have been banned from the construction industry has moved further, urging electricians to act on their own and to not rely on the bureaucrats at all.

Reformism has been the bane of the working class in Scotland and throughout the UK. Even today, it remains a major obstacle to the development of a revolutionary movement. Calls for left unity seek to create a broad coalition that slides over the fundamental gap between revolutionaries and reformists. The RCN should be advocating an alternative strategy, a unity of revolutionary, anti-authoritarian socialists that could work together in broader venues such as trade unions, the anti-cuts campaigns and the electoral arena.

This period is dominated by the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, a crisis that shows no sign of ending. We should state clearly that the working class will be pushed backward as long as we remain within the constraints set by the global market economy. Of course, as revolutionaries we participate in trade unions and social movements, but we do so on a principled basis as socialists. We, therefore, inevitably come into conflict with the pervasive opportunism of reformists. Revolutionaries do not narrow the range of our demands to those that may be won, but rather we challenge the capitalist onslaught on a broad range of issues, as we stress the interconnections between demands and their links to the crisis of capitalism.

As revolutionaries, we need to emphasize that fundamental changes are won on the streets and on the shop floor through militant direct action. We take part in elections to put forward a socialist program, not to win votes or elect legislators. Our candidates should be bound to our platform, and their agenda, should they be elected, should be set by the party, instead of elected officials determining the direction taken by the party.

Revolutionaries should participate in the official unions where they act as collective bargaining agents, but we need to formulate a socialist program and not merely adapt our position to that advanced by leftist union officials. Revolutionaries believe that a democratic union requires the election of shop stewards, and that power should be retained at the shop floor and not revert to union headquarters. Crucially, we need to encourage rank and file committees within an industry that cut across union lines, and that can organize militant actions as the only effective way of slowing down the wave of cuts. This is particularly crucial in the public sector in forging a militant movement that can effectively confront the pay freeze and the proposed cut in pensions.

Revolutionaries and reformists fundamentally disagree on tactics, strategy and the overall perspective for social change. These disagreements are not conjunctural, that is they are not rooted in the specific circumstances that we currently confront. We can expect that these divisions within the Left will continue throughout the transition to socialism. For now, we need to deepen our ties to other revolutionary groupings, here in Scotland, and throughout the world.

Eric Chester

It is our assessment that the SSP no longer unites the majority of the Left in Scotland, so that a new organisation will be needed to bring about such unity in the future. We believe there are many current SSP members and ex-members, who also think that it no longer can perform this role, but are interested in the creation of such an organisation.

Some RCN members will remain members of the SSP, where they feel it continues to play a beneficial role in working class struggles, whilst other RCN members have left.  For these reasons we have concluded that it is no longer appropriate to be a Platform within the SSP.

We wish to assure you that this decision should in no way be taken as support for the sectarian Solidarity project – it remains our view that it was wrong for all the reasons we have publicly stated elsewhere.

In the coming months, we in the RCN look forward to joining others in on the Scottish Left, including SSP members, in evaluating the past, assessing the present, and debating the future.

i) Why are there significant nationalist parties and a National Question in the UK in the twenty-first century?

In Scotland, the SNP is now the leading political party; in Wales, Plaid Cymru is the third (until recently, the second) placed party; whilst in Northern Ireland the top six parties identify themselves as either British unionist or Irish nationalist.  The answers to the questions posed above are to do with the nature of the UK state.

The UK state was formed in a number of key stages. These were marked initially by the demise of the Welsh mixed feudal and kinship-based order in 1284, after its conquest by Edward I, the Plantagenet king of England and overlord of Gascony. In 1536, Wales was absorbed into the centralised feudal English state under the Tudors and divided into counties. What remained of the old Welsh ruling class gained representation in the English Parliament and eventually became part of the wider English ruling class. Wales ceased to exist as a political entity until the end of the nineteenth century, and was administered as if it was part of England under English law. However, the majority of the population remained Welsh speaking until the beginning of the twentieth century, a considerably higher proportion than Gaelic speakers in either Ireland or Scotland.

Scotland’s regal union with England under the Stuarts followed in 1603. The continued political interests of the Scottish aristocracy were served by their influential position within the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Parliament.  Scotland retained its own legal system and currency.  However, after a failed attempt to pursue an independent Scottish colonial policy through the Darien Scheme, and a series of famine years in the late 1690’s, the Scottish ruling class voted to end its own parliament in Edinburgh. They settled instead for direct representation in the Union Parliament in London in 1707. First though, they secured their autonomous control of the Church of Scotland and the Scottish legal system.  These arrangements were made in the class interests of the majority of the Scottish aristocracy, who had increasingly become commercial landlords, and of the rising class of Scottish merchants seeking imperial outlets. The new Union also helped to secure the UK state, and both its influential English and Scottish supporters, from French-backed Jacobite threats to the new post-1714 Hanoverian order.

Ireland entered a regal union with England under the Tudors in 1542, after earlier attempts at conquest had been rolled back to the English controlled Pale around Dublin. However, Ireland was not effectively brought under the monarchy’s control until the final crushing of the mixed Irish feudal and kinship order. This order still prevailed in most areas of Ireland outside the old Pale up until 1607.  The political and military opportunity for this suppression was provided by the Union of the English and Scottish Crowns under the Stuart dynasty. The heartland of the old Gaelic order in Ulster was destroyed and thoroughly planted. These new Plantations followed from the earlier more tentative policy of English and Scots Plantations in Ireland, which had begun in the sixteenth century. The ongoing process of dispossession culminated in the Penal Laws, which were enacted from 1695.  What remained of the old Irish ruling class was faced with the choice of converting to the established Anglican Protestant religion, or of losing its lands. Only those Church of Ireland (Anglican) members of the ‘Anglo-Irish’ Ascendancy were represented in the Irish Parliament in Dublin.

In 1801, the Union of the British and Irish Parliaments was made in the shared interests of the British ruling class and the ‘Anglo-Irish’ Ascendancy, which by now owned virtually all of Ireland’s land. This was done to ward off the possible reoccurrence of the revolutionary democratic challenge, which had recently been presented by the United Irishmen – Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter – allied to revolutionary France. It also meant that the existing Irish Protestant elite could preempt the threat represented by any possible future Catholic voting majority in Ireland.  The United Kingdom now reached its maximum territorial extent, including England (with Wales), Scotland and Ireland. The parliament at Westminster dealt with the politics of both the British Union (UK) and Empire. Its business was confined to the members of a British ruling class drawn from all four countries.

The elimination or cooption of non-English elites did not produce a united British nation though. Under the terms of the parliamentary unions, the Scottish and the ‘Anglo-Irish’ ruling groups were still able to maintain their own protected national institutions (e.g. the Church of Scotland and the Irish Yeomanry). At the same time, they worked as junior partners to the English members of the new British ruling class. Together, they further developed their now shared UK state. This enabled them jointly to pursue the profits to be made from the British Empire. Although the new unified British ruling class was able to forge a top-down, British national identity for itself, it did not create a new unitary British nation incorporating all the peoples of these islands – English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh; or a unitary British state, which reduced an older Scotland and Ireland to mere historical terms, like Aquitaine or Picardie in France, after the French Revolution. Instead of becoming a unitary state (as had initially occurred when Wales was politically and administratively absorbed into England in 1536), the UK  was further developed as a unionist state, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, building upon the 1707 and 1801 Acts of Union. To be more precise, the UK became a unionist and imperialist, constitutional monarchist state.

During the Industrial Revolution, a new middle class was formed from the owners of industrial, commercial and financial capital.  They gained entry to a further extended British ruling class between the 1832 parliamentary Reform Act and the abolition of the Corn Laws in 1845. However, these newcomers did not promote a unitary British state either, in the manner of the French middle class after 1789. They were much more cautious.  This was because of the challenge from first, the plebian Radical movement after 1815, then from the new industrial working class wing of Chartism after 1837. Both these movements were seen as threats to the rule of property, whether it was in capital or in land. Therefore, in the face of these dangers, those new liberal members of the ruling class, representing the rising industrial order, allied themselves with the old conservative ruling class, representing commercial landed interests. They accepted the inherited British unionist nature of the UK state, with its coercive Crown Powers, helpful for keeping control of the ‘lower orders’.

The new members of the ruling class, representing industrial capital, were also looking for more effective ways to profit from empire. Under the prevailing mercantile capitalism of the seventeenth century, Spain and Holland had vied for domination; followed in the eighteenth century by France and the UK. With mercantile capitalism, each imperial power sought its own monopoly of trade within an empire jealously guarded by navies and armies. However, by the mid-nineteenth century, British industrial capital economically dominated the world and enforced a regime of ‘free trade imperialism’. Where economic might alone was not sufficient, then it could be supplemented by a little ‘gunboat diplomacy’. British hegemony was not confined to its formal colonial and commercial empire. Its economic tentacles extended all around the world. The British ruling class managed all this politically through its control of the Imperial Parliament at Westminster with its Home and Foreign Offices, and its domination of ‘law and order’ and local government; economically through its ownership of banking, commercial and trading houses in the City, and of industry and land; and militarily through the Royal Navy and British and colonial armed forces.

However, the rise of a new industrial capitalist order had not gone unchallenged. A counter to these developments initially arose in the revolutionary democratic movements in the UK associated with the International Revolutionary Wave, which developed from the French Revolution initiated in 1789. At this time, a full-blown industrial capitalist order did not exist. Attempts to enclose the commons, evict tenants, to impose generalised wage labour, to end customary prices for basic foodstuffs and for labour performed, and to abolish outdoor relief were all fiercely resisted.

From 1792, many joined the United Irishmen, the United Scotsmen, the London Corresponding Society and other organisations, in an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance, before this was finally defeated in 1798 in Ireland.  Later, the Radical wing of the Chartists supported the break-up of the British and Irish Union. However, with the defeat of the Chartists in 1849, the recently extended British ruling class gained the ascendancy now that the new industrial capitalist order had finally triumphed. The UK clearly became the most powerful state in the world. The effect of British ruling class hegemony was to tame the earlier Radical and working class movements. The overwhelming majority no longer sought a new social order, but looked for a ‘fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ within a capitalist system, and for opportunities of personal advance within the British Union or wider Empire.

Therefore, the failure to create a unitary British state and national identity has largely been a reflection of the choices made by the British ruling class, including its distinct Scottish and Protestant Irish components, when joining with the English, later the British ruling class; and also to ward off various ‘lower order’ challenges.

Many amongst the ‘lower orders’ bore their ‘Britishness, whether hyphenated or not, rather lightly. They had never been willingly accepted into the ruling class’s ‘British nation’. The Conservative and Liberals Parties were all-UK organisations, which reflected the territorial extent of their class backers’ ‘British nation’. As such, ‘Britishness’ was associated in the minds of many of the ‘lower orders’ (whether from Ireland, Scotland or Wales)  with the ‘upper class’, who were denying them a vote’, and with their subordinate status as their ‘masters’ ‘servants’, or as British ‘subjects’ under the Crown.

They  British ruling class opted instead  for a unionist state , the better to maintain their pro-property alliance in the face of various ‘lower orders’ class challenges, in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The UK set-up has allowed for subordinate national elites, and newly enfranchised sections from the ‘lower orders’ in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, to hold on to, or to create new perceived nationalities, but as subordinate elements of a hybrid British identity – Scottish-British, Irish-British (more recently Ulster-British) and Welsh-British. In Ireland, it was the repeal of the Test Acts (1828) and the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland (1869) that helped to widen the earlier more exclusive ‘Anglo-Irish’ identity by creating a new Irish-British identity, which could be adopted by members of non-established Protestant denominations, and even by some better off Catholics, after Catholic emancipation in 1829. It took longer for hybrid identities to take root amongst those socially and politically excluded from the new order.

During the century of British imperial world domination (1815-1914), no UK political party considered bringing an end to the distinct forms of national rule resulting from the unionist form of the state, which sustained those hybrid British identities found in Scotland, Ireland and Wales. These were central to maintaining wider support for the UK as a unionist, as opposed to a unitary British state, even through the period of High Imperialism (1895-1916).  The divisions which arose between the liberal unionists (Liberal Party and their Irish constitutional nationalist allies) and the conservative unionists (Conservative and Liberal Unionist parties), from the 1880′s, were over the best way to preserve the Union and Empire – political Home Rule or administrative Home Rule.

These divisions amongst the British ruling class were also accentuated as the British Empire began to face serious challenges, initially from France, then from Prussia/Germany in particular. British capitalists’ support for ‘free trade’ had remained unquestioned, as long they enjoyed the massive profits arising from being the first country to have undergone a successful industrial revolution. When inter-imperial conflicts intensified, voices advocating such protectionist measures as imperial preference began to be heard in the UK. Furthermore, many amongst the ruling class, who had recently accepted the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, began to harden their opposition to any further liberal unionist constitutional reform. This was because of the ruling class’s increasing doubts about their previously unquestioning belief in the  ’natural supremacy’ of the UK and British Empire.

Today, the UK still remains a state promoting the interests of capital. Furthermore, it remains a unionist and imperial constitutional monarchy, presiding over English, Scottish and Welsh nations, part of the Irish nation (‘the Six Counties’), various Crown Dependencies (i.e. the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) and those remaining imperial Overseas Territories (e.g. the British Virgin Islands, the Falkland Islands and the Chagos Archipelago). British ruling class attempts – whether its members have thought themselves to be British or hybrid-British – to preserve their Union throughout these islands have been linked to their determination to maintain a wider imperial role. The British ruling class, through the City, has insisted upon keeping sterling as the UK’s own international currency.  It has held on to various Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories, which provide it with tax havens beyond any effective UK government scrutiny. It maintains an overblown British military capacity, which includes nuclear weapons. It hangs on to its costly, top-heavy political, judicial and administrative system, with its royal court, aristocratic House of Lords, bemedalled military officers, bewigged judges, and aloof senior civil servants, all surrounded by pomp and ceremony. These people all declare their oath of loyalty to the Crown, not to Parliament, and certainly not to the people. This is because the Crown Powers provide the British ruling class with the constitutional means to bypass any formal democratic procedures, including Parliament, whenever this proves to be necessary for them.

ii)  The creation and expansion of hybrid British national identities amongst the different classes in these islands and the Empire

It has been shown that the specifically unionist form of the UK state allowed Irish-British and Scottish-British national identities to continue at elite level. These national identities were given a wider base of class support as the franchise was extended downwards to encompass different classes amongst the ‘lower orders’ in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. In the prolonged period from 1801-1921, when it at was at its fullest territorial extent, the UK had a single imperial and unionist parliament at Westminster. Yet, during this period, there was still a further development of the existing devolved Irish and Scottish administrations, and the first elements of a new Welsh administration were established.

Since the old Welsh ruling class had been absorbed into the wider English ruing class when Wales had been incorporated into England, there was no political recognition of the Welsh-British until the franchise was extended to the Welsh middle class in the nineteenth century. Many from the ‘lower orders’ still spoke the Welsh language, which, along with membership of a number of Welsh, non-established, Protestant denominations, contributed to the emergence of a new Welsh-British identity. An alternative Welsh-British identity was also able to develop amongst an increasingly English-speaking working class, particularly in South Wales. A more conscious ‘Anglo-Welsh’ identity emerged in reaction to these developments, particularly amongst the English-speaking, larger landowning and middle classes. This ‘Anglo-Welsh’ identity was also sustained by the Anglican Church of Wales, which remained established until 1920.

England was the dominant nation within the UK, with its own population exceeding the combined total of the other three constituent nations several times over. This meant that the emergence of an English-British identity was less clear-cut. For many English people, Britain/British meant England/English, and the two sets of terms were interchangeable.

Despite remaining and continuing national differences, it was clearly the British Empire that provided the real economic and ideological cement that held British, English and hybrid British identities together within the Union. This remained the case so long as the UK was a major independent imperial power. Class still divided those adopting these hybrid British identities. Different classes imbued these hybrid identities with different meanings, celebrating their own alternative histories. Nevertheless, the wider political potential of any opposition, emanating from ‘lower order’ Radicals, Lib-Labs, Labourists and later, British Socialists, was constantly undermined by these parties’ acceptance of Union and Empire and the existing constitutional order.

The promotion of hybrid British identities has remained an important feature of unionist and imperial politics. This could be seen in appeals targeted at ‘Paddy’, ‘Jock’ and ‘Taffy’ to enlist before the First World War. Imperial wars have also been used to gain wider support for UK state institutions. This was highlighted when Irish Home Rule leaders, such as John Redmond and Joe Devlin, acted as recruiting sergeants for the carnage of the First World War. Today the SNP supports Scottish regiments, which have long served British (and now US/British) imperial interests throughout the world.

iii)  The appearance of independent national political organisations within the UK

In Ireland, the defeat of the 1798 Rising, and the subsequent 1801 Act of Union, broke the United Irishmen, the key force behind the early revolutionary democratic challenge to the UK state. The United Irishmen had represented the first attempt to create an independent national political organisation in these islands. Daniel O’Connell led a later struggle for Catholic Emancipation. This was achieved in 1829.  However, whilst having its mass base in Ireland, this campaign was aimed at reform of the constitution throughout the UK, not just in Ireland. O’Connell worked in conjunction with the Whigs. He even considered the possibility of the Irish becoming ‘West Britons’.  O’Connell’s later attempt, through the Repeal Association, to remove Ireland from the parliamentary union, but still keep it under the Crown, failed in 1843. His politics remained subordinate to those of the Whigs. He was strongly opposed to any of the Chartists who showed more sympathy with those seeking to end the Union. This was because of the particular class challenge they represented.

During the mid-nineteenth century heyday of British ‘free trade imperialism’, political competition throughout these islands was largely conducted between sections of the British upper and middle classes under Tory/Conservative and Whig/Liberal banners. This was true whether they came from England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland. The particular national poles of those hybrid identities, found amongst the upper and middle class Irish-British, Scottish-British and Welsh-British, were largely reserved for private, social and cultural occasions. Both the existing and would-be members of the British ruling class were confident about their shared future, as they basked in an “Empire upon which the sun never sets”. This was why these hybrid British national identities did not take on any party political form at the time.

It took until the 1880’s for new independent national political organisations to appear in Ireland. The launching of the quasi-revolutionary Irish Land League (ILL) brought the mass of tenant farmers into active politics. However, one of the ILL’s key leaders, Charles Parnell, brought about his own ‘counter-revolution within the revolution’ with the backing of the Irish middle class and better-off farmers. In 1882, after agreeing to call off the rent strike and other forms of non-legal action, Parnell established the Irish National League (INL) as a constitutional nationalist party. The INL pressed for a tenant buyout of Ascendancy-owned land, backed Irish-owned industry, and campaigned for Irish Home Rule. However, an underground of committed Irish republicans still remained.

In Scotland, the Highland Land League (HLL) made the first attempt to break through the established two party system of the Conservatives and Liberals in 1885. The formation of the HLL had been inspired by the socio-economic gains of the ILL, and by the political advances made by the INL. The HLL put up independent Crofter candidates and won four seats. They gained support from workers and Radicals in the Central Belt. The HLL favoured Scottish and Irish Home Rule, with its most Radical leaders linking this to a vision of  ‘land for the people’.

Scottish workers were, in turn, inspired by the successful election of Crofter MPs. Scottish miners, in particular, extended the earlier, largely agrarian inspired notion of ‘land for the people’ to cover all land, including its mineral resources. This demand was to be promoted either by means of the taxation of mineral royalties (a Radical policy inspired by Henry George), or by land nationalisation (a Socialist policy advocated by the Social Democratic Federation). The miners, in their turn, led by Keir Hardie, were influential in forming the Scottish Labour Party in 1888, five years before the (intended all-UK) Independent Labour Party was launched in Bradford.

The rising middle classes of Ireland, Scotland and Wales (as well as in the ‘White’ British colonies) used their growing economic power to make increasing political claims for themselves. Key sections pressed for Home Rule within the UK (or British Empire) for their own nations. Their particular Home Rule reforms would provide them with ‘protected’ jobs in these nations, whilst still guaranteeing them access to the wider jobs and spoils of Union and Empire. The middle class supporters of Home Rule within the UK, and of White colonial self-government within the wider British Empire, hoped that their suggested political reforms would satisfy the ‘lower orders’.

However, they were constantly looking over their shoulders. They feared those workers and small tenant farmers, who might raise their own economic and social demands, and push for more advanced political change. They might create their own independent political organisations to achieve these ends, based on either a social republican, or later, a socialist republican perspective, which fundamentally challenged the UK state and British Empire.

iv)  The retreat of hybrid British identities in Ireland in the face of new challenges and their maintenance in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as long as British imperialism remained relatively strong

In Ireland, the possibility of an Irish-British national identity gaining more widespread acceptance was greatly reduced in the aftermath of the disastrous Great Famine (1845-9), especially amongst Catholic tenants.  However, Irish-British identity still commanded significant support from the ‘Anglo-Irish’ Ascendancy, and amongst the Protestant middle class, tenant farmers and artisans. This was particularly the case in industrial north-east Ulster, which played an important role in the British imperial economy. This link also helped to push the majority of working class Protestants into giving their eager support to the Union and Empire, encouraged by the Conservatives (and later the Liberal Unionists), the Orange Order, the (Anglican) Church of Ireland and Presbyterian street corner demagogues.

Amongst those largely Catholic Irish, the specifically Irish aspect of their national identities took on a greater significance.  Middle class Home Rulers, though, still retained some attachment to the wider British Empire, buttressed by the Catholic hierarchy’s support.  The United Irish League’s (successor to the split INL, after the Parnell/Kitty O’Shea scandal) opposition to the British imperial Boer War (1899-1902) (also matched by some British Liberals, and most ILP members and Socialists) was not upheld when it came to the First World War (1914-18).

However, a significant minority amongst the ‘lower orders’ rejected the imperial notion of a shared British national identity altogether, whether hyphenated or not. The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) (first founded in 1858 and reconstituted in 1867) had promoted the notion of an independent Irish republic, based on an Irish nation (initially formed by uniting Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters as the Irish-Irish, as opposed to Irish-British, in the context of an Ireland still within the Union).

When the IRB accepted the ‘New Departure’ in 1878, encouraged particularly by Michael Davitt, this led to the formation of the Irish Land League. The ensuing Land War provided the idea of an Irish republic with a wider political base of support. Republicans in Ireland differed amongst themselves over their visions of a future society. The most advanced amongst them sought popular democratic control over their nation’s natural resources, especially land, and sometimes over its principal industries and transport. In their thinking, this would lead to the formation of a social republic (e.g. Michael Davitt) or, later on, a socialist republic (e.g. James Connolly).

The strength of the British Empire continued to buttress Scottish-British and Welsh-British identities for a considerably longer period than a hybrid British identity did in most of Ireland. Like north-east Ulster, industrial Clydeside and South Wales played important parts in the British imperial economy. After a succession of economic, social, cultural and political reforms, made to accommodate the ‘lower orders’, the UK state gained the support of Liberals and Radicals, Lib-Labs, and later of Empire-accepting Labour Party members and Socialists. They all pressed for their desired economic, social and cultural reforms within the existing unionist and imperial order.

In Ireland, it took the shock of the First World War, with its exposure of British imperial weakness, to push small farmers, labourers and workers into concerted action to break from their previous majority support for Irish constitutional nationalism and to fight for an Irish Republic. The socialist republican, James Connolly, along with the Irish Citizen Army, a workers’ militia initially formed during the 1913 Dublin Lock-out, played key roles in initiating this Republican struggle, marked by the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin.

Following on from this example, John Maclean introduced the idea of the break-up of the Union and Empire to the Scottish working class. Previously adhering to the ‘British road to socialism’ of the British Socialist Party (BSP), Maclean first adopted James Connolly’s strategy in 1919. In that year he witnessed the resilience of the Irish Republican opposition (including the Limerick Soviet) fighting for political aims, and compared this with the relative weakness of the trade union opposition fighting for economic demands (the 40 hour week struggle of engineering workers) on Clydeside.

Having rejected the shortcomings of existing British socialist organisations, particularly the BSP, he formed the Tramp Trust Unlimited, and toured Scotland to promote his pamphlet, Ireland’s Tragedy – Scotland’s Disgrace.  Maclean’s endeavours, in this regard, eventually led to the foundation of the Scottish Workers Republican Party in 1922. They were partly curtailed by his early death in 1923. However, Maclean’s final years also coincided with the ending of the 1916-21 International Revolutionary Wave, marked by the crushing of the Kronstadt Soviet in the infant USSR.

This same period of political and economic setbacks witnessed the success of the British ruling class attempt to reassert its control over the working class upsurge, which followed the First World War and the Russian Revolution.  In 1919, the challenge of the 40 Hours Strike of engineers on Clydeside and the Laganside was faced down. Tanks and English troops were used in Glasgow, whilst Loyalists evicted militants and Catholic workers from the Belfast shipyards. In 1921, militant miners, whose leaders were originally bought off by the Sankey Commission (hinting at the possibility of the nationalisation of the coal mines), were left isolated by the other members of the Triple Alliance of miners’, railworkers’ and transport workers’ unions on Black Friday, after the Commission failed to deliver.

Meeting considerably more resistance in Ireland, the British ruling class was finally able to reassert its control over the situation following the War of Independence. This war had come about after the UK government’s refusal to recognise Sinn Fein’s overwhelming electoral victory in the 1918 General Election.  The Black and Tans were launched against the Irish population in 1920. British state backing was given to the Unionist pogroms in Belfast between 1920-22.

Eventually, a partitionist Anglo-Irish Treaty was imposed in 1922. This recognised a now separate Irish Free State under the Crown in 26 counties. Home Rule within the UK for Northern Ireland was provided for 6 of Ireland’s counties, where a new Stormont was constituted. The new Ulster Unionist Party ensured that it became, in effect, ‘a Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People’. A new Northern Ireland statelet was created for the Protestant majority who were to form a new hybrid national identity there. They became the Ulster-British (albeit at the cost of abandoning 3 Ulster counties), now that the old Irish-British leadership had lost its political ascendancy over the other 26 counties, and the Irish-Irish had become Irish.  The British state armed the pro-Treaty forces in the 26 counties in order to crush the Republican resistance in the Irish Civil War (1922-3), and to keep the Irish Free State under the Crown.

In Scotland, at this time, the growing Labour Party was taking on more significance than its pro-Home Rule affiliate, the Independent Labour Party, which had been founded earlier. The Labour Party took less interest in constitutional reform and concentrated on Westminster as the focus for its economic and social reforms, especially after the defeat of a Scottish Home Rule Bill during the first minority Labour government in 1924. The infant CPGB, which had a significant base in Scotland, took inspiration from another unionist state, the USSR. Here the CPSU leadership, drawn from a number of the Union’s republics, played an analogous integrating role in the USSR, to that of the British ruling class in the UK state. The CPSU was hostile to any meaningful exercise of national self-determination within its territorial boundaries. The early CPGB adopted a similar attitude to any move for national democracy in Scotland (and also in Wales).

Therefore, the first fractures in the British unionist and imperialist set-up, which had been highlighted during the 1916-21 International Revolutionary Wave, were prevented from opening up further.  The British ruling class was able to reimpose its control over these islands, and indeed throughout its Empire. The British Empire reached its maximum territorial extent as result of the imperialist carve-up and redivision, which occurred after the First World War.  The Nationalist parties, which did emerge in Northern Ireland (the rump Nationalist Party began to take its seats in Stormont in 1924), in Wales (Plaid Cymru in 1925), and in Scotland (the SNP in 1934), remained fairly marginal, apart from occasional short-lived spurts (e.g. Robert MacIntyre’s SNP victory in the Motherwell by-election in 1945) until the 1960’s.

v)  British ruling class attempts to buttress their power through reform of the union in the face of the imperial decline and the further retreat of hybrid British identities, especially amongst the working class

In their attempt to coopt other classes in support of their wider imperial aims, it can be seen that the British ruling class was forced to concede reforms of its Empire and Union, whenever it has faced strong enough national democratic challenges. In the case of Ireland, where direct political control was lost over 26 counties, after the War of Independence, the British ruling class first developed what would later be known as neo-colonial methods of control, exercised at a distance, through local parties that still accepted the wider British imperial hegemony. Within the UK (and even in those parts of the Empire where direct British colonial control still remained) reforms had been, or were later,  introduced that gave greater recognition to the national poles of the various hybrid British identities – Irish, Scottish and Welsh (and Canadian, Australian and New Zealander).

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, administrative devolutionary measures had been considered enough to achieve this within the UK itself (e.g. a Secretary of State for Scotland in 1885, a Welsh Department of the Board of Education in 1907). During the era of High Imperialism, the conservative unionist majority (Conservatives and Liberal Unionists) amongst the British ruling class could still confidently obstruct any specifically political Home Rule proposals advocated by liberal unionists or constitutional nationalists – Liberals, Radicals, Lib-Labs, Labourists, the INL and its successors (supported by some Socialists) – although they sometimes supported measures of administrative Home Rule.

However, Conservative unionist intransigent opposition to constitutional reform had proved impossible to maintain during the International Revolutionary Crisis from 1916-21 and the Irish Republican challenge to British rule. Therefore unwittingly, the earlier majority British ruling class hostility towards political Home Rule had contributed to the first phase of the break-up of the UK state, leading to the departure of the Irish Free State (albeit still with three British naval bases until 1938, politically under the Crown until 1948, and economically subordinate to the City until 1978, when the Irish punt was finally delinked from sterling).

As British imperialism went into further decline, in the aftermath of the Second World War, and particularly from the 1960′s, the underlying historical trend towards the political break-up of the British Empire and the UK state and  the erosion of ‘Britishness’ began to reassert itself.  In the UK, this occurred despite continued economic integration throughout these islands, with big business (British, American and European) taking over previous nationally based businesses, or driving them to the wall; and, as the network of shared transport, communication and media, which linked the constituent nations of the UK, drew ever closer.

This continued imperial decline has taken place over a protracted period. The British ruling class has conducted a concerted rearguard defence of both Empire and Union, especially when it faced particularly severe challenges, e.g. during the Second World War (1939-45). Nevertheless, particularly since the 1960’s, as the territorial extent (with the loss of most of its colonies) and the effective political reach of British imperialism have gone into rapid decline, greater numbers of workers and others in Scotland began to downgrade the British imperial part of their hybrid national identities and upgrade the specific Scottish national part. The first political indications of this were the SNP electoral breakthroughs. Winnie Ewing was elected to Westminster in the Hamilton by-election in 1967.

In Wales, during the 1950’s, this process revealed itself a little earlier, partly due to the continued political significance of the defence of the Welsh language, but it was then held back.  The UK state was able to promote ethnic (cultural) enmity along language lines to divide English and Welsh speakers. Those Welsh cultural nationalists, who prioritised the defence of the Welsh language over democratic political reform, gave unwitting support to the UK state in its divide-and-rule endeavours. Nevertheless it was the impact of Plaid Cymru that first highlighted the rise of new nationalist parties in the UK. Gwynfor Evans was elected to Westminster in the Carmarthen by-election in 1966.

It was only in the Northern Ireland, that a continued strong British identity – Ulster-British – was able to vigorously maintain itself, albeit almost entirely amongst the Protestant section of the population.  Significantly, this Ulster-Britishness has always been strongly associated with an exaggerated support for the Empire, Union, King (or Queen) and the established Protestant religion. Furthermore, it required a starkly repressive Orange statelet (financed by UK state subventions), with its gerrymandered Stormont, a draconian Special Powers Act, a Protestant unionist dominated RUC, and a variety of Special forces drawn from Orange and other Loyalist organisations, to maintain this.

However, amongst the Irish section [1] of the population living in ‘the Six Counties’, a more confident Irish nationalism began to assert itself in the late 1960’s. Local liberal and labour unionist attempts to woo those with an Irish identity in Northern Ireland were never that convincing, since their advocates quickly bowed to pressure from the conservative Ulster Unionists backed by various Loyalist organisations. These reactionary forces were determined to exclude Irish/Catholics (usually seen by them as being identical) from any political say in Stormont and most of Northern Ireland’s local councils. The unionist Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) did win some limited Catholic support (which hinted at a possibility of cementing an Irish-British, as opposed to an Irish national identity in the North), but not in the West Belfast heartland, where Irish workers voted for Republican Labour candidates. The NILP remained committed to unionism.

The initiators of the Civil Rights Movement sought the reform of Stormont, hoping to win working class Protestant support. However, a significant section of the Republican Movement (later to emerge as the Official wing), who had been influenced by the Communist Party of Ireland (itself partitioned until 1970), saw this as but the first stage to achieving a united Ireland (a strategy taken up again by today’s Sinn Fein). Many, though, on the most radical wing of the Civil Rights Movement, led by Peoples Democracy (PD), had been influenced by the direct action wing of American Civil Rights Movement and by the heady days of ‘68’. Some PD leaders saw their struggle as the first phase of wider international revolution.

As in the period between 1920-2, any opposition emanating from the Irish national communities was met by a Loyalist counter-offensive, backed in 1969 by the RUC and the B Specials. The RUC attacked the Bogside in Derry, a Loyalist pogrom (including out-of-uniform Specials) was launched in streets off the Lower Falls Road in West Belfast, whilst the isolated Short Strand in East Belfast also came under armed Loyalist assault in 1970.

In the late 1960’s, a determined UK state-backed, liberal unionist attempt to integrate the Catholic Irish economically, socially, culturally and politically into Northern Ireland, might have split any renewed specifically Irish national challenge.  If the Catholic Irish might still have found it hard to become Ulster-British, they could possibly have been won over to a wider Irish-British identity, in a similar manner to those considerable numbers of Catholic Irish who had moved to Scotland.

Such an attempt might have been possible if Stormont had been abolished immediately and a UK state programme of civil rights imposed upon Northern Ireland, in an analogous manner to the attempt by the US Federal Government to enforce civil rights in the South. However, the rise of national democratic movements elsewhere in the UK initially made the British ruling class nervous about the uncertainties opened up by constitutional reform, especially when they lacked reliable local moderate unionists to help maintain UK state control in Northern Ireland. Therefore, the UK state continued to give backing to the intransigent but reliably loyal Ulster Unionists. The British ruling class also faced the added worry that Northern Ireland lay strategically on the northern gateway to the Atlantic, in the context of the ongoing Cold War, and Ireland was not signed up to NATO (although still very pro-US and anti-Communist).

In Scotland, it had been the Labour Party, which provided those from a Catholic Irish background with a political conduit into local government and Westminster.  Many had been won over to support for the Union in Britain, and for a long time, they opposed any political Devolution (as Home Rule came to be called) for Scotland. Scotland still remained a more hostile environment for the Catholic Irish, whereas such feelings tended to be more locally restricted in England, e.g. Liverpool – at least until the emergence of ‘The Troubles’. It took some time before Scottish society began to open itself enough to permit the development of an alternative Scottish-British or Irish-Scottish identities for those from a Catholic Irish background. Before this many  considered themselves to be Irish-British. They provided the strongest working class support for the unionist British Labour Party in Scotland.  This was partly as an insurance against their fears that any future Scottish Parliament could perhaps become another ‘Stormont’.

Liberal and labour unionism remained weak in Northern Ireland though. The one-party Orange sectarian regime had both regular and irregular Unionist armed forces at its disposal, whilst also being able to call upon bigoted Loyalist forces when necessary. Ulster Unionist and Loyalist intransigence blocked the door to any meaningful reform of Stormont, which could integrate the Irish and lead to their acceptance of an Irish-British identity.

In the absence of any other reliable support for continued UK rule, the British government sent troops to Northern Ireland, in 1969, to uphold the position of the now strongly challenged Ulster Unionists and their Orange statelet. Both the Labour government, and the following Conservative government elected in 1970, recommended some liberal unionist concessions to split the Civil Rights Movement, and to win over moderate middle class Catholic support. But this was a bridge too far for most Ulster Unionists. They stuck by the old Loyalist certainties – “No surrender”, “Not an Inch”. And, as an indication that the Unionist regime enjoyed continued UK government support, it was permitted to introduce internment without trial. Arrests were confined solely to the Irish (Republican, Nationalist and Socialist), despite the murders, pogroms and other attacks made by Loyalists.

vi)  The initial failure of liberal unionist political devolution and the entrenchment of Westminster Direct Rule by 1979

The British ruling class has a long collective memory, and the re-emergence of national democratic challenges in the 1960’s reminded some of them of the old Home Rule policies, which had emerged amongst the liberal unionists in the Liberal Party (not to be confused with the conservative unionist, anti-Home Rule, Liberal Unionists), in the face of challenges from the Land Leagues, the Irish National League and its successors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Therefore, in response to the growing national democratic movements in the 1960’s, Harold Wilson’s Labour government set up the Crowther (later to be called the Kilbrandon) Commission in 1969.  Its work continued under Heath’s Conservative government and it reported in 1973. The Kilbrandon Commission recommended liberal unionist reform of the UK constitution. What had once been termed ‘Home Rule’  was now to be called ‘Devolution’.  Yet, the Conservative government and the Labour opposition saw no great urgency to implement these recommendations following the failure of the SNP or Plaid Cymru to make any further breakthroughs in the 1970 General Election.

However, the polarised situation in Northern Ireland, with the re-emergence of an armed Republican resistance, particularly after Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972; a more vigorous Nationalist party – the Social Democratic & Labour Party (SDLP); the rapid development of Loyalist gangs and paramilitaries; and further right Unionist parties – the right populist, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the semi-fascist, Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party (VPUP) – eventually forced the Conservative government to initiate constitutional reform (with Westminster cross party support) and pass the Northern Ireland Constitution Act in 1973. It brought about the abolition of Stormont. However, this was only meant to be a temporary measure, before the setting up of a new power-sharing devolved assembly in Northern Ireland. A somewhat reluctant Brian Faulkner, leader of the conservative unionist Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), along with the Oliver Napier of the liberal unionist Alliance, and Gerry Fitt of the constitutional nationalist SDLP, signed the Sunningdale Agreement, hoping to bring about this reform of Stormont.

Once again, most conservative and reactionary Unionists and Loyalists strongly opposed any liberal unionist constitutional reform. They formed the United Ulster Unionist Council (with the rejectionist, further right section of the UUP led by Harry West, the DUP led by Ian Paisley, and the VPUP led by William Craig). The Ulster Army Council (UVF and UDA), and the Loyalist paramilitary-led Ulster Workers Council were also formed. These three organisations coordinated a campaign of political opposition, paramilitary intimidation and strike action that brought down the Sunningdale Agreement. This agreement, initially drawn up under Heath’s Conservative government, had become the responsibility of Harold Wilson’s incoming Labour government in 1974, highlighting these parties’ shared unionist approach.

Following the collapse of Sunningdale, Northern Ireland, like Scotland and Wales, became subject to Westminster Direct Rule, albeit without a UK-wide party with direct representation at Westminster.  The Conservatives, Labour and Liberals provided Britain-wide parties in England, Scotland and Wales to address the interests of their various class backers within these constituent nations of the UK. (The UUP broke its last organisational links with the Conservatives in protest against Sunningdale.) Indeed, much of the running of the Northern Ireland statelet was handed over to the security services, with consecutive Northern Irish Secretaries of State acting like colonial governors.

In contrast, though, electoral gains by both the constitutional nationalist SNP and Plaid Cymru, in the two 1974 general elections, persuaded the new Labour government to continue pursuing liberal unionist constitutional reform in Scotland and Wales. In 1978, they introduced Devolution Bills for the two nations. Both the SNP and Plaid Cymru supported these bills. However, Labour was presiding over growing British economic and wider imperial decline. Sections of the British ruling class began to mount strong opposition to any prospects of further ‘dangerous’ liberal reform. They wanted to batten down the hatches of UK plc in the face of an increasingly turbulent international economic situation.

The repressive methods used to assert UK state control in Northern Ireland, in the attempt to break continuing Irish Republican resistance, appealed to some sections of the British ruling class. They thought that some of these techniques might have a wider application in the future.  They looked to the Conservative Party, pushing for a new right wing leadership under Margaret Thatcher. Labour’s incumbent Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Roy ‘Stone’ Mason, was also an advocate of UK state repression and a leading figure in Labour’s shift to the Right under Callaghan after his government kowtowed to the IMF.

Therefore, it was not surprising that there was a sizeable section of the Labour Party, particularly in Scotland and Wales, which opposed any liberal unionist constitutional reform. They were permitted to campaign openly against the Labour government’s Devolution Bills. They were assisted by the Left British unionists. In Scotland, Labour’s Tam Dayell, Robin Cook and Brian Wilson (who adopted a pro-Highland, anti-Central Belt position), and in Wales, Labour’s Neil Kinnock and Leo Abse (who adopted anti-Welsh speaking Wales positions), supported by some of the far Left (e.g. initially the ‘revolution not devolution’ SWP), tried to put a Leftist gloss on the conservative unionist counter-attack on liberal constitutional reform.

Those members of the ruling class opposing the Devolution Bills enjoyed a decided advantage. Under the Crown Powers, the UK constitution allows the ruling class’s agents in Westminster, the judiciary, the senior civil service and the military and security officers to bypass parliamentary scrutiny and to resort to some decidedly anti-democratic methods. These could be seen most clearly in Northern Ireland, where, in an attempt to defeat the Republican opposition and to cow the Irish section of the population, Diplock courts (with normal defenders’ rights suspended), internment without trial, shoot-to-kill and state backing for Loyalist death squads had been introduced.

Such draconian measures were not needed though in Scotland and Wales to face down the loose alliance of pro-devolution liberal unionists and constitutional nationalists. Instead, the anti-devolutionists got Labour MP, George Cunningham, to put an amendment requiring the support of 40% of the total electorate before Devolution would be enacted. They wheeled out former Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Douglas-Hume, to promise a better devolutionary deal in Scotland under a Tory government in the future. Senior civil servants were told to bury any government reports or papers which might aid the nationalists.  Some mock military exercises were targeted at putative armed nationalist forces, and agent provocateur activity was promoted on the Scottish nationalist fringe. Attempts were made to divide English and Welsh speakers in Wales.  ‘Non-political’ ‘Elizabrit’ was persuaded to make an anti-nationalist Christmas Speech in 1977. The two Devolution Bills were defeated in referenda held in 1979. This prompted a general election, which led to a Conservative government under Thatcher.

The liberal unionist political impulse had been brought to a juddering halt. Thatcher was a conservative ultra-unionist, who warmly admired the political methods of the rejectionist Ulster Unionists. She enjoyed close links with the imperially trained British security services. Her new government, elected in 1979, soon stepped up the combined employer, unionist and imperialist offensives.

vii)  A failed liberal unitary Britain attempt to reform politics in Northern Ireland

It might have been thought that, after the latest challenge from the Irish community and the failure of UUP one-party statelet, which had controlled Northern Ireland from 1922 until the abolition of Stormont  in 1972, unionists in Northern Ireland would have appreciated the closer political links to the rest of the UK brought about by Westminster Direct Rule. Back in 1801, their Irish unionist antecedents had overcome Orange Order objections and accepted the abolition of the Irish Parliament, although they had continued to give (sometimes clandestine) support to the Orange Order, as an insurance policy against Irish national ‘lower order’ challenges. Furthermore, in Northern Ireland, even after the abolition of Stormont, as in Ireland after the Act of Union, devolved administrative institutions still remained in place; so Ulster-British identities could still have been preserved, under continued Direct Rule, just as Scottish-British and Welsh-British identities had received continued institutional support.

In an attempt to make political capital out of such possibilities, the Campaign for Equal Citizenship was launched in the 1980′s with the involvement the British and Irish Communist Organisation and the prominent dissident Ulster unionists, Robert McCartney and Clifford Smyth. Campaigns were also launched within both the British Labour and Conservative parties, to get these two ‘mainland’ parties to organise directly in Northern Ireland, so that British ‘national’ politics could be conducted solely through Westminster. After making some initial headway, these campaigns to encourage greater British political integration fell away.  The majority of traditional Ulster Unionists – whether UUP or DUP – were still wanting to maintain Protestant supremacy and not confuse matters by recognising Irish Catholic rights throughout the UK.

The new Westminster Direct Rule arrangements in Northern Ireland hardly provided a successful liberal, or even a conservative precedent for any would-be British nationalists making the first tentative moves towards a more unitary British state. Successive British governments ensured that effective control in the province was given over to the British armed forces and security services. Their powers to intervene even included the right to approve new building projects (this was to ensure the unimpeded movement of troops in Irish peopled areas). Any economic and social concessions were only made in an attempt to placate workers and others who were often beyond effective state control throughout ‘The Troubles’. Ironically, the one thing which united the mainstream Unionist and Nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, from the late 1980’s, was an insistence on the return of Stormont, even if they supported this for diametrically opposed reasons.

viii)  The Irish Hunger Strike (1981) and the Miners Strike (1984-5) – a comparison between their long-term political impacts

The 1970’s had initially seen a liberal state response to an increasing working class challenge, as well as to the rise of new national democratic movements. The successful 1974 Miners’ Strike, which had brought down the Conservative government, led to a period of debate amongst the ruling class about how the working class challenge could best be contained. The incoming Labour government initiated the Bullock Report published in 1977. This adopted a liberal approach to industrial relations and recommended ‘worker participation’ in the running of industry. In reality, these ‘workers’ would more likely have been trade union officials, especially at the higher levels of industrial management. Most of the Left opposed worker participation at the time, because it was understood to represent an opening to corporatism, under the auspices of the state, the employers and the trade union bureaucracy. Workers’ control of, not participation in, the management of industry was the answer for many on the Left.

Furthermore, just as the Labour government bowed to right wing pressure over liberal reform of Northern Ireland, so it ignored Bullock’s liberal ‘worker participation’ recommendations. Instead, under pressure from the IMF, the CBI, and an increasingly right wing Conservative Party, Callaghan’s Labour government tried to roll back workers’ pay demands in a period of rampant inflation. Under the Social Contract from 1974, and the Concordat, following the 1978-9 ‘Winter of Discontent’, Labour looked for help from the TUC and trade union bureaucracy to discipline any shop steward and rank and file worker initiated independent (unofficial) action.

When the Labour government collapsed in 1979, after its Scottish and Welsh Devolution referenda debacles, the Conservatives were returned. Thatcher soon initiated a relentless campaign to break independent trade union power. Defeats of selected groups, such as the steel workers in 1980, and the Warrington print workers in 1983, paved the way for comprehensive anti-trade union laws. ‘Anti-trade union’ is a bit of a misnomer here, since the effect of these laws has been very different upon the trade union bureaucracy compared to the rank and file. The former has greatly increased its privileges at the expense of, and its power over, the latter. This bureaucracy has jealously protected its position by clamping down on any attempts to organise effective industrial action, which might jeopardise its position.

The Conservatives did impose a ban to prevent GCHQ workers from remaining members of their union in 1984. However, they also provided state funding for official trade union courses to encourage employee ‘responsibility’. They worked closely with right wing trade union leaders, such as those in the EEPTU, who signed deals that signed their members up to private health schemes. The Conservatives’ real victory over the whole Trade Union Movement though came as result of the defeat of the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike. This was a titanic battle, and its leader, Arthur Scargill, attempted to thwart the draconian anti-trade union laws and state backing for scab unions – the UDM and EEPTU. However, he also thought that victory would come through winning the official support of the TUC and the Labour Party, rather than the independent organisation of those many trade unionists and supporters who might have defied their obstructive tactics.

Thatcher made it very clear that she considered the miners to be “the enemy within”, and that the miners’ industrial action threatened the UK state. Therefore, the worried leaderships of the very constitutional Labour Party and TUC did what they could to marginalise the miners. The Conservative government, in the meantime, made concessions to Scottish teachers, dockers and Militant Labour-led Liverpool Council to avoid fighting on too many fronts, knowing that, once the miners were defeated, they could pick off these groups later.

It had been but eight years between the British ruling class’s tentative support for the liberal industrial relations reforms suggested by Bullock to their total support for anti-trade union laws and state repression of the miners. So, how did their initial support for liberal unionist constitutional reform of the UK fare over much the same period? The British ruling class’s strongest commitment to such liberal reform was shown between 1973 (the Northern Ireland Constitution Act and the Sunningdale Agreement) and 1978 (the Scottish and Welsh Bills to introduce Devolution). However, it has already been shown that ruling class support for liberal constitutional measures was dead in the water by 1979.  The conservative unionists had apparently triumphed earlier on the political front than they were later to on the industrial front.

However, in Northern Ireland, events then took a different course, leading to another British ruling class response. The Republican Movement, having suffered considerable setbacks, under both the Labour and Conservative governments’ criminalisation offensive, was able to win back wide support from the Irish community during the 1981 Hunger Strikes. This culminated in the election of IRA prisoner, Bobby Sands, to Westminster. Furthermore, the ensuing death of Sands and nine other hunger strikers did not represent the same massive defeat for the Republican Movement, as did the defeat of the miners, four years later, for the wider British Trade Union Movement. After the Hunger Strikes, the Republican Movement was able to make significant political gains largely because, unlike the British Labour Party, it did not depend on the support of those who accepted the political limitations of the existing UK constitutional order. Between 1984-5, a minority amongst the South Yorkshire miners came to understand that the British state’s police occupation of their villages bore a striking resemblance to the British state’s army occupation of the Irish peopled villages in South Armagh. In a sense, they were coming to a similar conclusion to that of John Maclean 66 years earlier in 1919, when he realised that open political struggles against the state could sustain themselves more effectively than indirect economic struggles.

And in Ireland, by the 1990′s, as in the 1920′s, the British ruling class was forced to go beyond its initial preferred policy of isolation and repression used to break the power of any major opposition it faced. It had to make some real concessions to the Irish Republicans. This outcome contrasted with the more thorough defeat of organised labour. In 1921, the British ruling class had been able to build upon its initial success, in getting the Triple Alliance leaders to climb-down on Black Friday, to go on to crush the General Strike in 1926; just as they built on their defeat of the Steelworkers’ Strike in 1980 to go on to break the National Union of Miners between 1984-5. However, when it came to the challenge represented by the Irish Republicans, in the two periods, the British ruling class had to make greater concessions than their original 1920 Government of Ireland Act, when they came up with the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty; just as they eventually had to move beyond the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement to accepting the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, despite initially resorting to armed repression in both cases.

ix)  The British ruling class’s ‘New Unionist’ strategy to cover the whole of these islands starts and stalls under the Conservatives

Once Thatcher had taken office in 1979, she had originally confidently dismissed the constitutional nationalist SDLP in Northern Ireland and later, the 1984 New Ireland Forum proposals of Garret Fitzgerald’s centre right Fine Gael government in Ireland. These had offered the British government either a confederal or a joint authority solution for Northern Ireland. Thatcher, though, still remained closely allied to the rejectionist UUP.

However, continued Irish Republican resistance, including the 1984 Brighton Bombing, and Sinn Fein successes in local council and Westminster elections, forced the British ruling class into a rethink. As a result, ‘the lady who was not for turning’ made a spectacular U-turn in 1985. She signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which involved precisely those Irish parties that Thatcher had so vehemently sidelined the previous year. It also meant distancing the Conservative government from the rejectionist Ulster Unionists.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement (the very name of which showed the low priority Thatcher’s Conservatives gave to the notion of administering three and a bit nations within the UK) revived the idea of a power-sharing Northern Ireland assembly. The Ulster-British would get the backing of the UK government, and the Irish government would provide some guarantees of representation to Irish living in ‘the Six Counties’, through the opening up of an office in Maryfield in Belfast. The Anglo-Irish Agreement represented the first hesitant step towards a British ruling class ‘New Unionist’ strategy of constitutional reform to buttress its position throughout these islands.

In protest, all the rejectionist UUP and DUP MPs resigned their seats at Westminster. Their party leaders, Jim Molyneux and Ian Paisley, organised massive ‘Ulster says No’ rallies against the Anglo-Irish Agreement. They hoped to repeat the success of those conservative and reactionary unionists, when they had defeated the Sunningdale Agreement in 1974. The Ulster Clubs brought together similar forces to the United Ulster Unionist Council, whilst Ulster Resistance was set up as a paramilitary force like the Ulster Army Council, but this time openly uniting Paisley’s DUP with the Loyalist UVF and UDA. However, with unemployment widespread, even amongst the unionist population, there was no equivalent of the Ulster Workers Council this time.

The British military forces did not give the Loyalist paramilitaries the same free rein to intimidate, which they had enjoyed in 1974.  The security forces also continued to target the Republican Movement, resorting to the full range of repressive measures that they had been using against them for years. The Conservative government wanted to create the space for more moderate Unionist and Nationalist political forces to emerge. As it happened, the moderate constitutional nationalist SDLP gained one seat, Armagh and Newry, from the UUP, in 1986, in the string of by-elections prompted by the UUP, DUP and other Unionist resignations. This was not exactly the outcome sought by the rejectionists. Thatcher suddenly became a hate figure amongst Ulster Unionists.

In Scotland, this was the final straw for the remaining Orange Order and UUP-supporting members in the Conservative and Unionist Party (there had been an organisational break between the C&UP and the UUP in 1974).  The Federation of Conservative Students had tried to make links with UUP rejectionists, and some Scottish members hoped to re-establish the party’s traditional links to the Orange Order in Glasgow, to shore up sliding Conservative electoral support. The Orange Order, though, transferred its support to the new Scottish Unionist Party. This remained a strongly pro-Ulster unionist organisation and continued to reject Scottish Devolution, even after the Conservatives came to accept it following the 1997 Devolution referenda results.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement only improved the electoral position of the constitutional nationalist SDLP and the liberal unionist Alliance for a short time. The rejectionist Ulster Unionists remained entrenched, with support moving from the UUP to the even more hardline DUP. However, despite the stepped up repression of the Republican Movement, and some initial setbacks for Sinn Fein, both in local council elections and at Westminster, the IRA was able to continue its armed resistance, and Sinn Fein retained considerable support amongst the Irish section of the population.

Therefore, once Thatcher had been forced to stand down, in November 1990, in the aftermath of the Conservatives’ poll tax defeat, John Major’s incoming Conservative government dramatically extended the scope of ‘New Unionism’.  A further consideration in the Conservatives’ tentative moves towards ‘New Unionism’ was the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1989. With the threat from the USSR rapidly receding, the British ruling class could reassess its strategic reasons for upholding Ulster Unionist ascendancy (however awkward that proved to be due to their inflexibility) in Northern Ireland. Already, in November 1990, Peter Brooke, the Conservative Northern Ireland Secretary, issued a statement that “Britain has no selfish strategic or economic interest” in Northern Ireland. Much has been made of the ambiguity of that word “selfish”. However, more revealingly, is what the statement misses out – not so much the “strategic or economic”, but the UK state’s political interest in holding on to Northern Ireland.

Continued UK control of Northern Ireland provides the British ruling class with some political purchase over 26 counties Irish governments. More importantly, it underpins the British ruling class need to maintain the full extent of its wider UK state, if it is to continue to uphold an imperial role in the world. A state that can not hold together its own territory is hardly likely to be seen as an imperial contender by others. The threat from the USSR had been one of the main concerns in the late 1960’s and the 1970’s, when both Labour and Conservative governments decided to buttress the Ulster Unionist regime in Northern Ireland. However, with that threat now removed, after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the maintenance of the UK state’s full territorial extent, in the face of the threat posed by national democratic movements, including those now reviving in Scotland and Wales, moved once more to the centre of British ruling class attentions.

Under the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, signed by John Major, the UK Prime Minister, and Albert Reynolds, the Irish Fianna Fail Taoiseach, the Republican Movement was invited to help set up and participate in a new power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly, on the condition of their verified disarmament. The Loyalists were also invited. The Declaration was met by opposition from both major Ulster unionist parties, big sections of the Loyalists, and from some in the Conservative Party. With Major’s authority slipping daily, he was unable to deliver. The IRA leadership still faced internal pressure, as well as the possibility of dissident breakaways. With little apparent progress, the IRA called off its ceasefire and undertook the Canary Wharf Bombing in 1996.

The Conservatives had tried to bottle-up constitutional reform within Northern Ireland. In Scotland and Wales they still retained a traditional conservative unionist approach to such reform by completely opposing political Devolution. However, the combination of the devastating impact of Conservative de-industrialisation policy in Scotland, and their decision to test out the poll tax here first, put the Scottish Conservative vote into tailspin, especially after 1992. The Thatcherite loyalist, Michael Forsyth, now Scottish Secretary, took a leaf from the Welsh Conservatives, hoping that a little cultural nationalism could head off the growing demand for political reform. The Stone of Destiny, removed from Scone Palace by Edward I and installed in Westminster Abbey in 1296, was returned to Scotland on the seventh centennial anniversary of its removal. This theatrical gesture impressed very few people.  Conservative support in Scotland continued to fall. Voices demanding more democracy for Scotland grew.

There was not the same sense of impending electoral collapse in Wales, but support for the Conservatives, which had held up better outside the traditional (but now rapidly declining) industrial areas, than in Scotland, began to fall-off. Furthermore, Welsh Conservative attempts to make inroads into Welsh-speaking Wales were being reversed, due to the devastating impact of their economic policies in rural central and northern Wales. Conservative support became more confined to the English speaking Welsh Border, and their extensions along the North coast and South coast (Vale of Glamorgan and south Pembrokeshire) and the better-off Cardiff commuter belt.

x)  Welsh workers slowly learn the need to confront conservative unionist divide-and-rule tactics

Those defining themselves as Welsh-British, whether in North or South Wales, had been the slowest (apart from the Ulster-British) to downgrade or abandon support for the British pole of their hybrid national identities. The newfound support for Devolution, which emerged in Scotland, particularly after the Conservatives tested out their hated poll tax here in 1989, was slower to show itself in Wales. To split English and Welsh speakers, the Conservatives continued to promote a divide-and-rule agenda after its possibilities had been shown during the 1979 Welsh Devolution referendum.

Due to the continued strength of the Welsh Language Movement, the Conservatives had begun to move away from their traditional Anglo-Welsh approach, hoping to benefit from playing up a linguistic divide. They started to make concessions to Welsh cultural nationalism. The Conservative gain of the Anglesey/Ynys Mon parliamentary seat in North Wales by a Welsh language learner, in 1979, had signalled the tentative beginnings of this process of rapprochement. After Gywnfor Evans’ hunger strike in 1980, the Welsh language, Sianel Pedwar/Channel Four TV station had been set up; and after persistent campaigning by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg/Welsh Language Society, the Welsh Language Act was enacted in 1993, both under Conservative governments. This rapprochement, signaling a partial abandonment of the traditional Conservative Anglo-Welsh approach, was perhaps most publicly consummated in the marriage of Conservative leader, William Hague, to Welsh speaking Ffion Jenkins in 1997.

The Conservatives’ growing support for measures of cultural Devolution was not matched, however, by any commitment to promoting the socio-economic conditions under which either English or Welsh speaking workers or small farmers could thrive. In the 1980’s, it took the mutual recognition of shared economic interests, by the largely English-speaking South Wales miners (on strike from 1984-5) and by the Welsh-speaking North Wales slate quarriers (on strike in Blaenau Ffestiniog from 1985-6), in the face of relentless Conservative attacks, to begin the process by which Welsh workers’ North/South, ‘Gogs’/'Taffs’ antipathies, and their majority previously shared hostility to the exercise of Welsh national self-determination, encouraged by many Welsh Labour leaders, began to be overcome. Support for Welsh Devolution, which was very much a minority interest in 1979, began to rise in trade union and Labour circles.

xi)  New Labour fleshes out ‘New Unionism’ with its ‘Devolution-all-round’ proposals

Once the Conservatives had been exposed as increasingly corrupt and divided, following four terms in office, Blair managed, by 1997, to persuade the majority of the British ruling class that New Labour would be the best bet for maintaining their influence. New Labour would continue and extend neo-liberal economic policies, but these would need to be repackaged (sometimes a mere relabelling was enough – from Private Finance Initiative/PFI to Public Private Partnership/PPP). The trade union leaderships had long been tamed, so could be safely brought on board in a distinctly subordinate role. After the defeat of the miners, Labour had abandoned even the token actions they had mounted against the Tories under the rubric of ‘New Realism’. Now New Labour, taking a leaf from Fianna Fail governments in Ireland, encouraged ‘Social Partnership’ deals between the government, employers and trade union leaders. Social partnerships largely reduced trade union leaders to acting as a free personnel management service for the bosses.

Backed by both the majority of the ruling class and workers, New Labour gained a massive electoral victory in May 1997. They showed more commitment to constitutional reform than the conservatives had. The House of Lords was reformed in order to create a major source of patronage for the New Labour government.  Blair’s government had inherited the Conservatives’ ‘New Unionist’ combined ‘Peace Process’ and constitutional reform strategy for Northern Ireland. However, New Labour fleshed out this ‘New Unionism’ to cover the whole of the UK. The central constitutional reform, though, was ‘Devolution-all-round’, coupled to the ongoing ‘Peace Process’. Together, these were designed to create the optimum political conditions throughout these islands to maximise corporate profits. The ICTU with its Northern Ireland Committee, the STUC and WTUC, all wedded to social partnership, endorsed these new political partnership proposals, with their equivalent imbalance of power between those participating.

Northern Ireland remained at the heart of New Labour’s concerns, precisely because the national democratic challenge had been most intractable there. Blair was able to take advantage of the refusal of the UUP to enter into direct negotiations with Sinn Fein. He privately persuaded the previously rejectionist David Trimble, leader of the UUP, that under New Labour’s proposals, Ulster Unionists had the fullest UK government backing for maintenance of the Union, and that Blair would stand firm against any Republican Movement departure from the ‘New Unionist’ script he had set out for them under the ongoing ‘Peace Process’. Heavily prompted by Blair, but still with considerable hesitation, Trimble brought the majority of the UUP on board. He remained concerned though that he might end up in a similar position to Brian Faulkner, the ditched pro-Sunningdale UUP leader of 1974. Therefore, against the DUP, Trimble used the argument that the ‘inclusive’ intentions, of what came to be known as the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, could better be thwarted from inside rather than outside New Labour’s proposed institutions, as Paisley was arguing.

With the Republican Movement, Blair emphasised that there was constitutional provision should a majority in Northern Ireland ever express its desire to join the Irish Republic. He, no doubt, remained confident that the original 1921 Partition boundaries, drawn up to prevent such an eventuality, would still do their job. Furthermore, by tying the official acceptance of Republican participation in the running of Northern Ireland, to the ending of the 26 counties Irish state claim, under Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution, Blair was also ensuring that future Irish governments would continue to confine their Northern Irish policy to what was acceptable to the UK state.

Scotland played a pivotal part in New Labour’s extension of ‘New Unionism’. Support for constitutional reform was strongest here, and Labour was the dominant party, so it could hope to control any changes. ‘Sectarian’ – in reality ethnic/cultural – divisions were much less marked compared to Northern Ireland. Whatever their national/religious identity or party politics, the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland consider themselves to be Scottish (whether hyphenated with British or not), which was not the case in Northern Ireland, where there remains a division between those considering themselves to be Ulster-British or Irish. The Scottish Unionist Party, which had tried to build on those ‘sectarian’ divisions that still exist, has had little wider influence. Even the Orange Order eventually transferred its support to the British Labour Party in Scotland, seeing it as the largest and most effective upholder of the Union.

After the bitter disappointment of the earlier 1992 election, Scottish Labour leader, Donald Dewar, had set about heading off any prospects of radical constitutional reform. He insisted that the radically inclined Scottish Constitutional Convention, set up in 1989, which had produced the Claim of Right, should fall in behind British Labour’s more moderate liberal Scottish Devolution proposals. In particular, he rejected any notion of a multi-option referendum, allowing for a vote for independence, which the SNP wanted.

In Wales, Plaid Cymru was more than happy to fall in behind Labour in supporting Welsh Devolution. Plaid Cymru remained relatively weak in the populous traditional industrial South, where Labour dominated. There still remained considerable internal conservative unionist opposition to Devolution within the Welsh Labour Party. These people went on to front the ‘No’ campaign, which also included the Conservative Party. New Labour was taking a chance in Wales, but Blair wanted to give the new UK constitution some appearance of overall coherence. This meant giving political recognition to the nations of Scotland and Wales, and to the unique position of Northern Ireland [2], in an attempt to take the sting out of the existing national democratic challenges. The extent of the powers to be devolved from Westminster, to each of the three other constituent parts of the UK, reflected the level of support in each area – a type of asymmetrical devolution originally pioneered in post-Franco Spain, which had also been confronted by significant national democratic challenges in Euskadi and Catalunya.

Under New Labour’s ‘Devolution-all-round’ proposals, three separate referenda were organised consecutively in Scotland (September 11th, 1997), Wales (September 18th, 1997) and Northern Ireland (May 22nd, 1998). The order in which they were conducted was a reflection of the different degrees of difficulty likely to be confronted in winning a majority. It was hoped that any positive earlier vote would influence each later referendum result in turn. Under New Labour’s referenda, held between October 1997 and May 1998, 74.3% voted ‘Yes’ in Scotland (with 63.5% voting ‘Yes’ to an additional tax raising option), a very narrow 50.3% voted ‘Yes’ in Wales, and a large 71% voted ‘Yes’ in Northern Ireland (where government propaganda had skillfully made it into a vote for or against ‘Peace’). However, plans to devolve some powers to regional assemblies in England were abandoned due to lack of interest.

xii)  The contrasting political nature of the effects of ‘New Unionism’ in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

The ‘Peace Process’ and ‘Devolution-all-round’ rounded out the British ruling class ‘New Unionist’ strategy to cover all of these islands.  This strategy has been understood as representing a liberal response to national democratic challenges, but it is not that clear cut. In Northern Ireland, the burning desire for peace, amongst both the Irish and Ulster-British populations, has obscured a significant political feature of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement (1998), with its further ‘tweekings’ under the St. Andrews Agreement (2006) and the Hillsborough Agreement (2010).

Under the liberal guise of bringing about peace (for now), these agreements are designed to manage a ‘sectarian’ (in reality, national) divide, rather than to overcome it.  The new constitution for Stormont entrenches the position of Unionists and Nationalists when it comes to crucial votes. These votes require that at least 60% of Members of the Assembly (MAs) agree with the proposal, and that this overall vote must include at least 40% from each of the two groups of constitutionally designated  MAs – Unionist and Nationalist.  Yet Northern Ireland includes people with other politics – e.g. Socialist Republicans (who do not necessarily consider themselves Irish nationalists), Greens and Feminists. There are also sections of the population who do not necessarily completely or partially identify themselves as Ulster-British or Irish.

The British government’s promotion of such divide-and-rule measures represents a long-standing conservative unionist (and wider British imperialist) strategy for maintaining ruling class control. The main difference, between pre-1972 and post-1998 Stormont, is that now the UK state has to exert its influence by brokering between the political representatives of two ‘communities’, rather than depending upon only the Unionists, as in the past. Therefore, it is only liberal in the sense of representing a concession made towards the opposition, rather than an attempt to address the real problem, which is the maintenance of the ethnic/’sectarian’ divide, albeit on a different political basis. And, if necessary, the UK state can still override the reformed Stormont, by resorting to the anti-democratic Crown Powers.

After the Northern Ireland Assembly elections of 1998 and 2003, the UUP formed a loose governing coalition with the SDLP, with the shrinking hope of marginalising the DUP and Sinn Fein respectively. By 2007, the former revolutionary nationalist, but now constitutional nationalist, Sinn Fein was able to form a new Stormont governing coalition with Paisley’s previously famously rejectionist, right populist DUP (which had recently won over much of the remaining rejectionist support of the UUP). The DUP took up office, finally convinced that Sinn Fein was prepared to rein in the aspirations of its own base, and support the Police Service in Northern Ireland (PSNI) (as the RUC was now rebranded) when required. The DUP’s leading members, who now extended well beyond Paisley’s original fundamentalist Protestant base, also wanted to cash in on the ‘fruits of office’. The latest 2010 Hillsborough Agreement showed though that the DUP remains committed to watering down even the original Good Friday Agreement.

The Northern Ireland settlement ensures that all Stormont government partners, whether British unionist – like the DUP, UUP and Alliance, or Irish nationalist – like Sinn Fein and SDLP, work together to run Northern Ireland as part of the UK. Whenever differences arise between Unionists and Nationalists, they turn to the UK government to arbitrate. However, the prospect for any long term ‘Peace Dividend’ has faded, especially in the context of economic crisis and public sector cuts.  These particularly affect the most marginalised communities. This has contributed to the return of the use of physical force both by Loyalists and dissident Republicans.

Indeed, the current furore in Scotland, over Rangers and Celtic FC supporters’ clashes, represents a knock-on effect, ‘over the water’, of the still unresolved clash of British and Irish national claims in the post-Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland. Successive Scottish governments (Labour/Lib-Dem and SNP) have attempted to portray and address the Rangers/Celtic or ‘Old Firm’ ‘troubles’, and the continued threats to Celtic’s Northern Irish-born Catholic manager, Neil Lennon, as an issue about Scottish Protestant/Catholic ‘tribal’ antipathies. However, the problem has relatively little to do with any remaining Protestant antipathy to ‘papists’, or any still lingering Catholic antipathy to ‘prods’.

Catholics, who have come to accept an Irish-British identity, or now accept a Scottish-British identity within the UK, have been able to make marked economic and social progress in Scotland for some decades now.  Those old Scottish ‘Protestants first’ employers have largely gone with the closure of their traditional industries. State and local government (a major source of employment in Scotland) do not discriminate on ethno-religious grounds when recruiting workers. Of course, anti-Catholic attitudes still remain, both in Scottish establishment circles and in wider society. However, strong religious identification has weakened throughout Scottish society, and mixed marriages and other mixed relationships are common.  Successive Scottish devolved governments have distanced themselves from ‘sectarian’ behaviour, and have officially sponsored an anti-’sectarian’ programme of education and legal reform. The Church of Scotland and Conservative Party have ditched their Orange wings, and made positive overtures to Catholics. The SNP has made real efforts to overcome its earlier perceived Protestant/Presbyterian identity. It has tried to woo Catholic hierarchy support to encourage more of their church members to consider themselves as Catholic Scottish, in preference to Irish-Scottish (or Irish-British – the old Labour legacy).

The Labour Party in Scotland has been the major avenue for Catholic political advance in Scotland, particularly in the West. Such avenues were largely blocked to Catholics in Ulster Unionist-dominated Northern Ireland. The Catholic hierarchy in Scotland has also managed to carve out an influential niche for itself. It has publicly pushed for laws that would impose anti-abortion and anti-gay measures upon non-Catholics (which more secular-minded Catholic Labour supporters have resisted and, which some traditionally anti-Catholic Protestant fundamentalists have supported).

In the process, the Catholic hierarchy has encouraged its co-religionists to become either Irish-British or, more recently, Scottish-British subjects, who accept the legitimacy of the UK state.  The hierarchy has also encouraged Catholics in Scotland to reject any strong political (as opposed to sentimental) identification with Irish nationalism, particularly Republicanism. It is conceivable, in the future, that the Scottish hierarchy could encourage Catholics to become Scottish, just as the Irish hierarchy belatedly accepted the move from an earlier Irish-British to an Irish identity, during the War of Independence, both to maintain its own power and to rein in any more radical politics.

However, in attempting to achieve its reactionary social agenda, and also to maintain its controlling position over separate educational provision, the Catholic hierarchy has also helped the upholders of the UK state to disguise the real nature of the divide between supporters of British unionism and Irish nationalism, particularly in the Central Belt of Scotland. The hierarchy characterises this divide, not as being due to the political mobilisation of ethnic/cultural identities, but as being the result of an ingrained anti-Catholicism endemic to Scotland. In its special pleading it, it is noticeable that the hierarchy has offered no support to Scottish gays (indeed the opposite), who face much more serious discrimination, nor much concern about the oppression of women.

Such a stance is also an obstacle to the secular approach needed to move beyond the continued existence of separate schooling on a religious basis. By maintaining that deep-seated anti-Catholicism in Scotland is irreformable, the hierarchy is able to justify the continued need for separate Catholic provision on defensive grounds. The fact that state ‘non-denominational’ schools remain linked to Protestantism is all grist to the mill, both for the Catholic hierarchy and for Protestant supremacists. Socialists have to fight for genuinely secular schools.

However, the main wider social force, which has contributed to the current conflicts is not essentially based on religion, but has to do with national identity. Scotland’s remaining strong family links with Ireland and Northern Ireland, ensure that, what is portrayed as a clash between Rangers and Celtic football fans, or between Protestants and Catholics, is really a clash between Ulster- (and Scottish-) British Unionists and Loyalists on the one hand; and Irish, Irish-British, and increasingly Irish-Scottish Nationalists and Republicans on the other. This division will not be overcome, on the basis of the distorted analysis and misguided policies put forward by the unionist Labour Party, the constitutional nationalist SNP, or the Catholic hierarchy; nor without ending the constitutionally entrenched ‘sectarian’/national divide in Northern Ireland, which allows such enmities to fester.  As in Northern Ireland, these tensions could yet worsen, in the context of the economic crisis and the massive public sector cuts. These particularly hit the most marginalised communities in Scotland’s Central Belt.

The post-1998 Scottish Devolution settlement is, though, a more genuine liberal unionist measure, than the reformed Stormont, in that it does not constitutionally underwrite ethnic difference – every MSP’s vote in Holyrood is held to be equal; there is no ‘ethnic’ count.

Although Scottish Labour assumed it would remain in full control of Holyrood (and found no real challenge to this from their Lib-Dem Coalition partners in the first two coalition governments), by 2007 they were replaced by an SNP minority government. This greatly upset a Scottish Labour Party used to all the perks of office, and to the extensive patronage it had dispensed at national and local level.

However, the Devolution set-up has also been designed to tame the Nationalist parties, and to get them used to participating in the running of the UK state’s devolved machinery of government. The SNP, like the even more timidly constitutional nationalist, Plaid Cymru in Wales, and now the former revolutionary nationalist, Sinn Fein, has warmed to this role, and become decidedly ‘Independence Lite’ in the process.

It is probably in Wales that Devolution has shown its most liberal face. For, unlike Northern Ireland, where ethnic divisions have become more entrenched through their constitutional recognition, the political trajectory in Wales has been largely away from ethnic/cultural division. The cultural divide, earlier promoted between English speaking and Welsh speaking Wales, could still be seen in the results of the 1997 Welsh referendum, where the strongest support was shown in the Welsh-speaking areas and where opposition was strongest in the English-speaking, middle class areas.

Consecutive Labour/Lib-Dem and Labour administrations initially ran the new Welsh Assembly, which had been narrowly approved in the 1997 referendum. As in Scotland, the main concern of Labour was to assert effective British unionist control over the process of change and to limit its scope. In Wales, Blair took advantage of the sex scandal involving Welsh Labour’s initial strongly pro-devolution First Minister, Ron Davies, to impose a reliable New Labour loyalist, Alan Michael, in 1999. Davies had been an advocate of further devolutionary measures; Michael a supporter of imposing Westminster control.

However, with Labour not enjoying an Assembly majority, the Welsh Assembly opposition was able to remove Michael from the First Minister’s post in 2000. In the consequent election for First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, seen to be, like Davies, a supporter of further devolutionary reform, was elected. After the 2007 Welsh Assembly election, Welsh Labour’s Morgan even entered into a One Wales coalition with Plaid Cymru. It is difficult to imagine such a liberal unionist/constitutional nationalist alliance being formed in Scotland, where conservative constitutional unionism (with its willing subordination to the British Labour leadership), especially under Scottish Labour leader, Ian Gray, has become even more marked.

Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru cooperated in preparing the ground for a new Welsh Bill, which recommended devolving legislative powers to the Welsh Assembly, in a similar manner to those already existing in Scotland. The March 2011 referendum result was much more convincing than in 1997, and the earlier territorial cultural divisions had largely been overcome.  Even the Welsh Conservatives ‘went native’ and supported the measure, although there was still a combined minority Conservative and Labour conservative unionist opposition organised as True Wales. Plaid Cymru is such a moderate constitutional nationalist party, that to many it appeared to have reached the limit of its constitutional ambitions.  Once the new legislative Assembly had been agreed, Plaid Cymru’s vote fell in the following 2011 Assembly elections, and it dropped to third place behind the Welsh Conservatives. This has permitted Welsh Labour to once more form a single party government. This means its leaders once more have a greater number of offices to hand out to their own careerists.

xiii)  The British ruling class is determined to hold the line on ‘Devolution-all-round’ to maintain its imperial position in the world

The overwhelming majority of the British ruling class has rallied around the New Labour initiated ‘New Unionist’ ‘Devolution-all-round’ strategy. This is highlighted by its continuation under the Con-Dem coalition. Any opposition, to limited liberal unionist reform of the UK state, has largely been confined to the Tory Right wing, a few Labour unionist diehards, and to UKIP.  Significantly, they have met with little success. In Northern Ireland, the cerebral conservative unionist Cadogan Group, followed by the more recent, reactionary conservative unionist, Traditional Unionist Voice, have remained committed to continuing Ulster-British majority rule. Yet, they have been unable to halt the advance of further power (in reality office) sharing. This is because some amongst the Right have come to appreciate the words of Enoch Powell, that wily old advocate of a British unionism in a period of imperial decline – “Power devolved is power retained”.

The historical break-up of the UK is not an inevitable process in the short or medium term. To delay this prospect, the British ruling class has come to appreciate that changes are necessary to retain as much of its influence as possible throughout these islands, and that die-hard conservative unionism could prove counter-productive in achieving this end. However, British ruling class preparedness to make concessions depends on the strength of the opposition it faces. Above all, it remains committed to maintaining an imperial role for itself. This is because it still greatly benefits from imperial profits. Today these are extracted, not so much by importing cheap primary products and by exporting higher value manufactured goods, but from finance and commerce; whilst the continuation of off-shore tax havens greatly augments ruling class incomes.

Nevertheless, this ruling class appreciates the fact that it no longer has the independent power to exert its imperial weight around the globe. This is why it has opted for a junior imperial role, subordinate to the USA. The USA was first able to assert it imperial hegemony over the UK as a consequence of the impact of the Second World War (underscored by the terms of the Lend-Lease Scheme made to the struggling British government). However, it was the Suez Crisis of 1956, which finally persuaded a reluctant British ruling class that any attempt to pursue an independent imperial role was now past.

Even the UK’s ‘independent’ nuclear forces need US state permission for their use. The British ruling class efforts to maintain its ‘Special Relationship’ with the US state, at all costs, has meant that the UK now acts as US imperialism’s number one ally in helping to maintain the current global corporate order. Under Blair, the British liberalism of New Labour entered into a symbiotic relationship with the American conservatism of Bush’s Republicans. It provided cover for the Neo-Cons’ gung-ho imperialism. UK military forces have been locked into the very centre of NATO – US imperialism’s armed wing. Baron George Robertson moved from being New Labour’s ‘Defence’ Secretary to head up NATO.

US governments have taken their senior partner role quite seriously. Democrat administrations, in particular, have played a key part in nudging the majority of the British ruling class into acknowledging the necessity for some limited political changes in their Union in regard to Ireland, and for it to address its earlier strained relationship with Irish politicians. President Clinton underwrote the ‘Peace (in reality pacification) Process’ by making Sinn Fein politically acceptable. He personally visited Belfast in 1995. In May 2011, President Obama triumphantly followed up ‘Elizabrit’s more hesitant visit to ‘26 counties’ Ireland, in their joint attempts to ‘normalise’ political relations in these islands, i.e. to gain complete acceptance in Ireland of the US/UK role in maintaining the global corporate order in the north east Atlantic. In return, successive US governments have provided their backing for the British ruling class’s ‘New Unionist’ settlement for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The ‘Peace Process’ and ‘Devolution-all-round’ together provide the best political framework to advance both states’ interests throughout these islands.

Just as US state backing for Israel prevents any meaningful political solution to the Palestinian problem, or indeed to the wider crisis-torn Middle East, so US backing for the British ruling class is a major reason why the underlying historical trend to the break-up of the British Empire and the UK state is still being held back. The combination of US state threats (i.e. the warning to the SNP by Lisa Vickers, the former US Scottish Consul, that Scotland could not just leave NATO without consequences) and the UK’s Crown Powers (which enable the British ruling class to bypass Westminster) provide a formidable obstacle to any attempt to win Scottish political independence.

xiv)  Obstacles to any SNP attempt to winning political independence in its proposed referendum

Since the May 5^th 2011 election the SNP has formed a majority government at Holyrood (3). This has raised the prospect of the promised independence referendum, put on hold under the previous minority SNP government (significantly, with the backing of the SNP’s big business backers).  So, how far will the British ruling class be prepared to move to accommodate the new SNP government’s demands?

With sufficient pressure, the British ruling class could be pushed into accepting further devolutionary measures. The recent successful referendum to achieve legislative powers for the Welsh Assembly showed that the possibilities for further liberal unionist political reform have not yet reached their endpoint. Whether the SNP’s recent Holyrood election success will persuade the British ruling class to beef-up its very limited Calman Commission proposals, for further devolutionary measures in Scotland, remains a moot point. However, if any independence campaign does get off the ground, the British ruling class and the mainstream Unionist parties still have the option of placing their formidable weight behind a ‘Devolution-Max’ option, to ensure that all the most important political and economic powers remain under their central control.

Both the Labour and Conservative Parties have advocates of greater political devolution such as Henry McLeish and Murdo Fraser respectively. However, they will be opposed by such constitutional conservatives as John McTernan (Scottish spin-doctor) and Baron Foulkes in the Labour Party, and by Lord Forsyth and Jackson Carlaw in the Conservative Party. The Liberal Party keeps the option of a ‘federal UK’ in its locker, only to be wheeled out, on behalf of the ruling class, when pressures to break-up of the UK become really serious. However, at present, it is the conservative unionist wing of the Lib-Dems who are in control, highlighted by the obstructive role of the Con-Dem Coalition’s Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore, over the SNP’s proposed independence referendum.

Defence is likely to remain a thorny issue between British Unionists and Scottish Nationalists. With regard to the continuation of nuclear bases and facilities at Faslane and Coulport, there would be significant opposition from a British ruling class, still wedded to having its own ‘independent’ UK nuclear force for purposes of imperial posturing. Yet, with enough mass pressure, it may still be possible to have Scotland moved out of NATO’s nuclear frontline, in line with current SNP policy (although for how long?) With the demise of the USSR, the USA has closed down North Atlantic military bases (e.g. Holy Loch in Scotland and Keflavik in Iceland). However, the USA expects Scotland to remain in NATO’s Orwellian-named ‘Partnership for Peace’. This would allow its military bases to be used as required (e.g. for rendition flights or staging posts for continued imperial airborne sorties), in a similar manner to the Irish government’s permission for the USAF to use Shannon Airport.

Although, American owned (and other) corporations would also be quite happy if Scotland became a low tax haven, the British ruling class would see this as a possible threat to the economic prospects of the other constituent nations and regions of the UK. However, if the Conservatives’ ultra-free market right wing came to dominate any British government, this could encourage an economic ‘race-to-the-bottom’ between the different nations and regions of the UK, with the promotion of competitive tax-cutting to benefit the corporations and the rich.

The major international oil corporations could also quite easily consent to North Sea Oil being transferred from UK to Scottish political control, especially if any new Scottish government was prepared to cut corporation tax even further. Salmond has been avidly courting the oil companies, opposing both the Con-Dems’ proposed one-off windfall tax on their profits and downplaying the effects of Shell’s recent North Sea oil spillage. However, North Sea oil still provides substantial tax revenues for the UK government. Therefore, any British government will strongly oppose such a move. Indeed, so important is this in their economic calculations, that the UK government has already unilaterally redrawn the England/Scotland boundary, as extended into the North Sea, to ensure it still controls much of these major oil and gas reserves.

Furthermore, the British, American and key European (German, French and Spanish) ruling classes are all currently united behind the existing British ruling class ‘New Unionist’ strategy to maintain its power over these islands. The notion of a Scotland, not reined in by the UK state Crown Powers, not participating in NATO, and not committed to a neo-liberal economy is anathema to the British ruling class and its international backers.

Despite any differences of interest mentioned earlier (over US military needs in the North East Atlantic and over the global corporations’ desire for the lowest taxes), the British ruling class is likely to retain wider international ruling class backing for whatever measures they deem fit to prevent the emergence of a politically independent Scotland.

xv)  The wannabe Scottish ruling class and the SNP will cooperate with the British ruling class and big business to prevent any radical break-up of the UK

So, how do the Nationalist parties fit into the ongoing decline of British imperialism and the longer-term historical tendency towards the break-up of the UK?  Ironically, those wannabe ruling class members, amongst each of the national middle classes, will cooperate with the British ruling class to ensure that as much as possible remains of i) the UK state machinery – by upholding the Crown Powers; ii) of the City’s economic control – through the maintenance of sterling; and iii) of the state’s military capacity – with, in the SNP’s case, saltire-flagged British regiments and shared military bases. Right wing SNP government minister, Michael Russell, has termed this strategy as seeking ‘Independence within the Union’. Basically this means giving all the institutions of the UK state, located within Scotland, a good lick of tartan paint. Or, another way of looking at it is to see this as the SNP leadership’s acceptance of a future ‘Scottish Free State’, with all its  British imperial limitations, which the UK ruling class could only impose upon Ireland, after their backing for the wannabe Irish ruling class during the 1922-3 Irish Civil War.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of High Imperialism, hybrid identity British liberal unionists in Scotland and Wales, and constitutional nationalists in Ireland, had advocated Home Rule within the UK and British Empire. Today, their equivalent middle class wannabes in Scotland advocate ‘Independence Lite’ under the Crown, the City of London and the British High Command. They fully accept the current global corporate order and are increasingly prepared to work within NATO. Today’s constitutional nationalists are also constantly looking over their shoulders. The absence or the continued decline of British national (including hybrid) identities amongst workers (and others) in the large areas of the ‘Six Counties’, in Scotland, and increasingly in Wales too, has given rise to more radical economic and social visions associated with more advanced national democratic aspirations. These include the break-up of the UK state and notions of social republicanism and even of socialist republicanism. In the current period of working class retreat this can be obscured. However, following from the defeat of the Conservatives’ hated poll tax in 1990, tested out first in Scotland, and the unforeseen Conservative electoral victory of 1992, a Daily Record poll recorded 56% support for a Scottish republic amongst its largely working class readership in 1997.

Nationalist leaderships, of the SNP in Scotland, of Plaid Cymru in Wales, and of the SDLP and (especially post-Good Friday Agreement) Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, have tried to contain and manage any working class aspirations. Like those liberal unionists (Liberal, Radical and Lib-Lab) and constitutional nationalists (INL and its successors) in the past, they fear workers may raise their own economic and social demands, and push for more advanced political changes, by creating their own independent political organisations. The main concern of today’s Nationalist parties is to negotiate and manage the further break-up of the UK state, in a manner that leaves their wannabe ruling class backers in control within their own national territories, but still leaves them free to profit from the existing global corporate economic order. This order is primarily maintained by the US/British imperial alliance.

Not having their own independent state power at present to ensure their control, or possibly the necessary reserves of coercion in the future, these Nationalist parties have to resort to getting the support of the UK, USA and EU states and their economic and military alliances.  That is one reason why the Nationalists do not challenge the anti-democratic Crown Powers, since they too may need these to handle any future significant working class resistance. The Crown Powers provide those resorting to them with a whole array of anti-democratic weapons beyond any meaningful parliamentary scrutiny.

Therefore, we can see why the incoming SNP majority government has emphasised its commitment to the monarchy. This provides decorative cover for the use of these Crown Powers. The recent banking crisis also witnessed SNP-supporting Sir George Matthewson quickly rushing into the arms of the then British Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to prop up his ailing Royal Bank of Scotland. We can also see why the new SNP government has highlighted its commitment to sterling, i.e. the City and its imposed economic straitjacket. The SNP has long been committed to support for the Scottish regiments of the British army, which have served British imperialism from Culloden to Crossmaglen, and from the Heights of Abraham to Helmand Province. It also supports the retention of British RAF bases in Scotland, such as Lossiemouth and Leuchars. Therefore, it is easy to see why the new SNP government wants to share British military bases and facilities in its ‘independent’ Scotland. And the SNP government has welcomed the Con-Dem government’s promise to post 6,000 British troops, currently stationed in Germany, in Leuchars to compensate for the closure of the air base there. British ‘Troops In Now’ is not a traditional national democratic demand!

xvi)  The SNP will play their part in upholding the hegemony of US/UK imperial alliance in the global corporate order

Furthermore, in addition to its attempts to manage the break-up of the UK, in a way that still leaves its major controlling institutions intact, the SNP has also sought allies amongst the major global corporations and the US state. The main attraction the SNP offers is to dangle major tax concessions before the global corporations, making Scotland a low tax haven. The SNP government’s promises to potential big business backers are far more sincere than the electoral ‘promises’ made to win working class support. The current SNP government is so tied to corporate tax concessions that its principal demand upon the Con-Dem Coalition, under their proposed Calman-initiated reform bill, is to get the powers needed to cut corporation tax.

There is strong evidence that the majority within the SNP government considers the realistic outcome of the proposed Scottish independence referendum would be the achievement, not of ‘Independence-Lite’ (4), but of ‘Devolution-Max’, particularly the implementation of fiscal autonomy. This would also satisfy the SNP’s recent big Scottish business backers – including Sir George Matthewson, Sir Tom Farmer, and Sir David Murray (their commitment to all the trappings of privilege are shown by their knighthoods).  It would also largely satisfy prominent SNP figures such as Michael Russell and Kenny MacAskill. Furthermore, SNP Finance Minister, John Swinney is known for his support for that ultimate neo-liberal measure – flat rate taxes. So, if the SNP were able to steer the Scottish economy even further down the neo-liberal road, the demands of big business and the ultra-rich for such measures would undoubtedly increase (even to the extent that the SNP’s best-known backer, Sir Sean Connery, might be persuaded to return from tax exile!)

The SNP has a paper policy of opposition to NATO. However, this has been abandoned as an election commitment, in a similar manner to an earlier New Labour promise to renationalise the railways. There is nothing the SNP’s Defence spokesperson, Angus Robertson, likes better than to be photographed in the cockpit of a Tornado plane at Lossiemouth, in his Moray constituency! As yet, the SNP is still opposed to the continuation of nuclear military bases in Scotland, something the USA could easily live with. However, in its concern to appease the junior partner of US imperialism, the UK, there has even been talk in the SNP about the possibility of leasing out such military bases. Scotland would then have its own ‘Guantanamac’ bases. Former SNP firebrand, Jim Sillars, has publicly argued for a bonfire of any remaining radical SNP policies. He naively hopes that if the US and British ruling classes are sufficiently appeased, they will not obstruct any independence campaign.

The SNP does not oppose the current imperial wars in Afghanistan or Libya. Now that Barack Obama is US President, and is prepared to have the UN (which the USA can dominate through the Security Council) front US/NATO military initiatives, the SNP has also dropped its former opposition to the UK’s, and hence Scottish regiments’ participation in imperial wars. It looks like the new American consul would not have too much to get upset about in any SNP ‘Independence Lite’ Scotland.

Although very unlikely to achieve ‘Independence-Lite’, it is possible that the current SNP government could create the pressure to bring about further liberal unionist political concessions – ‘Devolution-Max’. The SNP’s Kenny MacAskill and Labour’s Henry McLeish have jointly written, Where the Saltire Flies. This indicates the possibility of forming a tacit constitutional nationalist/liberal unionist alliance to use any independence referendum to achieve, not the SNP’s first option – ‘Independence Lite’, but a second option – ‘Devolution-Max’. Either scenario would leave the British ruling class and its US allies with extensive powers, but the latter would have the additional attraction to big business and many of the better-off in Scotland that it would put a firmer brake upon the underlying historical tendency towards the break-up of the UK and the continued weakening of British imperialism. It would also avoid any unsettling international consequences for the British ruling class, corporate capital and Scottish business, e.g. Scotland’s relationship with the EU and NATO, and the implications for continued UK membership of the UN Security Council after the curtailment of the UK parliament’s authority over a significant area of its territory.

The UK’s principal imperial ally, the US state, is aware of its need for continued British support, as it too now enters a period of relative economic decline, and possible new imperial contenders, such as China. The ever-increasing readiness of US governments, whether Republican or Democrat, to resort to their state’s overwhelming military power highlights their need to compensate for declining US economic power. The dangers associated with this strategy ensure the need for a more, not less rapid break-up of the UK, to help to undermine this dangerous imperial alliance.

Today, the swingeing cuts being imposed on all parts of the UK, and the impending constitutional crisis, offer Socialists an opportunity to build up our strength once more. Only this time we must not hand over any fruits of victory to Labour or the Nationalists. This means a commitment to a socialist republican ‘internationalism from below’ strategy to break up the UK state and to unite workers in Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland. It also means joining with workers and those other exploited and oppressed peoples of the world in an anti-imperialist alliance against corporate global rule.

Allan Armstrong, 30.9.11 (amended on 6.3.12)

[1]             The term ‘Irish’ is used in preference to ‘Catholic’ or ‘nationalist’, since, although the overwhelming majority of those considering themselves to be Irish are Catholic nationalists, their number includes Socialist Republicans and others, who do not necessarily consider themselves to be either of these two things. Amongst these people are those who adopt a more internationalist class perspective.

[2]             Perhaps the New Labour architects of ‘Devolution-all-round’ thought that Northern Ireland would take on more of the characteristics of a ‘nation’, once a collaborative Irish government, as part of the ‘Peace Process’, had won its own referendum to remove the controversial clauses 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution laying claim to Northern Ireland.

[3]             see http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2011/05/27/after-may-5th-a-looming-constitutional-crisis/

[4]            ’Independence Lite’ would put Scotland in a similar position to the old Irish Free State after the end of the Civil War in 1923. However, in contrast to ‘Devolution-Max’, just as the Irish Free State was entitled to a seat on the League of Nations, so the new ‘Scottish Free State’ would be entitled to seats on the EU and UN.

The rise and initial success of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), between 1998-2004, was a significant historical event, not only for the history of the Left in Scotland (with knock-on effects in the UK and Europe), but also in the wider world of Scottish politics. It is therefore vital that we account for this success, despite the SSP’s subsequent fall from grace. This record can not just be left to cynical media and academic figures who have claimed that the SSP project was always doomed from the start, so we should all just accept the current world order and make the best of it.  Nor can we leave the accounting to those Jeremiahs in their ‘revolutionary’ sects, who cover their own inability to grow significantly, by issuing their anathemas and pouring scorn on those who try.

Before the First World War, Rosa Luxemburg said that the choice facing humanity then was ‘Socialism or Barbarism’. Istvan Meszaros has modified this for today’s crisis-ridden world of corporate imperialism, with its austerity drives, mounting environmental degradation, and the continued threat to humanity posed by weapons of mass destruction. He claims that the choice we face now is  – ‘Socialism or barbarism if we are lucky’!

Therefore, to provide new hope, we must account for the factors that contributed to the initial success of the SSP, and see what can still be useful in the future. However, any meaningful accounting also means identifying those weaknesses, which contributed to the SSP’s decline, so that these are not repeated.

Many, from either side of the ‘Tommygate’ divide, still hold fond enough memories of “the good old days” before the split, to hope that something like the SSP can be built again. Recently, some have even been tempted to say, “Let us forgive and forget”. This may sound attractive, in the face of the current unprecedented attacks on our class. However, such a stance would just lead to the repeat of earlier mistakes, perhaps in more desperate situations.

This contribution, which is also based on a strong desire to rebuild that lost unity, argues that to be successful in such an endeavour, we need instead to ‘listen, learn and then move on’. Then we can indeed recreate socialist unity, but on a higher basis. We must take account of those challenges, which the SSP failed to meet, to better prepare ourselves for those that we will certainly meet in the future.

1. THE STRENGTHS OF THE SSP

a)          Politics

The drive for greater socialist unity in Scotland originated in the experience of the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign. This drew together socialists and communists from diverse backgrounds in a successful struggle against the Tories and their official Labour Party helpers – one of the very few.  Later campaigns against water privatisation, the Criminal Justice Bill, and in support of the Liverpool Dockers, also brought socialists and communists in Scotland together in common campaigns.

Militant, a section of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI), led by Peter Taffe, had learned, through the bitter experience of the Liverpool Council Fightback and the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign, that conducting a successful major struggle was incompatible with membership of the Labour Party (LP), and that Labour is an anti-working class party that acts as a block to socialism.

The CWI majority (1) formed Scottish Militant Labour (SML) to challenge Labour more effectively. However, SML went beyond this, and drew upon the experience of those earlier working class campaigns. With the help of others, they initiated the wider Scottish Socialist Alliance (SSA), in 1996, to draw in these forces, as well as those members in the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP) concerned about their parties’ rightwards drift. In the process, the CWI in Scotland changed from being the organisationally independent SML to becoming the International Socialist Movement (ISM), a platform in the new SSA. They called for the unity of socialists in Scotland.

The size of SML/ISM was important. Others had called for socialist unity before the SML had been able to ditch its Labour Party entrist past, and to seriously consider such an initiative.  However, it needed an organisation with a certain critical mass to make any such unity initiative gel.  In Ireland, for example, there have been a number of politically experienced people who were inspired by the example of the SSA/SSP. They formed the Irish Socialist Network to bring about such socialist unity there. However, they have not had the critical mass to create an Irish Socialist Alliance, then to build this up into an Irish Socialist Party.

The ISM wanted to build a wider organisation, which was not just a front for its own tendency – something that proved a stumbling block with the Socialist Alliance in England. This problem was highlighted there by the competitive sectarianism of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the CWI/Socialist Party (SP) (as Militant later became in England and Wales).

The ISM also wanted the SSA to move quickly beyond being an alliance, which might end up as little more than an electoral non-aggression pact between different participating organisations. Today, in Ireland, this remains a strong danger with the recently formed United Left Alliance (ULA). The ULA is heavily constrained in any attempt to move forwards to a new united party by the desire of its two major components, the CWI/SP-Ireland and People before Profit (an Irish SWP front), to preserve their own control above all else. The SSA, however, was able to move on and become the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) in 1998.

When it was founded, the SSA drew in other political groups or some of their key activists. Allan Green had pushed from the start to get the Socialist Movement (socialists in the LP) signed up, whilst Bill Bonnar of the Communist Party of Scotland, and George Mackin, former member of the editorial board of Liberation (socialist Republicans in the SNP) joined up.  Members of the Trotskyist United Secretariat for the Fourth International (USFI) in Scotland joined, although they did not constitute themselves as a platform. The Red Republicans, who emerged from the Anti-Poll Tax Struggle in the Lothians, and the Dundee-based Campaign for a Federal Republic also joined. These two organisations later merged, on a new political basis, to form another SSA platform, the Republican Communist Network (RCN). The SSA soon threw itself into activity in support of the Glacier workers’ occupation in Glasgow, then in a variety of actions to save schools and other council facilities.

By 2002, all the major political groups in Scotland were in one political organisation (2) – the SSP. The SSP eventually included left Scottish nationalists, e.g. the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement (SRSM), many in the ISM, and some ex-SNP’ers; left British unionists, e.g. the CWI, SWP, Workers Unity (3) and some ex-Labourists; and socialist republicans, e.g. the RCN and others. Key figures from the Labour and SNP Lefts joined, e.g. John McAllion and Ron Brown (ex-Labour MPs), Hugh Kerr (ex-Labour MEP), Lloyd Quinan (ex-SNP MSP). The SSP included socialist and radical Feminists, and a small number of green Socialists (4).

Tommy Sheridan (former SML) was elected to Holyrood in 1999. He was re-elected, along with Frances Curran and Colin Fox (both former SML), Rosemary Byrne (former president of Irvine Trades Council), Carolyn Leckie (prominent Unison activist and strike leader) and Rosie Kane (environmental activist), in 2003. An impressive 117,709 votes were gained in this election. Keith Baldassara (former SML) and Jim Bollan (former CP member and Labour leader of Dunbartonshire Council) were also elected as local councillors. This was a considerable achievement. It showed that the SSP had become an important force amongst a significant section of class-conscious workers in Scotland.

SSP MSPs were seen to give public support to workers in struggle, including nursery nurses and working class communities occupying threatened public services. Tommy had been very publicly arrested in 2003, whilst Rosie was jailed for failing to pay a fine in 2005, as a result of the protests they made at the Faslane nuclear base. This highlighted the SSP’s policy of committing its elected representatives to taking direct action when it was deemed appropriate. The SSP policy of having a worker’s representative on a worker’s wage was actually implemented by the SSP MSPs between 1999 and 2007.

The SSP provided inspiration for the Socialist Alliances in England and Wales, and for the Irish Socialist Network. It also formed a part of the new European Anti-Capitalist Left (EACL). The SSP inspired the USFI, including its largest European section, the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) in France. They later went on to form the wider New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) in 2009.

After the split in 2006, the SSP continued to form part of the EACL, standing candidates under its banner in the Euro-elections of 2009, whilst the breakaway Solidarity retreated into the left British chauvinism of the No2EU campaign (5).

The SSP played a prominent part in the build-up of the Anti-War Movement, beginning in October 2001 with its principled and active opposition to the war in Afghanistan, and culminating, on February 15^th 2003, with the massive Anti-Iraq War demonstration in Glasgow, led by the Stop the War Coalition (6). The many marches, held all over the world on that day, formed the largest international demonstration yet witnessed.

The SSP played the leading part in organising the wider European Left opposition to the G8 Summit at Gleneagles in July 2005. Four of its MSPs, Carolyn, Colin, Frances and Rosie organised a protest in Holyrood against its failure to stand up to US/UK security force attempts to severely curtail the right to protest at Gleneagles. The four MSPs were suspended and the party was heavily fined. This led to international solidarity, including support from the acclaimed black poet, Benjamin Zephaniah (7).

The SSA and SSP leaderships recognised that there is a National Question in Scotland and that socialists should consciously address it. Although left Scottish nationalism remained a strong pull on the leaderships of the SSA and later the SSP, republicanism made considerable inroads. The party backed the Calton Hill Declaration, and the successful protest at the royal opening of the new Scottish Parliament building on October 9^th, 2004. This was the last SSP big event to gain favourable wider publicity (8).

The SSP contained a well-organised Feminist element with articulate women prominent in the party. The hotly debated and controversial 50:50 rule, addressing the issue of women’s representation at all levels of the party, was passed at the SSP’s 2002 Conference in Dundee. This contributed to the election of four women out of a total of six SSP MSPs in May 2003 – the highest percentage for any party in Europe.

The SSP was also able to draw support from influential cultural figures, e.g. the Proclaimers, Belle and Sebastian, Peter Mullen and Ken Loach.

At the height of its success between 1999 and 2004, the SSP enabled socialist politics to gain a public visibility. This meant that the ideas put forward by openly declared socialists became the topic of conversation, discussion and debate in workplaces and communities throughout Scotland.

b)          Organisation

With the founding of the SSA in 1996, the CWI/SML committed its resources and experienced organisers, at national and local level, to the new organisation. As ISM platform members, they took responsibility for developing the SSA, and later the SSP. However, in many areas, particularly where there was little or no ISM presence, other experienced socialist and communist activists played a key role in developing local branches, and exerting pressure to ensure that democratic practice became more embedded in the SSA and SSP, and to encourage the development of an open, non-sectarian culture.

A majority amongst the ISM, who constituted the SSA and SSP leaderships, appreciated the need to exercise a less tight political control over the SSA and SSP membership than the CWI leadership had desired. The ISM was more prepared to listen to suggestions from people who came from other political backgrounds, and with these comrades’ help, the SSA was able to develop open active branches and democratic structures.

Thus, the ISM majority (9) made a considerable contribution to building a wider more inclusive SSA (later SSP). This provided a striking contrast to the behaviour and unity initiatives undertaken by their original CWI mentors. The CWI/SP walked out of the Socialist Alliance in England, when they could not dominate it  (that role was left to the SWP!). Their Campaign for a New Workers Party has proved abortive, because of its inability to attract or hold on to wider socialist forces, whilst the Trade Union and Socialist (electoral) Coalition is turned on and off according to the needs of the CWI/SP. The CWI (and SWP) treats any unity initiative either as a ‘party’-front or as a recruiting ground. Therefore, the ISM’s support for developing an inclusive multi-platform party did represent a considerable achievement, and a big break from the Left’s past sectarian practice.

Platform rights were allowed and respected to a considerable degree. The SSA and SSP constituted a united front of self-declared revolutionaries and left reformists. Comrades could openly state their support for revolutionary politics. A real culture of debate and comradeliness developed in the SSA and SSP, which for a time was even able to rein in some of the sectarian practices of the CWI and SWP (10).

Despite some undoubted remaining problems, the SSA and SSP were more democratic than all previous left groups in Scotland and the wider UK. SSA and SSP conferences were organised where genuine debates took place in a largely comradely fashion. Attractive ‘Socialism’ events, with outside speakers, were also organised.

SSP branches were soon formed in every part of Scotland, including the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland. This represented the most extensive support for socialist politics in Scotland that had been achieved so far.

 2)      THE WEAKNESSES OF THE SSP

 a)         Politics

The development and handling of ‘Tommygate’ turned out to be the most public failing of the SSP. One effect of this was to disguise some other weaknesses, which would undoubtedly have emerged more clearly after the election of its six MSPs in 2003. The political conditions, which led to these other problems, were created by the international Left’s inability to prevent the Iraq War in 2003, and the decline of working class action in the UK, including Scotland.

The electoral setbacks of the European Left in subsequent (pre-2007 Crash) elections, including those in Italy, France and Ireland, demonstrated this. The Scottish Greens also lost five of their seven MSPs in 2007. If ‘Tommygate’ had not happened then the SSP would still probably have been reduced from six to one MSP in that election – i.e. Tommy. And he thought he was smart in helping to create Solidarity as his own special fan club to further advance his own celebrity politics!

Yet, there had been no prior public questioning in the SSP of the promotion of the Tommy ‘myth’. This failing was to have dire consequences. When ‘Tommygate’ erupted in 2004, the leadership was left floundering over how to deal with a ‘Tommy’ who had been their very own creation. This confused many members and supporters who began to look elsewhere – often either to the SNP, or even back to the Labour Party.

Remarkably, as Tommy had moved further and further into the world of celebrity politics (aided by his new wife, Gail, whom he married in 2000), the SSP leadership allowed him to build up an entirely new public image for himself as the Daniel O’Donnell of the Left. (He later utilised this in court to claim his leisure activities were largely confined to playing Scrabble with Gail!) This involved publicly turning his back on his pre-marriage image as the Errol Flynn of the Left (which he wistfully recalled in his chats with Coolio on Big Brother).

Key SSP leadership figures knew from early on that this new public image was false, but did not challenge Tommy’s hypocrisy. However, even if Tommy had been able to make a ‘Doris Day’ (11) like conversion, socialists should still not have been involved in allowing the public promotion of such a conservative, 1950’s, family man image.

When Solidarity was formed in 2006, it became, in effect, the Continuity Sheridan-SSP. Celebrity politics were enshrined at its founding conference, with the virtual anointment of Tommy by his mother, Alice Sheridan.  With Tommy in prison for the 2011 Holyrood election, Solidarity sought a new celebrity candidate in the form of George Galloway, accountable to nobody but himself.

The resort to celebrity politics was not, however, rejected in principle by the SSP leadership after the split. An attempt was made by the SSP International Committee to highlight this wider problem amongst the Left in Britain (e.g. Derek Hatton, Ken Livingstone, Arthur Scargill and George Galloway), in a leaflet for the 2008 Convention of the Left in Manchester. However, a section of the SSP leadership suppressed this because it might have upset Galloway and his supporters (12).

Celebrity politics, however, are just one aspect of a wider populism, which avoids the open promotion of socialist politics. Promoting populism is a quite different matter to promoting popular politics in order to extend openly socialist ideas beyond their traditional narrow organisational confines. Populist politics, which downplay the centrality of the working class, have often revealed themselves in the SSP. Although the SSP stood as part of the EACL in the 2009 Euro-elections, it ditched the EACL’s own slogan, ‘Make the Bosses Pay for their Crisis’, and retreated to the vacuous, non-class specific, ‘Make Greed History’ (13).

This resort to left populism, though, was not as bad as Solidarity’s support for No2EU’s, ‘No to social dumping’ – a right populist, thinly disguised racist attack on migrant workers, reminiscent of the NF/BNP/Gordon Brown call for ‘British jobs for British workers’.

One reason for resorting to populism is the fact that those coming from the CWI tradition never developed an adequate understanding of what constitutes socialism/communism. Up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CWI largely equated socialism with nationalisation. Although the weaknesses in this position have been recognised by those who have moved away from the CWI, there has been no real attempt to develop a new clearly articulated socialism/communism, which could effectively challenge a capitalism very much now in crisis since the 2008 Financial Crash.

Part of the problem lies with the CWI’s long sojourn within the Labour Party, where they began to adapt to the reformist milieu they were working with. Whereas Marx had viewed the state as a machine designed to perpetuate the rule of capital, backed by “a body of armed men”; those from a CWI background tended to see the existing state as being in the hands of the wrong people – the capitalist class – instead of the representatives of the working class. In particular, they had looked forward to a future elected Labour government, pledged to socialist policies, ‘capturing’ this state, passing an Enabling Act and nationalising the top 200 companies. But the capitalist state can not be equated with its ‘representative’ institutions – behind these lie the ruling class’s ‘deep state’ with its military, security, judicial and other bodies, all beyond our effective accountability, ready to bypass parliament, and to take ruthless action against any fundamental challenges from our class.

Therefore, the solutions offered by the leaderships of SSP and Solidarity (where the SWP also avoids offering any socialist strategy), to meet the current crisis of capitalism, tend to be national reformist. They stretch from a call for neo-Keynesian state economic intervention to demands for nationalisation  - i.e. from left Labourism to old style, orthodox Marxist-Leninism. The call for nationalisation is sometimes relabelled ‘public ownership’, or supplemented with an unspecified, ‘under democratic’ or ‘workers’ control’.

There has been little appreciation of the international economic integration of the corporate imperialist capitalist order. This places very real restraints on national ‘solutions’, and makes the development of an internationalist strategy and international organisation vital. The massive anti-(corporate) globalisation, anti-Iraq war, anti-G8 and Occupy protests have shown that millions of people already understand the need for an international response. Yet there has been little indication that the Left can build on this by creating a new International (14).

The EACL is very much constrained by the limitations of the ‘socialist diplomacy’ practised between its two dominant political groupings – the USFI and International Socialist Tendency (SWP). There is clearly a glaring need for concerted international action in the face of the EU leaders’ austerity drive, which has led to unprecedented attacks on Greek, Portuguese and Irish workers. These will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the European (including the UK) working class.

There has been no real debate in the SSA or SSP over socialists’ participation in parliamentary and council elections. Are parliament and local councils vehicles for bringing about socialism through accumulative reforms; or do socialists participate in elections to these bodies to support independent class activity, and to put forward the case for socialism/communism?

Again this confusion arises because a significant section of the Left tends to see the state machine as neutral, and just requiring a different hand at the helm, rather than a capitalist state, shaped to meet the capital’s needs. The existing state machine is  worse than useless as a means of socialist transformation. Indeed it is a trap for the working class.  What should be recognised is the need for the state’s destruction and its replacement with a commune-like semi-state, intended to wither away as the lower phase of communism (socialism) gives way to its higher phase.

We never got near this kind of debate about a Maximum Programme within the wider SSP.  This was perhaps understandable in the context of the long debt-financed consumer boom, which coincided with the first ten years of the SSP’s existence. Efforts were concentrated instead on developing and implementing elements of an Immediate Programme. Now capitalism is once more in deep crisis. Attempts to buttress each national economy through superficial reforms can only lead to intensified international competition, with a downward pressure on pay and conditions, and an even greater likelihood of wars, possibly extending to the imperial metropoles themselves. Therefore, it has become imperative that socialists/communists outline their alternative society and the means needed to achieve this.

The SSP became too election focussed, particularly after winning its six MSPs. This sucked prominent regional or trade union activists into the parliamentary centre. The decision to spend so much money on parliamentary support workers for the newly elected MSPs was an indication of this creeping electoralism. A three way split developed between the SSP’s MSPs – 1) Tommy and Rosemary, 2) Caroline, Frances and Rosie and 3) Colin – as to how to relate to Holyrood. There was little effective party control over these MSPs. The parliamentary ‘tail’ sometimes wagged the SSP ‘dog’.

If ‘Tommygate’ had not erupted, a strongly electoralist wing would probably have emerged in the SSP, offering the party’s MSPs as coalition fodder in the event of a hung Holyrood parliament (15). Former Labour MEP, Hugh Kerr, was already suggesting, before the 2003 Holyrood general election, that the SSP stand down in favour of the SNP in first-past-the-post seats, anticipating such coalitions and a more parliamentary focussed politics (16).

Those who learned their initial politics in the British Left have shown little understanding of the UK as an imperialist, unionist and constitutional monarchist state, and the role of the Crown Powers in maintaining British ruling class control. Nor do they appreciate the real nature of the current British and Irish ruling classes’ ‘New Unionist’ strategy of promoting the ‘Peace Process’ and ‘Devolution-all-round’, aided and abetted by trade union leaders locked in ‘social partnerships’ with the bosses and politicians. This is done to ensure that the UK and the Twenty-Six Counties remain safely subordinated to corporate capitalism and US/British imperialism.

In reaction to their earlier left British unionist training, the majority amongst the SSA and SSP (and later the Solidarity) leaderships have shown a strong tendency to be pulled towards Scottish nationalism, and have become sentimental Scottish republicans rather than militant socialist republicans. Although the 2005 Declaration of Calton Hill represented a partial break from this, the SSP leadership has gone on to tailend the proposed constitutional reforms of the SNP in their proposed Scottish Independence Referendum (17).

After the split between the SSP and Solidarity, some members of the now defunct ISM became divided between the Frontline supporters found in the SSP, and the Democratic Green Socialists (DGS), who played a similar role in Solidarity. It was these two organisations’ initially shared break from the CWI, which had led them to move on from much of the old left British unionist politics (although long retaining elements of such politics over the issue of Ireland), only to court left Scottish nationalist politics as an alternative.

As a result, the ISM/Frontline’s and the DGS’s politics, with regard to Scotland, have not been drawn from the major contributors to anti-imperial/anti-UK state politics prior to Poll Tax, e.g. the Workers’ Republican tradition of James Connolly and John Maclean, but to a bowdlerised version of Labourism/Trotskyism inherited, but still not fully questioned, from the CWI. This is sometimes topped up with a little sentimental Scottish history and the use of the saltire in the Scottish Socialist Voice.

Those from a CWI tradition also have a poor understanding of the conflict in Ireland. They have been unwilling to address this issue in case any accusations of ‘sectarianism’ affected their electoral campaigns, particularly in the Central Belt. In the SSA’s preparatory stages, the one group, which CWI members went to considerable lengths to exclude, was the James Connolly Society (JCS). It also took years and years to get one-time CWI/ISM members of the SSP on to the JCS’s annual Connolly march in Edinburgh. The CWI’s left unionism was carried into the ISM. This led to their joint agreement to invite Billy Hutchinson of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) as a ‘socialist’ Loyalist, with a background in the UVF, where the British state recruited its death squads (18), to ‘Socialism 2000’ (19).

Despite the 2002 SSP Conference’s 50:50 debate, there was insufficient follow-up debate about the nature of women’s exploitation and oppression, and how women’s emancipation and liberation contribute to wider sexual liberation and to socialism/communism. In the aftermath of the split in the SSP, a marked division remained between those former ISM members in Frontline, who wanted to take on board a more Feminist agenda, and those in the DGS, who retained an opposition to “gender obsessed politics” (many of them had opposed the 50:50 arrangements back in 2000).

In the case of ISM/Frontline members this led to a blurring between socialist and radical Feminist politics. In the case of DGS members this led to a slippage away from any socialist understanding of the role of women’s oppression, and to a schizoid split between holding to libertarian views on sex (e.g. believing prostitution is just another form of wage labour, not recognising the women’s oppression involved), or to a toleration of very conservative sexual relationships (e.g. not questioning the promotion of the ‘perfect celebrity couple’ in the never-ending ‘Tommy and Gail Show’). The political division over the role of Feminism, between the two wings of one-time ISM members, very much added to the acrimony during ‘Tommygate’ (20).

The SSP and Solidarity leaderships, following on the old CWI tradition, have remained wedded to Broad Leftism in the trade unions. This involves a ‘parliamentary’ industrial strategy, which sees sovereignty as lying in the trade union conferences (‘parliament’), when effective control really lies in the union HQs (where the bureaucracy forms the ‘Cabinet’). Broad Leftism concentrates on getting left wing union leaderships elected to replace right wing ones. This is countered to a Rank and File ‘republican’ industrial strategy of democratising and transforming trade unions to make them combative class organisations with sovereignty residing amongst the union members in their workplaces, who are prepared to take independent (‘unofficial’) action when required (21). There has also been no debate on possible new methods of organising workers, e.g. social unions.

There have been illusions around existing Broad Left trade union leaderships, and a failure to extend the principle of a worker’s representative on a worker’s wage in parliament, to campaigning for all trade union officials being on the average wage of the members they represent.  The SSP’s relationship with the RMT was focussed on its General Secretary, Bob Crow, and its Broad Left leadership (22), rather than its rank and file members.

Cultural developments can anticipate wider social and political developments, even during periods when the working class is in retreat. Whilst an effective struggle against exploitation and oppression needs confident economic/industrial and political organisation, attempts to go beyond the alienation we experience under capitalism often takes on a more disparate cultural form, which the ruling classes find harder to discipline and police. Despite the wider vibrant cultural debate found in Scotland, and signs of support from several significant cultural figures, there was no organised attempt to intervene in this debate and to encourage its development in a Scottish internationalist rather than a Scottish nationalist direction.

b)          Organisation

From the beginning, despite wishing to create a wider organisation, which brought in others, the CWI/SML still wanted to remain the leadership group. This in itself is not a problem. The issue is how do you go about achieving this aim – by encouraging the maximum democracy or by political manoeuvring?

The CWI/SML sought to bring about wider unity, not primarily on the basis of an agreed Immediate Programme (23), but by courting specific groups and individuals, whilst playing down the revolutionary side of their own politics. This involved a resort to diplomacy, rather than holding an open debate between some of the more advanced positions held by the CWI/SML (and others) and the undisguised left reformism and electoralism of those coming, in particular, from Labour and SNP backgrounds.

Of course, any such open debate, may well have resulted in the SSA adopting openly left reformist positions anyhow, given the historical weight of reformism in Scotland and the wider UK. This is why it was so vital to create and maintain the SSA and SSP as open democratic organisations, where such ideas could be challenged and changed in the light of experience.

The SSA and SSP depended overmuch on the initial political training given to its members from other political organisations before they joined up. There was no comprehensive political education programme put in place for new members. There was an attempt to produce an SSA magazine, Red, but it was short-lived.

When the ISM split into majority and minority CWI/IS factions, the majority ISM kept to the old strategy of trying to remain the leadership by making openings to certain individuals. An ‘Inner Circle’ coalesced within the SSP leadership, which consisted of Tommy Sheridan, Alan McCombes and Alan Green (he represented those from a non-CWI tradition) with a close periphery of Keith Baldassara and Frances Curran (she provided a link with the leading influential Feminists, such as Carolyn Leckie). The ISM used its position as the largest platform to ensure that this emergent ‘Inner Circle’ was given wider support in the SSP (24). As long as the ISM continued to exist, there was still some platform accountability.

The ISM also used its numerical strength to get sympathisers into key positions, whether or not they were up to the job. Paid organisers, who were not transparent or accountable, sometimes built their own fiefdoms either in areas of particular activity or geographical areas.

The ‘Inner Circle’ kept things from the membership (either with tacit ISM acceptance or without their knowledge), e.g. how many real paying members there were, and the fact that the SWP did not pay their subs (although some of their members did join as individuals). Therefore, the activities of the ‘Inner Circle’ were neither transparent nor fully accountable.

Many members of the ISM began to doubt the need for a distinctive platform to advance their specific politics. Instead, they increasingly relied on giving support to those experienced former members of the CWI, and founder members of the ISM, who had steered them through the difficult transition from the CWI/SML to the independent ISM platform in the SSA and SSP.  ISM members began to drop out of their platform, whilst still giving their support as individuals to the ‘Inner Circle’.

In engaging with new political forces, ISM members found themselves questioning some of their previously held beliefs. This is, of course, a good general principle for all socialists. Individual ISM members formed friendships and alliances with other individuals and tendencies, e.g. amongst the left Scottish nationalists and the radical Feminists. This led to a process of adaptation that left individual ISM, or former ISM members, strung out at different points along various lines of thought over a number of key issues. That made it increasingly difficult for the ISM to maintain a unified public position on these political issues.

This was demonstrated most spectacularly over ‘Tommygate’. However, over the issues of 50:50, ‘internationalism from below’ republicanism versus left Scottish nationalism, Ireland (particularly the Connolly march), and secularism versus support for specific identity (especially faith) schools, different ISM members also found themselves on differing sides (25).  As the ISM platform began to fragment, this left the ‘Inner Circle’ as the real SSP leadership, since they were no longer restrained by any remaining ISM discipline.

After 2003, those newly elected MSPs, who had their own trusted personal contacts in the party, also had to be acknowledged by the ‘Inner Circle’. That opened up the prospect of personal, rather than platform differences arising, which could bring about a more dysfunctional leadership, in the absence of either any platform discipline, or of effective wider party accountability.

The ‘Inner Circle’ was unable to successfully address the crisis in the SSP, when ‘Tommygate’ split them, along with their close personal and parliamentary supporters. Both sides put more trust in the bourgeois courts and leaks to the bourgeois media than in the SSP membership. Neither side confined its appeals for support to bona fide working class and socialist organisations. Initially a cover-up ‘deal’ was made between the SSP Executive Committee and Tommy, under which the reasons for his mutually agreed resignation were hidden from the membership. The minutes were not circulated. This sowed further seeds of confusion, adding to those created by the leadership’s shared responsibility in constructing the Tommy ‘legend’ in the first place.

This legacy of personalised politics very much added to the ensuing acrimony, which contributed to the split between the SSP and Solidarity. The two respective leaderships centred on Alan McCombes and Frances Curran on the SSP side, and Tommy Sheridan and his family on the Solidarity side. Supporters were expected to show uncritical loyalty for their leaders’ respective stances in the virtual civil war that developed. Those trying to put forward a more critical viewpoint found themselves subjected, not to real debate, but more often to misrepresentation, and sometimes to vilification.

Prior to the split, the SSP leadership had tolerated the existence of sects, in particular the SWP and the CWI. These were able to take advantage of the SSP’s recognition of platforms (26). The CWI and SWP saw themselves as having all the answers in advance, with nothing to learn from others, when important questions were debated. They were organised as alternative leaderships-in-waiting, ready to take over.

However, instead of establishing firm platform guidelines, diplomatic deals were also made between the SSP leadership and these sects. The SSP leadership did not openly and politically challenge the sectarian practices of these organisations’ leaderships (27). Such an approach could have won over some of their rank and file (albeit not their leaderships, whose sectarianism is hard-wired), attracting them with more open and democratic politics.

 3. THE CURRENT SITUATION – FACING UP TO REALITY

There has been no real attempt by either of the two post-split leaderships (SSP and Solidarity) to draw up a balance sheet of the strengths and weaknesses of the original socialist unity project, or to make any honest assessment of where socialists and the wider working class now are in Scotland. The SSP leadership’s main remaining hope, after ‘Tommygate’, seems to be that, “Things can only get better”! And, is Solidarity now on hold until Tommy gets out of jail?!

Solidarity launched itself, in 2006, with the claim that it would soon overtake the number of pre-existing SSP MSPs. However, it failed even to retain its celebrity leader, Tommy, despite his loudly proclaimed court ‘victory’ that year. Solidarity’s leadership took refuge in its ability to garner more votes (31,066 to the SSP’s 12,731) in the 2007 Holyrood election. Yet Ruth Black, its sole elected councillor, soon defected to Labour after an acrimonious internal spat (28).

The SSP leadership believed that there would be an upturn in SSP fortunes, once they were legally vindicated in the Perjury Trial. However, the SSP’s vote fell from the lowly 12,731 gained in 2007, to the abysmal 8,272 in the 2011 Holyrood election, despite the December 2010 court judgement, which upheld the SSP leadership’s version of the ‘Tommygate’ events. This electoral result showed the leadership’s wishful thinking.

Although the Tommy/Solidarity-backed Respect/George Galloway celebrity candidate only received 6972 votes, in the May 2011 Holyrood election (compared with the still unsuccessful Tommy’s 8544 votes in 2007), whilst Solidarity’s own vote plummeted to 2,837, this could hardly provide the SSP leadership with much comfort, considering that both the phantom Socialist Labour Party, and more worryingly, the British National Party, gained far more votes than the SSP.

Indeed, the fact that the BNP’s vote exceeded the combined vote of the SSP and Solidarity was not publicly acknowledged by either leadership, despite the BNP’s and SDL’s ongoing attempts to gain a foothold in Scotland, particularly amongst British Loyalists in the Central Belt. Indeed there had been more concern at leadership levels, to see that the SSP and Solidarity slog it out against each other in certain Glasgow seats, than to ensure that the BNP were opposed everywhere.

What remains of the SSP has become a much looser alliance than the old SSA. Work is left to individuals, the Scottish Socialist Voice has no Editorial Board, the SSP website (29) is Eddie Truman’s sole responsibility, Richie Venton is the SSP’s industrial organiser without any accountability to a committee of SSP trade unionists.

The Scottish Socialist Youth and the SSP International Committee have taken good initiatives, e.g. the Anti-Fascist Alliances (30) and the Republican Socialist Conventions. However, these have not had real united leadership backing (although individual leaders have sometimes given their support, particularly Colin in the latter case).

The SSP leadership does not necessarily follow through conference decisions (e.g. the principled support given to ‘No One Is Illegal’ at the post-split 2007 Conference, which would have meant working closely with the Glasgow Unity Centre). Part of this is due to exhaustion of leading members, but another factor is the continued SSP legacy of having the remnants of this unaccountable ‘Inner Circle’. Whilst no longer necessarily having the vigour to politically oppose initiatives, which they do not fully support at conferences, they can still ensure that any such agreed initiatives receive little effective national leadership promotion or coordination.

The current SSP leadership is divided over the way forward. Some from the old ‘Inner Circle’ are showing signs of abandoning the pretence of that the SSP is still a real party, and of retreating instead towards the formation of a socialist ‘think tank’, somewhat to the left of that recently formed to commemorate Jimmy Reid. This SSP initiative appears to be Glasgow based.

Colin Fox and Richie Venton, however, argue that the existing SSP can be revived if only the correct campaign can be found (e.g. Fighting Fuel Poverty, or Fighting the Cuts), or if members fully throw themselves into a continuous ‘hamster wheel’ of activity. Both work very hard and lead by example. They can always point towards a model branch out there to show that such activity is the way forward. The current example given is the new Ayrshire branch, built with the help of the party’s latest prominent recruit, Campbell Martin. He is a former SNP and Independent MSP. He remains a strong advocate of a left Scottish nationalist approach to the constitution, coupled with some support for populist politics (including the SNP’s minimum alcohol pricing and their misguided anti-‘sectarian’ bill (31).

Mounting campaigns is indeed an important activity for socialist organisations. However, without a proper assessment of the class forces involved, or of how a particular campaign links up with the organisation’s wider Immediate Programme and the struggle for socialism, then any such campaign will either run out of steam; or, it will be taken under the wing of the larger parties. Then, instead of contributing to the building of independent working class organisation, the campaign merely ends up buttressing these parties’ political position, by providing them with some cover for the cuts, or for the other counter-reforms they are imposing elsewhere. The Free Prescriptions Bill, initiated at Holyrood by the SSP parliamentary group, was only enacted by a subsequent SNP government, after the SSP ceased to have any MSPs.

In contrast to the SSP, Solidarity was formed as an alliance (calling itself a movement) and not a party. John Dennis of the SSP South Region made the original proposal for a breakaway, because he thought that internal relations had become too toxic to be contained in one party. However, Solidarity quickly constituted itself as a ‘marriage of convenience’, between Sheridan and the Sheridanistas of the DGS, CWI and SWP. It now has even less political cohesion than the currently loose SSP alliance.

The DSG website is showing signs of wishing to reunite the Left, but largely on the basis of ‘forgive and forget’ (32). The recently formed International Socialist Group (ISG), a Scottish breakaway from the SWP, also involved in Solidarity, seems to be adopting a similar path. Its co-thinkers in Counterfire, in England and Wales, have already drawn Socialist Resistance (33) into their Coalition of Resistance (CoR) against the cuts. Whilst CoR is all too willing to bow before Broad Left trade union bureaucrats and left-talking politicians, it constitutes the most punchy campaigning organisation fighting the cuts at present (as shown by its contingent on the STUC’s October 1^st demonstration in Glasgow).

CoR and ISG have even attracted some SSP members, despite their strong antipathy to those from an SWP background. However, any such unity is also likely to be on the shaky ground of ‘forgive and forget’, rather than ‘listen, learn and then move on’. Ironically, this would just repeat the ‘diplomatic’ approach the ‘Inner Circle’ adopted taken towards the SWP (the tradition from whence the ISG came), back in 2002.

Both wings of the current SSP leadership remain reticent about becoming involved in other political organisations’ unity initiatives, or even in wider campaigns where they might meet up. An exception is made in the case of the Scottish Independence Convention (SIC), which does bring the SSP into contact with Solidarity and ex-Solidarity members. Furthermore, the various struggles impose their own similar joint work, particularly in trade unions. Just as a shared left Scottish nationalism has led to common work inside the SIC, so a shared Broad Leftism has led to joint electoral slates in some unions (e.g. the Public and Commercial Service [PCS] union).

Some SSP and Solidarity members and former members, who have become disillusioned with these organisations, have called for their virtual dissolution into the various campaigns, e.g. Anti-Cuts. They hope that the experience of working with new forces, or ‘knocking heads together’ (i.e. of mutually suspicious SSP and Solidarity members or ex-members) will eventually provide a new basis for unity in the future. Whilst this path can seem attractive, it means glossing over the real political differences that have arisen, and the challenges neither side addressed. Such a course is also likely to lead to more public ‘diplomatic manoeuvres’ (usually accompanied by personalised put-downs in private), in order to bring about a superficial unity, mainly for electoral purposes. This is never a solid basis upon which to build.

Meanwhile, the CWI and SWP continue to slug it out with their own front organisations – the (now defunct?) Campaign for a New Workers’ Party and the National Shop Stewards Network for the CWI, and the (about to be abandoned?) Right to Work Campaign and Unite the Resistance for the SWP. Neither of these sects is likely to commit itself to building a real united party. They prefer to go no further than forming electoral mutual non-aggression pacts like the United Left Alliance in Ireland (which is likely to flounder, if it fails to develop further, after its initial electoral success this year). The prime political purpose of the CWI and SWP is still to build their own sects.

In 2003, a united SSP showed it had gained a definite foothold of support amongst members of the working class in Scotland. The abysmal 2011 (combined SSP and Solidarity) electoral result is an indication that, not only that most politically conscious workers, but also many socialists in Scotland, have moved on from the SSP and Solidarity.

 4) WHAT WE NEED TO DO -

LISTEN, LEARN AND THEN MOVE ON

The inspiring legacy of those successful working class campaigns in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, along with the recognition of the need for the working class to organise outside the Labour Party, and to address the National Question in Scotland in a serious manner, provided a sufficient political basis for the successful launch of the initial SSA and SSP project. However, the major challenges the SSP has faced since then mean that new lessons have to be learned if any successful socialist unity project is to be developed in the near future.

We need to acknowledge that the current SSP project is over. We can see that the attempt just to hold things together, hoping things will get better, has not worked. There has been little recognition, at the leadership level, of the need to face up to the new challenges, which the working class has faced; or of the necessary self-criticism about the handling of ‘Tommygate’. The SSP leadership had put the addressing of ‘Tommygate’ on hold between 2006-10, ostensibly for legal reasons during the Perjury Trail.  The 2011 Conference in Dunfermline took a retrograde step by overturning those self-critical decisions, which had been made at the first post-split SSP Conference in Glasgow in 2006.

In pursuing this ‘head-in-the-sand’ course, the SSP will end up as little more than another sect. The leadership’s refusal to develop a strategy to win back the more critical elements of Solidarity (using the Perjury Trial as an excuse), which would have involved some self-criticism, was the first step on this dead-end road. When the SSA was being set up, the SML/ISM understood the futility of trying to build a new organisation solely around an unquestioned and unquestioning CWI leadership. They actively sought wider support, and just as importantly, were prepared to be self-critical and to challenge some of their old shibboleths in the light of recent experiences. Those in the SSP today, who wish to re-establish socialist unity in Scotland, need to recognise that real answers have to be given to those challenges the SSP failed to meet.

Socialist unity, which has the capacity to address the many pressing issues the working class currently faces in a crisis-ridden world, can only be formed on a new and higher political basis. Such socialist unity will also involve those outside the SSP’s ranks. Such unity can not be built on the basis of ‘forgive and forget’ (which will just lead to a reoccurrence of previous bad practices), but must be done on the basis of ‘listen, learn and then move on’.

a)           Politics

To meet the new challenges the Left has faced in Scotland, we need to clarify our views over:-

-            What we mean by socialism/communism and how (and if) the immediate struggles we support promote this aim.

-            The promotion of internationalism, through building wider international organisation on the basis of ‘internationalism from below’ and by participating in international actions.

-            The rejection of populism and the creation of an ‘Immediate Programme’ that both enhances the position of our class, and encourages the development of  independent working class organisation and struggle.

-            An understanding of the reasons why socialists participate in elections to state bodies.

-            An understanding of how socialists participate effectively in trade union (and other working class) struggles.

-            Moving on from a left Nationalist approach to the National Question in Scotland, by adopting a serious commitment to socialist Republicanism.

-            A deeper understanding of Feminism (how to achieve women’s liberation and emancipation), and how this links with the transformation of sexual and social relations between the sexes, which socialist men (who should also have a vision of a realisable better society) have a real interest in achieving.

-            A serious approach to Ecology which takes into account the meeting of the human need for water, food, fuel, shelter and transport, but in an environmentally sustainable way.

-            An imaginative approach on how we relate to other areas of struggle, e.g, culture.

b)          Organisation

To learn from the mistakes of the SSP (and of Solidarity), and become more effective we need to:

-            Emphasise the vital importance of democracy, transparency and accountability in all the organisations of the working class.

-            The role of leadership

-            Reject the lure of ‘celebrity politics’.

-            Acknowledge that neither the bourgeois courts, nor the bourgeois media, are appropriate places for socialists to get rulings on how they conduct themselves, or to conduct their internal disputes.  We must confine our appeals to democratic working class and socialist/communist organisations and media. How can we convince the working class of the case for socialism if we have to run to the ruling class’s courts over how we handle our own affairs?

On November 30^th, two million public sector workers went on strike (including 300,000 in Scotland), thousands joined picket lines, and tens of thousands went on demonstrations throughout the UK.  However, there is no chance of defending our pensions, when the ruling class and its supporting parties are determined to roll back our class’s gains, and we remain divided between unions and a plethora of different pension schemes. Trade union leaders will all too soon be jockeying for sectional concessions. Only a class wide political offensive, which links up all struggles against the ruling class’s current austerity drive (and this must extend across the EU), has any chance of undertaking a successful defence and then moving on to make real gains.

Nor can the working class be left to the ‘tender mercies’ of a future Miliband (34) -led Labour government.  The Con-Dems may demand an immediate ‘arm and a leg’ from every worker in the UK; but New Labour also wants to saw off our ‘limbs’ – only more slowly. The SNP wants a Scotland that is a low tax haven for corporate business and a playground for the ultra-rich.

Socialists and communists must offer something better.  So let us ‘listen, learn and then move on’.

Allan Armstrong, Bob Goupillot, Iain Robertson, 20.12.11

I first met Tommy McKearney in the preparations for the initial Republican Socialist Convention, which was held in Scotland. He was due to pick me up from the Dublin Monaghan bus. I described myself over the phone – “Late fifties, with short grey hair.” Tommy laughed and said, “A lot like me then.”

When I opened the front cover of his new book, there was photo of Tommy in 1975 with long hair and a droopy moustache. His appearance then was not too different to mine at the time. Tommy, like myself, had also been drawn into political activity – part of that worldwide post-‘68 generation. Unlike many, we have both remained committed to socialist politics.

However, during my own political activity as a trade union militant and political activist, over more than 40 years in Scotland, I have never faced anything worse than minor inconvenience and mild harassment – often from union officials and the Left! In contrast, Tommy, who became an active IRA member, was arrested, ill treated, then convicted in a Diplock court on the uncorroborated word of an RUC officer, and imprisoned for 16 years of a 20 year long sentence in Long Kesh. During this time he spent a period of 53 days on a hunger strike that brought him within hours of death.

Tommy’s book explains better than any other I have read, why the situation in Northern Ireland – or ‘the Six Counties’ – has been and remains so different from those other parts of the United Kingdom, including Scotland. In the process, the book also helps us to understand why the course of activists’ lives, on either side of the Irish Sea, has usually been so different; and why those from ‘the Six Counties’ have experienced degrees of repression unknown to most of us living on this side of the water.

So, whilst Tommy’s book is written from that shared international experience of being a socialist (red), it explains very clearly the political impact of the national differences between living in Northern Ireland (orange) and the rest of the UK, which in my case means Scotland (blue).

Back in 1970, as a young student and socialist, these differences were not that clear to me. I was mesmerised when Bernadette Devlin (McAliskey today) spoke to a large audience at Aberdeen University, giving her account of the Battle of the Bogside and the setting up of ‘Free Derry’. She easily demolished the arguments of those (including a Young Ulster Unionist invited for balance!), who were opposed to the actions taken by the Peoples Democracy wing of the Civil Rights Movement, of which she was then a member.

As young ‘68ers, many of us students had already taken the radical wing of the American Civil Rights Movement to heart. We loved the new wave of Black music. One or two even went for Afro haircuts!  However, the young protestors from Northern Ireland seemed even more familiar. They dressed the same way, listened to an even wider range of shared music (including traditional music, which, in Scotland, often took its lead from the resurgence in Ireland), and held the same disdain for the British Establishment.  Yet, not only those young people in Britain and Northern Ireland, but also those protesting in Chicago, Detroit, Mexico City, Paris, Prague and beyond, all seemed to be part of one common struggle.  Any still remaining national differences seemed insignificant as international revolution beckoned.

In January 1972, we got the first real inkling that things were different in Northern Ireland, at least compared to the rest of the UK. Fourteen people were shot dead by the Parachute Regiment during a civil rights march held on a Sunday afternoon in Derry.  It would still be a number of years before Kevin Gately (1974) and Blair Peach (1979) were to be bludgeoned to death by the police on demonstrations in London – but even these events were seen as exceptional. Meanwhile, in contrast, killings by the British army, UDR and Loyalist death squads had become almost routine in ‘the Six Counties’.

We were certainly outraged over Bloody Sunday. We cheered Bernadette when she mauled Reginald Maudling, the Tory Home Minister, as he lied in Westminster about the role of the British troops in Derry. However, after one last major march in Newry, on the following weekend (which attracted many from the South for the first time), the Civil Rights Movement just seemed to peter out.

How could protestors deal with the sheer brutality of the British state, its continued support for the Ulster Unionist leaders of the Stormont regime and, before long, its clandestine backing for Loyalist death squads too?  Even in the American South, as Tommy points out, “The US federal government made some serious attempts to redress {the} underlying grievances” (p. 50), which had held black people there in subjection for so long.

After Bloody Sunday, new images appeared on our TV screens. We tried to take in the appearance of those people wearing forms of dress unfamiliar to us – men in military attire with balaclavas or black berets. These people didn’t just throw stones and petrol bombs. They had guns and real bombs. They were the IRA. Republicans didn’t even call the place ‘Northern Ireland’. It was the ‘Six Counties’ – a name which revealed another struggle, much older than that shared by the world’s youthful ‘68ers. But was an armed response the only possible reply to UK state repression and Stormont intransigence?

As regular visitor to Ireland, including the North, I never knowingly met IRA members. However, I did come across RUC police stations built like small fortresses. I was stopped at British army-manned checkpoints (many later remotely-controlled from helicopter-supplied hilltop bases). I was forced to turn my car back when I found Border roads that had been rendered unusable by British army-made craters. I soon understood that Northern Ireland certainly was not “as British as Finchley” as Thatcher was later to claim – before she found that Brighton was nearly as Irish as Belfast!

Watching Brian Friel’s play, The Freedom of the City (1973), helped me understand that necessary moment of transition from the Civil Rights Movement to the Republican Movement. Michael, the earnest young civil rights protestor, believes the British army is making a big mistake, as they point their rifles at him, before shooting him dead; unlike Skinner, the young ne’er-do-well, who had up to this point survived on a mixture of quick wits and cynicism, but who now understands what is about to happen to him, and appreciates that an altogether more serious response is needed in the face of what they are up against; whilst the older Lily, drawing on her longer experience of the existing order, realises that they have transgressed and upset the ‘natural order of things’ and, as a result, are going to pay the ultimate price.

This play is not about just any British city council, calling upon the ‘boys in blue’ to get them out ‘a spot of bother’ with the locals. It is about Londonderry City Council, that beachhead of the local Unionist and Orange order, located on the furthest land frontier of the UK state. These locals are not even fully recognised by the authorities as belonging to the same country. This explains the presence not only of the hated RUC and B Specials, but also of the British army, ready to kill to uphold the existing order.

Therefore, as Tommy shows, specific national histories have to be taken into account. “Unlike other parts of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland had a quasi-colonial tradition where one section of the community {Unionist} participated enthusiastically in policing the other {Nationalist} (p. 49).  In the ‘Deep South’ of the USA some Dixie Democrats might well have been members of, or enjoyed close relations with the racist Ku Klux Klan. In Northern Ireland, however, the relationship between Unionist politicians and the sectarian Orange Order was even closer.

Both the southern states and Stormont could also draw upon armed police and militias. However, unlike those US federal forces, which had come to put a check on the segregationist South, the British army, when it arrived in 1969, came to bolster the local Orange state. Any covering rhetoric was just that, as Callaghan, Labour Home Secretary, revealed his tactics – “talk Green, act Orange” (p. 61).

Tommy highlights the mindset of the British ruling class, still wedded to the maintenance of an imperial order. This led to their “very calculated determination to protect its western flank by maintaining a physical military presence in Ireland… They were then, in the midst of an ongoing cold war with the Soviet Union” (p. 59-60).

However, as well as these undoubted strategic worries, the British ruling class faced mounting political opposition closer to home. They were confronted by rising national movements in the UK – not only in Northern Ireland, but also in Scotland and Wales. Douglas Hurd, then Tory MP, later Northern Ireland Secretary (1984-5), wrote Scotch on the Rocks, in 1971. This novel showed his concerns about the spread of new national challenges to the UK – in this case, Scotland. Perhaps, in contrast to the more determined efforts of the US ruling class in the southern states, the British ruling class’s unwillingness to seriously reform its troubled ‘Ulster’ political slum, reflected a growing uncertainty and an element of paranoia. The sun was setting upon the British Empire. Worrying shadows were being cast over the UK itself.

This aspect of British ruling class thinking would not be so apparent to others at the time, particularly anyone in ‘the Six Counties’. For the ruling class’s strategy in Northern Ireland diverged [1] from that in Scotland and Wales, because they faced different problems there. However, once the perceived threat from the USSR had evaporated after 1989, the underlying national threats to the UK state emerged as the central concern of the British ruling class.

They began to devise a common strategy to bolster the US/British imperial alliance, and to create the conditions to maximise corporate profitability throughout these islands – England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  This strategy, perfected under New Labour, involved the ‘Peace (or pacification) Process’ and ‘Devolution-all-round’. Furthermore, the TUC, ICTU, STUC and WTUC leaderships, drawn by ‘social partnerships’ into cooperation with the state and the employers, gave this strategy a breadth of political support not enjoyed by any previous ruling class attempts to maintain the Union or Partition.

Tommy provides a very clear rebuttal to those pro-British historical revisionists and a reminder that, back in 1968, there was no predetermined Republican plan to become involved in an armed insurgency – the memory of the IRA’s failed Borders Campaign (1956-62) was still too bitter. The struggle that emerged in Northern Ireland was originally for civil rights within the UK. However, the total intransigence of the Ulster Unionists, and the willingness of the British state to give its militarily backing to the Stormont regime, explains the turn to guns and bombs.

After the Loyalists launched their pogroms in the summer of 1969  (involving the B Specials), citizen defence groups emerged in the Nationalist areas of Belfast and Derry. They looked for whatever arms they could get, which meant they were illegally acquired, to defend themselves against the hugely better-armed Orange state and Loyalist gangs often using legally held guns. “One of the first groups to organise for the defence of Catholic Belfast was the Catholic Ex-Service Men’s Association, which was composed of former members of Britain’s armed forces” (p. 68). The Provisional IRA only emerged in December 1969. “When the British Army began shooting petrol bombers, the Provisional IRA began to shoot British soldiers. When the RUC or the British army raided Catholic houses, the IRA bombed British or Unionist-owned businesses’ (p. 112).

Initially the organisation of the insurgency fell upon the IRA’s Belfast Brigade. But “gradually, the British began to impose their strength on IRA districts… foot patrols soon learned the pattern of streets and roadways. More damaging still… was the accumulation of information and knowledge that was being gathered by the British Army and RUC… It became an unpleasant shock to both the IRA in Belfast and to the leadership of the movement overall, when they realised that its largest and most hard-hitting brigade was vulnerable” (p. 115).

Thus, the armed struggle became more focussed on the rural areas where, after “the IRA units gradually acquired the ability to destroy British Army road vehicles… the British used … the UDR (as the B Specials became), supported by the RUC reserve to gather intelligence and to act as a lightly armed counter-insurgent militia” (p. 117).

The UDR often had contacts and overlapping membership with the fascist Loyalist [2] death squads to whom they could pass on information, and offer a degree of protection for their illicit operations. It is not uncommon for reactionary regimes to resort to fascists when required; but usually their services are dispensed with once the particular ‘emergency’ has subsided. The B Specials had been a permanent feature of the Northern Ireland set-up.

Tommy describes vividly the insidious way that the Orange state was able to use these forces to penetrate rural working class communities. “Operating in their own areas… this force performed a function that was vital in every counter-insurgency strategy across the world. That is its members provided a constant on-the-ground presence of men familiar with their native districts who monitored events, responded quickly to incidents, and manned checkpoints at key locations” (p. 111). “They had dual military and civilian roles… Employed as school bus-drivers, postmen, refuse collectors and every other position in the workforce {which Unionist sectarian employment practice very much contributed to} they had a perfect ‘cover’ for travelling covertly through Republican districts” (p. 117-8). “The B Specials were often trusted to store personal weapons in their homes so that they could mobilise at short notice” (p. 50). “Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Provisional IRA responded by proactively targeting UDR members and RUC reservists, whether in or out of uniform” (p.118).

Yet, when it came to those local forces of Unionist law and order, as Tommy points out, “Strenuous efforts have been made over the years to portray {them} as well-meaning part-timers doing their best to protect society insinuating that any attack on their members was motivated purely by sectarianism” (p. 117).

One of the most unpleasant aspects of British counter-insurgency strategy was the attempt to portray this conflict – whether between Loyalist and Republican, Unionist and Nationalist, or Protestant and Catholic – as one between “two warring tribes”. This was used to justify the deployment of British troops “to keep the peace”. Yet, at the same time, British security agencies were clandestinely arming and directing one ‘tribe’, in the form of the Loyalist death squads, in order to intimidate the Nationalists (potential Republican supporters) and to break the real opposition they faced.

This opposition extended way beyond the IRA to the very real ‘communities of resistance’ found amongst the Nationalist working class.  These had originated in the ‘No Go’ areas established at the time Internment was first introduced in 1971. Photographs of working class women banging dustbin lids, to warn of British army patrols, became their iconic image. Although ‘Operation Motorman’ put an end to the ‘No Go’ areas, in July 1972, ‘communities of resistance’ persisted.

The fact that Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, and others in Peoples Democracy, made that transition from the politics of Civil Rights to Republicanism was reassuring for many socialists over here. Furthermore, Bernadette, over both phases of her political activity, retained a strong socialist commitment, which meant that she remained a critical voice. We were reminded of the high cost of such commitment when, in 1981, Bernadette was shot by the UDA seven times at her Coalisland home, with British soldiers waiting not far away.

One of the major strengths of Tommy’s book is how he shows that the war of attrition, which sometimes became derailed into murderous dead-end actions, could have developed in other ways. In the early stage, “for approximately three years… {the IRA} offered training in the use of arms to the local defence committees (p. 75). By late 1972… the Provisional IRA leadership decided to cease providing training for defence to non-members… In the short term this had some merit. In the long term, though, it deprived the organisation (and the Catholic population) of the means and the concept of a broad ground-level defence against Loyalist attack. To a large extent, deciding to tighten control over the armed insurrection illustrated a fundamental dilemma… the Provisional IRA… needed popular support yet felt uneasy about placing unregulated trust in the masses. This was and remains an unfortunate feature of insurrectionary Irish Republicanism” (p. 78).

This weakness became even more apparent in the context of the 1981 Hunger Strikes. “The Anti H-Block campaign drew a broad cross-section of left wing and working class people behind its cause. Very few radical elements of Irish society remained outside the movement and for a period a real opportunity existed to forge a new and dynamic anti-establishment mass movement. Fear of losing control, and a limited understanding of the nature and power of a mass mobilisation of people, led the IRA leadership to impose its authority on the movement with unfortunate consequences” (p. 153). “The Republican leadership recognised the power of mass popular actions but instead of creating a broad revolutionary movement from what they had helped to create, opted instead for a parliamentary path… The strategy was successful from a Provisional IRA point of view, leading eventually to the basis for the nascent New Sinn Fein” (p. 152)  – where ‘New’ has a similar connotation to the prefix placed before Blair’s Labour Party.

And it was in this context that Tommy became involved, with others in Long Kesh, with the Communist Republican Prisoners, and later the League of Communist Republicans. “Unlike those pushing for acceptance of a purely parliamentary strategy, this group of prisoners were firmly to the left of the movement and Marxist for the most part. They argued that it was imperative that the IRA put in place a strategy that would allow it to win significant support in the South and that its politics and strategy would also allow it to make a significant impact on a strategically important section of the British working-class and radical population” (p. 166).

Yet, perhaps this very notion of a ‘British working class’ also needs to be questioned. ‘Britishness’ is an imperially created identity, which has so often helped to imbue workers in these islands with ruling class ideas. Nowhere is this more obvious than in ‘the Six Counties’ itself, where the notion of being ‘Ulster-British’ was such a powerful pull on Protestant workers. The notion of being both Scottish and British exerted a strong pull on Loyalists over here too. And, of course, this British identity came along with support for the Crown, the Union, the Empire and the British armed forces.

However, when the Communist Republicans were first writing in Long Kesh, it is understandable why they could not see beyond this notion of a “British working class”. It was the Tories’ attempt to introduce the poll tax in Scotland that led to a significant increase in the hostility to the idea of a British identity amongst Scots. The successful Anti-Poll Tax campaign, initiated in Scotland, showed the potential for joint campaigns, organised on the basis of ‘internationalism from below’, bringing in, not British, but Scottish, Welsh and English workers. The Tories were smart enough not to extend this tax to ‘Northern Ireland’. However, once the British and Irish ruling classes had developed their shared ‘Peace Process’ and ‘Devolution-all-round’ strategy by 1997, to maintain their control over these islands, it became much clearer that any republican socialist ‘internationalism from below’ response should bring in Ireland too.

Later, Tommy draws readers’ attention to Bernadette McAliskey’s astute observation about the outcome of the ‘Peace Process’.  “She said that it was reminiscent of the Tudor policy of ‘surrender and regrant, in sixteenth century Ireland, when English power was being imposed across the entire island. The Provisional IRA leadership had achieved a certain status by surrendering its old programme and being allocated a place within the British system in Ireland. The era of New Sinn Fein had arrived” (pp.181-2).

Thus, Tommy’s outlining of the Communist Republicans’ viewpoint in the chapter, The Road Less Travelled – The Left Alternative (pp.164-71), provides a very necessary corrective to both those revisionist historians’ accounts and the ‘establishment Republican’/‘New Sinn Fein’ view of events. Tommy highlights the political consequences of  ‘the road not taken’. “Sinn Fein now holds 14 seats in the Dail but has not managed to fundamentally challenge the status quo. North of the border, they are partners with the DUP in the administration of Northern Ireland, having accepted Partition and the implications involved in this, including adapting to the neo-liberal consensus that reigns in Stormont” (pp. 170-1).

However, when appraising the course eventually taken by the Republican struggle, after it was eventually brought securely under the wing of ‘New Sinn Fein’, it is perhaps worth remembering the words which Victor Serge applied to Bolshevism.  “To judge the living man by the death germs which the autopsy reveals in the corpse – and which he may have carried in him since his birth – is that very sensible?”

Another strength of Tommy’s analysis is that, although very critical of the direction taken by the Provisional IRA, and now ‘New Sinn Fein’, he does not fall back on dissident Republican “mantras about ‘betrayal’ and the ‘right of the Irish people’” (p. 213). Neither does he turn his back on his the long years involved in the Republican struggle. “It broke the foundations of Orange state sectarianism – anti-Catholic discrimination in housing, welfare, the economy and politics. This was a transformative war” (p.202).

But Tommy’s excellent analysis of the nature of this transformation is very revealing. “Something that has not changed, though, is the sectarian division of the Northern Irish working class… The Orange state may have been brought to an end, but in its place is a {new} sectarian entity. This outcome has benefited a significant section of a Catholic middle class born out of the ashes of the Orange state” (p. 189). The new Stormont constitutionally entrenches the position of two ‘communities’ by ensuring that the votes of  “representatives of parties who decline to register as either ‘Unionist’ or ‘nationalist’… do not count when it comes to deciding if cross-community consent has been obtained” (p. 190). Furthermore, “the Northern Ireland assembly has about the same relationship with the House of Commons in London as the management in Tesco in Belfast has with the head office in the UK” (p. 193).

Thus, “if ever the Marxist dialectic of one contradiction giving way to a fresh contradiction was evident in any situation, it is surely visible in the Good Friday Agreement” (p. 190). Whereas the British ruling class once depended upon Ulster Unionists and their Orange state to directly defend its imperial interests, today they have positioned the UK state as ‘honest broker’ between the Unionists and the Nationalists, providing each, in the new Stormont, with a forum to raise their concerns, and to mediate between their claims. The British still call the shots and – if it proves necessary again – they will also still fire the shots. And, whereas in the past, there was always some American questioning of the British role in Ireland, the current strategy of the UK state enjoys the full support of US imperialism.

Tommy finishes his book with a call to launch, A New Republic and a Relevant Republicanism (pp. 207-14). There is a great deal of thought provoking material in this chapter. One doesn’t have to agree with all Tommy’s analysis or proposals, which by their nature are still tentative. What is clear though is that Tommy locates Republicanism within a clear class perspective, with a life beyond its main organisations.  Tommy shows that, depending on the available obstacles or opportunities, Republicanism’s largely working class base has usually taken a fairly pragmatic attitude towards support for a physical force or a political road.

This particular divide, though, has always led to splits within Republican organisations – whether during the Irish Civil War in 1922; as a result of Fianna Fail’s acceptance of the Irish Dail in 1926; the Provisional/Official split in 1969; or between what Tommy calls ‘establishment Republicanism’ (‘New Sinn Fen) and ‘anti-establishment physical force Republicanism’ (1986 onwards).  Attempts to prioritise the working class’s own economic and social issues, whilst keeping firmly to a socialist republican path, have been less successful. However, “as the Provisional IRA military machine has passed into history and the political party that it generated {‘New Sinn Fein’} has drifted into centrism” Tommy sees a real opportunity to create a viable new socialist republicanism, which takes forward the issues the Communist Republican prisoners first raised in Long Kesh.

What I found most satisfying reading this book, as somebody who has been interested in events in Ireland since 1969, is that Tommy has come through his experiences still very much committed to the working class and to socialist republicanism.  This is demonstrated in his current work for the Independent Workers Union, which challenges the ICTU member unions’ backing for ‘social partnership’; and by his commitment to wider political debate, whether in, for example, Fourthwrite and Red Banner, or by attending discussion and debating forums throughout these islands.

Tommy addressed the first Republican Socialist Convention in Edinburgh (November 29^th 2008), organised by the SSP’s International Committee on an ‘internationalism from below’ basis. He also spoke to the third Global Commune Event (January 29^th, 2011), organised by the Republican Communist Network, where he addressed the question – ‘Trade Unions – Are They Fit for Purpose?’

This latter event also involved Paul Stewart, who wrote the Introduction to Tommy’s book. Paul is from a Northern Irish Protestant background and is a politically engaged academic living in Scotland, researching workers’ struggles.  He has given his professional help to the Independent Workers Union, and has helped it in its embrace of social (trade) unionism – which may well turn out to be for the beginning of the twenty first century, what industrial (trade) unionism was for the beginning of the twentieth.

I also had the privilege of seeing Tommy speak to another meeting, this time in Derry. This was organised to celebrate the centenary of James Connolly’s return to Ireland from the USA in June 1910. Bernadette McAliskey, the person who first inspired my interest in the struggle in Ireland, also addressed this meeting. Connolly was born in my home city of Edinburgh. The British army shot him in Dublin for his role in the Easter Rising of 1916. Connolly was the first socialist to challenge ‘the British road to socialism’. He advocated an ‘internationalism from below’ break-up of the UK and British Empire strategy. In this regard, he also inspired that other great Scottish socialist republican and communist – John Maclean from Glasgow, who extended Connolly’s notion of the break of the UK to cover Scotland, after his visit to Dublin in 1919, shortly after the Limerick Soviet.

When people like Bernadette and Tommy remain committed to socialist republicanism, despite all the trials and tribulations they have faced over more than 40 years, we can be a lot more confident about the future.  Tommy’s book addresses the issues faced by socialist republicans in a serious and engaging way. Get a copy, read it, get others to buy it (or, if they can’t afford one, pass yours round) and discuss it.

17 December 2011

[1] see Allan Armstrong:- http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2012/01/11/why-we-need-a-socialist-republican-internationalism-from-below-strategy-to-address-the-crisis-of-the-uk-state/ (sections v-viii)

[2] see Chris Ford:- http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2002/08/05/british-nationalism-and-the-rise-of-fascism/

Tommy McKearney’s book, published by Pluto Press, is available from Word Power Books. The Edinburgh book launch was held on August 20th, 2011.

see:-  http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2011/08/26/tommy-mckearneys-new-book-the-ira-from-insurrection-to-parliament/

It was not all a bed of roses. These democratic strides had to be fought for every inch of the way. The constitution had to be protected and battles had to be waged in its defence. As a member of a very small platform, taking on the numerical superiority of other platforms, such as the CWI, the SWP and the ISM, could be pretty uncomfortable. But – and the but was huge- it was the most democratic, socialist organisation in Europe, blending campaigning and mass participation with significant electoral success in the Scottish parliament. The SSP gained first one MSP, in the form of the eponymous villain in Alan’s book, then followed on with the election of six MSPs; more than half of whom were women! Instead of small dispirited groups who hated each other plying their separate wares on Saturday morning stalls and heckling passers by, we were part of a movement where people participated in our campaigns and activities and queued to sign our petitions, knew what we stood for and liked it.

So, being part of this movement and then to watch it crumble so ignominiously before our eyes as Tommy Sheridan embarked on his Kamikaze mission against the News of the World (NOTW) was not a part of my life I wanted to revisit via the pages of Alan McCombes’ book. However…… we can only learn from mistakes if we understand them. So, Alan’s book must be an important part of that process. We may never really understand just how Tommy’s mind worked through this time but if anyone could shed light on some of the causes of the debacle, then surely it would be Alan McCombes – by his own admission, the mentor, the architect, the creator of Tommy Sheridan, the icon.

For those of us who were there, there was not a lot new in this book. It was a very easy read and McCombes’ style, though laden with simile and metaphor, has a charm, which is hypnotic. McCombes does infuse the past with a wistful rosy glow and his sincerity and pain at seeing his creation turn against him is palpable. McCombes himself comes over as the thoughtful, courageous, political apparatchik that he is. However, the book is as much about the fatal flaws of the SSP as it is about Tommy’s fatal flaw.

The RCN has rightly asserted from the start that the split in the socialist movement in Scotland can be laid at the door of Tommy Sheridan, aided and abetted by the CWI and SWP. Through his vanity and arrogance, he was prepared to sacrifice the movement to protect his image. He seemed to believe his own lies and even more worryingly was supported in pursuit of his greater glory by those in the CWI and SWP who also knew the truth but by some absurd warped logic believed it was OK to lie because those lies were against the NOTW. The fact that they were also lying to the working class became irrelevant.

Alan’s book captures the madness of the time effectively. Particularly the National Council, which took place while he was in jail defending the minutes of an SSP Executive meeting. While reading about it, I could imagine folk who weren’t there thinking it could not have been that bad. Well it was. It was probably the first time I had seen the collective, destructive power of Tommy and his new allies given full vent. Although I do not recall anyone being hit, it was none the less a violent, vicious and intimidating meeting. There was literally baying for the blood of those who refused to support Tommy. It was a meeting, which shamed the socialist movement and publicly marked the end of everything the SSP had stood for. I was no great fan of Tommy and he had turned his wrath on me on a number of previous occasions but I was shocked at this screaming, parody of a socialist leader who ranted at his enemies.

Perhaps I would not have been so shocked if I had known what Alan and Frances, and Keith and Colin all knew. Maybe if I had realised what a creation Tommy had been from the start then I would have known that this kind of behaviour was possible. It was like he had won an X Factor type competition to become the poster boy of the Scottish left. Because, what Alan’s book does make clear, is that the myth of Tommy Sheridan was a façade. He was a media creation. He oozed warmth and sincerity and cultivated the idea that he was the personification of fairness and justice. Yes he did great things – the Poll Tax imprisonment, the warrant sales bill, the oratory which could touch people’s hearts in a gifted way but it was part of an act, of a role he had chosen to play. It was a role in which he was supported and coached and protected within by his former comrades. According to Alan, Tommy was in fact shallow, self centred, lacking in political understanding and messianic from the start.

So how does this reflect on the SSP and particularly the ranks of the ISM platform from whence Tommy came? Where was the culpability on the part of the SSP in what followed on from the NOTW revelations? Well Alan’s book shows how a cult of the individual, while yielding short-term benefits, is ultimately dangerous and destructive – it is anti democratic. Tommy, like ALL other leaders, needed to be under democratic control so that his undoubted talents could be used effectively. However, within the movement and the party, he should have had no special dispensations, rights or privileges.  Tommy’s private life is his business. What Gail knew, what was accepted within their relationship, is all speculation. McCombes is right when he makes it clear that there was no Calvinistic witch-hunt against Tommy because of his sexual proclivities. The problem was that having been allowed by the party to court the media using his Mr Clean family man image, charges of liar, cheat and hypocrite could easily have been thrown at him and the SSP when it came out. Had, of course, Sheridan resigned as convenor and let it blow over; no one would have cared after the furore had died down. Instead it was Tommy who insisted on taking the NOTW to court!

When Alan explains why the minutes of the Executive meeting where Tommy told the truth were kept secret, we can see another manifestation of the SSP leadership’s fatal flaw. It was done out of concern for Tommy and his family. The irony when Tommy shows no concern for the families of those he brands as liars and scabs is not lost. However, this came before party democracy. Obviously at that stage Alan and the Executive thought the matter could be contained but at the expense of the membership. Ultimately the party leadership believed the membership had to be protected or could not be trusted.

And so it went on with behind the scenes machinations, secret meetings, secret affidavits and secret filming. Alan does the party the courtesy through the book of explaining why what happened did and why the SSP leadership took the decisions it did at each stage. It does not however mitigate the fact that during this time, loyal party members were treated as people who could not understand the full implications of what was happening. Old friendships and loyalties are once more put above party policy and democracy as neither in the book nor at any subsequent party meeting has George McNeilage been condemned by the leadership for selling his story to the NOTW.

The sacrifices that Alan and the others have made for the socialist movement are undeniable. Downfall catalogues the misery brought to their lives during this process. The book must undoubtedly have been cathartic and it was necessary. It was intended to vindicate the position of all those dragged into court against their will and cross examined by a comrade that had been revered by substantial sections of the working class of this nation. And it does that very well.

By writing the book, I hope Alan can see the mistakes that were made were not all Tommy’s, not all his, nor the leadership’s, but mistakes we all made or allowed to happen. After reading this, I became more convinced than ever before that a new type of politics is necessary if we are to attract people into socialist activity and keep them there. We need a politics that is open, democratic and where all party members are equal. We need a politics, which can debate, question and hold to account those privileged enough to be chosen to lead us. We need a politics where disagreements are not seen as tests of friendships and where principles are more important than appeasing someone’s ego. We need a politics which is compassionate and caring but at the same time, determined and honest.

The SSP went some of the way to providing this but certainly during the crisis and sadly since the imprisonment of Tommy Sheridan, we have seen signs that the damage done by Tommy Sheridan has had a catastrophic effect on the SSP, its democratic structures and its potential as a uniting force in Scottish working class politics. It is very sad but it is too easy just to blame Tommy. We need to look forward to a party where the myth of Tommy Sheridan or his like does not have to be created.

A good kicking for the Lib-Dems disguises the wider impact of the National Question on May 5th

On May 5th, the Lib-Dem-initiated referendum proposal to introduce AV to Westminster elections was massively rejected in every nation and region of the UK, including Northern Ireland. In the English Local Council, the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament elections, all held on the same day, former Lib-Dem voters used the opportunity either to punish Clegg and his allies for entering into a coalition with the Tories, or to vote for the real thing. This took precedence over any vote ‘Yes’ recommendations on AV by the other parties. In the absence of meaningful resistance, voters turned to revenge instead.

In the English Local Council elections, Labour routed the Lib-Dems in the north, whilst the Tories routed them in the south. Elsewhere in the UK, though, the impact of the National Question pushed the Lib-Dems’ decline to being a secondary issue.

In the Welsh Assembly election, the Lib-Dems also lost out to both Labour and the Tories. However, the main loser was Plaid Cymru, recently in coalition with Labour. Plaid’s recent efforts, throwing all of its weight behind the  Coalition’s successful referendum campaign to devolve law-making powers to the Welsh Assembly, seemed to represent the culmination of its political ambitions.  Yet, all the mainstream unionist parties supported this liberal unionist measure too.  With Plaid less relevant, and the Tories very unpopular in working class South Wales, Welsh Labour advanced and has formed its own single-party government, thus making more posts available for its own careerists.

In the Northern Ireland, the Lib-Dems officially support the moderate unionist Alliance Party. However, the lack of any wider appreciation of this fact, along with Alliance’s different name, meant that, despite its Lib-Dem type politics, it was able to make limited gains in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, as the old UUP continues to sheds its more moderate voters (remembering that ‘moderate’ is a relative term in Unionist politics in Northern Ireland!)

But this too was a side issue when the DUP and Sinn Fein made small gains, despite their joint implementation of public sector cuts. They were able to take their first Stormont Coalition into a second term. Voters threw their weight behind competitive sectarian pleading for Westminster resources, in a Stormont that has a constitutionally recognised divide between Unionists and Nationalists. Voters rejected any return to possible armed conflict, or to a class based opposition to the Con-Dem cuts to the Northern Ireland budget.

On the Unionist side, the tentative move to the centre, marked by the growth of the Alliance Party, was matched by a move on the Right towards the rejectionist, Traditional Unionist Voice. However, the possibility of voting for either of these constitutional Unionist options was underpinned by the continued desire for stability. This was highlighted by the electoral demise of the Progressive Unionist Party, linked to the redundant (for the moment) Loyalist UVF death squads.

However, the most sensational result on May 5^th occurred in the Scottish Parliament election. Here the previous minority SNP government was able to increase its number of MSPs from 46 to 69, an absolute majority forecast by no one. Furthermore, the SNP’s votes came at the expense, not only of the Lib-Dems, but of the Tories, Labour and the small Socialist vote too. Only the Greens managed to hold on to their vote and their 2 MSPs. They made a calculated Left appeal, now that their moderate leader, Robin Harper, has retired. They hoped to woo former disillusioned Socialist voters. Labour only managed to increase its vote in two constituencies, Dumfries and Eastwood. Here they were the main challengers to the Tories, who by their own admission remain “toxic” in Scotland.  Very few people in Scotland held street parties to celebrate Will’s and Kate’s royal wedding on the 29^th April – many are saving these for Thatcher’s funeral!

How socialists fared throughout the UK

In the English Local Elections, three Socialist councillors, now standing under the CWI-initiated, Trade Union & Socialist Coalition (TUSC) banner, lost their previous seats (including both SWP councillors), despite these and a few other candidates still getting a credible vote. Elsewhere though, the TUSC vote was small. It will be interesting to see whether TUSC can survive as a wider Socialist unity project, or whether it will just follow that other CWI initiative, the National Shop Stewards Network and become a complete CWI-front.

In Wales, Socialists only stood on the List vote in the Assembly elections, under the banner of Scargill’s SLP, the Communist Party of Britain, or TUSC. They made little headway. Indeed it is an indication of the decline of the Left, that it was the moribund SLP that attracted most Socialist votes as a purely passive electoral gesture.

In Northern Ireland, those Socialists who contested the Stormont election, either under the banner of People Before Profit (SWP front), the Socialist Party (CWI), the Workers Party or Socialist Democracy (USFI), sometimes competed against each other. They were marginal outside Derry/Foyle, where the SWP’s well-known Eamonn McCann made a credible showing. Republican socialists and traditional pro-armed struggle republicans did not stand in the Stormont elections, but confined their activities to the Local Council elections held in Northern Ireland on the same day (unlike Wales or Scotland). A couple of breakaway former Sinn Fein councillors held their seats, whilst Patricia Campbell of the Independent Workers Union and the republican socialist, eirigi and the IRSP all made a credible showing, despite some mutual competition between these last two in West Belfast. The traditionalist republican, pro-armed struggle, 32 Counties Sovereignty Movement also made headway in Derry, a reflection of the lack of any meaningful ‘peace dividend’ in the most deprived Nationalist communities.

In Scotland, Socialists, who as recently as 2007, held 6 seats at Holyrood, were fatally crippled in the aftermath of the Sheridan affair. As in Wales, they only stood for the List seats and were split between Scargill’s SLP, the SSP and Solidarity. And, as in Wales, Scargill’s phantom SLP gained the most Socialist votes in the Left’s equivalent of ‘bald men fighting over a comb’. In the absence of Solidarity’s leader, the Left nationalist, Tommy Sheridan, they also decided to back another celebrity socialist, the left Unionist, George Galloway. He had parachuted into Glasgow as the George Galloway/Respect candidate after being rejected by electors in East London last year. Glasgow voters recognised an opportunist carpetbagger when they saw one, so knowing he was going to lose, he just picked up his bags and left before the count. The SSP vote continued to fall from its poor 2007 result, whilst Solidarity’s declining vote went into tailspin. This raises the question in both organisations about the prospects of future meaningful Socialist unity.

The meaning of the SNP electoral victory

So, what does the SNP victory in the Holyrood elections represent? Ever since the banking crash, which saw the SNP and its charismatic leader, Alex Salmond, too closely associated with the failed Royal Bank of Scotland, the party had been unable to win any Westminster or many council by-elections. During the 2010 Westminster general election, the Labour Party, amazingly and also unpredictably, increased its vote in Scotland, retaking a seat previously lost to the SNP in a pre-crash by-election. Labour’s electoral appeal was almost entirely based upon playing up to the fear of the Tories.

As recently as the beginning of the year, polls were anticipating the return of a Labour-led government to Holyrood, in the face of the SNP’s betrayal, after the economic crisis, of its 2007 electoral promises. Labour thought that they could just repeat their ‘No back to the 1980s’, anti-Tory appeal in the run-up to the May 5^th. However, that card had been played out in 2010.  Despite voting Labour, Scotland now faced the hated Tories once more, supported by the increasingly despised Lib-Dems. Yet Miliband’s Labour Party, consigned to ‘opposition’, was making absolutely no difference.

Salmond was able to repeat Gordon Brown’s 2010 pre-election trick, and postpone major Holyrood cuts until after the election. Although he lowered the electorate’s sights, abandoning many earlier SNP promises, those still remaining aimed higher than any made by Labour. The relentlessly negative Scottish Labour leader, Ian Gray, believed that Scottish voters would automatically return to their ‘natural’ fold, and that the Holyrood gravy train would once more be at Labour’s disposal. He slept-walked towards May 5^th. When Labour’s poll support started to ebb away, his response was once more to raise the separatist bogey (it had failed in 2007 with its effect neutralised by the SNP’s promised referendum on independence), and then, in panic, he adopted virtually every other SNP policy.

Meanwhile, Salmond had been assiduously building-up the backing of Scottish businessmen, including Brian Souter, the homophobic owner of Stagecoach, Sir Thomas Farmer, the Con-Dem cuts-approving owner of KwikFit, and Sir David Murray, the Unionist owner of Murray International Metals and recently of Rangers FC.  Donald Trump, the controversial American tycoon, given the go-ahead to build a luxury golf-course and gated housing project in Aberdeenshire, also enjoys the support of the SNP government. Both Murdoch’s Sun and Tommy Sheridan (http://tommysheridan.wordpress.com/ April 22^nd) backed the Scottish populist nationalist, SNP. The SNP obviously gained far more by way of support from the former, given the evidence of the latter’s failure to persuade many Glasgow voters to back his other recommended choice – the Left British unionist, George Galloway.

SNP success in inverse proportion to working class confidence and Socialist success

Underlying the large electoral drift to the SNP is the current lack of working class self-confidence. This reflects the lack of fightback against the Con-Dems’ austerity drive, following on workers’ earlier disillusioned acceptance of Brown’s and Darling’s proposed Westminster imposed cuts. The STUC is every bit as wedded to social partnership deals with the employers and the state as the TUC.  The effect of these has been to turn trade unions into a free personnel management service for the bosses. Added to this is the sorry demise of the Left in Scotland in the aftermath of the Sheridan fiasco. The attraction of Socialist unity in the face of massive cutbacks was demonstrated earlier this year in the Irish elections when the United Left Alliance was able to pick up 5 Dail seats.

However, much of the SNP’s electoral support is superficial – a clutching at straws. As long as workers remain acquiescent, the SNP government will openly pursue its real aim – making Scotland a haven for Scottish businesses and global corporations. Earlier this year, to show where the SNP’s loyalties lie, John Swinney, Finance Minister, allowed the lapse of Holyrood’s income tax raising powers, voted for in the 1997 Devolution Referendum. The SNP have extended their council tax freeze for another five years to force Local Councils into privatising services. The Lib-Dem/SNP coalition running Edinburgh Council has brought in consultants to prepare for such measures. This follows their attack on cleansing workers’ pay, preparatory to possible privatisation. The SNP government has even attacked the Con-Dem’s recent proposed levy on North Sea Oil. It’s not to be ‘Scotland’s Oil’, but will remain the petroleum corporations’ oil!

The SNP has entered negotiations with Cameron over Westminster’s proposed Scotland Bill. This is based on the miserable additional devolutionary powers recommended by the Calman Commission to dish the SNP, in advance of any possible Independence Referendum. The SNP’s over-riding concern is to get the political power to cut corporation tax. Up until 2008, the SNP’s very mild reforms were dependent on building up Scotland’s ‘buoyant’ finance sector – a trickle-down ‘social democracy’ courtesy of the Royal Bank of Scotland! Now, any such reforms are meant to be financed by a very limited tax on corporate profits – if their boards agree to play ball!

Constitutional crisis or a SNP negotiated ‘Devolution-Max’ cop out?

The media has made much of a possible constitutional crisis due to the SNP’s commitment to holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the last years of its office. The novelty of a Nationalist victory in one of the UK’s devolved assemblies should not prevent people looking to other comparable examples in Spain and Quebec. Here Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU), the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Parti Quebecois (PQ) have also formed majority administrations in devolved assemblies. Both the CiU and PNV have settled for greater measures of devolution within the Spanish state, whilst the PQ initiated referendum on Quebec independence was narrowly defeated and has not been attempted again.

Meanwhile, ‘over the water’, the former revolutionary nationalist Sinn Fein has settled very quickly into helping to run the UK’s devolved administration in Northern Ireland.  All the indications are that the very constitutional nationalist SNP is quite willing to settle for ‘Devolution-Max’. Salmond doesn’t have the excuse that he had in his last government of being in a minority, and hence being unable to put forward the SNP’s promised Independence Referendum Bill. In reality, however, significant forces in the SNP, including rightist Education Minister, Michael Russell, and former leftist, Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, never wanted a referendum, and nor do many of the SNP’s current business backers.

Salmond is publicly ditching more and more attributes of meaningful political independence. The SNP recognise the continued role of the monarchy (which fronts the British ruling class’s draconian anti-democratic Crown Powers), the City (which sets financial policy), and the UK’s armed forces (which would be able to use Scottish military facilities). The SNP supports UN-backed (i.e. US-dominated Security Council approved) imperial wars, and has campaigned vigorously to maintain Scottish regiments, and British and NATO bases in Scotland.  There may still be some commitment to abolishing the unpopular Trident bases and hence for Scotland to step down into NATO’s second tier, non-nuclear ‘Partnership for Peace’. However, there are also signs that the SNP would be prepared just to lease out military facilities here, creating, in effect,  ‘Guantanamac’ bases.

‘Independence-Lite’ represents the height of SNP leadership ambitions, although a considerable section would settle for ‘Devolution-Max’.  Most of the existing institutions of the British unionist and imperial state would remain in place but be given a lick of tartan paint in Scotland. The SNP is no more able to deliver meaningful political independence, than Labour was able to deliver political devolution in 1979. A considerable majority of the British ruling class was against Scottish devolution then, but the overwhelming majority of the British ruling class is against Scottish independence now.

The British ruling class opposes Scottish independence and backs ‘Devolution-all-round’

The British ruling class is currently prepared to go no further than a few more limited devolutionary concessions, based on Blair’s 1997 ‘Devolution-all-round’ and Peace (in reality, pacification) Process settlement. This settlement is designed both to buttress wider British imperial control over these islands (emphasised by the recent royal visit to Ireland) and to create the best political conditions for corporate profitability.

Furthermore, despite the SNP’s overtures to Americans of Scottish descent (many of whom are on the US Right), it is the UK government, which enjoys official US state backing. Indeed the UK is such a reliable junior partner (with military forces that can be deployed more widely than Israel’s) that successive US governments have granted the UK state the imperial franchise in the North East Atlantic. The UK also acts as a useful spoiler to contain any independent French-German Euro-imperial ambitions. The USA is unlikely to switch its backing to the SNP. Furthermore, EU leaders will not step on UK governments’ toes over this issue.

Realising the SNP is isolated in the UK and wider international arena, Salmond is likely to offer a second ‘Devolution-Max’ option in the SNP Government’s proposed Independence Referendum. This would satisfy his most ardent business supporters, as well as important sectors of his own party.  Those rank and file Scottish independence supporting SNP members could be left to get on with campaigning for a ‘Yes’ vote for what is, in effect, ‘Independence-Lite’ under the Crown, the City, the British armed forces and NATO.

However, the SNP leadership would itself be riding two horses, with different members providing their personal support for whichever option they really backed (in a similar manner to Labour in the 1979 Devolution referendum). SNP ‘Devolution-Max’ supporters might hope to get influential backing from those amongst Labour (e.g. Henry MacLeish), the Lib-Dems (e.g. Charles Kennedy) and even the Conservatives (e.g. Murdo Fraser), who are committed to further liberal unionist measures.  The SNP’s worried rank and file independence supporters would be fobbed off with the promise that ‘Devolution-Max’ was but another stage on the road to independence – an argument that could have some purchase, given that some SNP supporters also see ‘Independence-Lite’ as but a stage towards ultimate Scottish political sovereignty.

Those actually campaigning for a ‘Yes’ vote for Scottish ‘independence’ (i.e. ‘Independence-Lite’) will soon be subjected to all the dirty tricks available to the British ruling class and its political representatives under the UK Crown Powers, since they are currently implacably opposed to such a course of action. The membership of the impeccably constitutionalist SNP is no more prepared for these, than it was in 1979, when the British ruling class was at least split, not united as it is today, over how best to maintain the Union. Meanwhile, the SNP government will be forced to impose the cuts demanded by Westminster and its business backers. This will highlight just whose class interests the SNP’s advocacy of ‘independence’ are meant to serve.

Salmond has just had his own 2011 equivalent of New Labour’s ‘things can only get better’ 1997 election. This is likely to lead to a similar let down in the future. Socialists today appear to be in as much of a mess as they were after Thatcher defeated the miners and Liverpool Council in the mid-80’s. By 1987, the triumphant Tories had decided to introduce the poll tax and face down the growing ‘National Question’ in the UK. However, Thatcher was defeated by mass independent class action and continued Irish republican opposition. Independent class action and a socialist republican strategy based on the promotion of ‘internationalism from below’ is the precondition for our advance today.

Allan Armstrong. 7.6.11

Part  Two – the  SNP follows Labour 

Social democracy SNP-style and the lessons it has learned from Labour

The long-term decline of the Labour Party in Scotland has enabled the SNP to pose in social democratic colours, particularly in the Central Belt. The SNP’s social democratic commitments are not that great, and like New Labour compete inside the party with another distinctly neo-liberal economic agenda. However, the SNP has skilfully positioned itself, so that it appears to promise more reforms than New Labour  – not a very difficult task! However, as with New Labour, any social democratic reforms are only made as election promises when they are compatible with the interests of the major financial institutions, well represented in Edinburgh, and of other global corporations and Scottish businesses engaged in constant lobbying at Holyrood or Bute House.

The last SNP government (2007-11) soon abandoned its election promises of improved teacher/student ratios in schools, the cancellation of student debt, and the abolition of the regressive council tax, in order to prioritise meeting the costs of the bankers’ bailout. This highlights the limitations of the SNP’s social democratic reforms. The SNP pushes much more consistently for reduced corporate taxation and other pro-business measures, highlighted by its courting of prominent Scottish businessmen, e.g. Brian Souter, Sir George Matthewson and Sir Tom Farmer, as well as international tycoons, e.g. Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch.

Furthermore, the essence of any social democratic reforms today, whether under Labour or SNP, is that they only represent ‘sweeties’, selected and handed down by those liberal capitalist parties representing the ruling and middle classes, in order to win votes from what they hope will remain an otherwise passive working class. The conservative capitalist parties (the Conservative and UKIP) oppose state financed, social democratic reforms, and only accept their continued existence as a price to be paid to prevent greater social upheaval. Since the post-1975 ruling class offensive, any new reforms have rarely come about as a result of independent working class campaigning or action. This is why they have proved to be so ephemeral under the current conditions of capitalist crisis.

The notion of what constitutes social democracy has been successively diluted since the late nineteenth century. Then it meant the politics of those who organised the working class to fight for an alternative socialist society. Later it meant the politics of those who represented the economic and social interests of the working class within capitalism and who sought a welfare state  – termed Labourism in the UK. Nowadays it means the politics of those who argue for a vague commitment to some state regulation and social reforms, something that also appeal to sections of the middle class, especially those employed in the management of the public sector. However, today’s social democrats everywhere subordinate their proposed social democratic reforms to first meeting the ‘needs of the market’, i.e. global corporate capital.

The SNP has become, in effect, a ‘tartan’ social democrat party, in the current political sense of the term. This chimes in very well with the dominant cultural values found in Scotland. However, when workers take their own independent action you can see the real class face of the SNP. The SNP control West Dunbartonshire Council and have imposed cuts here upon some of the most deprived working class communities. They suspended Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) councillor, Jim Bollan for six months following his consistent backing for workers and service users resisting these cuts. In the City of Edinburgh Council, the SNP are in coalition with the Lib-Dems. Here they have spent more money on hiring private refuse collectors to break the industrial action of the council’s in-house refuse workers resisting a major pay cut, than it would have cost to settle the dispute. This is because the council is preparing for privatisation of services, as a way of making public sector cuts, and of winning business support.

The SNP remains, in effect, a federally organised party, advocating different policies in different regions to appeal to different classes and sections of the Scottish population. It has a somewhat different face in the Western Isles, the north-east and the Central Belt. However, for a long time, a dominant Labour Party was able to limit the SNP’s growth in the major cities and the Central Belt, with its characterisation of the SNP as ‘Tartan Tories’. This was never an entirely accurate label, although the SNP undoubtedly has a right populist wing, where most remaining ‘fundamentalists’ are still to be found.

However, under Jim Sillars and later, Alex Salmond (significantly both from the former Leftist 79 Group), the SNP has made huge efforts to win over the Labour Party’s working class electoral base. They have been mightily helped in this by New Labour’s drift to the Right, and by the current demise, after the Sheridan debacle, of the once promising Socialist alternative, which developed in Scotland in the aftermath of the successful anti-poll tax struggle.

The SNP and the Labour unionist precedent in abandoning a consistent secular approach to society

The SNP has learned more from the Labour Party, though, than the necessity to advocate social democratic reforms to win working class support. Because the Labour Party developed within, and increasingly adapted to the existing UK state and British Empire, with its constitutional monarchy and its established church, it departed from the earlier Radical, and never adopted the continental Social Democrat tradition, which then championed a republican and secular society, as the best means to integrate people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds.

In the nineteenth century, as those rising middle class members, who owned industries and other businesses, joined and broadened the traditional British ruling class, their Liberal principles became increasingly compromised. This was because they began to fear more Radical challenges from the ‘lower orders’. They sought their own rapprochement with the existing British unionist and constitutional monarchist order with its established church.  This became especially clear in their attempts to deal with those challenges they faced in Ireland.

The majority of the British ruling class decided that, rather than push for a secular Ireland, which might bring together ‘lower order’ Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters  – the old republican ideal – they would look for influential allies who would help them maintain their overall control. The widening of the franchise, first to the middle class, then later to tenant farmers and workers, meant that they could no longer rely on the old ‘Anglo-Irish’ Protestant Ascendancy alone. They found a powerful ally in the Catholic hierarchy.

However, winning the hierarchy’s support also meant granting it significant concessions.  These included the recognition of the papacy’s right to appoint bishops in the UK, and giving the hierarchy control over educational and elementary social provision (hospitals, children’s homes, etc). This was consistent with earlier Liberal capitulation to Protestant denominations over the provision of education and social provision in Ireland (particularly the North), England, Scotland and Wales.

In Ireland, both Daniel O’Connell and later, Charles Parnell went along with the Catholic hierarchy’s demands for a greater political say, in return for support for more political recognition of Ireland within the Union. The hierarchy also ensured that its full weight was thrown behind the suppression of the Radical alternatives represented by Young Ireland, the Fenian Brotherhood and the more Radical wing of the Irish Land League, and that loyalty to the Queen, UK and British Empire was upheld.

This ruling class attempt to broaden the base of ‘Britishness’ by making political concessions to the religious and ethnic leaders in particular communities has become the hallmark of a top-down state managerial approach to win the loyalty of people from different religious and ethnic groups in the UK. Today, this is officially promoted as ‘multiculturalism’, at the same time as the UK constitution and state retains a hierarchy of religious and ethnic privileges. This is highlighted by the continued existence of an established church (the Church of England, with semi-established status for the Church of Scotland too) and the state promotion of ‘British values’ (first developed in and heavily influenced by the context of systematic clearances, enclosures, various types of forced labour, brutal punishments and the worldwide imperial looting of the planet). State promoted multiculturalism is not based on the idea of universal equality of the members of those ethnic and religious groups living in the UK, but by the recognition of a hierarchy of privileges meted out to ‘their’ state-approved representatives [1].

In the nineteenth century, by departing from a consistent secular approach, the Liberal party, helped by the Catholic hierarchy, was able to win the vote of the majority of immigrant Irish. It was the passive votes, not the active participation of the ‘lower orders,’ that they wanted. In the twentieth century, the Labour Party increasingly adopted this approach too, but took it much further. It was also able to gain the support of many Catholic members of Irish origin, once the Catholic hierarchy had been won over and offered its lead. Labour accepted the state funding of specifically Catholic schools, which were placed under the immediate control of the hierarchy.

Several things helped the Catholic hierarchy in their endeavours. First the ‘non-denominational’ state schools were, in effect, still dominated by the different Protestant churches found in England, Scotland, Wales and what soon became Northern Ireland. The Conservative and Unionist Party, and the Church of Scotland still had strong Orange Order connections. They publicly displayed strong anti-Irish prejudices.  Therefore, it was argued that separate schooling would shield Catholics from the entrenched discrimination, which was certainly still prevalent, particularly in Scotland, in 1918 (and until much later), at the time such schools were set up.

However, the other side of this was the acceptance that religious (or anti-Irish) divisions were a permanent feature of society and could not be overcome. This gave the Catholic hierarchy exclusive control, not just over religious education, but over most other aspects of education and pastoral care for children in their crucial formative years. Unlike the Loyalists and Orange Order, particularly in Northern Ireland, the Catholic hierarchy did not push for other measures of segregation, e.g. to cover employment and housing, to further entrench their influence. Such measures would just confine those of Irish Catholic origin to the worst jobs and homes and not have been popular. Therefore, the hierarchy went along with the majority of Catholics who fought against discrimination by demanding proper access in these economic and social arenas.

The best way to promote wider social integration is to adopt a similar secular and non-discriminatory approach to education too. Few people (apart from Loyalist bigots in Northern Ireland) want separate provision of housing and jobs. A secular approach would mean ending the church establishment, and removing any remaining privileges by eliminating the existing Protestant aspects of ‘non-denominational’ schools. Of course, those Protestant bigots, who campaign for the ending of Catholic schools, don’t wish to end such Protestant privileges. They want to reassert Protestant British supremacy. This why they also call for the promotion of royal events, by celebrating the British Protestant monarchy in schools.  In contrast, secular schools would provide education about religions and other world outlooks, rather than permitting any religious indoctrination. However, such an approach is also still vehemently opposed by the Catholic hierarchy, which would lose the privileges it currently enjoys. In upholding this stance they have the backing of the Labour Party, particularly in Scotland.

Labour attacked the SNP, for much of its history, for wanting to create a Presbyterian Scotland. Labour strongly suggested that Scottish independence could only lead to the creation of a new ‘Stormont’-type regime here. As recently as 1994, Labour accused the SNP of anti-Catholic sectarianism in the Monklands by-election. However, just as the SNP has been able to out-social democrat New Labour, so, under Salmond, it has become as adept as Labour in courting the support of religious leaders, including the late Cardinal Winning and the current Cardinal O’Brien.

To win their influential support, the SNP has carefully politically positioned itself to appear less tolerant of gays and abortion rights than Labour, without officially adopting anti-gay or anti-abortion stances, which could lose it liberal support. Furthermore, the SNP has managed this, whilst at the same time courting such prominent Protestant fundamentalists as the homophobic Brian Souter, owner of Stagecoach.

Labour too was long able to play to such seemingly contradictory galleries. Prominent anti-Catholic bigot, Sam Campbell, member of the Orange Order, was the one-time Provost of Dalkeith and prominent Midlothian Labour councillor. Furthermore, Labour also currently enjoys the electoral support of the Orange Order, since it is seen to be the largest and most effective pro-unionist party in Scotland. Labour certainly doesn’t loudly trumpet this, preferring, if challenged, to appear as a mediating influence between religious or ethnic ‘extremes’.

In the recent past, Labour has extended the approach, initially adopted towards the Catholic hierarchy, by seeking the support of Muslim religious leaders in order to win the electoral support of mainly Asian migrants (particularly from Pakistan and Bangla Desh). Following this particular precedent, Salmond has also developed close relations with such people as Osama Saeed of the Scottish Islamic Foundation (which went on to receive state funding under the post 2007 SNP Holyrood government). Saeed became an SNP Westminster candidate in 2010 and he advocates ‘faith schools’. Just as the earlier Labour/Catholic hierarchy rapprochement helped to long cover up persistent child abuse in Catholic institutions, so SNP/Muslim religious leader rapprochement, especially if it were to lead to the setting up of ‘faith schools’, would likely provide cover for the sexist treatment of girls and women.2

Only a secular approach to society can guarantee the right of individuals to practice the religion of their choice without imposing their values on others, and at the same time guarantee universal rights to women, children, gays and lesbians, often granted fewer ‘rights’ or facing real discrimination under religious rulings. Following the earlier path adopted by the Liberal and Labour Parties before it, the SNP has not chosen a principled secular approach.

This is because the SNP, despite having a paper commitment to political independence, has also been very much moulded by the legacy of British unionism and imperialism. This can be seen in the party’s acceptance of the Crown (which fronts so many of the anti-democratic features of the UK state), the United Kingdom (the Queen would remain head of state), its support for Scottish regiments (serving US/British imperial interests) and of sterling (which means recognition of Scotland’s economic subordination to the City).

The SNP leadership does not really offer us a political road to effective Scottish self-determination. Instead it offers itself to both overseas and Scottish business leaders as the best potential management for declining British imperialism and the UK state, in the territory ‘north of the border’. It accepts the continued dominant role of US/British imperialism and corporate capital in the north-east Atlantic. It wishes to uphold this order, but preferably through a saltire-flagged, non-nuclear, military contribution to NATO.

The SNP leadership does hope though that there will still be enough small change left from government revenues to provide a few social democratic reforms, after meeting the continually increasing costs of maintaining a crisis-ridden capitalism. To win wider support for this strategy, it is trying to paint as much of the inherited machinery of the UK state with a good lick of ‘tartan paint’ as possible, beginning with the British Army’s Scottish regiments.

The SNP’s current confident stance is designed to offer a somewhat brighter future than the grim prospects offered by the present Scottish Labour leader, the well-named Iain Gray. However, committed first to meeting the needs of the banksters and other corporate spivs, the SNP’s illusion-mongering can only work as long as workers lack the self-confidence to organise and to take action to meet our own needs.

Real Scottish political self-determination can only be won through the consistent upholding of a democratic secular approach, which strives for the equality of all those currently living in Scotland, in an alliance with others in England, Wales and Ireland to break up the UK state and the US/British imperial alliance on the basis of an ‘internationalism from below’ strategy.

Such a strategy can not be separated from the need to develop a new socio-economic order to replace an increasingly crisis-ridden capitalism. To achieve this means breaking from all those who have become trapped in the web of institutions bequeathed by the successive phases of global capitalism both under the dominance of British and now US/British imperialism. In the nineteenth century, the Liberals succumbed to these pressures, as Labour did in the twentieth century, and as the SNP do  today. This is why it is so important that we begin to learn deeper lessons from the most recent failed attempt to do this – the Scottish Socialist Party. There is so much at stake.

Allan Armstrong, 10.8.11

1]           However, just as social democratic economic and social measures are being  scrapped to meet the needs of crisis-ridden capital, so too, have Cameron’s Conservatives decided to  undermine ‘multicultural’ state backing for selected  ethno-religious leaders (particularly Muslim), the better to promote old-style racist divide and rule policies amongst the working class.

2]             Of course, this is not to imply that such reactionary thinking and practice are confined to these particular religions or denominations. Neither the ‘liberal’ leadership of the Church of England nor the Church of Scotland is prepared to face down the homophobia of influential sections of their churches. The Church of England is committed to retaining its own denominational schools in England. The Church of Scotland has ostracised one of its own female ministers, Helen Percy, after she was raped by a church elder.

On May 5, George Galloway will be standing for election to Holyrood. The former Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow and Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin is heading the George Galloway (Respect) – Coalition Against Cuts list. He has the backing of Solidarity, the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party in Scotland. On his election website, Galloway pledges to “oppose every cut to schools, hospitals and public services” and “fight for a parliament with the powers to tax the rich bankers and big business to help pay for jobs and decent public services”. It sounds fine, but there is no way those on the left can extend any level of support for George Galloway.

Galloway is a supporter of the Islamic Republic of Iran. When questioned at a recent public meeting, Galloway denied ever supporting president Ahmadinejad and even offered £1,000 to anyone who could prove his support. However, while interviewing the Iranian president on his Press TV show, The real deal, last August, Galloway stated that he requires “police protection in London from the Iranian opposition because of my support for your election campaign. I mention this so you know where I’m coming from.” In fact, while Iran’s 2009 election is widely accepted to have been rigged, Galloway has stated in his Daily Record blog that the electoral count “was awesome” and the million-plus protesters took to the streets because “too many people were allowed to vote” (his emphasis).

The Iranian regime incarcerates, tortures and executes political opponents, including leftists, trades unionists and leaders of the radical students’ movement. It does the same to those found guilty of “war against god”, a charge levelled at political dissidents.

Confessions are extracted under torture and duress and at times broadcast on state TV channels, including Press TV. Those found guilty of adultery and homosexuality can face the death penalty. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (called “the so-called stoning case” by Galloway on Press TV) was sentenced to death by stoning in a court speaking a language she didn’t speak herself. George Galloway denies that homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran. On The Wright show, Galloway stated that “the papers seem to imply that you get executed in Iran for being gay. That’s not true.” He then inferred that the boyfriend of gay Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi had been executed for “sex crimes” against young boys and not for being gay.

It’s unsurprising that Galloway publicly supports the Islamic Republic. He is an employee of Press TV, the Iranian state propaganda channel. While serving as a MP, Galloway was forced to declare his earnings from Press TV, which ranged from between £5,000 and £20,000 for his various shows.

As pro-democracy protests engulf Syria, it’s worth remembering that Galloway has previously heaped praise upon the Syrian regime and authoritarian ruler, Bashar al-Assad. Addressing Damascus University in late 2005, Galloway said: “For me he is the last Arab ruler, and Syria is the last Arab country. It is the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs.” Galloway has expressed approval for other dictators too, once describing Pakistan’s general Musharraf as an “upright sort”. Far from a consistent democrat, after the 1999 coup brought Musharraf to power Galloway told The Mail on Sunday that “Only the armed forces can really be counted on to hold such a country together … Democracy is a means, not an end in itself and it has a bad name on the streets of Karachi and Lahore.”

Galloway’s Christian beliefs have influenced his views on abortion and stem cell research. He doesn’t believe in evolution. In The Independent on Sunday in 2004 Galloway said: “I’m strongly against abortion. I believe life begins at conception, and therefore unborn babies have rights. I think abortion is immoral.” He was absent from all votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (which included attempts to reduce the abortion time limit in the UK). His notable absenteeism extends to many LGBT issues and euthanasia. Then again, Galloway always had fairly lamentable levels of parliamentary participation. As a Respect MP, Galloway only participated in 98 out of 1,288 votes. In 2006, he claimed more expenses than any other backbench MP in parliament.

Galloway’s egoism has always been astounding. While most socialists consider it standard for workers’ representatives to be elected on a workers’ wage (not an impoverishing amount, but the salary of a skilled worker), Galloway has declared he couldn’t possibly live on “three workers’ wages”. And what else other than pure vanity can have driven an appearance on Big brother, which discredited whole sections of the left?

Finally, it’s worth remembering that Respect’s own councillors in Tower Hamlets have voted through cuts to public services.

We call on socialists to offer no support for Galloway’s election campaign.

Moshé Machover (Israeli socialist)
Torab Saleth (Workers Left Unity Iran)
Mehdi Kia (co-editor Middle East Left Forum)
Charlie Pottins (Unite and Hands Off the People of Iran steering committee)
Rosie Kane (Scottish Socialist Party)
Nima Kisomi (Iranian socialist)
Sahar G (Iranian socialist)
Suran Badfar (Iranian Socialist)
Vicky Thompson (Hopi)
Tami Peterson (National Union of Students LGBT committee)
David Broder (The Commune)
Steve Ryan (The Commune)
Barry Biddulph (The Commune)
Sinead Rylance (Communist Students)
Ustun Yazar (Communist Students)
Reyhaneh Sadegzadeh (Communist Students)
Alex Allan (Communist Students)
James O’Leary (Communist Students)
Sebastian Osthoff (Communist Students)
Komsan Duke (Anarchist Federation)
William J Martin (Batley and Spen CLP)
Elsie Wraight (Manchester Labour Students)
Rachael Howe (Love Levenshulme Hate Cuts campaign)
Karen Broady (Unison)
Ste Monaghan (GMB)
Edd Mustill (NUJ)
Dan Read (NUJ)
Pete Cookson (NUT)
Joe Broady (Bectu)
Raphie De Santos (‘The left banker’)
Andrew Coates (socialist blogger)
Michael Leversha (student activist)
Beth Marshall (student activist)
Nima Barazandeh (student activist)
Democratic Socialist Alliance (organisation).

Allan Armstrong, Nick Clarke, and Bob Goupillot, editors of Emancipation & Liberation would like to add their names to this Open Letter, but with the following reservation regarding phrase the He doesn’t believe in evolution.

Galloway does support evolution as scientific fact – see article below from ‘Daily Record‘.

http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/georgegalloway/2009/02/student-critic-creates-a-fuss.html

The one thing that does not appear in the letter of protest is Galloway’s public incitement to violence against those who failed to support Sheridan in court in his attempt to use his political position for purely personal gain. We are pleased to see that Rosie Kane, who has been the subject of particularly foul abuse and attention from this quarter, has signed this letter.

SEPTEMBER NATIONAL COUNCIL, 2009

Why we produced the motion on socialist unity 

This statement explains why the Republican Communist Network (RCN) produced the motion on socialist unity* which has been put on the agenda for the National Council.

Firstly, the statement was not initially intended to be a motion because we did not think that platforms were allowed to put motions to the National Council (NC). We have never done so before but because it asked the Executive Committee (EC) to reconsider their statement, the National Secretary advised that it was more appropriate as a motion.

It is also important to remember the political context of the motion. The European elections took place on 4th June. Working class people across Britain, despite the worst crisis of capitalism in living memory, saw a left which was fragmented and in disarray. The mainstream, bourgeois parties could offer no solutions and voters were looking for answers. The split left was decimated in Scotland (it fell back far more here than in England and Wales). The BNP and Christian Party overtook every left/ socialist party in Scotland. The economic crisis does not mean that people will automatically turn to the left. The dangers in such complacency are clear to all when the BNP were able to win 2 seats in the European Parliament.

Following these elections, tentative and in some cases, possibly cynical moves towards “socialist unity” were made. As well as invitations to meet from those involved in “No 2 EU”, local initiatives were springing up via social forums and Red /Green groups. Non party members were asking about the possibility of “unity candidates” or non aggression pacts for the imminent Westminster election and the questions around the Glasgow North East by-election was even more pressing.

The Executive produced a statement, which said, “Once all of the legal obstacles have been cleared from our path, we intend to initiate a full, open and democratic discussion around left unity in Scotland and the role that the SSP can play in achieving it.” This statement left many party members unsure which, if any, initiatives they could be involved in. We believed that this statement was too vague and that the “legal obstacles” referred to could potentially drag on for months if not years. We felt that comrades could not simply ignore the initiatives, which were taking place, nor could we refrain from discussion indefinitely and still claim to be the party of socialist unity.

The RCN felt there were real dangers for the party in adhering to the course of action suggested in the EC statement and brought forward our position in order to seek clarification and facilitate a debate in the party on the matter. We believe that such a debate could be held without breaching any legal advice.

We have to say that as a platform, which is made up of hardworking, committed party members, we have been dismayed at the reaction to our statement by some within the party. We recognise that it probably represents a minority viewpoint but we are a party who has recently overhauled the constitution to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated and that all shades of opinion are heard and dealt with in a comradely manner. We hope that this is a tradition the SSP will return to.

We want to sincerely emphasise that our statement was not intended to cause further distress to any party member who may be a witness in any legal case. We are also clear as a platform and have written at length in our magazine, where the responsibility for the split in the socialist left in Scotland lies. That for us is a political crime, which is unforgivable.

We are not under any illusions about what can be achieved in any left unity discussions. The process, which brought about the SSP, took years of joint work and building of trust between groups. That will be far more difficult after the events of the last few years. However, no one can deny that in the current global economic and environmental crisis, socialist unity is needed more than ever.

We welcomed members of the EC who came to speak with the RCN platform last week to offer some clarification of their statement and to seek clarification and explanation from us. We would also like to thank individual SSP comrades who contacted us directly seeking clarification of our position. It is so much easier to understand comrades in a face-to-face discussion rather than via e-mail tirades.

We were assured that local initiatives as we outlined were not forbidden. The content of the executive statement was to protect any potential party witnesses for being held in contempt of court or being accused of obstructing the course of justice which is a criminal offence. We have no wish to place any of our comrades in such a position. We were also assured that the legal obstacles referred to mean the trial which is likely to take place early in the new year.

Comrades the embargo on this discussion cannot go on indefinitely or we will become totally ineffectual as a political force in Scotland. The debate on socialist unity must take place in the spring of next year at the latest or we will lose support and members if we are perceived to be an obstacle to the progress of socialist ideas.

However, given the clarification from the EC, we accept their request to remit the motion to the earliest possible date after the trial.

*   see http://republicancommunist.org/blog/page/3/

RCN BULLETIN

JANUARY 2010

General Election 2010 – A short contribution to the debate

Should the SSP stand?

The RCN has generally advocated standing in elections to provide the electorate with a socialist alternative at the ballot box. In the 2009 European elections, we argued vociferously that we should stand as part of the European Anti Capitalist Left.

However, it is important that we continue to review our election strategy particularly in the light of recent election campaigns and results.  Therefore, we must consider whether or not we stand in the coming Westminster elections.

Within the RCN, there are a number of different

opinions (we never have an RCN line and do not practise democratic centralism) but the majority are in favour of standing in a limited number of seats with local branches having the final decision on whether to stand or not. However, we agree with others who say we need to have a clear idea of why we are standing (beating other socialist parties by a few votes is not a good enough reason) and we need to stand on socialist demands not populist slogans.

What was right about the Glasgow North East By Election?

We had a very good candidate who had considerable political experience and who is an excellent communicator. Comrades worked very hard over a long period of time and reported positive responses on the ground. Mobilising against the SDL was a particularly important and significant spin off. Given these factors and the horrible effects of the current recession, we should have been pushing at an open door.

However, we had to fight against celebrity politics and other socialist parties, the SSP having decided not to discuss the prospect of a socialist unity candidate.

What was wrong with the Glasgow North East By Election?

Instead of a campaign based on strong, socialist, agitational propaganda, we resorted to populist politics in order to chase votes. Kevin was never going to “Make Greed History!” Why did we not use our excellent record as the anti war party to good effect? What was our socialist response to the capitalist crisis and the environmental threat to humanity posed by climate change? If we are only going to get 0.7% of the vote, let’s get it for an explicitly socialist alternative. The politics of populism failed.

What should our election strategy be?

We should stand in a limited number of seats given our numbers and financial position. We should support those branches that want to stand candidates. We should throw our weight behind the areas that want to stand in the election, but should be arguing for a socialist campaign. Ditch ‘Make Greed History’ and adopt either the SSP’s own ‘Make Capitalism History – Make Socialism the Future’ or the New Anti-Capitalist Party’s ‘Make the Bosses Pay for their Crisis’. We need to stop policy being made on the hoof. We must develop our programme and outline in much more detail our socialist alternative to capitalism. This is a longer term project for the party than just for these elections.

Instead of chasing passive voters, our approach should be one of “making socialists” by producing educational materials and holding meetings on key topics – War, Recession, BNP, Climate Change - educating our membership in the process.

We should also be emphasising the importance of the Scottish independence referendum, on the democratic grounds of upholding the right to self- determination, not by raising any false belief that the SNP can deliver, or that we should enter into any popular front with them.

What about other left parties?

We need to combat any illusion that we are the only left alternative on offer in any election. Unpalatable as this may be, we should consider non-aggression pacts in specific areas. We could enter a non-aggression pact with the Trade Union & Socialist Coalition, without sinking ourselves into the bureaucratic, anti-democratic stitch-up that it constitutes. The BNP are targeting Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Jim Murphy’ s seats. These are areas where it would make sense to consider non- aggression pacts.

We need to integrate any election work into work we are involved in generally and not see elections as separate from our normal activity of developing ourselves as socialists. We should be building branches ensuring they are functioning in as many areas as possible. Political education and the democratic building of a socialist programme should be a priority for the party.

RCN BULLETIN

SSP SPECIAL CONFERENCE IN GLASGOW – FEBRUARY 5th, 2011

RECHARGING THE SSP

There has been a slow erosion of Labour Party dominance over the working class in Scotland since the late 1970’s. The first signs of independent Left organisation outside Labour’s ranks followed Callaghan’s decision to bow before the dictates of the IMF, and his failure to throw the Labour government’s full weight behind its own Scottish Devolution Bill. This contributed to the formation of the Scottish Labour Party, in 1976, led by Jim Sillars.  The SLP only represented a limited political break with the Labour Party. However, it highlighted two features of future breakaways to the Left – a questioning of mainstream capitalist economics and a concern for greater national self-determination.

However, the SLP had no clearly developed socialist alternative to capitalism.  It also accepted a devolutionary reform of the UK, ignoring the state’s anti-democratic Crown Powers and its ongoing war in the ‘Six Counties’. Most significantly, the initials SLP turned out to mean the Sillars’ Labour Party. The party fell apart when Sillars attempted to bureaucratically suppress anyone who questioned his leadership and policies. This negative aspect has shown itself to be a recurring problem.

The next significant breakaway was the Socialist Labour Party, formed by Arthur Scargill, in response to Tony Blair’s successful campaign to reject the Labour Party’s Clause 4, in 1996, thus consummating New Labour.  Whilst the SLP had a traditional Left Labour statist critique of neo-liberalism, its support for Scottish self-determination was virtually non-existent. However, the second SLP turned out to be Scargill’s Labour Party. It too fell apart when Scargill suppressed all those who opposed him.

When the Scottish Socialist Party was formed in 1998, things had obviously advanced politically since the 1970’s. The new SSP was avowedly socialist in its critique of neo-liberalism, advocated the break-up of the UK and opposed the US/British imperial alliance. However, it was less clear both on what a socialist alternative would look like, and the strategy to be supported to challenge the UK state (tail-ending the Nationalists or a republican socialist ‘internationalism from below’ alliance). Nevertheless, the SSP was able to unite Left nationalists, Left unionists, socialist republicans, socialist feminists, environmental activists and others in a single organisation – no mean achievement.

However, the SSP was also afflicted with the ‘great leader’ syndrome, initially promoted by comrades from the former Scottish Militant Labour and others. This contributed to the ‘Tommygate crisis’ in November 2004. Could the SSP maintain itself as an independent socialist party, or was it doomed to become Sheridan’s Socialist Party? In October 2006, that role was taken on by Solidarity-SSM (the Suck-up to Sheridan Movement) when it split away, after Sheridan’s earlier court ‘victory’.

However, the remaining SSP has yet to prove it can successfully reconstitute itself as the party of socialist unity. There are questions over whether the restriction of internal debate over the last four years on this issue went beyond what was necessary to avoid the legal problems caused by the state’s perjury trial.  Some members appear to believe that the letters ‘SSP’ now stand for the Stuff Sheridan Party, and that the decision of a bourgeois court last December means that we can just continue as before. The very welcome clearing of our leading comrades’ names by a jury majority, however, is not the same as the SSP still being seen as the party of socialist unity, either by the wider working class, or even just by those former members and supporters, most of whom never joined Solidarity.

Any party wanting to overthrow the existing order will be presented with unforeseen challenges. They can either try to ignore the unwelcome consequences of this, pretending that things can go on just as before; or they can use the experience to learn how to deal with such challenges. Everybody in the SSP would now accept that celebrity populist politics, built around the ‘great leader’, has to be rejected. We all share some responsibility for not dealing with this earlier – including the RCN. However, the SSP has still to address two other issues, which its founding members had not considered.

First, what is our attitude to the bourgeois courts? What chance have socialists got of bringing about socialism in the face of capitalist economic and state power, if we run to their courts to sort out our internal problems in the here and now?  The original November 2004 EC decision to allow Sheridan to go to the courts to take on the News of the World was misguided. When he rejected the unanimous EC decision to advise him not to, this was his first anti-party action. But this was disguised from the membership by the EC-Sheridan ‘deal’, with fateful consequences. Similarly, Frances Curran’s decision to go to courts for a ruling on Sheridan’s disgusting Daily Record attack highlights two things. There still remains a belief in some quarters that bourgeois courts are a legitimate arena for socialists to settle disputes with each other; and secondly, an unwillingness to criticise and bring leading office bearers to account – something that can and should be done in a comradely, political and non-personalised way.

Secondly, what is our attitude to the bourgeois media? We shouldn’t secretly resort to their media to criticise the conduct of other socialists, no matter how provocative their actions. Secrecy can lead to malicious rumour spreading, as we soon found out. Even worse is taking money to attack others. The fact that Sheridan first started this in the Daily Record provides no excuse for others. Any responsible jury member should reject paid-for evidence. George McNeilage’s tape threatened to undermine those SSP witnesses who had nothing to gain in court but maintaining their own personal integrity.

The traumatic post-split October 2006 SSP Conference was conducted in a genuinely comradely manner. It took many principled decisions, which still need to be upheld today. However, this means an end to the refusal to answer questions concerning elected office bearers’ public behaviour and the personalised attacks on those raising criticisms, which we have sometimes witnessed since. This post-trial Special Conference must re-establish that earlier tone once more.

Unless there is a shared agreement that have been some major misjudgements in the SSP’s handling of the whole affair, then we will go the same way as the two earlier SLPs. To avoid this means:-

1)       an unequivocal rejection of celebrity populism.  We are radically democratic and egalitarian.

2)       not having leading members beyond question and therefore unaccountable to the membership.

3)      a refusal to go to the bourgeois courts and media in an attempt to solve our own problems.  We need to develop our own socialist methods of dealing with such issues.

Whatever the outcome of today’s Conference, the now long-proven need for a united socialist organisation in Scotland (joined to others in an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance) will remain. How much better, if that organisation was to be a recharged SSP, showing that it can meet any challenges thrown at it in a principled and imaginative way.

RCN BULLETIN

SSP AGM IN DUNFERMLINE, APRIL  2011

 FACING UP TO THE CRISIS IN THE SSP

 The motions for this year’s Conference highlight the toll taken on the SSP over the last six years. Is the Scottish Socialist Party still a party, or we have we just become a loose alliance, looser even than the preceding Scottish Socialist Alliance?

AUTO-ELECTORALISM OR SLEEP WALKING TOWARDS MAY 5^th

Motion A1 from the Executive Committee on the Holyrood election only views the national election on May 5^th as a preparation for the Scottish local elections next year. It doesn’t address the political situation we currently face. Labour and SNP are vying with each other to be seen as the embodiment of ‘capitalist responsibility’, implementing the cuts programme demanded by corporate capital, the EU and Westminster; whilst hypocritically claiming to minimise effect of the cuts on the workers or people of Scotland. Nor does the EC motion take stock of the situation we face in the aftermath of the Sheridan Trial, with a split Left and the continued challenge the SSP faces from the supporters of ‘celebrity socialism’. Only now it is in the guise of that opportunist George Galloway and his cheerleaders in the CWI, SWP and Solidarity – when will they ever learn!

However, in order to rally the troops, at least until May, our leadership is also highlighting a recent opinion poll, which places the SSP on 4% in the Regional List. Yet, in the latest council by-election in Paisley, the SSP only received about 2% of the vote. This is in a solid working class constituency with an active branch and a locally well-known candidate.  But this is not enough. The SSP still has a lot to do to win back key sections of the working class in Scotland.  A ‘back to business as usual’ approach is unlikely to achieve this.

TAKING FULL ACCOUNT OF THE PROBLEMS CAUSED BY THE SPLIT

The court’s decision last December, in clearing the names of our leading comrades, was very welcome. However, the jailing of Sheridan for the non-violent crime of perjury does not constitute justice.  It also creates a false martyr. It still leaves Sheridan unaccountable for his offences against our class, and his courtroom and media attempts to drag sexual relations back fifty years.  Nor does the decision of a bourgeois court amount to a vindication of all the actions taken by the SSP over these difficult times. This is why we in the RCN have stuck by our motion remitted from the February Special Conference, which addresses these concerns. Until the SSP can publicly acknowledge our need to be self-critical and learn from our mistakes, we will not regain the confidence of our class. As a result, workers’ support will be directed elsewhere, or many will just retreat into apathy and cynicism.

Other Conference motions also acknowledge the continuing crisis facing the SSP. In particular, Motion B7 from Glasgow West argues that, “The SSP has suffered over the past 6 years because of our inability to discuss openly and candidly the experience of the party and its members surrounding the Sheridan court cases and the split in the party in 2006”. Furthermore, this motion goes on to make some useful proposals involving a structured discussion around important issues. There are a number of other issues which we think could usefully have been added – such as the role of trade unions and how socialists should relate to them; and an assessment of the ‘National Question’ and its impact on the UK – but these (and other) issues could still be added by future ECs or NCs. The Glasgow West motion deserves support.

So too does motion B8 from Edinburgh South calling for the SSP to initiate another Convention of the Left, to be held in Scotland.  This would probably bring along others who are now distinctly hostile to the SSP. However, we should not be afraid to publicly debate such issues as ‘celebrity socialism versus genuine socialism’, ‘tolerating sexism under the guise of  ‘class politics’ versus challenging women’s oppression and sexism as part of the struggle for human emancipation’. We also have a distinctive socialist republican approach to the ‘National Question’ to counter the British Left. Furthermore, if the SSP can show that we have learned important lessons from the trials and tribulations of the ‘Tommygate Affair’, we are likely to get a hearing once more from those who used to look to the SSP for a political lead.

Motion 3 from Scottish Socialist Youth recognises the slippage of the SSP from a properly structured party based on branches to, in effect, a loose alliance. Indeed, the SSY itself has increasingly become another semi-detached part of this federal mix, despite their key role initiating the independent Anti-Fascist Alliances and the continuing Free Hetherington Occupation. The SSP, as a whole, needs to learn from these valuable experiences, and seriously address our young comrades’ concerns.

PROBLEMS STILL UNRECOGNISED AND THE APPROACH NEEDED

There are other problems for the SSP accentuated by the current crisis, which are not the subject of debate at this Conference. The Scottish Socialist Voice has become another largely autonomous body, not subject to the control of a wider Editorial Board, responsible to Conference, ECs or NCs. Although we have a prolific Industrial Organiser, there is no regularly meeting Industrial/Trade Union Committee. Many of these problems have arisen, not through bad practice, but due to the loss of SSP members and the fall-off in branch activity, leaving smaller numbers of comrades trying to hold things together as best they can.

In conclusion, can this Conference fully acknowledge the nature of the crisis that has engulfed the SSP? Can we address our own ‘inner demons’ without acrimony and rancour, and in a spirit of shared comradeship? If we can do this, then we have a chance of reversing the current tendency to fragmentation and of becoming a party once more.

What follows is a short poem he wrote when moving from his home in Dunure, Scotland to northern England

March 18th 2001

Comrades, friends, mates, pals
None of these words describe the way I feel
A bond between us all

They are my left hand

Pure chance we met, just taking any seat
A trick of fate
A show of hands and there we were

I bled today
I cut off my left hand

Charlie Rees

The rise of the Scottish Socialist Party to a position of influence and respect within the working class of Scotland, owes a great deal to the hard work and dedication of many comrades. No one can underplay the contribution made to this by Tommy Sheridan. He became the public face of the socialist movement in Scotland and inspired many people to become involved in class based activity. However, Tommy is a human being and is flawed like the rest of us. He grew to believe his own rhetoric; he courted the press on personal and family matters and set himself up to be the epitome of the clean-cut family man. He grew to believe that he was the SSP.

As we said at the time of the split within the SSP: The decision of Tommy Sheridan to pursue his court case against the unanimous advice of the SSP National Executive represented a rejection of inner party democracy and the accountability of party officials to the membership – an anti-party action, which has had dire consequences for the SSP. It was a gross political mistake.

The subsequent decision to form a new organisation, Solidarity, on little other political basis than personal support for Tommy Sheridan, represented a continuation of this anti-party action and heralded one of the most serious mistakes made by socialists in post war Scottish politics. It placed personality and individual egos above principled politics. It weakened the working class in the face of the current ruling class offensive.

The decision of the SWP and CWI to back this split, further demonstrated their own sectarian agendas. These organisations’ lack of commitment to principled socialist unity has already been clearly shown by their recent separate ‘unity’ initiatives in England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland.

The most immediate lesson for socialists is the incompatibility of trying to build a socialist organisation through promoting a celebrity leader. Furthermore, this has been highlighted, in the UK, not only by the example of Tommy Sheridan, but also of Derek Hatton (CWI/Militant), Arthur Scargill (Socialist Labour Party) Ken Livingstone (one-time Left independent) and George Galloway (Respect).

The consequences of the internecine warfare for the SSP and the working class movement have been catastrophic. Our credibility as an organisation, which can lead the struggles that face us and unite the left in Scotland, is severely diminished. However, we have survived and in pockets around Scotland have continued to work democratically and been leading fighters in various struggles.

Now is the time to learn the lessons of this tragedy. If we do so, then we can possibly rebuild as an organisation and once more play our part in forging socialist unity and taking forward the fight for a progressive and equal society.

Although we hold Tommy Sheridan responsible for the initial damage to the SSP, we also recognise the potential for subsequent and continuing damage caused by the misguided actions of a number of our own comrades, some of these actions in direct contradiction to Party policy. To avoid this, we must:-

• Encourage debates where political differences and attempts to make SSP office bearers accountable for their actions are addressed without acrimony and personalised attacks, either by those criticising or those criticised, and with understanding.
• Apply our constitution equally to all members.
• Insist that all officers of the Party adhere to Party policy.
• Not elevate any individual or group to the position of Great Leader/s. The party has democratic structures to ensure this does not happen and these must be adhered to.
• The membership of the party must be trusted. Some of the fallout from the court case could have been mitigated if the minutes of the EC had been dealt with in the normal manner and been made public to the membership. Only the RCN argued for the minutes to be open. This was a case of the party still treating Tommy Sheridan as more important than any other member and as such above the democratic scrutiny of the party.
• No resort to the bourgeois courts to decide political issues as per conference decisions at the October conference post the split.

Socialists should not go to the bourgeois courts for rulings on how we conduct ourselves. Such appeals should only be made to the democratic institutions of our class. What chance have socialists got of bringing about socialism in the face of capitalist economic and state power, if we have to run to their courts to sort out our problems in the here and now? Therefore, we need to re-emphasise the SSP Conference policy passed on October 20th, 2006.

• SSP members should avoid resort to the state’s courts when seeking redress for politically motivated attacks on their behaviour
• When SSP members are subjected to politically motivated attacks by the state or media, they should be able to call upon the support of the SSP National Executive to conduct a party campaign including the following tactics as deemed appropriate:-
  • articles in the party’s press
  • direct appeals to the trade union members in the state bodies and/or media responsible
  • calls for boycott actions
• SSP members should not resort to the non-party media when making allegations against other SSP members. Such allegations should be brought initially before the appropriate party body at the level concerned with the right to appeal to a higher level, the ultimate appeal being the SSP Conference.
• The elected press officer should be responsible for day-to-day responses to the outside media, when members are under attack. The press officer is directly responsible, initially to the National Executive, then to the National Council, and finally to the National Conference.

We accept that individuals found themselves in exceptional circumstances. However, in line with the above decision, the George McNeilage tape should have been seen to be dealt with by the party. This has been damaging for the SSP amongst the broader labour and trade union movement. The end does not justify the means.

Frances Curran’s use of the courts for a ruling being called a scab by the Daily Record was also a political mistake and against Party policy. Party members who handed minutes to police or who gave affidavits to newspapers must now see that however well intentioned, their actions were not helpful and once more were against party policy.

Once again, it is our contention that we must bring the continuing self inflicted damage to an end. The mistakes we made must be acknowledged, breaches of policy on the part of office bearers should be addressed and we must show ourselves to be a democratically accountable party.

Also, the Party must now seek to carry through the decision of the post-split 2006 SSP Conference which welcomes back former members without recriminations, especially now that they can clearly see the tragic implications of the misguided actions of Sheridan, Solidarity, SWP and CWI leaderships.

Principled unity is our strength. We have a duty to the working class and the cause of socialism to maintain socialist unity and to conduct ourselves in a combative, determined, confident, but friendly manner aimed at convincing thousands that the SSP’s principles and policies coincide with their interests. The future is ours, provided we collectively seize it.(Passed overwhelmingly 20th October 2006)

We must also try to win back the largest group of all – those former members who left the SSP and did not join Solidarity. They have raised criticisms, not only about egotism of Sheridan and the unattractive sectarianism and splitting tactics of the SWP and CWI, but also of some of the badly misjudged actions of the SSP in attempting to deal with these problems. This group currently forms an important bridge to those wider sections of the working class whom we need to win over once more to principled, socialist unity.

Conference holds Tommy Sheridan’s anti-party actions to be responsible for the damage inflicted on the SSP and on the socialist movement in Scotland, aided, in particular, by the decisions taken by the leaderships of the CWI and SWP. The decision to split the SSP through the formation of Solidarity represented a major political mistake, which has left the working class severely weakened in the face of the current capitalist offensive.

We recognise however that to rebuild the party and this movement we must ensure that our own party structures, our constitution, conference decisions and internal, democratic procedures are adhered to. Therefore the SSP must:

Encourage debates where political differences and attempts to make SSP office bearers accountable for their actions are addressed without acrimony and personalised attacks

• Apply our constitution equally to all members.
• Insist that all officers of the party adhere to party policy.
• Not elevate any individual or group to the position of Great Leader/s. The party has democratic structures to ensure this does not happen and these must be adhered to.
• The membership of the party must be trusted.
• Reject any attempt to resort to the media or other bodies for personal financial gain, when information is sought about the conduct of people involved in the socialist and labour movements.

This conference re-emphasises SSP Conference policy passed on October 20th, 2006

• SSP members should avoid resort to the state’s courts when seeking redress for politically motivated attacks on their behaviour
• When SSP members are subjected to politically motivated attacks by the state or media, they should be able to call upon the support of the SSP Executive Committee to conduct a party campaign including the following tactics as deemed appropriate:
  • articles in the party’s press
  • direct appeals to the trade union members in the state bodies and/or media responsible
  • calls for boycott actions
• SSP members should not resort to the non-party media when making allegations against other SSP members. Such allegations should be brought initially before the appropriate party body at the level concerned with the right to appeal to a higher level, the ultimate appeal being the SSP Conference.

The elected press officer should be responsible for day-to-day responses to the outside media, when members are under attack. The press officer is directly responsible, initially to Executive Committee, then to the National Council, and finally to the National Conference.

Also, the party must now seek to carry through the decision of the post-split 2006 SSP Conference which welcomes back former members without recriminations, especially now that they can clearly see the tragic implications of the misguided actions of Sheridan, Solidarity, SWP and CWI leaderships.

The SSP continues to welcome members from other organisations provided they accept the aims and constitution of the SSP. Platforms and networks in the SSP exist to benefit the party as a whole by encouraging wider debate drawing on varied experiences. Principled unity is our strength. We have a duty to the working class and the cause of socialism to maintain socialist unity and to conduct ourselves in a combative, determined, confident, but friendly manner aimed at convincing thousands that the SSP’s principles and policies coincide with their interests. The future is ours, provided we collectively seize it. (Passed overwhelmingly 20th October 2006).

We must also try to win back the largest group of all – those former members who left the SSP and did not join Solidarity. They have raised criticisms, not only about egotism of Sheridan and the unattractive sectarianism and splitting tactics of the SWP and CWI, but also of those badly misjudged actions of the SSP in attempting to deal with these problems. These former members, many still active in their trade unions, communities and political campaigns, currently form an important bridge to those wider sections of the working class whom we need to win over once more to principled, socialist unity.

On May 1st, 2003 six Scottish Socialist Party members were elected to Holyrood. From December 23rd, 2010, by far the best-known (former) member of the SSP, Tommy Sheridan, faces a jail sentence for committing perjury, following in the footsteps of Lord Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken. At a time of unprecedented attacks on the working class, led by a Tory-Lib-Dem government at Westminster, transmitted by an SNP government in Holyrood, and taken up by Labour, SNP, Lib-Dem and Tory councillors throughout Scotland, there is only one remaining socialist (SSP) representative – Jim Bollan, the councillor for the Leven ward in West Dunbartonshire.

How has this sad state of affairs come to pass, and is there anything socialists can usefully learn from all this?  Perhaps the most immediate lesson is the incompatibility of trying to build a socialist organisation through promoting a celebrity leader. Furthermore, this has been highlighted, in the UK, not only by the example of Tommy Sheridan, but also of Derek Hatton (CWI/Militant), Arthur Scargill (Socialist Labour Party) Ken Livingstone (one-time Left independent) and George Galloway (Respect).

However, the fact that the same mistake keeps repeating itself shows that a significant section of the Left in the UK is more attracted to populist politics, than to genuine socialist politics, where all members are treated as equals and are encouraged to think for themselves.

Sexual prudery or simple hypocrisy

Another shortcoming has been the failure of much of the Left in Scotland, following from Tommy Sheridan’s lead, to be able to deal with sexual politics. In the face of salacious newspaper attacks regarding their sex lives, Bertie Ahern and John Prescott, to name but two prominent politicians, have managed to handle the press far better. So what? or, People’s sexual lives are a private matter, should have been the obvious response by any socialist to the News of the World accusations.

Tommy could not do this because his populist politics had led him, at every media opportunity, to cultivate his own celebrity image. He portrayed himself as being part of ‘the perfect family’ – Tommy, Gail and my little princess, Gabrielle (which perhaps revealingly puts Tommy and Gail in the position of king and queen!)

This highlights how deeply bourgeois ideology, including their hypocritical ‘morality’, is embedded in our class. It points to the urgent need for a discussion amongst socialists as to what attitudes and practice, regarding personal sexual and emotional relations, we might positively promote. At the moment we appear to have few answers to such questions and it offers our enemies a permanent Achilles heel to wound us.

Socialists are not sexual prudes and should defend a person’s right to engage in any consensual sexual activity of their choice. They should not be drawn into the sleaze mongering of the tabloid press, whether it be the News of the World or the Daily Record. However, any socialist makes him or herself a hostage to fortune, if they demonstrate hypocrisy in their attitudes and behaviour in this particular arena. John Major’s public support for ‘family values’, whilst personally leading a somewhat different private life, had already demonstrated how the media would deal with such hypocrisy.

In both Sheridan’s ill-considered court case against the News of the World and the subsequent perjury trial, he attempted to appeal to the jury as a guiltless Daniel O’Donnell-type figure, whilst hitting out at the ‘sexual misdemeanour’s’, mental health and socialist factionalism of the other witnesses. Having abandoned any possible socialist grounds for fending off attacks by the gutter press or the state, Sheridan demonstrated the depths to which he was prepared to go to protect only himself – something his remaining political allies, and even friends and family would be well advised to take note of.

A populist Solidarity and a socialist SSP

The Left in Scotland is now clearly divided. It included those who promote populist celebrity politics. The majority of populist celebrity supporters are to be found in Solidarity, the Scottish Socialist Movement, which constitutes the Tommy Sheridan Fan club. Indeed that is about the only thing that unites this unprincipled political ‘marriage of convenience’. Sheridan also enjoys the support of a number of jaundiced journalists, sometimes former Left supporters, who are now bitterly hostile to organised socialist politics, but are quite happy with individual colourful celebrity politicians, who provide good press copy.

How much longer he will enjoy this support is another question. Sheridan’s adulatory celebrity soul-mate, George Galloway, is now rapidly back peddling, probably having calculated that the Sheridan connection will not help him win support amongst Glasgow’s Muslim community in the forthcoming Holyrood election. He is probably also positioning himself for a return to the Labour Party, if he can show he still has some electoral weight, a la Livingstone.

Opposing such populist celebrity politics are those, primarily in the SSP, who have learned from their earlier mistake of tolerating Tommy Sheridan as he transformed himself into an increasingly self-promotional celebrity figure. He is no longer reined in by any platform discipline, following the collapse of the International Socialist Movement, he was a member of, along with the majority amongst the SSP leadership.

Still a lack of clarity on the use of bourgeois courts on both sides

Unfortunately, though, despite there being a now deep divide amongst the Left in Scotland, there are still some remaining shared political characteristics, held at the two leadership levels. If these aren’t also dealt with firmly in the aftermath of the perjury trial, this will prevent any political recovery by the SSP.

In particular, neither Sheridan’s supporters, nor the majority of the SSP leadership, have learned one particular fundamental lesson when it comes to the advance of principled socialist politics. You do not go to the bourgeois courts for rulings on how socialists conduct themselves. Such appeals should only be made to the democratic institutions of our class. What chance have socialists got of bringing about socialism in the face of capitalist economic and state power, if we have to run to their courts to sort out our problems in the here and now?

The original unanimous SSP Executive Committee (EC) decision of November 9th, 2004, to advise Tommy not to proceed with his court case, was not taken on the grounds of principle, but on the tactical grounds that the truth behind the sexual allegations would likely surface at some time. Instead of Tommy being instructed to stand down because he was not prepared to take unanimous party advice, a deal was cobbled together, which allowed him to pursue his case as ‘private matter’. The consequences of this misguided decision (as if the media and state were ever going to treat Tommy Sheridan as a non-political private individual) soon became apparent.

Some among the populist wing of the SSP, which could not imagine the party’s existence without Tommy as leader, started to make their guilty annoyance known in leaks to the bourgeois press, before the November 27th National Council (NC) meeting. Later, Alan McCombes, now trying to disentangle an SSP leadership from its previous unquestioning public support for Tommy, responded to this provocation by providing an affidavit to the press, which explained the SSP leadership majority’s actions.

The people, who were effectively bypassed by both sides, were the ordinary SSP members. With the agreement of both sets of protagonists, members had been denied access at the November 27th NC meeting to the minutes of the 9th November EC meeting. Further down the line, the consequences of this became clear. On May 16th, 2006, the state stepped in. Lady Smith decided, at the Edinburgh Court of Session, to help the News of the World, by demanding the SSP hand over the minutes. Alan McCombes quite correctly refused to hand over the minutes. He ended up in Saughton Jail on May 26th as a consequence – a high price to pay for this earlier mistake.

Sheridan pulls the populists and the CWI and SWP behind his strategy of deceit, and his calls for members to sacrifice themselves for the ‘great leader’

This was the point at which Tommy should have stepped in and said that enough was enough. He should then have dropped his court case, now that the full consequences of his course of action had become apparent. Some of his remaining supporters, including the recently elected Convenor, Colin Fox, did realise that Tommy’s ‘game was now up’. To their credit, they moved over to the camp of those in the SSP leadership majority who were trying to disentangle themselves from a situation of the party’s own making, in the best possible manner considering the difficult circumstances they now found themselves in.

However, Tommy decided to adopt another course of action. He  began to group an unholy alliance around himself. This group consisted of the Sheridanistas (his unquestioning supporters in the party) and the hard-wired sectarians amongst the SWP and CWI (who had quite different and mutually antagonistic political agendas). With a jailed Alan McCombes now the centre of members’ and wider media attraction, Tommy helped to devise a scheme, which would put him back in the media limelight.

His supporters, now calling themselves the SSP Majority, decided to push for an emergency National Council meeting on May 28th 2006, which they packed. Here Tommy produced his hate-mongering ‘Open Letter’. This lead encouraged his supporters to reduce the meeting to a bear garden, in a marked break from previous SSP practice.

As a result, they won a National Council majority calling for Alan McCombes to hand over the minutes to the courts. However, Tommy’s allies had written up a false set of minutes, which they had already handed over. This action provided the state with the list of people who would be dragged before court to testify, whilst missing out the names of Tommy’s supporters, who had also given their backing to the original genuine set of minutes. From this point onwards, Tommy was able to publicly entangle his supporters in his own continued deceptions. These involved the concoction of an ever more bizarre set of lies.

The biggest of these lies was that it was the SSP leadership majority who were themselves lying over his revelations at the original EC meeting. Here there had been unanimous agreement for the course of action adopted.

Thus the heart of Tommy’s court case against the News of the World was to be the presentation of a completely false story, which involved the sacrifice of the SSP Secretary, Barbara Scott for doing her job, and of those leading SSP members, including four MSPs, Frances Curran, Colin Fox (until recently Sheridan’s ally), Rosie Kane, Carolyn Leckie, who refused to perjure themselves so that he could use his own political position and celebrity status to extract a substantial sum of money from the News of the World for his wife, Gail. The fruits of the politics of populism were made starkly clear. ‘Lesser’ members had to sacrifice themselves for the ‘great leader’.

The real role of SSP platforms and Sheridan’s playing to anti-socialist prejudice

Tommy also decided to appeal to the anti-socialist prejudice of the media, and hopefully, for him, of the majority of the jurors. This meant he conjured up a secret faction, which had always been out to get him. He called this previously non-existent organisation the ‘United Left’. The real United Left only formed, on June 11th, 2006, as a temporary platform, in self defence, after the antics of Tommy’s supporters in the SSP Majority platform, at the May 28th NC meeting.

Tommy’s own supporters did include the long-standing factionalists of the SWP and CWI, but even they had been forced to moderate their sectarian practices at earlier SSP gatherings, when a united SSP membership showed low toleration for such behaviour.

Back in November 2004, though, Tommy and some of his later supporters, such as Steve Arnott and Jock Penman, were in the same platform, the International Socialist Movement, as Keith Baldassara, Frances Curran, Catriona Grant, Alan McCombes, Richie Venton and others, who ended up on the opposite sides as the internal dispute developed.

However, many people, who came to oppose Tommy’s utterly wrong-headed course of action, were never members of the ISM, or the SSP Womens Network in 2004, and didn’t become members of the United Left in 2006. The accusation of a ‘faction-ridden’ party was a central component in Tommy’s case. The SSP could therefore be denigrated by cynical journalists and pilloried in front of the jurors. Such anti-socialist baiting may well have contributed to Tommy’s victory in his first court case. He certainly thought so, because he resorted to the same tactic in the perjury trial, where he made barbed comments about the CWI, some of whom were now his allies and supporting courtroom witnesses!

Sheridan, as a celebrity populist politician, does not want to be held accountable to any political organisation, whether it be a platform, party or ‘movement’. Appeals to a celebrity promoting media, or being seen publicly in the company of other celebrities, are the ways by which he now gains much of his political support. A backing party or ‘movement’ may provide additional help, but only if it is constituted as a ‘Tommy Sheridan Fan Club’, which never questions the ‘great leader’.

Sheridan and his allies make up excuses to avoid real accountability for their anti-party actions

When Tommy’s original case came to court, the jurors quite rightly dismissed the evidence of all those who had been paid by the News of the World. However, despite Tommy’s shameful personalised attacks, and the hyped-up accusations of factionalism, to appeal to anti-socialist prejudice, other SSP witnesses held back, not wishing to provide aid to the News of the World. (Sheridan was to shamelessly use the fact that SSP witnesses did not reveal his full duplicity at this trial, in his attempt to undermine them in the subsequent perjury trial; whilst also continuing with his anti-socialist diatribes in court). These witnesses had absolutely nothing to gain except their self-respect. They were looking to a post-trial SSP conference to hold Tommy to account.

When Tommy was acquitted on 4th August, 2006, SSP Convenor, Colin Fox welcomed his victory over the News of the World. Tommy’s wrecking anti-party actions could now be debated, along with any criticisms of the leadership majority’s handling of the case, where they always should have been – within the party itself. Tommy announced that he was standing for Convenor against Colin.

So members were now provided with a clear choice. On one hand were those who supported populist celebrity politics, and who thought that some party leaders held a privileged position, which it was the duty of others to uphold at whatever personal cost; and in which political sects could behave as they liked. On the other hand were those who wanted to build a principled socialist organisation, where all members were treated as equal, and where platforms worked for the greater good of the party, by using their different political experiences to lift party debate and action to a higher level.

However, this choice was such an obvious ‘no-brainer’ that Tommy and his allies, had to devise another course of action to avoid the immediate consequences of their actions, just as in the aftermath of the release of Alan McCombes from jail. On no account would Tommy face the accountability of the wider SSP membership.

Tommy was now confident that his own political supporters would never attempt to bring him to account. So he upped the ante, and wrote a disgusting and well-paid article in the Daily Record, attacking those SSP members who had opposed him, showing particular vehemence for the women involved. Just as the two sets of court proceedings have revealed a massive gap between Tommy, ‘the perfect family man’, and his secret sexual alter ego; so his press and courtroom attacks on women have highlighted the massive gap between Tommy, ‘the charmer of the ladies’, and his underlying misogynism. Some of his supporters quickly jumped to order.

However, the prime purpose of Sheridan’s ‘scab’ attack in the Daily Record was to create a smokescreen to justify not being held to account at the planned special SSP Conference. Instead, a new party, Solidarity, would be formed.  The condition for membership was unquestioning public support for Tommy, right or wrong. The ‘great leader’ was effectively ‘anointed’ at Solidarity’s founding conference, to the accompaniment of his mother Alice Sheridan singing The Impossible Dream! The leaderships of the CWI and SWP had already signed up. They demanded only that they be allowed to behave in an equally unaccountable way; but in their cases, not to promote any personal celebrity status, but their own sectarian ends.

Sheridan leads his followers into the political desert

Some claim that Sheridan has become such a victim of his own ego that he has started to believe all his own fabrications. If this is the case, then Solidarity’s  leaders also entered Sheridan’s fantasy world. They publicly claimed that Solidarity would overtake the six MSPs gained by the SSP in 2003, at the next Holyrood election in 2007. And his political advisors in the CWI and SWP were meant to be sharp Marxist politicians, able to see the balance of class and political forces! In the end, although every Solidarity candidate, whether at Holyrood or council level, stood under the ‘Tommy Sheridan’ brand label; but not even Sheridan was able to hold on to his Holyrood seat.

However, one Solidarity member, Ruth Black, had been indeed persuaded that Solidarity offered the best new political opportunities. She was elected in Glasgow as their sole councillor (in the same election as the very different and principled socialist, Jim Bollan in West Dunbartonshire). However, she soon came to realise that joining Solidarity was not her best career move. So she joined the Labour Party, quickly throwing her lot in with its corrupt leader, the now sacked Stephen Purcell!

The perjury investigations provide a cover for the state to conduct a massive intelligence-gathering exercise and to organise a socialist-baiting trial

The clearest indication that some Solidarity members had lost all sense of reality, and were ‘tripping out’ on a hyped-up sectarian triumphalism, was a new call made by certain of their supporters in the media. An article in the Edinburgh Evening News suggested that those SSP members, who had failed to back Sheridan in court, should face perjury charges, now that he had won his court case. This was not a smart move!  Quite clearly, the state, having already been provided with the opportunity to intervene in the internal affairs of the SSP, through Sheridan’s earlier actions, quickly took up this invitation. Furthermore, their perjury investigations weren’t confined to the SSP witnesses.

It was certainly the case that either one side or another had perjured itself in court. Perjury in court is an everyday event, which is normally ignored. However, when it involves elected public figures, who misuse their position for personal gain (or to publicly discredit and undermine another elected representative, if Sheridan’s accusations had been true), then the state is much more likely to step in. This is true whatever the politics of the accused, as the case of the Archer and Aitken, two Tories, had already shown.

However, there was an additional reason why the state was eager to finance this particular perjury case. The police investigation would be useful cover for a massive intelligence-gathering exercise on the Left; whilst the ensuing court case would provide the opportunity to set-up a piece of political theatre, in which socialists would publicly tear each other to pieces. The key SSP witnesses, and even a few of the Solidarity witnesses, tried to avoid falling into this particular trap in court, but Sheridan himself played to the anti-socialist and populist prejudices with great gusto. Therefore, from the state’s point of view, the £4M on the police investigation and the court case was well spent.

Politically responsible and politically irresponsible defensive actions from the SSP leadership

To their great credit, leading SSP and former SSP activists – including Barbara Scott, Alan McCombes, Richie Venton, Keith Baldassara, Frances Curran, Rosie Kane, Carolyn Leckie and Colin Fox, spoke truthfully and without personal animosity in court. It was their evidence, coupled to that of a number of completely independent witnesses, which vindicated the SSP in the eyes of the jury.

However, Sheridan’s provocative and calculated Daily Record attack on August 7th, 2006, had pushed some SSP members to politically indefensible actions, despite the SSP’s own 2006 post-trial Conference decisions. These made it clear that any resort to bourgeois courts or media to settle political grievances was unacceptable.

George McNeilage’s decision to take £200,000 from the News of the World for Tommy’s taped ‘confession’ completely undermined his credibility before any serious jury member, who would discount paid-for ‘evidence’. Worse still, it threatened to undermine those SSP members trying to clear their name with no personal gain, other than upholding their commitment to truth and integrity. Once the party conference had taken a decision on how members should conduct themselves, McNeilage’s actions should have been publicly disowned.

Sheridan’s Daily Record attack also provoked an understandably irate Frances Curran, now the SSP party co-spokesperson, to go to the court for a ruling against his completely false accusation of ‘scabbing’. Once again, this was against the 2006 SSP post-split conference decision opposing any such course of action. The hold of old CWI politics over otherwise very critical former members was surely demonstrated in Frances’ belief that a bourgeois court would find any accusation of ‘scabbing’ reprehensible. Scabbing is something that is actively encouraged under the law. The decision of the SSP leadership to let Frances go ahead, not with official party backing, but as a private individual, just repeated the earlier mistake made with Sheridan at the November 26th 2004 EC. But, at least, Sheridan was asked to stand down whilst he did so!

Furthermore, other leading members’ resort to grandstanding to prevent any meaningful discussion at Conference, EC or NC meetings on socialist unity, whilst the perjury case was proceeding, left many existing and former members, as well as supporters, wondering whether the SSP leadership is really serious about socialist unity. Or, did they want this to take second place to a permanent war with Sheridan and Solidarity. Once again, such a dead-end approach is in complete opposition to the unanimously adopted motion on socialist unity, taken at the 2006 conference.

Socialist unity can not be rebuilt through triumphalist posturing

Since the Sheridan perjury trial verdict on December 23rd, some SSP members’ contributions have taken a similar triumphalist tone to that of leading Solidarity members after Sheridan’s court victory on August 4th, 2006.

Sheridan now faces a jail sentence, which will have a devastating effect, particularly on his family. Although the misuse of an elected representative’s position for personal gain should indeed be recognised as an offence (just as socialists condemn MP’s financial corruption at Westminster), the SSP should publicly declare its opposition to Sheridan’s imprisonment. Socialists are against jailing for non-violent offences.

The recent Scottish Socialist Youth post-perjury trial statement displays some unwelcome triumphalist features, but is at least clear on opposing Sheridan’s jailing and the need for restorative justice. Sheridan and Solidarity leaders’ actions have wrecked the hard fought for socialist unity, which had shown its greatest strength in 2003. Neither the state nor the bourgeois courts have any interest in defending this legacy – indeed quite the opposite. It is for these crimes that Sheridan should face real accountability for his actions in democratic socialist and working class arenas. This is what he so assiduously avoided when he ran away from the planned 2006 post-trial SSP Conference.

Some people, though, ended joining up Solidarity for misguided reasons. This included lack of understanding of what was really going on (not helped by the SSP leadership majority’s later regretted, own ‘private deal’ with Sheridan), prior political allegiances and personal friendships. Many will now see the complete failure of the course of action pursued by Solidarity’s leadership, with the aid of the leaderships of both the CWI and SWP. This is why the SSP needs to re-emphasise its 2006 post-split Conference decision to welcome such members back without recriminations.

Rebuilding socialist unity on sound principles

However, all members, whether already in the party, rejoining again, or coming in as completely new members, should be informed that the organisation they are in, or coming to, completely rejects celebrity populist politics, treats everybody equally, and encourages independent thinking. It also refuses to resort to bourgeois courts or the media for rulings on how it, or any of its members, conduct their political lives. If these lessons are indeed leaned and taken on board, then socialists in Scotland (and hopefully elsewhere too) will be in a much better position to develop the sort of organisation, which still needs to be built. This is so we can begin to confront the rulers of the current crisis-ridden corporate imperial global order and UK state, and all those political parties, which continue to defend the completely indefensible. This would make a major contribution to rebuilding socialist unity.

Allan Armstrong, Republican Communist Network and SSP member, 2.1.11

The article above is Allan Armstrong’s follow-up to the article he originally wrote for Emancipation & Liberation, no. 13.

The official SSP statement in response to the jury’s decision in the perjury trial can be found below. The RCN welcomes and broadly endorses this statement.

There is undoubtedly much more to be said, and the SSP has already arranged that all matters arising
 from the trial will be addressed at a special post-trial Conference. Here the RCN will be following up the motions it supported at the post-split Conference. Some of the background and the issues raised can be found here.

The motions supported by the RCN at the 2006 post-split Conference can also be found after the official SSP statement.

Kevin McVey – SSP National Secretary

Tommy Sheridan’s conviction today for perjury was inevitable.

Six years ago, as leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, he proposed to sue a tabloid newspaper over stories he knew to be true and demanded that our party went along with his lies. All his closest friends and political allies of 20 years urged him not to take such a reckless course of action.

He will now be dealt with by the judge. We have no desire for vengeance.

What is more important is that all those who have been falsely denounced by him and his allies as liars, plotters, perjurers and forgers have been cleared.

The idea that there was a conspiracy involving Rupert Murdoch, Lothian and Borders Police and the SSP is nonsense and yet this is the narrative that Tommy Sheridan’s supporters publicly promoted for the past 4 years.

By his actions over six years, Tommy Sheridan has disgraced himself and negated his political contribution to the socialist cause over 25 years. History will now record that he did more harm to the socialist cause in Scotland than any good he ever did it.

That astonishing conclusion would not have been thought possible at the height of the poll tax struggle he led so well, or during his early period in the Scottish Socialist Party and Scottish Parliament.

The SSP reaffirms that its aim is to defend the interests of working people, the millions against the millionaires and to fight for a socialist transformation of society in the interests of the majority.

We now draw a line under this sorry saga and move on. The Scottish Socialist Party has been tested to the limit over the past six years and has proven it is a party of principles and integrity.

In this time of savage attacks by the rich against the poor, Scotland more than ever needs a strong left wing socialist party that can be trusted.

October 20th 2006 (post-split) SSP conference

Motion 1 put forward by the Executive Committee and Anniesland branch

Socialist Unity

This National Conference salutes the courageous, principled defence of the SSP and the interests of socialism by all those who have remained as SSP members during the recent crisis. We emerge stronger in our determination to sustain and build a united, democratic, party of solidarity and socialism, committed to fighting for an independent socialist Scotland.

Conference reaffirms our founding aims of building a broad, inclusive, united socialist party, based on class struggle politics, which simultaneously stands up against inequality and discrimination on grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age.

We are proud to have developed policies that engage with the everyday needs, desires and struggles of working class people and others moving into action against the poverty, inequalities, injustices, racism, sectarianism, sexism, environmental destruction and war that are the offspring of capitalism – and which link these fighting demands with our broader goals of an independent socialist Scotland and international socialism.

We recognise that the project of socialist unity launched in 1998, with phenomenal growth since, has raised the hopes of hundreds of thousands in Scotland and of the left internationally. The wrecking tactics of a minority has damaged that project and those hopes, but we are confident that our unblemished principles, our unrivalled track record, our fighting socialist policies, and our dedicated, genuine socialist membership will rebuild the strength of the SSP around those founding principles.

We resolve to build the SSP as a pluralist party that respects different shades of socialist opinion within its ranks, with open democratic debate but which then aims for public unity in action around democratically agreed policies and campaigns.

This conference notes with regret the formation of an alternative socialist organisation in Scotland, with a political platform indistinguishable from that of the SSP.

Conference further notes that this organisation appears to be founded not on the basis of political difference with the SSP, but rather as the culmination of recent attacks on the SSP.

Conference further notes that some of the comrades have left the SSP for this new formation for different reasons, such as personal loyalty to individuals or platforms.

Conference believes that the interests of the working class in Scotland and internationally are best served by a united movement,

Conference therefore affirms that, despite the misguided actions of some, any individual who has left the SSP will, at any time in the future, be welcomed back as full members of the party without recriminations.

Principled unity is our strength. We have a duty to the working class and the cause of socialism to maintain socialist unity and to conduct ourselves in a combative, determined, confident, but friendly manner aimed at convincing thousands that the SSP’s principles and policies coincide with their interests. The future is ours, provided we collectively seize it.

(passed overwhelmingly)

Motion 2 put forward by Midlothian branch

Use of the courts and the media

This SSP National Conference agrees to adopt the following policies:-

• a) SSP members should avoid resort to the state’s courts when seeking redress for politically motivated attacks on their behaviour
• b) When SSP members are subjected to politically motivated attacks by the state or media, they should be able to call upon the support of the SSPNational Executive to conduct a party campaign including the following tactics as deemed appropriate:-
  • i) articles in the party’s press
  • ii) direct appeals to the trade union members in the state bodies and/or media responsible
  • iii) calls for boycott actions
• c) SSP members should not resort to the non-party media when making allegations against other SSP members. Such allegations should be brought initially before the appropriate party body at the level concerned with the right to appeal to a higher level, the ultimate appeal being the SSP Conference.
• d) The elected press officer should be responsible for day to day responses to the outside media, when members are under attack. The press officer is directly responsible, initially to the National Executive, then to the National Council, and finally to the National Conference.

(passed overwhelmingly)

Motion 45 put forward by Dundee branches

Adopting standard practice for SSP minutes

The SSP Conference agrees to adopt the following practice for minute taking at National Conference, National Council and National Executive meetings, and all sub-committees where minutes are usually taken.

• a) These minutes should confine themselves to:-
  • * names/initials of apologies, members present and who leaves the meeting
  • * key political arguments made
  • * decisions taken
  • * matters of a personal nature should be omitted, unless with the agreement of the person/s concerned
• b) Individuals or groups can submit position papers in their own name providing greater information if they feel it is required
• c) When a minute has been agreed by the next appropriate meeting of that body, it becomes part of the SSP’s historical record and should not be further altered (although bodies they are accountable to may disagree and make their own views clear in their own minutes)

(defeated in favour of an Edinburgh Central motion upholding existing practice)

Motion 15 put forward by the RCN platform

Citizens not Subjects

This Conference agrees to supplement the SSP’s economic and social manifesto and campaign for the 2007 Holyrood election, People not Profit, with a political and democratic manifesto and campaign, Citizens not Subjects.

Conference further agrees to include the following demands (which can be reworded or fine-tuned for agitational purposes) under this rubric, along with other appropriate demands agreed by subsequent National Council meetings:-

• 1. Defend our civil rights – Oppose state ID cards
• 2. Defend communities under attack – Support asylum seekers and migrant workers in the face of racist laws and attacks
• 3. Support workers’ freedom to organise – Oppose the Anti-Trade Union laws
• 4. Support people’s freedom to demonstrate – Oppose the Criminal Justice Act
• 5. Extend the franchise – Votes for over 16’s
• 6. Support the Calton Hill Declaration – Oppose the state’s Crown Powers
• 7. Support popular resistance to US and British imperial wars – Close down NATO’s military bases in Scotland
• 8. For a democratic and secular Scottish republic

(passed by a large majority)

Galloway’s articles in the Daily Record show his likely political trajectory. He hopes to follow Ken Livingstone and be re-accepted into the Labour Party. He is selling himself to Labour voters in Glasgow as somebody with a high personal profile in contrast with existing Labour MSPs. Galloway’s most likely obstacle is probable jealousy over his celebrity status amongst the existing lacklustre leaders of the party in Scotland.

The attempt to promote socialist projects around celebrity candidates, whether Ken Livingstone, Arthur Scargill, Tommy Sheridan or George Galloway, has done nothing to advance principled and deep-rooted socialist organisation in these islands. Galloway’s particular claim to fame on the Left has been his spirited opposition to US imperialism. However, he has a record, not of being a consistent anti-imperialist, but of holding an ambivalent relationship to various regimes (e.g. Saddam’s Baathist Iraq and Ahmadinejad’s Islamic Republic of Iran), which are not opposed to imperialism in principle, but only to their lowly position in the current global order of things.

Domestically, Galloway has placed far more importance upon cultivating links with Islamic communal leaders, than with being held accountable either to socialist or working class organisations. Notoriously, he rejects the idea of  ‘a worker’s MP on a worker’s wage’ and believes that MPs should be paid twice as much.

Politically Galloway is opposed to ‘a woman’s right to choose over abortion’. Through his deeply entrenched Left British unionism, Galloway opposes any meaningful self-determination for Scotland. He still nostalgically hankers over the fate of another unionist and imperial state – the USSR – which still, in many ways, provides his ideal model.

Galloway has every right to stand in the Holyrood election next year. Genuine socialists have every reason to oppose him.

Socialist Resistance

The RCN has criticised Socialist Resistance in the past for its failure to address George Galloway’s articles in the Daily Record supporting the Labour Party in the Glasgow East by-election in 2008. Therefore, we welcome the principled stance Socialist Resistance has now taken over Galloway’s decision to stand in Glasgow in next year’s Holyrood elections.

Republican Communist Network, 15.11.10

Socialist Resistance on the issue:

Why we are against Respect organizing in Scotland

After a week in which George Galloway said he was under pressure to stand in next year’s elections for the Scottish Parliament, Respect’s annual conference on November 13 voted, 59 to 15, to organise in Scotland. That resolution, published below, makes Socialist Resistance’s position inside Respect untenable. Resistance supported the establishment of Respect in England and has been central to the party’s leadership and work since then. As we explained in the leaflet distributed to the conference, because Resistance supports the Scottish Socialist Party the decision to organise in Scotland in competition to the SSP is a deep error by Respect, one which weakens Respect’s democracy and neglects the importance of Scotland’s struggle for self-determination.

The following amendment was passed by a large majority at Respect’s annual conference on November 13.

Conference notes that:

1. There will be elections to the Scottish Parliament in May 2011
2. These elections will be conducted under a form of proportional representation in which some MSPs are elected from a list
3. Respect has not organized in or contested elections in Scotland in the past because of the hegemony of other parties to the left of Labour
4. This hegemony no longer exists
. In the context of unprecedented cuts by the Condem Coalition and disappointment with the Labour and SNP, there is now an opportunity for Respect to contest elections to the Scottish parliament with a realistic prospect of success

Conference therefore believes

1. National officers should start preparations for Respect to contest elections to the Scottish Parliament
. Preparations should include immediately registering Scottish Respect as a description that can be used in Scottish elections and seeking to recruit residents in Scotland to Respect.

This is the text of a leaflet distributed by supporters of Socialist Resistance in Respect who now feel that our situation in the organisation is now untenable.

We are strongly opposed to the proposition that Respect organise in Scotland, as proposed in amendment E to Motion 1

Socialist Resistance has supported Respect since its inception in 2004 and previously supported the Socialist Alliance. We supported George Galloway’s letter which sought to democratize the leadership of Respect and backed the majority in the ensuing split in the organisation in 2007. We put the resources of our newspaper at the disposal of Respect. We understood that George and Salma, given their role in the anti-war movement had a vital contribution to make in building a political alternative to New Labour.

But were a resolution to organise Respect in Scotland to be passed at this Respect Conference this would make our situation in the organisation untenable. We are against such a resolution being adopted on a number of grounds:

1) A controversial change of a long-held policy that Respect does not organise in Scotland should not be introduced a week before the conference and with no discussion at the National Council or in the branches.

2) The only purpose in organising in Scotland would be for Respect to stand candidates in next May’s Scottish Parliament elections and in subsequent parliamentary and local elections. Respect has no policy positions on the specific situation in Scotland, particularly the issue of devolution and self-determination an issue around which there would be several different positions. To go into a Scottish election with no debate on key political issues would be fundamentally wrong.

3) There are already two left parties in Scotland standing in elections and they intend to continue doing so, namely the SSP and Solidarity. The SLP also stands in elections in Scotland. The last thing the Scottish left needs is another left party standing in those same elections and dividing the left vote still further.

4) In Respect there have always been different views on which party to support in Scotland. We support the SSP. If this conference were to adopt a position on organising in Scotland and to fight elections SR members would be in an impossible situation. For a party to have members who advocate voting for a different party would be untenable – both for Respect and for SR.

5) Underlying this issue is an important political question; namely the right of the Scottish people to self-determination, including the right to independence. Therefore we reject the idea of English based parties organizing in Scotland.

6) We still haven’t managed to build Respect on an England-wide basis – a decision to stand for election in Glasgow will inevitably lead to the de-prioritisation of Tower Hamlets.

We therefore urge the leadership and membership of Respect to avoid this course of action and to reject the proposal to organise in Scotland, avoiding both the undemocratic nature of such a decision and its consequences for the unity of the organisation.

Socialist Resistance, 13.11.10

On Alan’s first point, that what socialists should do in 2010 does not depend on what Marx and Engels may or may not have done in the nineteenth century, I am in agreement. I had already made the case for socialists/communists adopting an of an ‘internationalism from below’ approach in these islands on the basis of an analysis of the current political situation.

Nevertheless, I still think there is something to be gained by learning from historical experience. Of course, you have to be aware of the different contexts. Yet, I think a very strong case can be made for Marx and Engels’ adoption of an ‘internationalism from below’ stance. Alan maintains that Marx’s support for certain independence movements stemmed from Marx’s opposition to the three great feudal powers _ Russia, Austria and Prussia. Certainly Marx and Engels’s support for the Polish and Hungarian national democratic movements in 1848 can be attributed to such strategic thinking.

However, the founding conference of the First International in 1864 declared that, It is imperative to annihilate the invading influence of Russia in Europe by applying to Poland, ‘the right of every people to dispose of itself’ and re-establishing that country on a social and democratic basis. Quite clearly, Marx and Engels were already beginning to move towards a more general democratic principle, in giving their support to Poland.

Furthermore, if Alan reads Marx and Engels’ quite substantial writings on Ireland, particularly from the period of the First International, he would realise that their support for Irish self-determination – sometimes advocating a confederal relationship with Britain, other times complete independence – amounted to much more than a desire to weaken the position of the English landed aristocracy, although this was certainly a consideration. Alan’s attempt to equate this landed aristocracy with the remnants of feudalism, to justify his own interpretation, is frankly wrong. The landlord class in Ireland may have been a strong supporter of Tory reaction (by the end of the century, the same could be said of the industrialists of north east Ulster), but they were very definitely capitalist landlords, as was demonstrated by their actions during the Great Famine.

If Alan’s argument is sound, then by the 1880’s, when Marx and Engels no longer saw Tsarist Russia as the ‘reactionary strong man of Europe’, they should have abandoned even their tactical support for Polish independence. Instead, in a letter to Kautsky, in 1882, Engels wrote that,

So long as Poland is partitioned and subjugated, therefore neither a strong socialist party can develop in the country itself… Polish socialists who do not place the liberation of their country at the head of their programme appear to me as would German socialists who do not demand first and foremost repeal of the {anti-} socialist law, freedom of the press, association and assembly. In order to be able to fight one needs first a soil to stand on, air, light and space. Otherwise all is idle chatter.

Furthermore, Alan highlights the fact that Marx and Engels denounced many other nationalist movements such as the Slavs. This was certainly their earlier attitude, accentuated by the defeat of the 1847-9 International Revolutionary Wave. However, in 1888, Engels wrote to the Romanian Social Democrat, Ion Nadejde, that, Once Tsarism is overthrown… Austria will disintegrate… Poland will come to life again… the Romanians, Hungarians and Southern Slavs will be able to regulate their affairs and their border questions free from foreign interference.

So, far from Marx and Engels’ support for national democratic movements being confined to a select few countries for particular strategic reasons (undoubtedly their earlier stance), from the 1860’s onwards, they gave their support to he right of every people to dispose of itself. Furthermore, as I showed in Engels’ response to Hales, a British Left unionist, Marx and Engels fought for the organisational principle of ‘internationalism from below’ within the First International.

I too like Eugene Debs quote, but I note that after 106 years of the SPGB’s existence, the World Socialist Movement, of which it forms a part, seems confined to the richer English-speaking countries of the world. How can this be explained?

That Marx and Engels supported certain independence movements (yet also denounced many other nationalist movements such as that of the Slavs) is sometimes used to try to justify socialists today supporting the demands for independence.

Two points can be made. Firstly, what socialists should do in 2010 does not depend on what Marx or Engels may or may not have done in the 19th century. But, secondly and more importantly, the circumstances which led Marx to support some independence movements of his time no longer exist in today’s world.

After the failures of 1848, Marx pretty much dropped out of active politics and devoted more of his time to his studies. However, he later began actively to participate in political struggle within the First International. His strategy was the long-term one of preparing the working class to win political power for socialism. This involved Marx advocating various democratic and social reforms. This process was continually threatened by the three great feudal powers – Russia, Austria and Prussia. The bourgeois democratic victory over feudalism was far from complete, even in a rapidly industrialising Britain.

In these circumstances, Marx considered it necessary to support not only direct moves to extend political democracy, but also moves which he felt would weaken the feudal powers of Europe. He supported Polish independence as a means of weakening tsarist Russia. His support for Irish independence was for a similar reason. It would, he thought, weaken the position of the English landed aristocracy.

World War I destroyed the three great European feudal powers, making it no longer necessary for socialists to support moves to weaken them. Once industrial capitalist powers had come to dominate the world, and once a workable political democracy had been established in those states, then the task of socialists was to advocate socialism rather than democratic and social reforms. That is the position of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Marx’s strategy was concerned with furthering the establishment of political democracy. It was not, as some think, an anticipation of Lenin’s theory of imperialism, according to which independence for colonies will help precipitate a socialist revolution in the imperialist countries. Nor was it, as Allan Armstrong would like us to believe, an early endorsement of ‘internationalism from below’. Marx clearly wrote of the independence movements helping to overthrow the remnants of feudalism, but not capitalism itself.
With regard to all nationalisms generally, I suggest that socialists heed Eugene Debs when he said: I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the world.

Independent Action Required to Achieve Genuine Workers’ Unity

First, I would like to thank Nick for the tenor of his contribution to the debate about communist strategy in the states of the UK and the 26 county Irish republic. After our initial sparring in earlier issues of Weekly Worker and on the RCN website Nick’s contribution develops further his own case for a British approach and a British party. (I am still not sure to what extent the alternative and logically more consistent one state/one party stance of having an all-UK party is supported in the CPGB.) Nick also usefully clears up some points himself (e.g. over his attitude to Luxemburgism) and asks a question which is designed to advance the debate. Before going on to the other issues Nick raises, I will therefore answer this question on whether I support breakaway unions in Scotland.

How to win effective union solidarity

I have consistently argued that the struggle to attain effective union organisation can not be reduced to which national flag flies over a union HQ. Most of the Left, in practice, uphold the sovereignty of the union officials located in their existing union HQs, hoping to replace these some day. This is why many of their union campaigns amount to electoral attempts to replace existing union leaderships with Broad Left leaderships. In more and more cases, the latest Broad Left challenges are being mounted against old Broad Left leaderships, suggesting a serious flaw in this strategy!

Of course, many on the Left would say – ‘No’, we champion the sovereignty of the union conference. However, the relationship between most union conferences and their union bureaucracies is very similar to that between Westminster and the government of the day. In both cases, executives only implement what they wish to, whilst systematically undermining any conference/election policies they, or the employers/ruling class, oppose. In the case of unions, this division is accentuated by elected-for-life and appointed officials, who enjoy pay and perks way beyond those of their members – a bit like Cabinet ministers.

Therefore, I uphold the sovereignty of the membership in their workplaces – a republican rank and file industrial strategy, if you like. From this viewpoint ‘unofficial’ action, the term used by bureaucrats to undermine members and to reassert their control, is rejected in favour of the term independent action. Action undertaken by branches can be extended by picketing, and by wider delegate or mass meetings. Certainly, this places a considerable responsibility upon the membership in the branches concerned, necessitating their active involvement in strategic and tactical discussion over the possibilities for extending effective action. Furthermore, instead of politics being largely confined to the select few – union bureaucrats and conference attenders – as when unions are affiliated to the Labour Party – politics becomes a vital necessity in workplace branches.

Nick asks, how can the SSP effectively support action by, for example, civil servants who are organised on an all-British union basis, when we are organised on a Scottish political basis? Actually, it is quite easy. The SSP has members on the executives of all-Britain trade unions, and we seek wider unity for effective action with officers and delegates from England and Wales. Indeed, we can go further and state that we would seek cooperation with union members in Northern Ireland, when action involves all-UK unions, such as the FBU. Yet, in the latter case, support for joint action over economic issues should not prevent socialists raising the political issue of Ireland’s breakaway from the UK state. There is an obvious analogy here for the SSP.

Indeed, there are three other territorial union forms in these islands, – Northern Irish unions (e.g. Northern Ireland Public Services Alliance), Irish unions which organise in the North (e.g. Irish National Teachers Union and the Independent Workers Union) and all-islands unions (e.g. UCATT). Nick’s attempt to equate more effective action with all-Britain unions would in no way help socialists to bring about unity in such varied circumstances. Championing the sovereignty of the union branch, and the forging of unity from below in expanding action, offer the best way of achieving this.

Nick mentions the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) – the major teaching union in Scotland, and one of the last unions organised on a Scottish basis. The EIS is affiliated, not only to the STUC, but to the TUC and, although not affiliated to the Labour Party, its leadership has, since the mid 1970’s, been as loyal to Labour as any. The EIS is one of the strongest adherents of ‘social partnership’, with large chunks of its official journal indistinguishable from government/management spin – especially its articles on governmental education initiatives.

Until I retired, I was a member of the EIS, a union rep (shop steward) for 34 years, and served on the union’s Edinburgh Local Executive and National Council. I was also a member of Scottish Rank & File Teachers (until they were sabotaged by the SWP) and later the Scottish Federation of Socialist Teachers. I always upheld the sovereignty of the membership in their branches. Furthermore, I was also centrally involved in the largest campaign that rocked the Scottish educational world and the EIS, in 1973. Here, for the first time, I came up against the sort of arguments Nick raises.

The 1973 strike action was organised unofficially/independently. It took place over more than three months, with huge weekly, school delegate-based meetings. We also argued within the official structures of the EIS (whilst even drawing in some members of the two other small unions). It was here that the old CPGB, Labour Party and Militant supporters told us we should end our independent action and confine ourselves to getting motions passed calling on the union leadership to take a national lead.

If we had done this, it is likely there would have been no industrial action at all. As it was, the massive independent action forced the official leadership to move. And it was the independent rank and file movement, which sent delegates to schools in England to try and widen the challenge to the Tory government over pay. Labour Party and CPGB union officers, all stalwart Left British unionists, confined official union activity to Scotland!

There is a definite parallel between Nick’s advocacy that the SSP should abandon its own independent organisation and join with the British Left, planning for the ‘big bang’ British/UK revolution they hope for in the future, and those old CPGB, Left Labour and Militant arguments I first faced back in 1973.

The anti-poll tax campaign – ‘internationalism from below’ in action

Some years later, in 1988, I became chair of the first Anti-Poll Tax Federation (Lothians) and co-chair of the conference of the Scottish Anti-Poll Tax Federation. The campaign against the poll tax started a year earlier in Scotland, due to Thatcher’s propensity to impose her own form of devolution here – testing out reactionary legislation in Scotland first.

Militant emerged as the largest political organisation in the Federations. Militant became torn between those who wanted to maintain an all-Britain Labour Party orientation, continuing to prioritise activities inside the party’s official structures, and those who saw the necessity to become involved in independent action through the anti-poll tax unions. Fortunately, it was the latter view that won out.

The negative effect of pursuing a tacitly British unionist strategy was demonstrated by the SWP. Their slogan was – Kinnock and Willis {then TUC General Secretary}- get off your knees and fight (i.e. pushing for others to lead). They argued that only a Britain-wide campaign backed by the official trade union movement could win. When a special Labour Party conference in Glasgow voted against non-payment, the SWP declared the game was over, and some Scottish members went on to pay their poll tax.

The majority in the Federations stuck to their guns and built the independent action first in Scotland, e.g. through non-payment, confronting sheriff officers (bailiffs), etc, and by sending delegations to England and Wales, to prepare people for widened action the following year. Spreading such action from below contributed to the Trafalgar Square riots of March 31st 1990, which put finally paid to the poll tax and to Thatcher.

‘Internationalism from below’, which the SSP International Committee has advocated at the two Republican Socialist Conventions, represents a wider and more politicised development of such actions by our class. Any reading of our documents will show that our ‘internationalism from below’ stance flows from an analysis the concrete political situation, and unlike Nick’s and the CPGB’s stance, does not stem from some abstract attempt to extend a ‘one state/one party’ (or trade union) organisational form over all British/UK socialists; or from a belief in the efficacy of the top-down bureaucratic ‘internationalism’, which is intrinsic to such attempts.

Although rather belated in its formation, the Scottish Socialist Alliance, set up in 1996, directly stemmed from the lessons learned in the anti-poll tax campaign. (Socialist republicans in the Scottish Federation had argued for the setting up of such organisations from 1990.) Furthermore, contrary to what Nick maintains, far from having a purely Scottish orientation, SSA/SSP members took an active part, providing speakers, to help set up the Socialist Alliances in England, Wales and the Irish Socialist Network. The main obstacles we faced in helping to form new democratic united front organisations came from the British Left!

Perhaps it is also significant that, after addressing large meetings in Scotland, some of the striking Liverpool dockers (1995-8) and their partners said that support here was often wider than in England. The response received from the SNP trade union group in Dundee was compared very favourably with the coolness of many Labour Party members closer to home! The SSA was particularly prominent in trying to win solidarity for the dockers in Scotland.

Comparing records in trying to build socialist/communist unity

Now, Nick goes on to make some valid criticisms of the SSA’s successor organisation, the SSP, particularly over its handling of the Tommy Sheridan affair. However, here it is necessary to compare like with like. The CPGB is only a small political organisation with very few connections to the wider working class. In reality it is a socialist/communist propaganda organisation. The SSP, at its height in 2003, united the vast majority of the Left in Scotland, had over a thousand members, won 128,026 votes in the Holyrood election, gained six MSPs and had 2 councillors. It was a party of socialist unity, unlike today when it is an organisation for socialist unity.

When you attempt to organise amongst the wider working class you come under all the immediate political pressures, as well as having to face up to the legacies of past Left traditions. We live in a UK state with a deep-seated imperialist legacy, and where our class has been in retreat in the face of a Capitalist Offensive since 1975.

So, if we are to engage meaningfully amongst the wider class, we have to acknowledge this, and develop a strategy to prevent socialists/communists being dragged back, and to find new openings that enable us to advance both the case and the struggle for a genuine socialist/communist alternative. This means forming definite political platforms. The RCN is a platform in the SSP; the CPGB was part of a platform (Workers Unity) in the SSP. So let’s compare our roles in trying to build wider principled socialist unity.

Now, just as Nick points out that the CPGB has already made many of the criticisms of the SWP and Socialist Party that I raised in my critique, so I will point out that the RCN publicly raised criticisms of the SSP Executive’s handling of the Tommy Sheridan affair, which he quite rightly criticises. The RCN was the only political organisation to oppose, in principle, socialists’ resort to the bourgeois courts to get legal rulings on how they conduct themselves.

The split, which eventually emerged on the SSP Executive, was about the tactical advisability of a resort to the courts, not against the principle. The Executive, having unanimously warned against such a course of action in this particular case, came to an agreement with Sheridan, who insisted on ignoring this advice. In this agreement, he was allowed to stand down as SSP Convenor in order to pursue his court case as an individual. The Executive hoped this would remove the pressure upon the SSP itself.

This was extremely naïve, showing little understanding of how the state operates. In the case of the CWI/SP, they still haven’t learned this lesson, as their misguided resort to the courts to defend four victimised activists in UNISON has recently highlighted. Back in 2006, the Scottish courts made it quite clear that they made no distinction between the SSP and the activities of its most prominent member. It jailed Alan McCombes for refusing to hand over party minutes covering the Executive decisions on the handling of the Sheridan affair.

This led to a public split on the SSP’s Executive Committee, between those who wanted to continue with Sheridan’s case in the bourgeois courts, and those who could now see that the state held the whip hand. Sheridan was asked to abandon this particularly flawed and potentially disastrous course of action. Unfortunately, with the encouragement of the SWP and the CWI/IS – Sheridan went on regardless, resulting in a split in the SSP. They refused to attend the post-trial Conference organised to address the deep-seated differences, which had emerged in the SSP. Solidarity has been little more than a political ‘marriage of convenience’. You only have to look at the SWP and SP’s continued organisational separation in England, Wales (and Ireland/Northern Ireland) to understand this.

Certainly, mistakes had also been be made by the SSP Executive majority, but these could have been rectified. Indeed, the RCN initiated motion to condemn the resort to bourgeois courts and newspapers to deal with differences amongst socialists was passed at the post-split SSP Conference in 2006.

Ironically, the one issue, which played no part in the split, was the territorial organisational basis of the SSP. The left nationalist Sheridanistas (now the Democratic Green Socialist platform) joined with the Left unionist SWP and CWI/IS in Solidarity. The Left nationalist influenced (now former) ISM, along with the Left unionist and carelessly named Solidarity platform (!) (AWL), and the republican socialist RCN stayed with the SSP. The left nationalist Scottish Republican Socialist Movement left the SSP to urge support for the SNP, whilst the Left unionist CPGB ended up telling people to vote New Labour in the recent Euro-elections. Yes, a sorry mess!

Now, if ever there was an opportunity for the British Left to make some headway in Scotland, the SSP split this should have been it. However, the CWI/SP had already sabotaged the Socialist Alliances in England and Wales, whilst the final coup-de-grace was administered by the SWP, when it decided to move over to pastures green in Respect. Losing support there to Galloway and his allies (the SWP seemed to have learned nothing about cultivating celebrity politics in Solidarity) they then sabotaged Respect. Perhaps, the one thing Nick and I could agree on, is that a particular organisational form – Scottish or British – provides no guarantee of principled socialist unity! That has to be fought out on the basis of principled politics and democratic methods.

Now, some time after the CPGB’s advocacy of giving no support to either the SSP or Solidarity (to my knowledge it no longer had any members involved at this stage), it came up with its own Campaign for a Marxist Party (CMP). Here surely, given the balance of political forces (much more favourable to the CPGB, than say to the SP or SWP in the old Socialist Alliance, the SWP in Respect, or the SP in No2EU) it should have been able to make some real headway in advancing its own brand of socialist/communist unity politics – the organisational unity of self-declared Marxists in an all-Britain (UK?) party.

However, as every non-CPGB report on the CMP has shown (see New Interventions), the CPGB played an analogous role to the SWP in its front organisations. And, just as in the case of the SWP, there has been no honest attempt to account politically for the demise of the CPGB project in this respect. Instead, we have been given personalised attacks – once again shades of the SWP. From the outside, it looks as if the CPGB was just attempting a new recruiting manoeuvre – much like the SWP.

Now the CMP certainly organised on an all-Britain basis, including the Critique/Marxist Forum group in Glasgow. Yet, far from bringing about greater unity, the CMP experience has only resulted in greater disunity! Nick I’m sure witnessed much of this, and I would think it unlikely that he was entirely happy with the way the CPGB conducted itself. However, this wasn’t an accidental one-off.

Before Nick became involved in the CPGB, there had been an all-Britain RCN, which included the Red Republicans (including myself), the Campaign for a Federal Republic, the CPGB and the RDG. The CPGB, in alliance with the RDG, decided to marginalise those who disagreed with their own ‘federal British republican’ position. In Scotland, federal British republicans were a minority in the RCN, but were still well represented on our Scottish Committee. In England, federal republicans were in a majority, but the CPGB and RDG acted to ensure there were no non-federal republicans on the ‘organising committee’ there (in reality very little organising had gone on).

Their idea was to refashion the RCN into an organisation, which would intervene with the ‘federal British republican’ line in the SSP. The CPGB and RDG had no wider role for the RCN in England. They saw their job as conducting Left British unionist ‘missionary work’ in Scotland only.

A rather unpleasant all-Britain RCN meeting was held in London, and through the votes of CPGB and RDG members, the majority of whom had never lifted a finger for the RCN, they won the day. The RCN in Scotland decided it had had enough of the bureaucratic manoeuvring and withdrew. Even the Scottish members of the Campaign for a Federal Republic members joined with the RCN majority in Scotland, and together we constituted ourselves as the RCN (Scotland).

It is not even necessary to accept my interpretation of these particular events to make a political assessment of the consequences of the split. The RCN now only existed in Scotland. The CPGB and RDG were attempting to link up with the very Left unionist (and social imperialist) AWL, and the Glasgow Critique group which still had members in Scotland, to build a new Left unionist platform within the SSP. An additional advantage was the support they had in England (and Wales).

So, which of the two platforms was able to advance in the SSP? Using Nick’s argument about the obvious superiority of all-Britain political organisations it should have been the CPGB and its allies. Yet this wasn’t the case, despite the CPGB’s hope of also winning the support of other Left unionist organisations in the SSP, such as the SWP (Weekly Worker assiduously tried to court Neil Davidson, the SWP’s leading theoretician in Scotland, then advancing a strong Left unionist politics.)

Now, it could possibly be argued, from a CPGB viewpoint, that the task of winning over the SSP to ‘principled’ British Left organisational unity was just too big a task in the face of the opposition. However, then the fight conducted by the CPGB and its allies should have at least solidified a more united pro-British tendency in Scotland. However, the CPGB soon fell out with the AWL and, after the CMP debacle, with the RDG, also leaving members of the Glasgow Critique/Marxist Forum split! And Nick wonders why I think supporters of British Left unity tend to mirror the bureaucratic methods utilised by the British state!

The historical basis for ‘internationalism from below’

The UK is not just any old state. It was once at the centre of the world’s largest empire upon which the sun never set. Today, it forms the principle ally of US imperialism, the dominant power in the world. Today, the UK is ‘Hapsburg Austria’ to the USA’s ‘Tsarist Russia’.

For the greater part of their political lives, Marx and Engels argued that socialists should make opposition to the Romanov/Hapsburg counter-revolutionary alliance fundamental to their revolutionary project. Support for the Polish struggle to gain political independence, particularly from the Russian and Austrian Empires, was central to Marx and Engels’ strategy. Engels held on to this perspective until the end of his life, opposing the young Rosa Luxemburg on Polish independence, in the process. Socialists need to adopt a similar strategy today towards the US/UK imperial alliance.

It took some time before Marx and Engels came to an understanding of the best method needed to unite socialists organisationally to promote revolution and struggle against reaction and counter-revolution. However, they outlined their most developed position within the First International, when, significantly, they had to confront the British Left of their day. This tendency tried to uphold a ‘one-state/one-party’ stance, when they denied the Irish the right to form their own national organisation within the International. In arguing against a prominent British First International member, Engels argued that:-

The position of Ireland with regard to England was not that of an equal, but that of Poland with regard to Russia… What would be said if the Council called upon Polish sections to acknowledge the supremacy of a Council sitting in Petersburg, or upon Prussian Polish, North Schleswig {Danish} and Alsatian sections to submit to a Federal Council in Berlin… that was not Internationalism, but simply preaching to them submission to the yoke… and attempting to justify and perpetuate the dominion of the conqueror under the cloak of Internationalism. It was sanctioning the belief, only too common amongst English {British} working men, that they were superior beings compared to the Irish, and as much an aristocracy as the mean whites of the Slave States considered themselves to be with regard to the Negroes.

The Second International was formed as the High Imperialism of European dominant-nationality states (German, French and Russian) and top-down imperial national identity sates (British and Belgian) were in the ascendancy. The Second International abandoned Marx and Engels’ ‘internationalism from below’ principle. They adopted a ‘one state/one party’ organisational principle instead, which soon became the conduit for social chauvinist and social imperialist thinking within the social democratic movement.

Luxemburg and Lenin both accepted this new organisational principle. Luxemburg thought, though, that dominant nation chauvinism, which she still recognised, could be combatted by pushing for all-round democratic reforms, without regard to the specific nationalities in any particular state (albeit, as Lenin noticed, with the inconsistent qualification that, after the revolution, Poles should enjoy political autonomy).

Lenin also recognised the dominant nation social chauvinism and social imperialism found in the Second International, but thought this could best be combated through the 1896, Second International Congress decision to uphold ‘the right of nations to self determination’. Lenin thought, though, that any need to actually fight to implement this right was constantly being undermined by ongoing capitalist development, which he thought led to greater working class unity. Furthermore, after any future revolution, national self-determination would not be required, since workers would then want to unite together, initially within the existing state territorial frameworks, after these had been suitably transformed.

However, mainstream Second International figures, as well as Lenin, went on to consider various exceptions to both these organisational and political principles. In the case of some of the major constituent Second International parties, support was sometimes given to non-state parties in other states (often ones in competition with their own imperial bourgeoisies!). In this way the PPS (Poland) and IRSP (Ireland) were able to gain official recognition as Second International Congress delegates.

Lenin, in contrast, tended to support the exercise of self-determination retrospectively, only after he had recognised its political significance, e.g. Norway in 1905, Ireland in 1916. Lenin’s refusal to recognise the real political significance of Left-led national movements within the Russian Empire from 1917 (e.g. Finland and Ukraine), contributed to the isolation of the Revolution, and also to the burgeoning Great Russian bureaucratic character of the new USSR.

Luxemburg’s refusal to get socialists to fight for the leadership of national democratic movements contributed even more to the particular political marginalisation of socialists in Poland, compared say to those ostensibly less revolutionary Finnish socialists. They had been much more brutally crushed in the 1918 White counter-revolution in Finland, than the Polish socialists had been in the imperial backed nationalist revolution there. One reason why Finnish socialists and communists were able to rise from the ashes, is that were still remembered as leaders in the national struggle against Tsarist Russian and German occupation.

The role of an ‘internationalism from below’ strategy in combating the current US/UK imperial alliance

Fast forward to today, and we can see the leading role of US/UK imperialism in the world, promoting the interests of the global corporations. The UK state has been awarded the North Atlantic franchise by the US. Here it operates as spoiler within the EU to prevent it emerging as an imperial competitor to the US. It can even designate Iceland a terrorist state! Through the Peace (or more accurately pacification) Process, UK governments, in alliance with their own junior partners, successive Irish governments, have rolled back the challenge represented by the revolutionary nationalist challenge of the Republican Movement.

Sinn Fein is now a major partner in upholding British rule in ‘the Six Counties’ through their coalition with the reactionary unionist DUP. The ‘Peace Process’ was designed to create the best political environment to ensure that the global corporations can maximise their profits in Ireland. This political strategy has been extended throughout these islands, by the policy of ‘Devolution-all-round’ – Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

This strategy has easily tamed such constitutional nationalist parties as the SNP and Plaid Cymru. The SNP, for example, is pursuing a Devolution-Max policy to uphold Scottish business interests in an accepted global corporate dominated world. The UK state strategy has the full support of the USA, the EU, and trade union leaderships locked in ‘social partnerships’ with their governments and the employers.

The constitutionally unionist form of the UK state places the National Question at the heart of the democratic struggle. Middle class nationalism is continually forced into compromises with unionism and imperialism. (At the height of British imperial world domination, the overwhelming majority of the Scottish and Welsh, and a significant section of the Irish middle classes, could be won over to acceptance of various hyphenated British identities – Scottish-British, Welsh-British and Irish-British – in their shared pursuit of imperial spoils). However, today’s SNP support for the monarchy, and for Scottish regiments in the British imperial army, show that unionist/imperialist pressure can still have an impact. Even the ‘independent’ Irish state has given Shannon Airport over to US imperial forces, particularly for ‘rendition’ flights.

Unfortunately, the CPGB has only the most abstract understanding of the British unionist state. As yet, it doesn’t even fully comprehend the difference between a nation and a nationality. During the 1997 Devolution Referendum campaign, Weekly Workerdenied there was such a thing as a Scottish nation, claiming there was only a British nation, in which there lives a Scottish nationality. The existence of a wider Scottish nation, and not just a narrower ethnic Scots nationality, can easily be demonstrated in the well-known Scottish names of Sean Connery, Tom Conti, Shireen Nanjiani and Omar Saeed.

The logic of the CPGB’s position, if it had upheld its own particular version of national self-determination, should have been to argue for the 1997 referendum ballot to be confined to (ethnic) Scots. This would of course brought it into line with the far right nationalist, Siol nan Gaidheal! The CPGB also got itself into so many knots through promoting its own particular sect-front, ‘The Campaign for Genuine Self Determination’, that it buried any report of its end-of-campaign public meeting and rally in Glasgow. This meeting was certainly entertaining, but hardly a triumph for CPGB politics!

Indeed the beginnings of the CPGB’s political decline in Scotland can be identified with this particular meeting, which it was so reluctant to report on. I made an extended political assessment, which was sent to Weekly Worker to review. It declined to do so.

However, the confusion between nation and nationality has been taken to greater lengths in ‘the Six Counties’. Here Jack Conrad has identified a 75% Irish-British nation (!), scoring somewhat higher in the nation stakes than Scotland. The fact that Irish-British nationality identification went into rapid retreat after the Irish War of Independence is just ignored.

What undoubtedly exists in the ‘Six Counties’ today is an Ulster-British identity, buttressed by official Unionism and unofficial Loyalism alike. However, this relatively new nationality identification isn’t fixed either. There are a minority of Ulster-British who would happily become fully integrated into the British unionist and imperial state. The majority in the UUP, DUP and TUV, still want to maintain Stormont and other Northern Irish statelet institutions to hopefully ensure continued Protestant Unionist ascendancy. An ultra-reactionary minority has contemplated declaring UDI (Rhodesia style) to form an independent Ulster state, through ethnic cleansing (or, as the relevant UDA document puts it – ‘nullification’). They all, of course, proudly champion the British imperial legacy.

Ironically, there has been a limited rise of British-Irishness in ‘the 26 counties’, particularly in ‘Dublin 4’, amongst former Official Republicans and a new wave if ‘revisionist historians’. Significantly, this usually goes along with support for the UK and the USA in its current ‘anti-terrorist’ (i.e. imperial) adventures. These people represent a similar phenomenon to the Euston Manifesto group, formed in 2006 along with others, by former AWL member, Alan Johnson. The AWL, of course, has gone further even than the CWI in its apologetics for working class Loyalist organisations (anticipating its similar attitude to Zionist Labour organisations), so it is not surprising that it has given birth to strong social unionist and imperialist tendencies. Therefore, as long as the CPGB champions the ‘nation’ rights of this particularly reactionary nationality, it is in danger of following the path of the AWL and the CWI.

Now, the majority of the real Irish-British in ‘the 26 counties’ did eventually become Irish themselves, despite the undoubted barriers posed by the Catholic confessional nature of the state there. This development shows the possibilities of creating Irish national unity, especially if full nationality and religious equality is promoted.

The RCN appreciates the real nature of the UK state, and the strategy being pursued by its ruling class to contain potentially threatening national democratic movements. These can take on a republican form in their opposition to the anti-democratic Crown Powers soon wielded against any effective opposition. The RCN also recognises the need to supplement this by engagement with major social issues. This social republicanism (which needs to be developed by communists into conscious socialist republicanism) isn’t just an added-on extra. The fight against jobs and housing discrimination in the Civil Right Movement, and against the poll tax in Scotland, soon became linked with the national and (latent) republican movements in their respective countries.

When the RCN argues for a challenge to the UK state and to its anti-democratic Crown Powers in Scotland, this stems from a recognition that republican political consciousness is currently higher here (itself a reflection of the importance of the National Question). By way of analogy, in the 1980’s, the wider working class appreciated the more advanced class consciousness of the NUM and recognised they were in the vanguard of the fight, not just to save pits, but against the Thatcher government. The Great Miners’ Strike was itself triggered off by independent action. The job of socialists soon became to organise effective wider solidarity, and generalise this into a wider political struggle against Thatcher.

If socialist republicans in Scotland can take the lead in the political struggle against the UK state, the task of socialists in these islands becomes something similar – to build solidarity and to extend the challenge by breaking each link in the unionist chain. Whether we end up with independent democratic republics (and only weaken imperialism – nevertheless a better basis for future progress than the UK imperial state which exists at present), or are able to move forward to a federation of European socialist republics, depends on the ability of socialists/communists to build ever widening independent class organisation, culminating in workers’ councils.

Abstention from the democratic struggle on the grounds it isn’t specifically ‘socialist’ would be equivalent to abstention in supporting workers fighting for increased wages, on the grounds that they weren’t fighting against the wages system. Socialists/communists can only gain a wider audience by participating in all the economic, social, cultural and political (democratic) struggles facing our class. To do this effectively, socialists throughout these islands need to build on the basis of ‘internationalism from below’

The very first point I made at the February 13 Republican Socialist Convention in London was that the most pressing task for communists was to build an international working class movement that could challenge the capitalist class globally.

In the letters column of last week’s Weekly Worker I argued that it was necessary to build pan-European workers’ organisations (Blind alley, March 4). The masthead of the Weekly Worker carries the slogan, Towards a Communist Party of the European Union. Yet Allan Armstrong of the Scottish Socialist Party’s international committee characterises my position as Brit left (Left mirror of the UK state Weekly Worker March 4). In this reply I want to explore Allan’s revealing conclusion.

In my original report I criticised the SSP, represented at the February 13 meeting by co-convenor Colin Fox, for refusing to unite in an all-British party to combat the actually existing British state (‘Debating with left nationalists’ Weekly Worker February 18). Granted, Allan advocates united action across the British Isles, but, as he puts it, on the basis of the same kind of relations that Hands Off the People of Iran has established between British and Iranian workers. He asks, Does the CPGB secretly think that joint work cannot be effective because British and Iranian socialist do not live in the same state?

I applaud the work of Hopi, but everyone in that organisation – Iranian, British or whatever – recognises that workers in the two countries face quite different political environments that, for the time being, make unity in one centralised party both undesirable and unrealistic.

The difference between the kind of internationalism that Hopi encourages the British and Iranian workers to engage in and the level of unity workers in Scotland and England require can be illustrated quite simply by considering the nature of their respective struggles.

When Iranian bus, car or oil workers take industrial action, their grievances will generally be very specific to conditions in Iran – albeit sharing common characteristics with workers anywhere, given the drive by capitalist regimes all round the world to step up the neo-liberal assault on workers’ rights. Generous financial support, logistical support where practical, solidarity messages, pickets of the Iranian embassy, etc – actions such as these are what it is feasible for British workers to do. Of course, we also place direct pressure on the British state by opposing sanctions against Iran and any preparations for war. These are the tasks that Hopi has set itself.

If Iranian workers in struggle were facing a western transnational, other types of action become possible, from workers’ sanctions to solidarity industrial action. Since the mullahs and revolutionary guards dominate profit-making activities in Iran, these opportunities are relatively rare.

British workers, by contrast, face capitalist companies that do not respect national boundaries within Britain (and increasingly the boundaries separating European countries). Effective industrial action also has to take place across these boundaries and requires close British and pan-European organisation by workers. In Britain workers confront laws made by the capitalist state – and also laws laid down by the European Union. For many workers the capitalist state is their employer. Defensive actions such as last week’s two-day strike by the Public and Commercial Services union inevitably assume an all-Britain character.

Allan affects to believe that the nature of the joint action by workers in Britain and the solidarity British and Iranian workers can achieve is essentially no different. In that case, what about British-wide unions? Does Allan believe that the struggles of civil servants (or any other group of workers) would be more or less effective if they were split into separate English and Scottish bodies? I honestly do not know Allan’s position on this. Some left nationalists, such as the Scottish Socialist Republican Movement, do advocate forming separate Scottish unions. I have observed that quite often it is the teachers in the SSP – organised, as it happens, in a Scottish union, the Educational Institute of Scotland – who least grasp the merits of Britain-wide industrial organisation. The majority in the SSP has, though, always cautioned against industrial separatism and argued that even Scottish independence would not undermine the rationale for all-Britain unions.

We are some way off a situation where we can contemplate signing up workers in Britain and Iran to the same unions. So it seems we agree that the existence of a British state – and the shared political, social and economic environment that goes along with it – makes the closest possible cooperation between workers in some types of organisation essential.

That leaves us with the rather extraordinary conundrum of explaining why communists – supposedly the most advanced militants of the working class – should unite on a less ambitious scale than workers seeking to defend their immediate economic interests.

For most it is self-evident that civil servants defending their redundancy terms need to organise in the same union against the British state in its role as an employer. How far would civil servants get if the PCS were to be split into separate Scottish, Welsh and English unions and leave the coordination of joint industrial actions to their respective ‘international departments’? I suggest that we would not be expecting anything very dynamic or effective to come of it.

But for the left nationalists in the SSP the proposal that revolutionary socialists need to achieve the same degree of unity in seeking to overthrow that capitalist state and replace it with a workers’ democracy draws forth accusations of ‘unionism’. For them, building joint activities with communists in England and Wales must be left to the SSP’s international committee in case we were to inadvertently imply that a closer form of unity just might be appropriate.

An observation. Allan points to the SSP’s participation in European Anti-Capitalist Alliance in last year’s European elections and the speaker tour they organised for a member of the French New Anti-Capitalist Party. I would say that was a principled stance as far as it went. But when has the SSP ever stood as part of a Britain-wide electoral front in a British general election? What principle allows the SSP to collaborate with European socialists to the extent of forming a common platform, but prohibits a similar step with socialists across Britain?

Allan takes me to task for using the word ‘foreign’ to describe the SSP’s attitude to English communists. He thinks the word carries inherent connotations of xenophobia. What nonsense. The capitalist international system of states is a reality communists are obliged to acknowledge, even while they strive to overcome it. Allan, however, in his refusal to accept that the existence of a British state requires a united struggle by workers against it, departs from reality.

‘Brit left’

So what is the ‘Brit left’? According to Allan the epithet is aimed at those socialists who seek to build party organisations throughout Britain – who try to mirror the UK state in its organisational set-up. Allan admits that this is to apply an old Second and Third International orthodoxy: ie, one party for each state. Within the SSP it struck me as an insult hurled most fiercely at fellow Scots – a jibe implying deficient Scottish patriotism.

Allan sketches out a litany of the failings of ‘Brit left’ organisations: the Socialist Workers Party’s opposition to Hopi, the British nationalism of last year’s ‘No to the European Union, Yes to Democracy’ electoral front, the cowardice of Respect and the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party over migrant workers.

What is he driving at? Is he saying that the sectarian failings of the left in Britain are intrinsic to all Britain-wide ventures? The political project of the CPGB could be summed up as advocacy of left unity on the basis of principled politics. The examples of unprincipled left politics that Allan cites could very well be drawn from exposés in the Weekly Worker.

Certainly, the sectarian fragmentation of the left makes a nonsense of attempts to present an effective challenge to capitalism in Britain. Not much of an excuse, though, for the SSP to add a nationalist twist to that fragmentation.

Does the fact that the SSP operates only north of the border really make it immune to much the same failings as ‘London-based’ organisations? What about the whole Tommy Sheridan debacle? It was the leadership of the SSP that built up Tommy as a political superstar. That carried his picture on the masthead of most issues of Scottish Socialist Voice. That incorporated a message from Tommy and his portrait on every election leaflet. That added his name to that of the party on ballot papers. That ran a prominent story about his wedding.

Most in the SSP now accept that the hero-worship of Sheridan was a mistake – a re-evaluation that is rather a case of closing the gate after the horse has bolted. Today the whole organisation pretty much reviles him. I can understand the anger at Tommy Sheridan, but that in its turn does not excuse what is effectively collaboration with state authorities (a British state, moreover) and News International to put the man in prison. A perjury trial, whatever the outcome, is not going to place the SSP back in the big time. It is not even going to remove a martyred Tommy Sheridan from the Scottish political scene.

The fact of the matter is that such get-rich-quick schemes distort the priorities of most of the left in Britain – and internationally for that matter. You could argue that it is Trotsky’s transitional demands – a concept built into the DNA of most so-called revolutionary groups – that provides the excuse to describe any campaign for however modest a reform as a coherent aspect of a revolutionary strategy. I think the tendency towards political opportunism is more deep-rooted than that, but a lack of seriousness about programme is certainly a feature of virtually the whole left, including the revolutionaries in the SSP.

Republicanism

An understanding of the importance of demands around democracy and the part these should play in the strategy for achieving working class power should be at the heart of the programme of a communist party. That programme must take seriously the national question. I think that is a position I have always taken – and certainly before I joined the CPGB. I do not remember ever saying I was a ‘Luxemburgist’ – not that association with Rosa Luxemburg counts as a very severe insult in my book.

Like the rest of the CPGB, I have always maintained as a fundamental principle the right of the Scottish and Welsh people to choose independence. A right which a federal republic would enshrine with Scottish and Welsh parliaments having full powers to decide their future. What Allan has difficulty with is the dialectical subtlety of an approach that defends the right to self-determination, while advocating that the option for separation should not be exercised. Allan describes that as “condescending”.

In fact, paradoxical though it may appear to some, upholding the rights of nations is the only practical strategy for superseding the existing system of states. This is the task that will confront the working class as it seeks to build a world socialist order. What does Allan think this will entail? Would Allan either force nationalities against their will into broader federations or accept indefinitely as a fact of ‘human nature’ the national fragmentation bequeathed by capitalism?

The principle that any nation can choose to withdraw from a larger entity must hold, even after the working class has taken power. It is the only way of assuring all nations that their national and democratic rights will be respected and that they have nothing to fear from the construction of a socialist world.

Of course, there are national situations that pose particular problems. The CPGB supports the right of the Irish people to choose the unity of their island. This is the position we set out in our current Draft programme, as well as in the redrafted version proposed by the Provisional Central Committee. In addition, the majority within our organisation argues that the best way of assuaging the fears of the ‘British-Irish’ is to establish a federal Ireland with the right of self-determination for a British-Irish province covering a smaller geographical area than the current six counties.

I acknowledge the majority’s attempt to apply political principle consistently. However, I think there are problems with a formulation the leaves open the possibility of a repartitioned Ireland in which the rights of an Irish minority in a new Protestant statelet might not be guaranteed. As always, we will continue to debate our differences with the objective of achieving greater clarity.

The national rights of Scotland and Wales pose no problems of this kind. Their national boundaries are not in question. People in Scotland or Wales who regard themselves as English are unlikely to suffer any oppression – although grievances around the division of state resources might well exacerbate national tensions in the short term.

But what is the prospect for independence in Scotland? We were told at the convention that the most recent polls report support at levels of 37%. This is where support for independence has plateaued for the last decade or two. Occasionally, polls show support for independence spiking higher, but usually it oscillates around the mid-30s.

Clearly, there is a national question, but as things stand the Scottish people do not want separation. Yet left nationalists such as Allan argue that the key task for socialists north of the border – a task which justifies splitting the organisations of revolutionary socialists in the face of a very united British state – must be to win a majority of Scots to see the benefits of breaking with England.

This strategy is dressed up as an assault on British imperialism. Allan at least has the honesty to acknowledge that independence under the Scottish National Party would not involve a break with the circuits of international capitalism. But that is precisely the form in which independence is most likely to be delivered. According to Colin Fox, even an independent capitalist Scotland would be more progressive than the current British state.

Even if that were true (it is not), a communist programme must be more ambitious than that. Allan talks in terms of taking “the leadership of the national movement here from the SNP”. How about taking the leadership of the working class movement throughout Britain and Europe?

Allan criticises the tactics of the CPGB during last year’s European elections. However, contrary to his assertion, the CPGB did raise the question of migration. It is simply that the sticking point with the Socialist Party candidates in No2EU was around the right to bear arms. I was critical of making that the key issue in those elections, when it was the nationalism of No2EU that should have retained the focus of our tactics (‘Against sectarianism’ Weekly Worker June 18 2009).

But raising the demand that the British state’s monopoly of armed force should be broken is key to a republican agenda. It exposes the undemocratic nature of the rule of the capitalist class and, therefore, has far more radical potential than the separatism to which Allan aspires. It is the kind of republican politics that can lead the working class to challenge for state power. That is the prize for which all communists should strive.

A Contribution To The Discussions Arising From The Glasgow North East By-Election

1. How did the SSP publicly assess the by-election result?

The Republican Communist Network (RCN) welcomes the decision of the SSP Executive Committee (EC) to open up the discussion to members about the lessons we can draw for future electoral work from the Glasgow North East by-election.

All party members recognise that any assessment of this (and other) recent elections must take on board the serious damage done to the SSP as a result of the split caused by Tommy Sheridan, and the sectarian antics of the CWI and SWP. This means that not only does the SSP have far fewer members to get involved in campaigns, but also that a considerable section of the remaining membership still lacks confidence. Sometimes, they do not get involved in the SSP’s prioritised campaigns, or else they confine their activities to other spheres, where SSP leadership political support is slight or non-existent. This meant that, in the Glasgow North East by-election, a huge burden of work fell upon a few members’ shoulders, particularly those of Kevin McVey.

Kevin was a good candidate with considerable political experience. He has the ability to communicate and to deal with the ‘rough and tumble’ of what would almost certainly prove to be a difficult campaign. However, there is probably another quality of Kevin’s, which probably made him an ideal candidate. Given the low expectations that Glasgow SSP held about the final vote in the by-election, Kevin is resilient, can take any hard knocks, and is not easily disillusioned by poor results.

Nevertheless, many members outside Glasgow, who were only minimally involved in the by-election campaign, probably wonder if the very low vote (a drop from 1402 in 2005 to 152 in 2009) will not further deepen some Glasgow comrades’ sense of the SSP’s political marginalisation, leading them to further political retreats (see section 6).

A special issue of Scottish Socialist Voice was produced for the by-election, to be distributed throughout the constituency. Indeed, as far as the Voice went, Glasgow North East became the only national priority, with the suspension and non-distribution of national papers outside of Glasgow. So, SSP members and new contacts in Glasgow North East, as well as members outside Glasgow, would have looked to the post by-election national Voice, issue 350, for an account and analysis of the results and the party’s work in the by-election.

In this issue, we were able to read that, Labour triumph, SNP are rebuffed {and} BNP advance halted – but absolutely nothing about theSSP or the other socialist candidates. This suggests a feeling of embarrassment, instead of providing an honest explanation to our 152 voters, the other 841 ostensibly socialist voters in the constituency, those who came across the SSP in the campaign but are not registered to vote, and our regular readers elsewhere. It was left to Kevin to give his account to the party at the November 28th National Council (NC).

2.A New Labour victory for the politics of despair, and the marginalisation of the politics of misplaced hope in the SNP

If we look at the overall political picture of the Glasgow North East by-election, the results represent the triumph of despair over hope (see Appendix 1). Labour showed no concern over the historic low turnout (33.2%). The vast majority of those who abstained come from those people whose needs can not even be minimally met when capitalism is in deep crisis. The mainstream parties know this. They are quite happy for such people to remain voiceless and to quietly ‘disappear’ in elections.

Therefore, for Labour, battling only for the electoral support of those who do vote, in a constituency they had long held, the over-riding task was to uphold the status-quo. This was done through a campaign of utter negativity and fear-mongering, and saying that ‘things can only get worse’ if any other party won, but especially their greatest immediate threat in Scotland, the SNP.

In the 2007 Holyrood General Election, the SNP was successfully able to counter New Labour’s incessant ‘doom and gloom’-mongering by offering voters some prospect of hope. In effect, the SNP said to the electorate that they would implement some of the social democratic policies which people once expected from Labour, but which New Labour has now abandoned. Independence would be put on a back burner, until an SNP government had shown its competence in office. Then provision would be made for the people to make their choice for Scotland’s future constitutional arrangements in a referendum.

However, the SNP leaders also ensured that, despite their declared support for more radical constitutional reform than the British mainstream parties, this would not be linked to any very radical economic or social changes. Overtures to prominent Scottish and US business figures showed that the SNP accept the constraints of the existing economic order. Promises of low corporate taxes highlight the SNP’s subordination to big business.

The underlying flaw in the SNP’s economic strategy is that the money for their social democratic-type reforms was supposed to come from a Scottish economy buoyed by the successes of its financial sector. The Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland were meant to offer “neo-liberalism with a heart”. There is hope and there is misplaced hope!

The SNP’s response to US and British opposition to its proposed ‘independence’ referendum is to further accommodate to these forces, whilst lowering workers’ immediate economic and social expectations. Perhaps the most spectacular indication of this has been the suggestion by former Left, Jim Sillars, that SNP current opposition to NATO bases and nuclear weapons should be dropped. Sillars may be a fairly marginal figure within the SNP today, but his words will give some encouragement to more influential Right wing figures in the party, such as Michael Russell and Angus Robertson who want to make the SNP into the main representative of Scottish business interests within the existing global economic order, following in the footsteps of the Parti Quebecois (and its offshoot Action Democratique), Catalan Convergence and the PNV in Euskadi.

The SNP hints at some cosmetic changes that could be made to the current global imperial order, with a greater political role given to the UN. Yet the totally undemocratic UN remains a plaything of the major imperial powers, and only provides cover for decisions they have already agreed upon. The SNP’s opposition to NATO remains only a paper policy, with leading figures contemplating a new Scottish deal for British/English and US armed forces, possibly in return for Scotland being removed from NATO’s nuclear frontline to a secondary supporting role in NATO’s Orwellian-named, ‘Partnership for Peace’. This means making military bases in Scotland available for imperial use, when called upon, like the Irish government has done at Shannon Airport. Furthermore, the SNP has been quite prepared to support the use of Scottish regiments in imperial (and unionist) conflicts from Crossmaglen in the recent past, to Helmand Province today. Therefore, the SNP wants to the ‘rebrand’ imperialism, not join any anti-imperialist opposition.

The SNP has taken a similar accommodationist role with regard to the continuation of the UK state. This has been highlighted by the SNP’s new found open support for the British monarchy. They accept the Union of the Crowns and ask people to vote in 2010 for a constitutional ‘return’ to the years between 1603 and 1707! In effect, the SNP wants to renegotiate the Union not to overthrow it. Any possible future ‘independence’ referendum campaign will be conducted under ‘Westminster rules’. However, the UK state only plays by these rules when it suits them. The Crown Powers, which the SNP has no desire to challenge, provide the British ruling class with a whole host of additional anti-democratic powers to be utilised when they feel there is any threat to their continued rule.

In the late 1960’s and early 70’s, the implementation of thoroughgoing Civil Rights within Northern Ireland (yet still within the UK and under the Crown) was seen to be too great a concession, not only by the local Ulster Unionists (no surprise there) but also by the leaders of the UK state. Today’s British ruling class, fixated with maintaining its imperial role in the world, and its control of NATO military bases and North Sea oil resources in Scotland, is not going to confine its opposition to the SNP’s constitutional reforms to ‘gentlemanly’ democratic procedures.

The SNP has also ended up tail-ending the other mainstream parties at Westminster in its support for banking bailouts at our expense. Then, following from this, they are imposing the devolved financial cuts through Holyrood. Meanwhile, SNP-run (or jointly-run) councils press on with school closures, massive attacks on workers’ conditions (Edinburgh street cleaners and home helps), because they meekly accept Holyrood’s transmitted expenditure cuts.

Furthermore, the SNP government has been kowtowing to overtly reactionary social pressure, such as the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s opposition to gay rights and abortion. And, just for good measure, the SNP government is contemplating the clearance of some Aberdeenshire residents to make way for US tycoon, Donald Trump’s golf course complex.

However, for the wider electorate, it has been the ‘Credit Crunch’ that has really blown the SNP strategy apart, first in Glenrothes and now in Glasgow North East. So, instead of maintaining their early confidence in office, the SNP government is now stumbling from one ‘cock-up’ after another (e.g. over school class sizes).

In other words, the SNP behave in office much like New Labour. The SNP’s poor vote in Glasgow North East (especially given the political background to Michael Martin’s resignation) represented a further abandonment of hope – only in this case the hope had been misplaced to begin with, given the SNP’s subordination to financial and corporate capital, or ‘neo-liberalism with a swag bag’.

With the prime battle in Glasgow North East being fought out between New Labour and the SNP, even the other mainstream parties – the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems – were marginalised. Why change to untried Tory or Lib-Dem cuts, when the more familiar Labour Party promised its cuts would hurt less?

Voters’ feelings of despair have been greatly increased by inability of the massive Anti-War Movement to stop the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Blair got away with acting as Bush’s tame poodle. Today, we have Brown taking on the same subordinate role with regard to Obama in Afghanistan. Only now he is buttressed by the support of the Right wing SNP Defence Spokesperson, Angus Robertson.

Some thought that the ‘Credit Crunch’ might push New Labour to the Left and force them to introduce some neo-Keynesian economic regulation, supplemented by social democratic policies to increase workers’ incomes. Instead, New Labour at Westminster government has intervened to restore the fortunes and profits of the City, with the costs being offloaded on to workers’ shoulders. This has been highlighted by the return of obscene bankers’ bonuses, and the judicial upholding of banks’ right to set arbitrary and punitive fines upon those who have fallen behind with their payments. And the SNP has meekly accepted this too.

Furthermore, when politicians were exposed at Westminster with ‘their fingers in the till’, some SNP MPs were found to be amongst their number. Meanwhile, Labour-supporting trade union leaders, locked in social partnership, have declared the ‘willingness’ of their members to shoulder ‘their’ share of the burden. They just beg the corporate bosses to do the same! No wonder the politics of despair dominated this by-election, highlighted by the massive abstention rate.

3. Despair and the retreat to populism

Now, of course, in the not so distant past, a united SSP could enter elections in Glasgow expecting to be to the forefront of the second tier of contestants (after the top tier of New Labour and the SNP). In Glasgow, this next tier also included the Conservatives, Lib-Dems and Greens. The Holyrood election of 2003 was the highpoint (15.2% for the SSP in the additional member vote), coinciding not only with the massive anti-war movement but the widest socialist unity achieved by any European socialist party at the time.

However, the Left’s failure in the UK to stop the Iraq war, led to the denting of all non-mainstream party support (e.g. for the SSP and the Greens in the 2007 Holyrood elections in Scotland). Nevertheless, the ‘Credit Crunch’ should have provided socialists with new opportunities. The unfolding economic crisis demonstrated the failures of the neo-liberal economics long pushed by all the mainstream parties. A worried ruling class began to adopt some neo-Keynesian measures to save capitalism from itself. This opened up splits in their ranks.

A short-sighted and opportunist ‘opposition’ could act as cheerleaders for that section of the ruling class won over to neo-Keynesian state intervention. A genuinely socialist opposition, however, would take advantage of such ruling class divisions to demonstrate the need and viability of a socialist alternative, and build its own independent support for such a vision amongst those workers and others prepared to fight back against austerity cuts, attacks on ethnic minorities, curtailment of civil rights and never ending war.

The possibilities this offered can be seen on the continent with the formation and growth of the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France, and the successes of the Left Bloc in Portugal, both our fellow partners in the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance. The recent impressive vote for Die Linke in Germany is also an indicator of greater public support for the Left. (However, the fact that a powerful section of their leadership would willingly enter a coalition with the Social Democrats means that Die Linke’s current electoral successes could be transformed into an Italian Rifondazioni Comunista-like meltdown, if they ever pursued this particular course of action nationally.)

Back in 2005, in Glasgow North East, socialist candidates received 5438 votes (19.1%) in Glasgow North East, in the Westminster General Election. Now, certainly a lot of the votes going to the SLP in 2005 were confused with the Labour Party (in the absence of an official Labour candidate, and with Michael Martin standing only as the Speaker). This made the full extent of genuine support for socialism more difficult to determine. However, by the 2009 by-election, the ostensibly socialist vote fell back to 993 votes (4.8%).

What makes this even worse is that any specifically socialist message virtually disappeared. Those parties competing to be in the political mainstream (New Labour, Conservative, Lib-Dem and the SNP) all want to promote their neo-neo-liberal credentials. The extra ‘neo’ prefix is because the ruling class now accept limited state regulation. However, this takes the form of banking bailouts and the imposition of the ‘necessary’ cuts to restore the old neo-liberal status quo. In contrast the parties outside this mainstream consensus, whether on the Right or the Left, want to project themselves as populist, and hide their underlying politics – fascism on the Right, socialism on the Left.

Populism is a form of politics, which stretches from the Right to the Left. It tries to appeal to the broadest swathe of people, by denying or downplaying the central contradictions of capitalism – the conflict between labour and capital – and looking instead for scapegoats, e.g. ethnic minorities (particularly by the Right), or by targeting the (replaceable) agents of our current woes (e.g. greedy bankers), rather than questioning the capitalist system itself, and highlighting the need for workers to take their own independent action. This latter approach is the only option, if there is to be any longer term hope for the working class living in a crisis-ridden capitalism, or even for humanity itself, given the additional threats from ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and the possibility of growing environmental catastrophe, as the capitalist crisis widens and deepens.

4. The BNP and Right populism

The one party that feels at home wallowing in the politics of despair is, of course, the BNP. They offer scapegoats to divert people from the real source of their woes –capitalism. There is very little ruling class or public support for their underlying fascist aims. This is why Nick Griffin has pushed through a change of image for the BNP – “from boots to suits”. This means adopting, not swastika-waving, German Nazi, anti-Semitic colours, but Right populist, Union Jack-waving, Islamophobic, British nationalism. Churchill (and not without reason) rather than Hitler is their new idol. Glasgow, with a still quite extensive loyalist sub-culture, is obviously a good place to try and establish a foothold for militant British nationalism in a Scotland where British identity is otherwise on the decline.

However, there is no immediate prospect of a fascist march to take power, either on Edinburgh, or on London. The Left is too weak at present to make the ruling class seriously support such a course of action. Yet the BNP is pushing at an open door when it comes to influencing the mainstream parties’ policies and the state’s actions directed against migrants and particular ethnic or religious minorities. These parties are also looking for scapegoats, and are quite prepared to ‘mainstream’ anti-migrant or anti-Islamic policies, whilst publicly distancing themselves from some of their more unsavoury sources.

Furthermore, whilst still unable to offer any serious physical challenge to organised labour, or even to well-established immigrant communities, BNP electoral advances can provide cover for those fascists wanting to ‘keep their hand in’ by picking on more vulnerable targets, e.g. asylum seekers, individual migrant workers and Roma/Travellers. In order to maintain a ‘respectable image’, this may necessitate a certain division of labour, e.g. between the suit wearing BNP and the boot boys of the EDL/SDL.

The BNP, as well as attacking their expected scapegoats in the by-election – ‘feather-bedded asylum seekers’, and ‘Islamic terrorists’- also targeted the bankers, hedge fund traders, Tory and Labour “morons” (see Appendix 2). This shows populism in action, because it appears to address some of the same targets as the Left.

The reason for this should be quite clear when reading the following statement from the BNP’s Scottish Secretary about their objectives in the Glasgow North East by-election. Our first aim {is} to beat all the extreme left-wing parties …the combined vote of Solidarity, SSP and Socialist Labour, added together. (http://scotland.bnp.org.uk/category/scottish-secretary/)

In the face of this challenge, the RCN believes that far more serious attention should have been paid by the SSP to putting up a united socialist unity candidate. Whilst the sectarianism of the SLP is hard-wired, failure to get their support would hardly have been crucial (as highlighted by the spectacular collapse of their vote from 4036 in 2005 to 47 in 2009). The possibilities, however, from sections of a splintering Solidarity should have been followed up assiduously. These growing divisions can be utilised to win over sections of Solidarity increasingly annoyed with the dead-end politics of ‘celebrity socialism’ and the Trotskyist sects, whilst seriously looking for new ways to re-establish socialist unity (see section 5).

So, in the absence of any effective united challenge, and with some in Glasgow SSP and in Solidarity (Tommy and the CWI in particular) seemingly more concerned about presiding over ‘a grudge match’ than seriously addressing the wider political issues – the Afghanistan occupation and the danger of the growth in fascist support – how did the BNP assess their result in light of opportunity provided to them by the Left? “Our first aim, to beat all the extreme left-wing parties was achieved, in spades”. Scottish Secretary, BNP (http://scotland.bnp.org.uk/category/scottish-secretary/). If that was the whole story, the Left should be hanging its head in shame.

Fortunately, though, there were SSP comrades in Glasgow, especially those involved in SSY, who played a major part in preventing fascists capitalising on the BNP’s electoral advance when they hoped to take over the streets on the Saturday, 14th November, following the by-election two days before. They helped to organise effective opposition to the SDL. This also meant providing a political challenge to the SWP’s accommodationist party front, ‘United Against Fascism’, initially more concerned with chasing after Labour/STUC’s ‘Scotland United’ and Annabel Goldie, than chasing the fascists. In the event, the SDL was seen off and humiliated. However, until the BNP and other fascists are marginalised at all levels by socialists, including the electoral, there is still no room for complacency.

5. Solidarity, the Left populism of ‘celebrity socialism’, and the widening divisions in its ranks

Solidarity’s adoption of celebrity politics in the person of Tommy Sheridan is an obvious manifestation of populism. ‘Celebrity socialism’ was never effectively challenged in the old SSP. This much everybody in the SSP now accepts. However, the politics of ‘celebrity socialism’ are far from being unique to the old SSP. In the 1980’s, Militant succumbed to the ‘charms’ of Derek Hatton in Liverpool. (The CWI still don’t seem to have learned any lessons from this in Scotland.) Since then, we have seen both Arthur Scargill’s SLP, now reduced to one man’s vanity party (and after their Glasgow North East by-election result, hopefully an early retirement), and George Galloway’s Respect, as divided by the antics of a ‘celebrity socialist’ and the SWP, as the SSP has ever been.

In the by-election, Tommy threw himself into the battle of the celebrities, against John Smeaton and Mikey Hughes. In this battle, he won hands down (794 to 258 and 54). However, celebrity populist politics may be able to create a fan base, but it leaves no effective campaigning organisation behind it. Despite Tommy’s ‘triumph’ in Glasgow, his campaign has not left a stronger Solidarity on the ground. Their recent all-members’ conference was much smaller than their earlier ones. Furthermore, dependence on a celebrity usually works against building up an organisation of independent-thinkers, since it is the chosen ‘saviour’ who is meant to ‘deliver’ the people from their woes.

The fact that Tommy Sheridan, the celebrity politician, easily beat the SSP in Glasgow North East has fuelled the sectarian antics of the CWI in particular. They claim a big ‘Solidarity’ victory and they wallow in the lowest vote an SSP candidate has achieved in a parliamentary by-election. This posturing is just a repeat of their empty triumphalism after Tommy/Solidarity beat the SSP in the 2007 Holyrood elections by a large margin.

In 2007, Solidarity’s celebration of Tommy’s ‘victory’ over the SSP was so much bravado to disguise the fact that he failed to retain his Holyrood seat; and the fact there was a wipe-out of socialist representation (a fall from 6 to 0 MSPs). Since then, Solidarity has been unable to build a united party – with the sectarian attitudes of the SWP and CWI massively contributing to this failure. Solidarity has lost its only councillor (defected to Labour) and several prominent members. In subsequent by-elections, where celebrity Tommy wasn’t standing, Solidarity has been unable to overtake the SSP (although, there is no room for any SSP triumphalism here, for, as Colin Fox has said, to any outsider, the electoral contest between the SSP and Solidarity looks like two bald men fighting over a comb). Tommy and his immediate acolytes, along with the CWI and the SWP, put strict limits on any honest appraisals of Solidarity’s work, or any real accountancy for their actions.

After the Glasgow North East by-election result was declared on October 12th, the CWI once more hailed Tommy’s ‘success’. Again, mired in their purely sectarian concerns, they completely failed to learn the real lessons for the Left. The 794 votes in 2009 for a well-known celebrity candidate today must be compared with the 1402 votes the SSP received in Glasgow North East in 2005, when we put forward a much less well-known black socialist candidate. Also, Sheridan’s 794 votes today do not compare well with the non-celebrity BNP candidate’s 1075 votes.

Back in 2005, a united SSP, with 1402 votes, was easily able to see off, not only the BNP’s 904 votes, but also the (Orange) Scottish Unionist Party’s 1206 votes. And, of course, the possibilities for a united Left should have been even greater today, in view of the ongoing capitalist crisis, as continental socialists’ experience shows.

If the CWI continues to be in denial about what is actually happening, the SWP, the other main Trotskyist sect in Solidarity, has experienced a number of setbacks recently, which may encourage some more critical thought amongst its members. The SWP has been badly burned after its attempts in Respect (England and Wales) to tail-end another celebrity socialist, George Galloway. This must be making many SWP members in Scotland doubt the value of building up a new socialist organisation around Sheridan. With the ‘Stop the War’ coalition strategy of endless demonstrations attracting decreasing numbers (despite growing opposition to the Afghanistan occupation) another central plank of the SWP’s own populist politics is being undermined, and recent internal party divisions may lead to a downgrading of such work. The SWP has been focussing on ‘Unite Against Fascism’ (UAF), another party front, which it hopes will bring in new party recruits.

In this context, it is interesting that leading SWP member, Neil Davidson, has recently come out in support of a ‘Yes’ vote in any future Scottish independence referendum. Since the 1990’s, the Left in Scotland has seen the SWP as the most prominent advocate of left unionism. Those former members of the CWI still in the SSP should recognise the significance of this. In the 1980’s, most socialists outside CWI/Militant ranks saw it as being the most British unionist organisation on the Left. However, their ‘Scottish Turn’ opened up a period of internal questioning that led Scottish Militant Labour to initiate the Scottish Socialist Alliance. Other political organisations were encouraged to participate.

Thus began the break with the CWI’s own sectarian methods. True, not all in the CWI/SML, nor later the ISM, accepted the ‘new enlightenment’, but such doubts are inevitable when members are forced to face up to their ‘old certainties’. They would also be a feature of any moves by SWP members towards an acceptance of fuller democracy on the Left.

Given the SWP’s own long tradition of sectarianism (particularly its addiction to party-front organisations), they undoubtedly still have a long way to go. However, those of us now in the RCN, coming from the Anti-Poll Tax campaign, had also been subjected to CWI/Militant sectarian methods in the past. Nevertheless, we recognised the importance of Militant’s ‘Scottish Turn’ and encouraged others to join the SSA. From our point of view, we still had to argue against some deep-seated ideas and methods still unconsciously retained by former CWI members. Yet, we very much welcomed SML’s, and then ISM’s key role in promoting wider socialist unity. We also learned new lessons from these comrades in the process of the unfolding discussions and debates.

So today, in relation to the latest developments within the SWP, we think that the SSP needs to be bold and take the opportunity to engage with those with whom we may have very much disagreed with in the past, but who are now questioning important aspects of their long held politics.

There are also independents in Solidarity, who have not been taken in by their leadership’s empty posturing. John Dennis, who has been challenging Solidarity’s sectarian trajectory for some time, published his resignation letter after the election. However, he has been unable to see any serious attempt to re-establish socialist unity by the SSP, so he has formed a local organisation in Dumfries and Galloway, called Socialist Resistance (see Appendix 3), not to be confused with the British USFI Trotskyist section of the same name. Socialist Resistance in Dumfries and Galloway involves both former Solidarity and other past and current SSP members. In some ways the model taken up is that of the Barrow People’s Alliance, with an emphasis on local unity in the face of the fascist challenge. John and other socialists have been working closely with socialists over the border in combating the rise of the BNP in the area.

We have to accept that the SSP is no longer ‘the party of socialist unity’, though this is overwhelmingly the responsibility of those now in Solidarity. The 2006 split in the SSP, and the consequent dismissive response of the working class demonstrated in subsequent elections, including Glasgow North East, means that the SSP can not just cling nostalgically to a vision of past triumphs, or hope that ‘things can only get better’ in the future. Things will not automatically improve once the current court case is over. The state hasn’t involved itself in the affairs of the SSP to clear our name, but to leave a political legacy, which will divide socialists for the foreseeable future.

The last thing we can afford to do, is sit and wait for the outcome of the ever-delayed trial. We need to be seen very publicly and actively promoting the socialist unity, which the state and the sectarians are doing their utmost to prevent. Therefore, the SSP must still be ‘the party for socialist unity’. This means publicly upholding the SSP policy agreed at the post-split Conference of 20th October, 2006 in Glasgow (see Appendix 3).

6. The SSP election campaign and the Left populism of ‘Make Greed History’

Left populism doesn’t just take the shape of ‘celebrity socialism’. It can also take the form of socialists dropping specifically socialist arguments and retreating behind populist slogans – such as ‘Make Greed History’. A slogan, which may be quite appropriate for a particular newspaper headline, is not at all suitable as the banner beneath which we subordinate nearly all our politics.

Before the politics of despair, caused by the split, began to affect own our members, the SSP was quite clear about the need to uphold socialism against populism. Whilst the (short-lived) Socialist Alliances in England and Wales campaigned behind the populist, ‘People before Profit’ (i.e. for a ‘nicer’, ‘friendlier’ capitalism), the SSP argued for the socialist, ‘People not Profit’.

However, today’s ‘Make Greed History’ SSP slogan quite clearly draws upon the same populist politics as the pious ‘Make Poverty History’. This was promoted by the liberal alliance of NGOs and churches for the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in 2005. Like Father Gapon’s people’s march and its forelock-tugging appeal to the Tsar in 1905; the ‘Make Poverty History’ coalition pleaded, on its huge July 2005 Edinburgh demo, asking Gordon Brown to champion their cause. This fawning approach has also been adopted by those similar organisations, which hoped that Brown would seriously take up their concerns about climate change at the Copenhagen summit in December.

Back in 2005, though, the SSP countered the populist, ‘Make Poverty History’ with our own ‘Make Capitalism History – Make Socialism the Future’- an excellent slogan and rallying call. In the context of today’s ever-deepening economic crisis, this approach is even more important.

In contrast, there are many practical problems with ‘Make Greed History’. First, it in no way differentiates us, even from the mainstream parties. Initially, when panicked by the ‘Credit Crunch’, these parties also wanted to blame it all upon the greed of the bankers, and divert attention from the underlying crisis of capitalism itself.

Following this, when exposed as having their own noses in the trough, politicians initially claimed they would sort out their previous greedy behaviour and turn over a new leaf! Once again, instead of calls for a root and branch reform, with the abolition of the grossly expensive Crown, the pampered House of Lords, the overpayment of MPs and their funding by big business, the problem was all reduced to personal greed.

We can get a hint of these politicians’ ‘solution’ to such greed by looking at the way they dealt with the misdemeanour’s of the previous Glasgow North East incumbent MP, Michael Martin. He has been given a half salary pension (MP’s + Speaker’s) for life, supplemented by all the perks of a Lordship. This is a good indication of the type of ‘punishment’ politicians will accept for their earlier greed!

The populist nature of ‘Make Greed History’ is further highlighted by a comparison with the BNP’s own slogan used in the Glasgow by-election – ‘Punish the Pigs, Smash the Bankers’. Such a slogan is indistinguishable from one used by some on the populist Left. Once again it focuses on replacing capitalism’s nastier agents not the system.

Furthermore, all those trade union leaders, locked into ‘social partnerships’, have also used the notion of ‘greed’ to tell workers we shouldn’t behave like the ‘greedy bankers’, but should show our responsibility through accepting ‘our’ share of the cuts, and by showing restraint or making sacrifices, when advancing pay claims.

The one attempt by Glasgow SSP to conjure up a local campaign under the ‘Make Greed History’ slogan was the ‘Jobs for Youth’ campaign, launched to coincide with the by-election. If this was organised on a united front basis and supported by such bodies as the Glasgow Trades Council, local trade union branches and community organisations, then the following criticisms may be misplaced.

SSP members outside Glasgow were only made aware of the Springburn ‘Jobs for Youth’ march being held on November 7th by means of a late e-mail. This called for members to turn up on a march on the same day that East Coast SSP members had decided to go to a protest against the G20 Finance Ministers at St. Andrews. This latter event has been covered in the latest Voice. However, the same Voice makes no mention of the ‘Jobs for Youth’ march, or any follow-up work and activity. This suggests it was more an SSP election stunt and didn’t take root in the local community or the trade unions.

In the wake of the emerging superpower and corporate consensus over climate change we can also expect a lot more calls for an end to ordinary people’s ‘greed’, both at home and especially from all those ‘greedy’ Third World people, wanting to increase their living standards.

There are undoubted dangers posed by climate change. Corporate capital, responsible for promoting resource-wasteful and environmentally destructive methods of production, and for the arms companies that profit from murderous wars which bring their own environmental devastation, can make no positive contribution in the unfolding environmental crisis. ‘Make Capitalism History, Make Socialism’ helps to show where the real responsibility for this lies – and it is not a question of individuals’ greed, but of the failings of a capitalist system fuelled by a thirst for profit.

We need to ‘make socialism’ so that everybody’s basic needs – clean water, nutritious food, decent shelter, education and health care – can be met in an environmentally sustainable socialist society. After addressing these particular needs, we can look once more to the old communist maxim, “from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs”. However, today this means placing a much greater emphasis on meeting people’s non-material needs. These can offer us a more environmentally sustainable human future than a society built upon capitalism’s ‘shop-until-you-drop’ philosophy (remembering, of course, that many in the world today ‘drop’ before they ever get to ‘shop’).

In the face of the current capitalist crisis, we do need to go beyond the propaganda for socialism that the slogan, ‘Make Capitalism History, Make Socialism the Future’, represents, and show how, through agitation, we can work together to protect and advance workers’ immediate interests. When the 2009 Conference voted for the SSP to become part of the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance, the RCN thought that the SSP leadership would take up the New Anti-Capitalist Party’s (NPA) excellent slogan, ‘Make the Bosses Pay for Their Crisis’.

In contrast to ‘Make Greed History’, the NPA’s slogan (which could have been modified to ‘Make the Bosses and their paid Politicians pay’, when the ‘Expenses Scandal’ broke out in the UK) points to a class solution to the current crisis. This also offers workers a vista, showing the way we can struggle with other exploited and oppressed people for socialism.

7.Alternative options for SSP participation in elections.

When examining some of the reasons why the SSP stands in elections, it might be useful to consider the following analogy. A comparison could be made between governments and their associated methods of election with a block of flats.

Thus, the mainstream parties live at the top of the block, with the penthouse occupied by the winning party. The other mainstream parties are usually found in the apartments immediately below. The penthouse provides its occupants with undoubted privileges, not least the opportunity to use patronage to fill strategic posts and the use of official facilities to ensure the current resident’s continued occupancy. Sometimes, long-term occupation of the penthouse suite can lead its residents to believe that they alone have the right to live there. They then use all their accumulated powers to deny others any access. However, other penthouse residents appreciate that occupancy is only meant to be on a limited lease. In electoral terms this means accepting the possibility of replacement by other mainstream parties, and ‘fair play’ in the arrangements to allow for new occupants.

Continuing with this analogy, the penthouse occupants are currently the New Labour MPs at Westminster (including its Glasgow North East seat), whilst the other residents of the upper floor consist of MPs from those mainstream parties who have a chance of moving into the penthouse. They have formed the ruling group in the past at Westminster, have been parts of coalitions at Holyrood, or at various council levels – the SNP, Tories and Lib-Dems. They can depend on certain rights of occupancy at this level, as well as some publicity stemming from their more elevated position.

Below this are the middle levels in the block of flats. These are occupied by down-at-heel mainstream parties, and by up-and-coming parties. The normal function of occupancy in this level is to console the down-at-heel and to tame any new aspiring upstarts. The established rules of residence are designed to ensure this.

Occasionally, however, an occupant appears who is not prepared to play by these rules. They don’t believe that the block of flats should be an exclusive residence, with privileged levels, but should form part of a wider democratic community. They believe many of the privileges enjoyed by some of the current occupants should be terminated, or become equitably distributed (i.e. democratised). Such thinking, though, usually brings the upstarts into major conflict with the other residents living on the same level, as well as those above. They might resort to special measures to try to evict the upstarts (e.g. SSP councillor, Jim Bollan’s suspension in West Dunbartonshire)

Below the middle level lie the block’s lower levels. Here live those hopeful that their fortunes may change. They are divided between those who have devised a viable strategy to get up to the next level, and those who repeat their continuous old pleading to be moved up, but without success (usually coupled with gratuitous mudslinging at others perceived to be blocking their advance). However, the lower levels also have a basement with cold baths. The occupants thrown down to this level either drown largely unnoticed; or are brought to their senses by their sudden immersion in freezing cold water.

In section 3 it was argued that the SSP in Glasgow had attained the second tier (or the middle level of the block of flats) between 2003 and the split in 2006. This position they shared with the locally down-at-heel Tories and Lib-Dems, and another aspiring, recent newcomer, the Greens.

However, by 2009, as a result of the split, Glasgow SSP members, in considering their approach to the Glasgow North East election, accurately judged that the party had fallen to the lower level. Whilst this fact was recognised in the low voting expectations, the RCN would argue that those responsible for the campaign in Glasgow did not come up with an electoral strategy appropriate to the level the party now found itself at.

Unless a socialist unity candidate could be found, there was never any possibility of re-entering the second level in this by-election. The choice therefore lay between two options. One, which in the circumstances might seriously have been considered, was not to stand at all. A section of the Glasgow membership has been arguing for such a course in elections for some time.

Sometimes, this suggested abandonment of the electoral terrain is coupled to other notions of retreat. The idea has been aired of the SSP downgrading itself to a network of activists involved in various campaigns, or joining the campaigns of others (e.g. those SNP activists still campaigning for independence in ‘Independence First’, or the ‘Scottish Independence Convention’ – although active campaigning is not a marked feature of the latter!) Nicky McKerral has argued for another version of tactical retreat. He has suggested that the SSP withdraws from election contests, for a period of reflection, theoretical development and an updating of our programme.

The RCN would see both these courses of action as over-reactions to some bad practices and experiences on the Left, which SSP members have undoubtedly had to endure. Certainly, given our small size at present, the SSP should not be trying to act as if we are the only Left party around, dreaming up front organisations to give this impression. We should be taking part in wider campaigns, insisting they are organised on a genuine united front basis; but where we can also put forward our own distinctive politics (through our members’ contributions, the Voice and leaflets). For example, in relation to the simmering question of the ‘independence referendum’, this would mean reviving the ‘Calton Hill Declaration’ on a united front basis.

We would agree with Nicky’s upholding of the necessity for theoretical and programmatic reflection. However, we would see this being integrated with continued wider public work, including involvement in selected electoral contests. But this would indeed necessitate another way of organising SSP electoral work, to match our requirements in the current situation (see section 8).

Given the fact that the SSP had occupied the second floor in the recent past, the RCN thinks Glasgow SSP comrades were right in taking the decision to stand in the by-election. However, that meant facing up to the fact that we are now indeed on the lower level, a position shared with some still hostile and other more rueful neighbours.

We could choose the “tired old pleading” through puffing ourselves up in populist campaigns under the rubric of ‘Make Greed History’, to disguise our weakness. Or, being honest, and fully acknowledging our lower level position, we could have adopted another course of action, designed not so much to attract the votes to get back to the middle level, but to try and gain new active members, so that together we could break through the lower level ceiling (we should never confine ourselves to purely official ‘stairway’!) the next time round.

8. Campaigning for socialism by educating and organising new socialists

Therefore, instead of chasing passive voters, we should have been trying to make new socialists. Adopting a ‘making socialists’ approach would have meant organising in a different way in the by-election. Stalls, leafleting, fly posting and other activities would have been mainly undertaken to make contacts and to get them to Glasgow North East branch meetings, say twice a month. Branch meetings could have had both outside and local speakers on such key issues as, ‘The Occupation of Afghanistan’, ‘The New Fascist Challenge’, and ‘Capitalism and Climate Change’. In each of these cases the possibility of follow-up action suggests itself.

If enough people had attended a meeting on Afghanistan, then an anti-recruitment picket could have been organised later at an army recruiting office, involving new contacts, with an attempt to gain media attention. The Glasgow ‘Stop the War’ campaign could have been invited to participate. Now most SSP members hold a pretty jaundiced view of the SWP’s role in the ‘Stop the War’ campaign, but even some of their members have begun to realise that a change of direction is needed. The tired old calls for the next demonstration are no longer being answered.

The follow up activities for a meeting on ‘The New Fascist Challenge’ would certainly have involved organising to counter the SDL provocation on November 14th. Furthermore, the struggle against fascism can not be divorced from the struggle against racism, including the attacks made by fascists upon isolated individuals and those state-organised raids upon asylum seekers and economic migrants. An attempt could have been made to meet up with residents of the Red Road Flats, and with those local organisations, which have been campaigning to support migrants. This would have followed from 2007 SSP Conference support for the ‘No One Is Illegal’ campaign.

In the case of any ‘Capitalism and the Climate Change’ meeting, the follow-up activity could have been preparing a specifically socialist contingent on the ‘Climate Change’ demo on December 5th (such as the SSP did on the Edinburgh G8 demo in Edinburgh on July 2nd, 2005).

Furthermore, SSP educational material could have been prepared on these three topics for use on the stalls and at the branch meetings. Socialist education is very much a weak spot in the SSP’s current work. We don’t have the resources at present to produce the attractive glossy pamphlet, Two Worlds Collide, which Alan McCombes wrote for the Gleneagles G8 summit. However, newer technology allows us to produce short runs of pamphlets (repeated as required) like that Raphie de Santos produced, Coming to a Neighbourhood Near You, about the ‘Credit Crunch’.

There may well be some differences held by new and current members over such issues, but then that is in the nature of the SSP. One of our party’s attractive features should be its ability to incorporate a variety of views, and to have mechanisms where proper debates can take place around these. For example, RCN members sold Alan’s G8 pamphlet, encouraging others to read it, as well as writing a fraternal critique in Emancipation & Liberation no. 11.

There were also other public meeting opportunities for the SSP during the by-election. There were over ten weeks available for campaigning, after Kevin’s adoption as candidate on August 31st. One opportunity was provided by the possibility of a national post office workers’ strike. Our Industrial Organiser, Richie Venton, produced some excellent material for this, and it is certainly no fault of Richie’s that a Labour-supporting, Broad Left, CWU leadership backed down. Quite clearly, Lord Mandelson wanted to do to the CWU (prior to plans for Post Office privatisation) what Thatcher did to the NUM.

For those who think that Labour will turn Left (other than in empty rhetoric) after an almost certain forthcoming drubbing in the Westminster General Election, the role of Mandelson, Johnston and others on the Labour Right is most instructive. They know Brown is ‘going down’, but they still are fighting ‘tooth and nail’ to remind the bosses that New Labour can be depended on, when the Tories trip up in office. Compared with what passes for the Left ‘fightback’ inside the Labour Party, the Right fights on even when their backs are against the wall. The very much shrunken Left seems to believe that after the General Election, “Things can only get better”! Now, where have we heard that before?

As well as arguing for wider support actions for the post office workers, an SSP public meeting could have drawn out the full political implications of New Labour’s actions, the failures of the Labour Left, and the dangers posed by trade union leaderships which continue to subordinate their actions (or lack of them) to the needs of the Labour Party.

The SNP’s proposed ‘independence’ referendum was another issue around which a branch/public meeting could have been organised, possibly under the title ‘Can the SNP bring Independence?’ This might also have drawn back some SNP members/supporters, who were once attracted to the SSP, but who had drifted away after the split. They can now see, though, that the SNP is not offering any sort of alternative to neo-liberalism or the Afghan occupation, and has no strategy to link up its campaign for an ‘independence’ referendum with popular economic and social reforms. Furthermore, the SNP is so wedded to Westminster constitutionalism, that the UK state may not even need to resort to its reserve anti-democratic Crown Powers to see it off any referendum challenge.

The RCN considers the Left nationalist course advocated by John McAllion, in the Voice, for the ‘independence’ referendum campaign, to be the wrong approach. Instead, the SNP’s recent wholesale retreat would allow the SSP to revive the republican approach first organised around the Calton Hill Declaration in October 2004. This could now be linked to the wider anti-imperialist, ‘break-up of the UK’, ‘internationalism from below’ strategy developed in the SSP-initiated Republican Socialist Convention held on November 29th 2008. Perhaps the political passivity underlying the Left nationalist approach of ‘waiting for the SNP’ explains why there was no clear SSP message presented to the electorate on the SNP’s ‘independence’ referendum during the by-election.

Does this mean that local issues should have been ignored in the by-election? No, but the RCN isn’t in a position to suggest the best local issues that could have been the subject of other meetings in Glasgow. However, a meeting involving local participants in the ‘Save Our Schools’ campaign, linked with a teacher trade union speaker on the campaign to reduce class sizes (a long-standing campaign taken by Scottish Federation of Socialist Teacher members to successive EIS AGMs) would appear to have been a possibility.

Lastly, the RCN questions the postponement of events like ‘Socialism 2009’ to make time for street campaigning. ‘Socialism 2009’ could have provided an SSP showcase for those contacts already attracted to branch/public meetings around these suggested and other topics. New contacts could have been introduced to our national work and met members from Scotland, as well as our international contacts. Now, ‘Socialism 2009’ might have had to be postponed for other reasons, but making time for street campaigning, in a probably forlorn attempt to get more passive votes, is not the best one.

These criticisms and alternative suggestions are not being put forward as the ‘correct’ course of action, which should have been taken. Whilst, the RCN is suggesting a different orientation could have been taken – making socialists rather than winning votes – quite clearly, any campaign, informed by a wide range of SSP members’ contributions, would also take up their ideas and suggestions. Nevertheless, the RCN believes it has some valid points to make.

9. The need to uphold a confident a democratically unified SSP

Perhaps, the most worrying aspect of the by-election for the SSP nationally was the fact that it became a local Glasgow issue, which nevertheless commanded national resources to the detriment of our work elsewhere. The RCN would argue, that if the ‘make socialists’ approach had been adopted, with leaflets and fly posters targeted at getting people to branch meetings and follow-up activities, then there was no need for a Voice election special. The national Voice could have done the job, as well as provided other regions with a paper for their ongoing work.

The issues that we have suggested that the SSP could have campaigned on – ‘The Occupation of Afghanistan’, ‘The New Fascist Challenge’, ‘Capitalism and Climate Change’ and ‘Can the SNP deliver Independence’ were all national issues, that the whole party should have been united in campaigning for. However, a section of any national Voice could have been devoted specifically to the Glasgow North East by-election campaign and local issues, such as the suggested follow-up to the ‘Save Our Schools’ campaign.

Furthermore, there undoubtedly would have had to be some tactical flexibility (this luckily emerged in practice) when a clash of events occurred, beyond the SSP’s ability to influence – the ‘Stop the Fascist SDL’ demo in Glasgow and the ‘Stop the War’ demo in Edinburgh, both held on November 14th. However, if there had been effective overall SSP national political guidance, a bigger presence on the G20 Demo in St. Andrews on November 7th could have been organised; whilst there should have been a major SSP national presence on ‘Climate Change’ demo in Glasgow on December 5th, backed by a stall with a specially produced SSP pamphlet.

What, we seem to have now, though, is almost a confederal SSP, where different areas and different sections are allowed to get on with their own thing, either competing for national resources, or paying for their own. Thus we had the official Glasgow SSP campaign in the Glasgow North East by-election, which managed to corner the Voice. The SSP on the East Coast has been campaigning around the Afghan occupation, with several public meetings, attracting new members and re-establishing a branch in Aberdeen. Meanwhile, other SSP members have been involved in their own work, e.g. the SSY’s work around confronting the SDL, and some, mainly Glasgow, comrades’ organising around the issue of climate change.

All of these issues should have been fully discussed by the EC (and by those NCs which met during the by-election period). EC members should be given particular responsibilities, for which they are accountable at the next EC/NC meeting. We have no effective way of monitoring and assessing the overall work of the SSP. Of the working committees, only the International Committee seems to meet regularly and provide minutes of its activities. There are no regular written reports at the ECs nor the NCs of SSP branch meetings, the political issues discussed there, and the numbers in attendance. Without such reports our local strengths and weaknesses can not be properly measured.

The SSP largely depends for political guidance upon the training of members who received their schooling long ago in other organisations. We have no proper education system in place. The Regions should provide regular monthly education sessions, perhaps, on the same day, straight after Regional Committee meetings, so as not to overstretch the leading comrades. These education sessions could be followed by social activity – food, drink and music.

There are members, who for various reasons (distance being one) can not attend twice monthly SSP branch meetings, but who could be actively encouraged to become involved at such monthly Regional educational/social events. The SSP’s annual ‘Socialism’ should be seen both as the culmination of this educational work, and another event to which we can attract non-members to showcase our politics and activities.

10. Conclusion

The Glasgow North East by-election has highlighted the need to re-establish socialist unity, but this time on a completely principled basis. We need a thoroughly democratic organisation, which has not only jettisoned ‘celebrity socialism’, but is able to meet all the challenges the state and the sectarian splitters throw up, with both confidence and tactical acumen.

Now that we are living in the worst economic crisis in living memory, probably with even worse to follow, the SSP needs to be much more assertive about the need to put forward a convincing socialist alternative. Populist politics wants ‘a nicer capitalism’, which has made ‘poverty’, ‘greed’, or ‘climate change’ history. This is a utopian delusion whilst living under the rule of corporate imperialism in crisis, with its threats of massive falls in living standards, continued environmental degradation, and continuing wars that could bring the major imperialist powers into direct conflict.

Whilst the useful agitational slogan, ‘Make the Bosses Pay for Their Crisis’, directs workers’ anger both at those directly responsible and their capitalist system itself, we do need to go further still and develop a viable socialist alternative, and show the active steps needed to achieve this.

This means that the SSP will have to debate exactly what we mean by socialism/communism. We can not depend on stale old left social democratic, or orthodox and dissident communist ideas, which see Keynesian state intervention within, or Party-control over, the economy as the vehicles for socialist transformation. Neither does the semi-anarchist/semi-small scale capitalist notion of loosely networked local self-sufficient communities offer global humanity a viable future. The RCN does not claim to provide definitive answers on the vital issue of what constitutes socialism. We are only beginning to debate what is meant by socialism and communism ourselves. We would be more than happy to involve others in our discussions, whilst also being prepared to take part in initiatives organised by others.

Given the SSP’s current quite small size and support, the over-riding job we face today is creating active socialists, not winning passive votes. This RCN contribution has mainly shown how this could be done in the context of those elections the SSP may choose to stand in. This approach depends on the SSP having a fully functioning branch structure with political topics at every meeting, an organised system of more developed education probably provided at Regional level, culminating in ‘Socialism’ as an annual showcase of our national and international work. It also means producing regular (initially short-run) pamphlets on the key issues we face.

The SSP must be more than an alliance of single-issue campaigners, whether locally, nationally, or even internationally. We must avoid collapsing into a loose federal organisation, where different branches or regions are largely left to do their own thing, whilst competing for national SSP resources. This can only build up local resentments. The EC should take responsibility for the key national political priorities and initiatives between NCs and Conferences. This means upholding the SSP as a democratically unified organisation. It means having a much more task oriented EC, which monitors and reports to NCs and Conference on the progress of branches, regional committees, and national working committees, as well as any specific campaigns we are involved in.

Furthermore, we must continue to develop the SSP as a component of the international Left, including the Republican Socialist Convention and the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance. Our participation in the latter was perhaps the highlight of the SSP’s work in 2009. We opposed the Brit Left chauvinism (and its Left Scottish nationalist Solidarity bolt on) of ‘No2EU’, when we stood in the Euro-elections alongside socialists throughout Europe. We were able to take the same pride in the gains made by others (particularly the Portuguese Left Bloc, but also the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France), which they took from the SSP’s great advances in 2003.

Appendix 1

Glasgow North East Election Results

Appendix 2

Note: this is here purely as a reference, we clearly do not endorse the content of material distributed by fascists

Welfare for the Bankers – cuts for the Poor

Is there anything more sickening than seeing both Tories and Labour each seeing how much they can cut from the poor whilst each of them support the giving of tens of billions of pounds of welfare payments to the banks and bankers.

These policies are designed to gain the support of the most selfish bastards in the country – the sanctimonious, selfish, hypocritical 0.5 % of middle class swing voters whose loyalty is not to this country or the British people but solely their own selfish interests.

The fact that the parties are both seeking to gain the support of these people shows how they dont run this country for the benefit of the British people but simply for their own shallow political interests.

The fact is that if the labour government, the tory supporting economists and banks, the bankers, hedge fund traders that fund the tory party and Labour party and the rest of the morons who caused the economic crash, then the money would not need to be stolen from the poor.

Instead the rich get billions in welfare payments when they fucked up our country and the poor get benefit cuts.

If we werent also in the idiotic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan then we would have billions spare and not need to cut public spending.

The fact is that cutting public spending for the poor whilst paying billions for two illegal and unneccasery wars and giving billions to the banks is a sign we live in a sick society.

The tories are scum.

Labour are scum.

Only political party speaks for the working class and the patriotic middle class – the BNP.

We will cut public spending by ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and save billions.

We will end the welfare for banks and bankers and save billions.

We will cut taxes that the patriotic middle class are paying to subsidise the bankers and wars.

Only the BNP will do these things.

The other sum will attack the poor, the disabled and the unemployed – all those who are the victims of the scum that caused the economic crisis.

BNP, 5.10.09

Appendix 3

Perspectives for Socialist Resistance in Dumfries

I’ve decided to leave Solidarity.

The news that Tommy Sheridan was to stand against an SSP candidate in the Glasgow North-East by-election finally convinced me. Both of these competing wee socialist parties are more concerned with opposing each other than fighting for socialism.

Irrespective of the eventual outcome of the perjury trial next year, I believe that the disastrous decisions by leading members of both parties will be mercilessly exposed in the media.

On the one hand you have Tommy’s senseless determination to pursue Murdoch’s sleazy News of the World through the courts. On the other there’s the SSP leadership deciding to keep a detailed secret minute of a meeting discussing an individual’s private life.

The split caused by the disastrous combination of both of these political failings has hamstrung the socialist movement in Scotland since 2006.

In the 2003 Holyrood election the (then united) SSP got 6 MSPs and inspired socialists elsewhere in Europe.

Then in 2006 the pro big business parties were gifted an own goal when Tommy Sheridan took Murdoch’s empire to court – and another when the SSP leaders attempted to conceal their indefensible minutes.

Since 2006 the legal establishment has played out time with their endlessly protracted investigations. Now they’ve scheduled Tommy’s perjury trial with dozens of witnesses just before the General Election (though the further postponement means it may yet impact on the Scottish Elections the following year). In the meantime the divided socialist parties have effectively been banished to the fringes of society.

This persistent pathetic squabble between the 2 factions has let down working people, pensioners, students and minority communities. They should be looking to a united socialist party to lead a fight against the cuts, the war in Afghanistan, the BNP racists and the corruption of the established political parties.

Socialists operating outwith the 2 wee feuding parties can still effectively put forward convincing arguments for resisting the cuts and making the rich pay for the crisis that
their greed has caused.

The effect of Tommy’s perjury trial will prevent socialists making any impact in the General Election (which being 1st past the post is difficult territory anyway as the poor results for the [united] SSP in 2005 in Dumfries as elsewhere showed).

The immediate focus in Dumfries has to be support for any groups of workers that are fighting back. We can support them through solidarity collections in workplaces called for by Dumfries TUC. We’ve shown already by mass leafleting of the town centre by 40 anti-racists and by target- leafleting the streets where the few local BNPers live that we can mobilise effectively against the BNP when they appear.

If any council by-elections occur in Dumfries, we should aim to stand as “Socialist Resistance” with anti-cuts & anti-big business policies. By producing appropriately targeted leaflets against the cuts which focus on the pro tartan capitalism ideas of Salmond’s SNP as well as the unholy Thatcherite Trinity of Brown,Cameron & Clegg, we can start to make an impact.

We should be greatly encouraged by the German Election results. The United Left (“die Linke”) beat the Greens overall getting 12% of the vote and having 76 seats in the Reichstag (out of 622) – and the neo-nazis were nowhere!

With the goal of the socialist transformation of society, we in Dumfries must aim to be part of a wider united socialist electoral alliance throughout the South of Scotland (and hopefully all of Scotland) well before May 2011.

John Dennis 9th November 2009

PS. Please get in touch with your thoughts about what I’ve written. I’m consulting you and other socialists in Dumfries before I consult anyone further afield. I’d appreciate your ideas and I’d be keen to chat with as many people as possible before the Glasgow North East by-election on 12th November (after which I intend resigning from Solidarity).

Appendix 4

Section of motion put forward by the Executive Committee and passed at October 20th, post-split SSP Conference in Glasgow

We resolve to build the SSP as a pluralist party that respects different shades of socialist opinion within its ranks, with open democratic debate but which then aims for public unity in action around democratically agreed policies and campaigns.

This conference notes with regret the formation of an alternative socialist organisation in Scotland, with a political platform indistinguishable from that of the SSP.

Conference further notes that this organisation appears to be founded not on the basis of political difference with the SSP, but rather as the culmination of recent attacks on the SSP.

Conference further notes that some of the comrades have left the SSP for this new formation for different reasons, such as personal loyalty to individuals or platforms.

Conference believes that the interests of the working class in Scotland and internationally are best served by a united movement,

Conference therefore affirms that, despite the misguided actions of some, any individual who has left the SSP will, at any time in the future, be welcomed back as full members of the party without recriminations.

Principled unity is our strength. We have a duty to the working class and the cause of socialism to maintain socialist unity and to conduct ourselves in a combative, determined, confident, but friendly manner aimed at convincing thousands that the SSP’s principles and policies coincide with their interests. The future is ours, provided we collectively seize it.

Allan Armstrong, 29.12.09

• Do they enhance the political independence of our class?
• Do they promote greater democracy both in our own organisations and in wider society?
• Do they develop genuine internationalism?
• Do they oppose British unionism and Scottish nationalism and promote a republican socialist ‘internationalism from below’ approach
• Do they help us recognise that capitalism is based on both exploitation and oppression and develop democratic, secular and non-sectarian methods to promote greater socialist unity?
• Do they point the way towards distinctive socialist solutions to the current crisis of capitalism, and open up the prospect of creating a new society based on human emancipation and liberation?

We encourage comrades not just to buy and read our new Conference issue of Emancipation & Liberation, but to get your hands on other comrades’ material, and get involved in the debates both formally and informally.

We have highlighted just a few motions for delegates and visitors’ attention. There are other motions which also deserve your support, and motions where RCN members are keen to hear the arguments before deciding how to vote.

Section 2 – International

European elections

Support Motion 2 from Edinburgh South (with the Campsie amendment) and Motion 3 from the RCN platform (oppose the amendment from Glasgow North East)

These motions emphasise the importance of using the forthcoming Euro-election for the SSP. We should use the occasion to put forward an independent socialist voice to address the current crisis of capitalism. This would highlight the SSP’s active participation, alongside other European socialists, in promoting international solutions to counter the austerity and war-mongering drives being promoted by European capitalists and New Labour, especially Mandelson; the Union Jack chauvinism of the BNP, UKIP and the Tories; the British labour nationalism of the trade union bureaucrats behind No2EU; as well as showing those committed to genuine Scottish independence that this can not be achieved by the SNP hanging on to the coat-tails of the likes of Matthewson, Souter, Trump, et al.

Palestine

Support Motion 5 from Glasgow North East motion as amended by Dundee West, Motion 6 from Dundee West and Motion 7 from East Kilbride.

The recent invasion of Gaza has highlighted the continued racist and imperialist nature of the Israeli state. This has led to increased recognition of the apartheid features of Israel, and the growth of an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, which the SSP should throw its weight behind.

However, as socialists, we must go beyond active solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians and give our support to those socialist and democratic forces in Palestine and the wider Middle East, which alone can bring an end to all forms of oppression – national, religious, gender and sexual orientation.

This also means joining with those increasing numbers of Arabs and Jews who realize that the various attempts to promote a two state ‘solution’ have just led to continued ethnic cleansing. Such attempts at partition, always promoted by imperialist interests (e.g. in Ireland, India, Bosnia), can only lead to further bloodbaths. Real unity can only arise in a national democratic and secular movement, involving Arabs, Jews and others, for the whole of Palestine. Such a movement needs the active support of the other exploited and oppressed peoples of the Middle East, in a struggle against US, British and Euro imperialism and their allies – Israel and the corrupt semi-feudal and police Arab states.

Section 3 – Rebuilding the Left

(and Section 4, Motion 14)

This is an important issue at Conference and we urge all delegates to pay careful attention to the various proposals being advocated. If we had been allowed further amendments, we would have highlighted the importance of the successful Republican Socialist Convention, organised by the SSP’s International Committee, held on November 29th in Edinburgh, and emphasised the need for the SSP to build on this. This Convention brought together key activists from Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales and England. However, we feel confident that the incoming International Committee will continue the good work of building international solidarity on the basis of ‘internationalism from below’.

Motion 14 and its amendment from Edinburgh South make the constitutional changes necessary to set-up a John Maclean Association for SSP members and supporters living outside Scotland. This would help us develop the ‘internationalism from below’ alliances necessary to bring about the demise of the British unionist, capitalist and imperialist state.

Section 5 – Policy and Campaigns

Motion 21 from Glasgow Kelvin, Candidates religious beliefs

We hope this issue will be addressed at Conference in a mature and non-personalised manner. It has arisen as a result of Morag Balfour, our candidate in the Glenrothes by-election, describing herself as a Quaker in the election material. There is no SSP policy on such matters, so Morag was quite entitled to do this. However, the RCN thinks that SSP candidates should not use official campaign material to put forward their particular religious (or, for that matter, their platform) beliefs. We support the proposed rule change. Do we really want SSP candidates in Glasgow or the West, officially describing themselves as Protestants, Catholics or Atheists? We are a party open to people of both non-religious and religious persuasions, but we advocate secular methods to achieve wider unity.

A small dark woman in her early thirties, dressed in a black three-quarter length coat: this was how Deirdre McCartin appeared first to the writer thirty years ago. That he noticed her was not because she was outstanding in physical appearance or dress, nor because she made any intervention in the meeting they were attending. However, though she was anonymous, still and silent, her immense vitality could be sensed very clearly.

Vitality was what Deirdre displayed throughout her career as painter, feminist, film-maker, revolutionary socialist, university lecturer, community activist, social worker and at the last, carer, as well as good friend. In whatever she did she applied herself 100 percent. Her approach could embarrass and enrage but usually it got things done.

The writer learnt from Deirdre’s own account of her life before he met her. Born in Glasgow, of Irishborn parents, she had attended art school where she met a fellow student whom she married. They emigrated to New Zealand where her husband’s inability to take her own career seriously led to their divorce. Without his encumbrance, she directed several feminist videos, which stood her in good stead when she decided to try to move to the land of her Irish ancestors and got a director’s post in the features department of Radio Telefis Eireann.

In New Zealand, she had acted as a feminist independently of political affiliations. She had made contact with that country’s section of the Fourth International, but had been unwilling to commit herself to it. Now, in the enclosed environment of Telefis Eireann, she found herself plunged in the middle of an internecine political struggle between the bourgeois establishmentarians and the economistic ‘socialism’ of Official (Sticky) Sinn Fein.

Wisely she rejected both. As a socialist, she opposed the conventional politics of the bourgeoisie, as well as the simplistic, essentially pro-imperialist and cultist approach of the Stickies (an approach that would lead many of their members in Telefis Eireann into the bourgeois politics they had denounced). The militarism of Provisional Sinn Fein did not attract her either. She found herself attracted to the politics of the Irish section of the Fourth International, People’s Democracy, which she joined in 1979.

In this organisation, she took a characteristically active role, concentrated particularly on the women’s struggle. Immediately, her work centred on Women Against H Block, a fight which climaxed with the hunger strikes of 1980-1. Subsequently, she helped organise a major conference of feminist activists and campaigned against the insertion of the anti-abortion clause into the Irish Constitution. The writer remembers how she drove to distribute leaflets on an unusually cold, wet, windy day in the wintry summer of 1983, clad only in a light summer dress, until his wife, Aine, insisted that she covered it with one of her own coats.

For all this activity, her membership of People’s Democracy coincided with a period of setbacks for the workers’ side of the anti-imperialist movement. The hunger strikes ended, though the prisoners’ demands were met clandestinely, with most of the prestige from them going to Sinn Fein. The Anti Abortion Amendment was carried. Economic crisis provoked the Government to operate deflationary policies leading to increased unemployment.

This created problems within People’s Democracy. There were bitter internal disputes as to its way forward. Deirdre participated in these, but her enthusiasm handicapped her in putting her case. She edited one particular document in terms more suitable to tabloid journalism than debate between a few dozen activists. This made her a particular butt for some among her opponents. It is worth stating that, by now some of the most hostile of these have been out of the revolutionary movement for years. She might have stayed to fight them, but she had developed a relationship with a comrade of the International’s Portuguese section and decided her future was in his country, where she moved in 1984.

Within a year, the relationship had collapsed in a bitter row in which her partner’s politically and socially unprincipled behaviour was condoned by the national leadership. She returned to Ireland to lecture on Media Studies in Dublin City University. She resumed membership of the Irish section, but its problems climaxed with a stampede of its less developedcomrades into Sinn Fein. Eventually increasing pressure ofwork caused by university cutbacks forced her to break finally with People’s Democracy in 1989.

She left Dublin for west Co. Cork where she played a leading role in the local community organisation. There, too, she met her ultimate life’s partner, and eventual husband, Charlie Rees. In the mid-nineties, they moved to Scotland. Eventually, she got a teaching job there. They became active members of the Scottish Socialist Party.

The writer had lost contact with Deirdre when she left Dublin. Then, in 1996, she wrote him from Ayr enclosing a contribution that she could ill afford towards a memorial to a dead comrade. A correspondence began and continued until her death. In 1997, when Aine was getting a university degree, Deirdre appeared unexpectedly and disheveled to present her with an enormous bouquet and a painting which she had executed to represent Aine’s soul.

In her usual fashion, she gave unstintingly to the Scottish Socialist Party but there were problems with accommodation and employment. In 2001, they forced Charlie and her to move out of Scotland to Scarborough, where they founded an active independent Socialist Group, selling literature and organising anti-war agitation.

New pressures of unemployment, Charlie’s illness and Deirdre’s sister’s death curtailed all this. In her last year, Deirdre had to concentrate on her work as domestic carer before the cancer that had killed her sister claimed her as well. In her communications, she put a brave face on her fate, organising her death and funeral and Charlie’s future without her. She died having begun a set of twelve new paintings.

After Christmas, 2008, the writer and his wife received from Deirdre a last picture postcard that she had prepared herself, containing a report of her current situation. It ended with the words ‘Pure Joy’. In sending his heartfelt condolences to Charlie, the writer and his wife hope that the spirit of the last words that they received from her remained with the fighter for Socialism in her very last days.

March 18th 2001

Comrades, friends, mates, pals
None of these words describe the way I feel
A bond between us all

They are my left hand

Pure chance we met, just taking any seat
A trick of fate
A show of hands and there we were

I bled today
I cut off my left hand

Charlie Rees

Deidre’s partner, Charlie, was inspired to write this poem in 2001 when, due to factors beyond their control, they had to move away from their home in Dunure, Scotland to northern England. This poem was originally printed in Republican Communist Issue 6 – the forerunner to Emancipation & Liberation.

Other obituaries for Deidre were printed in the Scottish Socialist Voice, The Herald, Scarborough Evening News and on the Socialist Democracy (Ireland) website.

Frances Curran – Scottish Socialist Party
Mike Davies – member of former Welsh Socialist Alliance
Dan Finn – Irish Socialist Network
Tommy McKearmey – Fourthwrite
Declan O’ Neill – Convention of the Left

Speakers will lead off Introductory outlining struggles in their particular countries and the scope for joint work. The Introductory Session will be followed by Questions and Contributions. This will be followed by Workshops on a variety of topics (see below). There will be a Plenary Report back and Concluding Session with starting speakers.

Workshops

• i) The Scottish Independence Referendum – What it means for the Left
• ii) The irish ‘No’ vote and the Lisbon Treaty
• iii) Can the Good Friday Agreement unite Irish workers?
• iv) Scottish and Irish banks and the current economic crisis
• v) Internationalism from below – a new way of organising the Left

Social: Saturday, November 29th, 7. 30 p.m. on

Cuckoos Nest
Home Street
Tollcross (opposite Kings Theatre)
Music will be provided by
Chris and Paul from The Wakes

Organised by Scottish Socialist Party

If anybody had any illusions that Gordon Brown was going to be a better and more principled Labour leader than Tony Blair, they were soon rudely shattered. When Brown declared his support for British jobs for British workers, at the Labour Party Conference, he lifted a slogan straight from the BNP and National Front. His intervention made racist scaremongering respectable again. Both the TV and ‘quality’ press launched a media frenzy about the numbers of immigrants in the country, and the projected growth of the UK’s population by 2016.

If Brown was to make any attempt to implement his sound-bite policy, he would have to withdraw the UK from the EU. Tens of thousands of British workers, working abroad, would have to return home. Following the same logic, foreign-owned firms should be asked to close down their UK operations, and British firms be asked to confine their operations to the UK. Calls for repatriation (and worse) of all foreign-born workers would soon follow.

Racist posturing

It doesn’t take any imagination to see who benefits most from such racist posturing. Brown isn’t stupid, so why does he stoop to the gutter and imply support for a policy he has no intention of implementing? Attempts to hold on to the support of embittered and demoralised Labour supporters can’t be the whole answer. Such calls can only buy time. When they are not honoured, support will drift elsewhere, with the BNP being the most likely to benefit. They will be to the forefront of those pointing to yet another New Labour ‘pledge’ not honoured. They will play to the growing cynicism of an electorate that is losing sympathy for the mainstream parties.

There are two main purposes behind Brown’s call. Business, both big and small, wants to take advantage of cheap labour. The best way to do this is to have a two-tier workforce. New Labour’s drive to marginalise and outlaw immigrant workers is not so much designed to remove them permanently from the country, as to create a pool of workers who can be super-exploited. They have little or no recourse to legal protection. Furthermore, when such division is promoted between the two sections of the workforce – those with, and those without, rights – it becomes easier to fuel racist resentment and set worker against worker.

Dawn raids

Every now and again, there can be televised dawn raids, broken down doors, terrified children, police escorted removals and deportations, to show the government is acting ‘tough’. These activities are designed to whip up racist resentment amongst the legal workforce. They also push other outlawed migrant workers even further underground and hence make them even more vulnerable, in the face of a whole host of would-be exploiters.

Eastern European farm workers contribute to British society

A good example is the furore raised over all those eastern European workers who have arrived, particularly in England’s eastern counties. They mainly do menial work on farms, in food processing plants, and a whole host of service industries. The press has pointed out that these migrant workers are putting pressures on services such as schools. As it happens, the majority of these people are legal EU migrant workers, who pay tax. Nobody is asking why the large amounts of tax, which have been collected from these workers (with relatively few claims), have not been used to provide new services for the benefit of both indigenous and migrant workers and their families. No, their taxes, like those of other workers, are increasingly diverted to paying for endless wars, and to line the pockets of big business through PFI contracts. Instead, the government wants to divert attention from this shared reality, the better to divide workers and to set us against each other.

Those illegal workers, who don’t pay tax, are super-exploited by companies which make massive profits. These companies evade taxes on their profits. This situation could simply be ended by giving legal status to all workers, and by enforcing the minimum wage.

It is interesting to compare the treatment of commodities and profits, in the global corporate economy, with the treatment of migrant workers. Countless products, manufactured directly, or subcontracted, by global corporations, such as Nike, are made in semi-slave working conditions in Asia and elsewhere. These corporations ensure that the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation enforce policies, which ensure the free movement of both their products and their profits. When it comes to the workers making these products and profits for companies, it is a very different story.

‘Deserving’ and ‘undeserving’

A misleading division is often made between asylum seekers and economic migrants. This suggests there is a split between ‘deserving’ victims of repressive political regimes and ‘natural’ disasters, and the merely economic and ‘undeserving’ job-seekers. The reality is that both movements of people are mainly a consequence of the political operations of global corporate capital, and of US/UK (and other state) sponsored imperialism.

Structural Adjustment Programmes have been imposed upon the ‘Third World’ to ensure that any government subsidies for health, education, fuel or basic foodstuffs are removed. State-owned companies have to be sold off, usually to global corporations. People are forcibly removed from their land. Agribusiness is promoting a ruthless policy of enforcing GM products to outlaw non-patented food production, leaving small producers at the mercies of hostile courts. Water is being privatised and access denied to non-payers.

Morecambe Bay, where 23 Chinese cocklepickers drowned in 2004

As a consequence of all these policies, massively increased poverty is leading to more social tensions. These create the mayhem associated with inter-ethnic and inter-religious in-fighting. Warlords and gangsters make their own direct deals with the global companies. Where people actively resist, as in Colombia, corporations (backed by the US and UK) resort to death squads. Otherwise, imperial armies simply invade. Not surprisingly, millions of people are uprooted in the process and take, often desperate, measures to ensure their families are safe(r) and have some form of livelihood. These conditions explain why millions are forced to move around the world looking for work.

There is no problem for the rich and powerful when it comes to their international travel. Every country offers them motorway connections from the airports, luxury hotels and entertainment (including ‘cheap sex’). For the poor and outcast it is another story. They have to make tortuous journeys across the world, paying private people traffickers and bribing government and local officials. When (or if) they arrive at their destination, they are often employed by ruthless gangmasters. Women and children can end up as sex-slaves. The horrible deaths of ‘illegal’ migrants, found suffocated in a truck at Dover, or of the cockle-pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay, are but the tip of the iceberg. Unknown thousands die each year, drowned at sea, dehydrated when crossing deserts, or frozen to death, without adequate shelter. The fact that the conditions, and the abuse such migrants face, when they finally arrive, are so bad, just lets us know just how terrible the conditions are, from whence they have fled.

‘Naturalising’ the profits

Big business has no problem ‘naturalising’ the profits it makes from ‘illegal’ workers. The banks make no distinction between the differing origins – legal or illegal – of the money deposited with them. Once it has passed into their vaults or electronic accounts, it doesn’t matter whether it has its origins in profiteering from underpaid workers, drug dealing, prostitution, extortion, terrorism, or arms trafficking. Recycled, this money then becomes available to all ‘respectable’ and legal commercial borrowers. The Royal Bank of Scotland doesn’t want to know about the conditions workers face in the Burmese oil industry it helps to finance.

Big business asks no questions when it comes to the source of their profits. So we, in the SSP, should make no distinction between native-born and other workers, living in Scotland, when it comes to fighting for rights, or to winning support for a socialist future. We see ourselves as the representatives and organisers of that section of the international working class living and working in Scotland. We only recognise ‘illegal’ worker status in order to combat it. The fight to unite our class internationally, and to oppose all attempts to divide us, is as important today, as past heroic struggles to emancipate chattel slaves, to liberate women and to enforce workers’ rights. Indeed, the fight, to prevent the imposition of outlaw status on millions of workers, shows us that all three of these great campaigns still need to be re-fought.

When Marx raised the slogan, Workers of the World Unite, he did not insert a prefix ‘Legal’ before ‘Workers’. This is why the SSP gives its full support to the ‘No One Is Illegal’ Campaign.

No One Is Illegal
c/o Bolton Socialist Club
16, Wood Street
Bolton
BL1 1DY
Website: http://www.noii.org.uk

E-mail: No One Is Illegal

Motion passed at October 2007 SSP Conference

The Scottish Socialist Party recognises that the global corporations, and the national state governments at their beck and call, are pursuing a vicious strategy to divide the international working class. Immigration controls are being used to force millions of people into illegal status. i.e. outlaws.

This is being done to promote two tier workforces with illegal workers being subjected to super-exploitation, constant harassment and demonisation. This strategy is also designed to promote fear and racism amongst those workers enjoying legal status and to force legal workers’ organisations, whether political or economic, to pursue sectional protective measures (e.g. increased tariffs on imports, migrant worker quotas) instead of upholding genuine working class international solidarity.

To counter this strategy of dividing the working class through immigration controls, this Conference agrees to support the No One Is Illegal Group, which campaigns:-

• i) in opposition to all immigration controls
• ii) for internationalism and global links
• iii) for the self-organisation of those affected by controls
• iv) for work within the labour movement

Our last Conference agreed to arrange a meeting of socialists in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. It is clear that the ruling classes of the UK and Ireland have come to a shared understanding of the need to adopt a common strategy to promote global corporate interests and profit maximisation (e.g. tax cutting, privatisation and deregulation).

The political framework for this strategy is provided by the UK and Irish governments’ promotion of ‘Devolution-all-round’ and a ‘Peace Process’, which together cover the whole of these islands. Furthermore, this political partnership is supplemented by the current ‘social partnership’ between trade unions, government and business. Trade union leaders are wheeled out to hail the benefits of both partnerships. Meanwhile they organise no effective action to protect their members, subject to constant attack.

Furthermore, this political strategy enjoys the backing of successive US governments. Both UK and Irish governments have accepted their role as agents of US imperial domination. British troops form a prominent part of the occupying armies in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Military bases in the UK and Ireland are being used by US troops and for rendition flights. Irish constitutional neutrality is under threat.

In the aftermath of the 2007 elections to Holyrood, Cardiff Bay, Stormont and the Dublin Dail, we now see regular meetings, involving Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, Welsh First and Depute Ministers, Rhodri Morgan and Ieuan Wyn Jones, and Northern Ireland First and Depute Ministers, Iain Paisley and Martin McGuinness. One of their aims is to further cut business taxation to make their countries are attractive to the big corporations. Meanwhile Salmond and Paisley compete for Donald Trump’s golfing/ gated residential complex in Aberdeenshire and Antrim.

Socialists have suffered a number of setbacks recently. Nevertheless, we feel that when our political adversaries are clearly organising their activities across the whole of these islands, should begin the process of countering their activities. The SSP believes that we could all benefit by greater cooperation.

A first step would be for us to come to some shared understanding of the political strategy being used by our class enemies, so that we can more effectively resist this. We can also share our experiences in acting as socialists in the new political situation we face. Therefore, we hope you will consider sending a speaker to Socialism 2008.
Yours,
Scottish Socialist Party

The SSP suggests the following discussion points (to which others could add):-

• a) A socialist republican strategy to challenge US/UK imperial plans & to advance the break-up the UK state.
• b) Opposition to NATO and the ‘Partnership for Peace’.
• c) Opposition to the British state’s Crown Powers and plans to reform the UK constitution to stabilise imperial control of these islands.
• d) Opposition to moves by the nationalist parties, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein, and the Irish government, to collaborate with US/UK imperial plans.
• e) Support for the socialist principle of ‘People not Profits’ and opposition to ‘Social Partnerships’.
• f) Support for the republican principle of ‘Citizens not Subjects’.
• g) International support for the principles of the Calton Hill Declaration.
• h) Support for republican socialist advance in these islands based on the principles of democracy and secularism.

If the SSP organises a conference in 2008 to discuss a republican socialist strategy then the International Committee should decide on a full list of organisations and individuals who are to be invited to participate.

Soon to be included in a forthcoming RCN pamphlet.

When people are asked what is meant by the word ‘republic’ they usually answer, A country without a monarch. In today’s world this covers a great variety of states, including the USA, France, Germany, Russia, Israel, China, South Africa and Cuba.

At first glance, then, ‘republic’ would not appear to be a very helpful term for socialists, who want to distinguish between more or less progressive social and political systems.

The pursuit of ‘honours’

Therefore, despite the fact that we, in the UK, live in one of the few remaining monarchies in the world, what significant difference could the ending of the monarchy bring about? Certainly, the existence of the Royal Family helps to buttress a more rigid class system here, where class is understood in its older sense of hierarchical privilege, with upper, middle and lower classes. The desperation with which some Labour politicians and trade union leaders pursue ‘honours’ is one indication of the hold of this oldstyle class privilege within the UK.

Nevertheless, a quick examination of the world’s most powerful republic, the USA, shows us that the lack of a monarchy is not necessarily a barrier to the promotion of huge income differentials between an obscenely wealthy elite and the downtrodden poor. So, why should socialists consider themselves republicans at all, rather than just ignoring the monarchy until we have achieved our real aim, the creation of a socialist republic? Answering this question means taking a closer look at the political nature of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The UK is a constitutional monarchy, which means, in effect, that the Queen exerts little power in her own right. Yes, the Royal Family enjoys massive privileges in terms of property, income and status, but these are rewards given for its role in supporting and promoting the interests of a wider British ruling class. The fragility of royal political influence was shown over the Windsors’ inept handling of the ‘Princess Di Affair’. Diana was seen by the public to be much more in tune with the modern day, neo-liberal requirements of a celebrity monarchy. Tony Blair saw this ruling class need for a ‘New Monarchy’, and quickly labelled the late Diana, the ‘People’s Princess’. The Windsors, however, were still seen by most to be an extremely dysfunctional family, out Socialists And The Republic of touch with the present-day world. Since then, they have had to put a lot of effort into trying to repackage the monarchy.

So, does this mean that the long-standing infatuation of the British public with the Royal Family, which long prevented even the old Labour Party from challenging royal privilege, is at last waning? It probably does, but that does not get to the root of the problem. Far more important than the Royal Family itself, is the political system it fronts. Despite the existence of a parliamentary democracy centred on Westminster, with its new devolved offspring at Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont, it still has very real limitations. These lie in the state’s Crown Powers, which are wielded, not by the Queen, but by the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister has a wider circle of advisers, from the world of finance, industry and the media, who help him adopt strategies and form policies to promote their needs, without too much democratic scrutiny. We can see some of those pressures in Gordon Brown’s handling of the Northern Rock collapse, where defence of City interests has been paramount. If anyone thinks that defence of small investors is Brown’s first interest, just ask the victims of the collapse of the Farepack Fund, run by Halifax/Bank of Scotland.

Beyond public accountability

Business leaders have also ensured that the bidding for the government’s many lucrative PFI contracts, amounting to billions of pounds of public money, is conducted in secret. This means that whole swathes of the UK economy, ostensibly under the control or supervision of Parliament, in reality lie way beyondany effective public accountability.

All this unaccountable economic influence has to be supplemented by other anti-democratic political means. This is why senior civil servants, judges, and officers and ranks in the armed forces, all swear their allegiance to the Queen, not to Parliament, and certainly not to the people. The ruling class may require their services, acting, when necessary, against the interests of the people, or even Parliament. Of course, it is not the Queen herself, who wields this power, but the Prime Minister, acting on behalf of the ruling class. This is all done under the Crown Powers.

The UK’s constitution even has provision for the suspension of Parliament in ‘extreme situations’, with resort instead to direct rule by the Privy Council. This very select band of former and existing senior government ministers is chosen for its reliability in upholding ruling class interests. Its members all enjoy close contact with the world of business, whilst some have had direct dealings with military officers, MI5 and MI6.

It was no surprise that Ian Paisley was recently made a Privy Councillor, nor that his deputy, Martin McGuiness was not asked! The fact that Alex Salmond is now a Privy Councillor too, shows that, beyond the inflamed public histrionics, through which party political competition normally takes place in the UK, the British ruling class inner circle still consider him reliable enough. Indeed, Salmond enjoys his own close links with the Scottish finance sector, which has wider British interests to defend. More importantly, Salmond’s acceptance of a Privy Councillorship indicates that he will play the political game by Westminster rules, in the developing struggle for Scottish self-determination.

Way back in the late 1970’s, before the British ruling class came to the conclusion that ‘Devolution-all-round’ (for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) was the best strategy to defend its interests in these islands and the wider world, key sections were still bitterly opposed even to the very mild devolutionary proposals put forward by the then Labour government. In the lead-up to the 1979 Devolution Referendum, the ‘non-political’ Queen was wheeled out to make a Christmas broadcast attacking Scottish nationalism. Senior civil servants were told to ‘bury’ any documents, which could help the Scottish nationalists. Military training exercises were conducted, targeting putative armed Scottish guerrilla forces. The security forces became involved on the nationalist fringe, encouraging anti-English diatribes and actions, to discredit any notion of real Scottish self-determination.

The long arm of Crown Powers

However, unlike Ireland or Australia, Scottish nationalists did not then have to face the full panoply of Crown Powers. It was not necessary, since the SNP opposition was so mild and constitutionalist in nature. In the ‘Six Counties’, the Republicans, and the wider nationalist community, felt the force of her majesty’s regiments, including the SAS, the UDR (with its royal patronage) and the RUC, and the Loyalist death squads, all backed up by juryless Diplock Courts, manned by Unionist judges, and by detention, as required, in ‘her majesty’s special prisons. Those sections of the state, which provide the ruling class with legal sanction to pursue its own ends, are prefixed ‘her majesty’s’ or ‘royal’. Self-styled Loyalists include those who prepared to undertake certain illegal tasks when called upon by the security services.

Back in 1975, Gough Whitlam fronted a mildly reforming Labour government, which wanted to keep US nuclear warships out of Australian ports. He felt the long arm of the Crown Powers when the British Governor-General removed him from his elected office. More recently the Crown Powers have been used to deny the right of the Diego Garcia islanders to return to their Indian Ocean home, when they won their case in the British High Court. Unfortunately for them, Diego Garcia is now the site of a major US military base. Current British governments are even more subservient to US imperial interests than they were in the 1970’s. We should take seriously the warning from Lisa Vickers, the new US consul in Edinburgh, when she attacked the SNP’s formal anti-NATO policy. I don’t think you just wake up one morning and say ‘we are going to pull out of NATO’. It doesn’t work like that – a not so veiled threat!

SNP: pro-monarchy

Alex Salmond has finally come out and declared that the SNP is a pro-monarchy party. As Colin Fox has said, Salmond wants the ending of the outdated 1707 Union of the Parliaments, only to return to the even more antiquated, 1603 Union of the Crowns. Of course, there are still Scottish republicans to be found in the SNP. However, they are a bit like those ‘Clause 4 socialists’, once found in the old Labour Party. For them socialism was a sentimental ideal for the future but, in the meantime, a Labour government had to be elected to run capitalism efficiently, in order to provide enough crumbs to finance some reforms for the working class.

Today’s SNP ‘independistas’ passionately believe in a future independent Scotland, but believe the road is opened up, in the here and now, by an SNP government managing the local UK state in the interests of big business. They are going to be disappointed as the old SNP turns into an ‘independence-lite’ ‘New SNP’, just like its counterparts in Quebec, Euskadi and Catalunya. The SNP leadership is not going to challenge US or British imperial power, so it will not be able to deliver genuine independence. This political measure will be strongly opposed by resort to whatever Crown Powers are seen to be necessary. Being prepared to counter those Crown Powers has to be central to any socialist strategy, which opens up a prospect of real democratic advance, in the struggle for Scottish selfdetermination.

The Crown Powers have also been used by Prime Ministers to declare wars without parliamentary sanction, and to mobilise troops to break strikes when necessary. Therefore, it should be clear why socialists have an interest in promoting republicanism – it increases people’s democratic rights, whilst undermining the anti-democratic powers in the hands of the ruling class. Socialists living under fascist dictatorships, or in countries with major restrictions on trade union rights, don’t say life would be no better under parliamentary rule, or with legally independent trade unions, because the ruling class would still run things. Socialists place themselves at the head of the struggle for greater democratic rights, but don’t stop at the more limited forms compatible with capitalist rule. Socialists see republicanism today as a part of the struggle for the socialist republic tomorrow.

Originally printed at http://www.irishsocialist.net

The British Left has now experienced two acrimonious splits in the space of eighteen months. After the grim transformation of the Scottish Socialist Party into two bitterly-divided camps (The SSP split has been covered in back issues of E&L including an article by the Irish Solidarity Network entitled Crisis in the SSP, Emancipation & Liberation No. 14, Spring 2007), their comrades south of the border now have their own feud to manage.

Whatever else happens, it seems clear that the two factions emerging from within the Respect coalition will not be working together in the same organisation for a long, long time.

57 varieties – still unfit for human consumption

If you listen to the Socialist Workers Party, it would appear that the vitriolic parting of the ways between themselves and virtually every other prominent figure in Respect is the result of a left/right divide. The SWP are the left wing, while George Galloway and his allies represent a rightwards-moving, communalist, electoralist tendency that had to instigate a witch-hunt against Britain’s largest Trotskyist grouping in order to smooth the path for their own march towards the centre ground.

Unfortunately for the SWP, very few people outside their own ranks give this theory the least bit of credence. It’s quite true that there are notable political differences between George Galloway and the SWP, and you’d expect that any group chiefly shaped by the thinking of Galloway would be quite distinct from one in which the ideas of the SWP played a dominant role. But that doesn’t seem to have been what provoked the falling-out.

Rather, the immediate cause of the split was organisational. Questions of organisation are themselves deeply political, of course, but not always in the sense that one faction is more radical, less given to compromise in the pursuit of left-wing goals than the other. In this case, former allies of the SWP in Respect have levelled accusations of authoritarian control-freakery against the organisation – they claim that the SWP would have preferred to destroy Respect rather than give up total control over its structures. Previous experience with the Socialist Alliance in the UK counts against the furious denials of the SWP leadership (as does the track record of numerous campaigns in Ireland).

This article is not going to waste much time on SWP-bashing (you can find plenty of it in the community of leftist bloggers if that’s what you’re looking for). It’s more useful to ask what political conclusions might be drawn from a trail of broken alliances and wrecked campaigning fronts. It doesn’t seem very plausible to assume that the SWP (or any other far-left group with a similar record) does this sort of thing for the craic, because they really enjoy sabotaging political initiatives.

The root cause appears to be the lack of democracy in the ranks of so many Trotskyist organisations. All too often, we find radical groups to be dominated by a permanent leadership faction which marginalises or co-opts dissenting figures within the ranks. Without a healthy culture of debate and disagreement inside the party, it’s going to be very hard to establish a good working relationship with non-members – chances are, the leadership is going to import the same high-handed, autocratic methods and try to establish its own hegemony through manipulation. This sort of behaviour is made all the easier when the average member is unable to challenge the approach of the leadership without exposing themselves to the threat of expulsion.

Theoretical arrogance

Along with this democratic deficit, you would have to include as a factor an odd kind of theoretical arrogance – the belief that one group (be it the SWP or anyone else) represents the vanguard-in-waiting, already armed with the correct ideas to lead the working class to victory. It can’t be said often enough – nobody active on the Left today has worked out the perfect strategy, otherwise they would have settled accounts with capitalism long ago. We all have an awful lot to learn, the best we can manage is to set out with a fairly solid set of guide-lines based on the experience of the past and keep our eyes and ears open for new trends as they emerge.

Anyone who believes they know all the answers already and can trace the path to be followed in advance is going to be sorely tempted to take authoritarian short-cuts – if we know what conclusions people should end up drawing, why not save the time and trouble and do the job for them? The best safeguard against this tendency is the firm conviction that all the bother of thrashing out political differences and contending with views you consider mistaken is not a tiresome distraction from the real business of socialist politics – on the contrary, it is a vital and indispensable part of the socialist project, which requires that millions of people learn to think for themselves and shed the passivity nurtured by the power structures of capitalism. Any project of radical change which is steered to victory by a handful of infallible leaders will simply replace one system of elite rule with another.

Wrong direction

If you’re familiar with socialist history, and appreciate how closely the modern day Trotskyist groupings model themselves on the Bolshevik party of Lenin and Trotsky, you’ll find it very hard not to think of the critical points made against Bolshevism by Rosa Luxemburg and other socialists of her day so many years ago. The evidence that far-left authoritarianism can be traced back to its roots in the Leninist tradition appears very strong. This is not to say that every group which comes out of that tradition is bound to be authoritarian – the French LCR, for example, practices genuine pluralism, and many sincere opponents of undemocratic chicanery in Respect and the Socialist Alliance come from a similar background. But more often than not, the influence of Bolshevik theory and practice has pushed radical socialists in the wrong direction.

Some readers may be starting to groan at the prospect of yet another discussion of 1917 and all that, so don’t worry, this is not the time. It’s frustrating that we still have to spend time debating issues that appear very remote from contemporary politics – there’s so much in the modern world that demands hard thinking from socialists, and it seems more useful to spend our time discussing recent events in France, Bolivia or Palestine than rehearsing old arguments about Red October and its aftermath. Leninism still casts a powerful shadow over the organised radical left, though, and can’t just be ignored.

New directions

It’s far too early to say what will emerge from the fracturing of Respect. The SWP has pledged to carry on with its own version of Respect, despite having lost all its significant allies – how long they will persist is anyone’s guess, but it doesn’t seem as if the modus operandi of the party will change. Its top-down, ultra centralised style of organisation will continue to frustrate its own potential and antagonise its would be allies. Ken Loach’s remark that the SWP leadership want subjects, not comrades cut right to the heart of the matter.

Unpredictable

The Respect Renewal current, which gathers together the likes of Galloway, Loach, Salma Yaqoob and the Socialist Resistance group, is more unpredictable. A lot will depend on George Galloway himself. Galloway does not have a good track record when it comes to matters of democracy and accountability. He has been saying the right things on this score since the faction fight exploded over the summer, but it’s not at all clear if he means it, or if he’s just saying what he thinks people want to hear. As the best-known public face of Respect, he can do a lot of good or a lot of harm.

To be very cynical, the socialists in Respect who have lined up with the Scotsman had a simple choice. They could trade off the very real possibility of being shafted by Galloway at some point in the future, against the certainty of being shafted by the SWP right now. The choice they made was understandable, and they can reasonably argue that Respect minus the SWP is not just a Galloway vehicle – it includes other figures like Yaqoob and Loach with a high public profile, and might now be able to reach out to left activists unwilling to work with the SWP.

One common denominator between the left-wing crises in Scotland and the rest of Britain was the involvement of a leader who became a media personality and ended up making a complete arse of themselves in the public eye. While Tommy Sheridan appears well-set for a career of undignified but lucrative clowning-around (reports of his stand-up show left people gasping in disbelief), Galloway has gone some way towards repairing the damage inflicted by his turn on Celebrity Big Brother. It’s not clear though if he’s really acknowledged what a disaster it was.

Tabloid fodder

The experience of Sheridan and Galloway shows the dangers for the Left inherent in a heavily mediatised society. Not only do we have to worry about the hostile propaganda of right-wing newspapers, we also have to reckon with the possibility that prominent left-wingers will end up becoming tabloid fodder if they don’t watch themselves. The record of Joe Higgins as a TD suggested one way to avoid this peril – he earned plenty of column inches by coming out with great quotes in the Dáil, while projecting a rather austere, puritanical image that seemed to protect him from being lampooned. The lack of a permanent tan did Higgins no harm either.

While clearly not as radical as Sheridan, Galloway or Higgins, Ken Livingstone is another left-winger who has learned to handle the media in his own way, after finding himself one of the tabloid hate-figures of the 1980s. Ironically for someone who earned himself the undying hatred of New Labour, Livingstone’s media image has endured better in the long run than the spin-obsessed Tony Blair. The Left needs to spend time studying examples like this, and figure out the best (or the least worst) way to use the mainstream media as a platform without allowing it to suffocate our movements in a haze of glib, personality-driven nonsense.

As long as Galloway remains the best-known figure in the re-organised party, we can expect to hear plenty more talk about his notorious visit to Baghdad. It’s only fair to point out that much of this criticism has come from hypocritical pro-war commentators – their own champion Tony Blair has a much grosser record of cosying up to tyrants, from Suharto of Indonesia to Karimov of Uzbekistan, yet that doesn’t appear to bother them.

Nor is Galloway the only progressive figure who has demeaned himself in such a manner. The Sandinistas supported the Polish military dictatorship of Jaruzelksi, while Nelson Mandela offered a fawning tribute to General Suharto during a visit to Jakarta while the murderous occupation of East Timor was still in progress. More recently, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales have done their reputations no favours by exchanging compliments with unsavoury figures like Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

But there’s only so far you can go with qualifications and caveats of that sort before acknowledging that Galloway’s Iraqi performance will always be a black mark against his name. The key point, surely, is that his current position and reputation owes so much to his role in the anti-war movement. Arthur Scargill supported the invasion of Czechoslovakia, which was shameful, but it wasn’t directly relevant to his leadership of the miners’ union during its titanic battle with Thatcher. Galloway has opposed the Iraq war all along and put himself on the line to do so – it’s bloody tragic that he has tainted that creditable record of activism by a compromising appearance in pre-war Iraq.

The best hope for Respect Renewal seems to be that Galloway will take a step back and allow other figures to take a leading role. His behaviour in the past encourages scepticism – but Galloway does have strengths as well as weaknesses, so it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that his better side will win out. Only time will tell.

Islamophobia and the Left

One of the most striking things about Respect’s development to date has been its ability to win support from a significant layer of British Muslims – both in terms of its voting base and its activist cadre. This has also been the source of much criticism. In the more ludicrously over-charged rantings of some journalists, Respect has been presented as an alliance between Islamo-fascists and the far left, akin to the BNP. More restrained critics have spoken of communalism, or accused Respect of watering down left-wing principles and forming dubious alliances.

There is more than a grain of truth in such criticism (at least in the more balanced stuff, not the hysterical diatribes). Socialists who have always opposed imperialism and the war on terror, and who recognise the need to combat Islamophobia, have been critical of the approach taken by Respect in its efforts to win Muslim support – Gilbert Achcar and Tariq Ali being two notable examples.

But critical comments need to be qualified by recognition that left-wingers can make even more damaging mistakes in the opposite direction. The French radical left has totally failed to mobilise support from Muslims in France who are at the sharp end of racist discrimination, harassed by the state and demonised by the far right. It sat on the fence while the Chirac government introduced its hijab ban with hypocritical calls for Muslims to “integrate” into a society that largely treats them as second-class citizens. The LCR section in Saint-Denis even turned down an application for membership from a young Muslim woman, because she wore the hijab and that would have been bad for the party’s image…

So while it’s important not to compromise with conservative and reactionary tendencies that undoubtedly exist in Muslim communities, it’s equally vital that the Left doesn’t adopt its own version of mainstream prejudice and see all practising Muslims as fundamentalist bigots. Christianity has more than its fair share of bigotry, but that hasn’t stopped leftists from embracing Christians in all kinds of progressive struggles. The same principle should apply to Muslims.

The achievements of Respect deserve to be stressed as well as its errors. British society is saturated with anti-Muslim racism. The recent controversy involving Martin Amis, one of Britain’s best-known novelists, showed how bad things have got. Amis made a number of explicitly racist comments directed against Muslims, advocating their persecution by the British state. He treated his audience to smug lectures on the superiority of western civilisation of the sort that should have died with Rudyard Kipling. When left-wing academic Terry Eagleton tackled Amis for his racism, he was booed and hissed by a large section of Britain’s literary intelligentsia, who were quite happy to let the novelist off the hook after he slithered his way out of responsibility for his comments and responded to Eagleton with vulgar abuse.

From the high-falutin’ literati to the dregs of the tabloid press, it’s become acceptable to say things about Muslims that would never be tolerated if Jews, black people or homosexuals were in the verbal firing line. A study commissioned by Ken Livingstone recently established that over 90% of references to Islam in the UK media were negative. Muslims in Britain and other European countries form one of the most impoverished and down-trodden sections of the working class, and the Left badly needs to connect with their experience. Nor should it be a question of enlightened socialists bringing their ideas to the benighted Muslims – we have at least as much to learn as we have to teach.

Alan McCombes

How do you assess the current situation with the new SNP government?

In the short term this creates problems for the SSP. I saw this recently when canvassing for our council candidate in Cambuslang. As socialists we often look from on high and see the whole terrain. The people on the ground don’t have the same perspective.

There is still a fairly positive perception of the SNP Government. It has abolished graduate endowments, begun to reverse the centralisation of hospitals, extended free school meals, started the process of scrapping prescription charges, abolished bridge tolls, and it opposes nuclear power. The SNP are doing the sort of things that Labour once did. However, Scotland’s last Labour administration, under McConnell, was too frightened to upset their puppet masters at Westminster, and take advantage of the devolved powers at its disposal. The Labour Government in Wales (and it called itself that) did more, despite the Welsh Assembly having fewer powers.

However, we have to look beyond this to assess the overall political situation. When I was a member of Scottish Militant Labour, in the early ‘90s, there was real class anger. The Tories under Forsyth were hated. Labour were just seen as collaborators, afterthe poll tax. SML was able to win council seats in first-past-the-post elections in the housing schemes, and get up to 25% of the vote elsewhere. There was a strong consciousness of class even if it wasn’t always socialist.

In 2003 the situation was different from today. The SNP was in a mess, and there was the mass movement against the war in Iraq. The SSP made its big electoral breakthrough.

Now there is a certain passivity. Even the change from Blair to Brown has encouraged some to think that the worst excesses of New Labour in Westminster are over, and there will be a gradual pull-out from Iraq. Economic changes have also had their effects. Poverty and inequality has been mitigated by the prolonged upswing in the economy. Cheaper consumer goods and easy credit have given the illusion of prosperity.

All these things make things more difficult for us in the short term. This isn’t any endorsement of the SNP, just a recognition that socialists face a different situation today. That will change in the future, maybe in a quite accelerated timetable given the global credit crunch, rising food and energy prices and galloping climate chaos.

How do socialists deal with this situation?

Well obviously we have faced a major setback after the split. Even without the split, the SSP would still have faced problems, but the split has magnified these problems many times over.

This means we have to return to politics and a period of introspection. We cannot artificially create big national campaigns, although these may emerge. There will be local campaigns SSP branches can relate to. However, in this period we have to seriously address, discuss and debate the big issues, such as the Environment, Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights.

The Eco-socialist argument is vital. With global warming and potential environmental catastrophe, the issue of ownership and control of resources is more relevant than ever. In a recent interview, the environmental guru of the past James Lovelock claimed that it is too late to reverse global warming. Instead we have to concentrate on survival in the face of inevitable climate change. Its likely that the ruling classes internationally go more and more down that road – damage limitation and the survival of capitalism on its own terms. It’s a potential nightmare scenario. They will be prepared to write-off millions of people in the Third World. There will be mass movements of population and a proliferation of wars over land, food and water as whole tracts of the planet become uninhabitable desert. I think we need some kind of a red-green alliance that will be antibig business, anti-capitalist– not in the sense of an electoral pact between the Green Party and the SSP – but on a broad campaigning basis. More and more people around green movement are going to come to the conclusion that its not enough just ask people to change their lifestyles or appeal to big business and governments to be kinder to the environment.

Before the split, the SSP could legitimately claim to be the party of socialist unity. Now we back to being the party for socialist unity. How do we rebuild that lost unity?

The project to build a specifically anti-capitalist party cannot be abandoned. The SSP represents a real gain in Scotland. A good example of a successful anti-capitalist – and not merely anti-neo-liberal – organisation today is the Portuguese Left Bloc. It is, in effect, a party, like the Danish Red/Greens and the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) in France. The Portuguese Left Bloc has 350 councillors and 10 MPs and is a real political force to be reckoned with.

In Germany and Greece new left formations such as Die Linke and Syriza have made big electoral gains, which is big advance for the left. They have helped to change the political atmosphere in their countries in a positive way. But the ideological basis of these parties,is less clear-cut – they’re not so much parties as electoral alliances.

In some countries, such an electoral alliance may be a step forward.

In very broad terms you can divide politics into three main trends:-

• The dominant neo-liberals, whether it be Tories or New Labour, Blair or Brown, Republicans or Democrats, Clinton or Obama. They want to reduce public expenditure and taxation, and to create a more favourable environment for the global corporations.
• The reformists who want a fairer capitalism.
• The anti-capitalist bloc, which includes socialist parties, anarchists, sections of the Greens, Castro and Chavez. The weakness is, that although we all oppose capitalism, we have no shared agreement about what should replace it.

However, some political parties can straddle these particular trends. The Greens, for example, have a largely reformist leadership. However, they include some genuinely anti-capitalist elements, more so in England, with Derek Walls using Marxist arguments, and Carolyn Lucas being on the Left. This is different from the situation in Scotland, where the reformists appear to dominate the Green Party.

The SNP straddles neo-liberalism and reformism. There are some anti-capitalist individuals, but they are marginalised at this stage because of the euphoria surrounding the SNP government which has affected not just the SNP left, but even some socialists who in the past were critical of the SNP. Right now it seems the pull of the SNP on the Left is currently greater than the pull of the Left on the SNP – although I would expect that to change in the future because of the state of the economy. It was a different story in 2003, when the SNP appeared to be in disarray and some SNP members joined the SSP.

We need a wide discussion on how we relate to reformist groupings. We can work with people who are not necessarily socialist, or anti-capitalist, but who are prepared to challenge neo-liberalism on a kind of social democratic basis – in other words all those who are to the left of the four main parties. That doesn’t mean we have to unite in the same party – there can be co-operation on specific campaigns and policies, and possibly even electoral pacts or alliances on agreed terms.

In any election where the SSP does not put up a candidate, what would be your advice be to members on how to vote, particularly in a contest between Labour and the SNP?

I believe that when we aren’t standing, there doesn’t need to be a party line. Local factors come into play. Sometimes you might give your support to a Left Labour candidate with a fighting record against a right wing SNP candidate. Concretely, if I had been in Coatbridge during the last Holyrood election, I’d probably have voted for Labour’s Elaine Smith, a member of the Campaign for Socialism who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, opposes nuclear weapons and has supported SSP bills to for free school meals, and to scrap warrant sales and prescription charges. I can’t think of any others though.

Where do you see the SSP’s potential support coming from if we are to rebuild principled socialist unity?

Well first we still have a big cloud hanging over us, as long as the police investigation is continuing. We don’t know what will happen to Solidarity. We still don’t fully know how damaged the SSP project is. Is it recoverable? The split did more than damage the SSP (and Solidarity too). Splits discredit the whole Left. This is equally true of the recent split in Respect in England, whatever its political basis. Splits lead to demotivation, demobilisation, and ultimately apathy.

However, the SSP has to look to those 200,000 people who gave us their vote over 10 years, as well as to the young people who didn’t have the vote, but were drawn into activity, particularly over the War. This is still a potentially big constituency. Despite my earlier assessment of the overall political situation, the economy now looks like it is about to take a nosedive. We have to address this too. How we do these things remains an open question.

Looking to the existing political parties, there are elements in the Labour Party, Solidarity, the Greens and the SNP which could contribute to a new united socialist party.

The Labour Party

I recently attended a Campaign for Socialism meeting addressed by John McDonnell. He said that Marxism, far from being redundant, is now more relevant than ever, with the problems of the Third World, the credit crash and global warming. He said that the space in the Labour Party for debate between anti-capitalists and reformists had now gone. The neo-liberal agenda dominated everything, so there was no opportunity for the Left to influence the Labour Party.

However, some of the Scottish Labour members present at this meeting claimed there was still some democratic space here, although they weren’t that optimistic. Sooner or later I expect a break. It’s not the numbers that will be significant, but the possible impact on the trade union movement. Will the Morning Star make a break with Labourism at last? The next Holyrood election or local government elections may concentrate minds. I expect some discussions to start next year.

Solidarity

First of all there needs to be open discussion on this issue in the SSP. People mustn’t get over-excited. There are elements in Solidarity whom I could work with. Some people joined Solidarity because of where they lived and who they knew rather than because they had thought through and understood all the issues.

However, with the benefit of hindsight, the experience of the SWP and the CWI was negative. We needed to go through that experience to learnthe hard way. The problem with these two organisations is that they operate on the basis of Democratic Centralism, or more accurately, Bureaucratic Centralism. I know from my direct experience in the CWI. The imposed centralised line isn’t just applied nationally, but within their wider international sections too.

This means their members didn’t engage in the internal debates of the SSP in an open and constructive way. They arrived with a predetermined line, which others couldn’t influence. This led to the loss of a number of new, more inexperienced SSP members, who found an atmosphere of sectarian point scoring in some branches unappealing.

In the SSP’s 50:50 debate on women’s representation, the SWP argued and voted as a block, despite some internal disagreement. Now, in this case, I agreed with many of their arguments. But, you know that the line was handed down from the SWP Central Committee. If the line changed next week, all their members would just vote the opposite way!

The CWI is little better, it’s just that it is smaller. This doesn’t mean of course that there weren’t times when I also agreed with some of their positions, – but that’s the point. You consider all the arguments, and don’t just arrive determined to force through your point of view, without considering other arguments. Don’t misunderstand me. I believe in robust political debate, but we must get beyond their failed way of operating.

When it comes to a question of Solidarity members being readmitted to the SSP, I have no problems with many of the individuals concerned. However, it would be a different matter with those who vociferously called for a split and led a malicious public campaign against many good comrades in the SSP.

The Greens

The Greens are a very small party. A report of their recent conference suggests no more than 50 members were present. However, the Green Party represents the political wing of a much wider movement, including the likes of Friends of the Earth.This is where the Greens get their wider electoral support. The SSP has more members, more branches, and more vibrant conferences, but we don’t have this wider periphery. The old Labour Party used to have a periphery of active trade union branches; we don’t.

The current Green leadership in Scotland, especially Robin Harper, wouldn’t touch the Left with a barge pole. They believe a Red/Green alliance would cost them votes, and undermine their project of joining mainstream government coalitions. However, comrades in Glasgow tell me there are a number of excellent Eco-socialist Greens they have come into contact with, over the old M77 and the new M74 campaigns.

I don’t have enough experience in this particular political arena. Once again though I believe the SSP should initiate a wider discussion on our relationship with the Green Party/Movement. I’m sure splits will emerge amongst the Greens, and that the Eco-socialist argument will develop much greater purchase in the future, challenging the Eco-capitalism of the Green’s leaders.

The SNP

There is a Left, but it is marginalised at present. Four things are working in favour of the SNP leadership. First, Salmond is a highly skilled political operator. Secondly, they have become the beneficiaries of the soft protest vote in Scotland, in a similar manner to Centre or supposed Centre parties elsewhere, e.g. in Italy and the USA. Thirdly, the unresolved National Question colours most politics in Scotland. A wide range of issues are viewed through the distorting lenses of Unionism and Independence. Fourthly, Holyrood doesn’t enjoy substantial power, so a lot of politics just involves making gestures.

This all aids Salmond’s populist approach to politics, with the SNP Government promoting policies both for big business and the people of Scotland. In as far as anyone can see into the future, I believe the SNP will strengthen its position in the next election. An SNP majority government could well emerge. This is one reason why I am so pro-independence. Only when we have Independence will a more clearly ideological differentiation occur.

The 1st Calron Hill demonstration, by Myra Armstrong

What is your assessment of the various projects the SSP has been involved in to have a say in the resolution of the National Question?

I was strongly in favour of the republican Calton Hill Declaration. We faced two sorts of opposition within the party. First, the CWI opposed it because the Declaration didn’t specifically mention socialism. Secondly, I remember some SSP members were unhappy about the Declaration dealing with social issues, wanting it to concentrate on Scottish self-determination on the grounds that it would exclude people. I disagreed with both criticisms.

I think the first Calton Hill demonstration was a major success. We were given a real opportunity with the official state opening of Holyrood by the queen. We related to a deep-seated anti-monarchist sentiment in Scotland. However, right after this, the crisis hit the party. It was this, rather than deliberate negligence by the executive and national council that led to the lack of follow-through activity.

I share with the RCN a strong identification with republicanism. It emphasises the SSP’s democratic approach to politics. I think Salmond misjudged the feeling in Scotland, when he declared the SNP’s support for the monarchy. A recent survey in the Daily Express showed that, if Scotland were to become independent, then over 50% would want it to become a republic.

Where I disagree with the RCN is that I believe we should support independence without any preconditions. I think, although that’s not what Blair wanted, devolution has undermined rather than strengthened the union. Similarly, whatever Salmond thinks, Independence will open up the road to both a Republic, and provide an opportunity for socialists to make a real impact again. There is an underlying dynamic to all this. That’s not to impose a rigid stages theory which a priori excludes moving directly to a republic, which would certainly be my preference, but to recognise that even if an independent Scotland didn’t start off a republic from day one, there would be a momentum in the direction of a republic. It would be certainly open up a mass debate around republicanism or monarchism – a debate which is unlikely to happen on that scale while the United Kingdom appears secure and permanent. If not in the run-up to an independent Scotland, then at least immediately after an independence referendum is victorious, the momentum towards a republic could be unstoppable – especially if republicans and socialists prove their credentials by being seen to fight for independence in a non-sectarian way, rather than cutting ourselves off with an ‘all-or nothing, our way or no way’ approach.

Now looking to the Scottish Independence Convention and Independence First, I believe these still have a positive role to play. When the SIC was formed, support for Independence was greater than support for the SNP, and this was represented in Holyrood by the SSP, the Greens and some Independents as well.

Today, with a new confident SNP Government, the situation has changed. The SIC experienced a splinter, with the formation of the more moderate Scottish Constitutional Convention. This tension amongst Independence supporters mirrors that which split devolutionists, when faced with the rising strength of the Labour Party in the run-up to the 1997 General Election. Only now it’s the SNP leadership calling the shots, but over independence.

However, Elaine C. Smith is now convenor of the SIC – in the past she’s voted SSP as well as SNP, and has a reputation as an outspoken working class left wing feminist. It’s positive that the figurehead of the broad independence movement represents progress and equality rather than conservative middle class nationalism.

Without MSPs it’s more difficult for the SSP to play a decisive role in the broad independence movement; if we had even a small foothold in the parliament we would now have much more clout than in the past given the precarious balance of forces in Holyrood.

I agree with you that the SNP leadership aren’t that keen to press forward with an IndependenceReferendum, for fear of losing – that’s why it’ important we have organisations like Independence First and the Independence Convention – to keep up external pressure.

The SSP should not dilute its republican socialist message. I hope we can build something positive around the Calton Hill Declaration. However, I think that party members need to take more of their own initiatives and not expect the leadership to deliver everything. An example of a good initiative from below is the SSY’s latest film on knife crime. This can be taken to community centres, etc, and then we can really begin to engage people in debate.

The mainstream parties, whether unionist or nationalist, are now cooperating within the current devolved UK framework. For example Alex Salmond meets with Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. How do you think socialists in these islands should coordinate their activities?

The SSP is now committed to the RCN-initiated motion, which calls for coordination. This is policy so we will act upon it. My reasons for opposing this at the last Conference were practical. I support the principle.

The problem is the fragmentation of the Left. Taking England, you now have two Respects, the Socialist Party, the SLP, the Labour Coordinating Committee, and a trade union opposition focussed mainly on the RMT. In Ireland things are more confused with the problem of the North. In Wales the situation has changed. The SSP related in turn to Cymru Goch, the Socialist Alliance, and then Forward Wales, which has now disappeared.

The SSP is not in as strong a position to influence and shape things as it was a few years ago. If we were in a stronger position then things might well be different. Therefore I see the issue of such coordination as being a question of timing.

What do you think are the important issues at the forthcoming SSP Conference?

I haven’t yet had much time to go through the agenda, the motions etc.. I also believe that we have to look wider than our own internal affairs and discuss how we communicate with the people out there.

One motion to Conferences says that the SSP should drop its provision for Trade Union affiliations. This seems to reflect a certain tension between whether the SSP should be a socialist or a labourist party. What is your view?

I don’t have a fixed position. We need to have an open debate. There are those who argue that trade unions should be independent of all political parties. However, there is also a growing realisation that trade unions no longer enjoy any real political representation. The politics of this is complex, with people politically split a number of ways.

Another key debate, after our party’s previous experience, is whether or not we need a single leader. What is your opinion?

Again I have no fixed view, but I would want to encourage real debate. In the English Green Party, which has had a more collective leadership, Carolyn Lucas now wants a single leader. In a world where getting media attention is important, we have to recognise that they will focus on individuals. Even as socialists, we tend to celebrate key individuals, like Che Guevara or James Connolly. This doesn’t mean we need to depend on a charismatic superhero figure. Both the Portuguese Left Bloc party, and the Greek Syriza alliance have performed well without such a leader.

There is also a motion to end Platform rights in the SSP. Do you support this?

No, I don’t agree. The old Communist Party banned platforms, but was awash with factions. If platforms were abolished, this would represent a political step backwards. It would then be a short step to a more repressive internal regime and probably lead to expulsions. It would represent a move back to the discredited old-style parties. When a party grows, different political groupings are bound to arise. I think it would be a step forward if the CPS or CPB joined the SSP as platforms. The rights we had in the pre-split SSP were healthy, but were abused by certain Platforms. It may be necessary to define those rights and duties more clearly.

This article argues that not only are platforms inevitable, but that they are necessary for the healthy development of an open, democratic party. To illustrate the points, we will use our own platform, the Republican Communist Network (RCN), as a case study.

Differences of opinion are inevitable

In our opinion a genuine socialist party would welcome all shades of socialist opinion into its ranks (otherwise it remains a sect rather than a party). This openness and the uneven political consciousness within the working class means that differences of opinion within a socialist party are inevitable.

Platforms can be thought of as seeking to express these differences in a coherent and organised manner in much the same way as a socialist party seeks to organise socialists in a coherent manner within capitalist society (as opposed to remaining as isolated individual community and work place activists, or voters).

It goes without saying that if platforms are a necessary feature of any open, democratic party then those platforms themselves must operate in an open and democratic manner. For example, platform members should declare themselves as such when operating within the SSP, in debates and in seeking election to any position. This is standard practice among RCN platform members.

Testing ideas in open debate

There is no need for anonymity within the SSP with its relatively democratic culture: on the contrary, the RCN advocates open debate among and between platforms and individual party members as being the strategy most likely to develop effective policies for the party. Each platform naturally hopes (and, perhaps, believes) that its ideas and theories are the ones best suited to the challenges the party faces. Testing each other’s ideas out in open debate is an excellent way for us all to learn and develop.

One reason that platforms are suppressed is that they may present a threat to the controlling faction, ie, they are seen as a ‘leadership in waiting’. This is not a role the RCN has any desire to pursue. There is a further role which platforms fulfil – a role the RCN is deeply involved in – the generation of ideas, theory and tactics. A party whose ideas ossify is doomed. A party which loses the capacity to be self critical has no business asking our class to entrust its fate to that party. Mistakes will be made and these must be learned from – quickly if events are moving rapidly. Herein lies the strength of having several platforms with variations in theory and recommendations for practice.

All species contain within their gene pools various subsets of genes which do not appear to have any current use but which come into play during changes in the environment and allow the species to evolve. Just as the competing genes are tested out in the real world of upheavals in terrain and climate, so our party should have a number of ideas that are constantly being tested against real world events. Not only do we need to have a variety of ideas but we need to know what these ideas are and we need a mechanism for evaluating these ideas as events unfold. This is why the RCN concerns itself with constitutional matters relating to platforms and democratic rights and with building links internationally at a rank and file level. A party of thinkers, with a democratic culture, is a party best placed to negotiate the ebbs and flows of the class struggle, to learn and grow.

How to think, not what to think

Another role the RCN seeks to fulfil is an educational role. A hallmark of some organisations/groups, not only of the Left, is the tendency to train new members in What to Think. Educationals are presented as, ‘Here is the script – go and learn it’. We believe it is much more important to train members How to Think. This means exposing members to controversy and debate; encouraging rather than discouraging debate; and seeking out alternative styles of discourse.

Of course, to get the best out of such exercises it helps to know as much as possible about what participants mean by certain words and phrases and this relates back to an earlier point about the need to be upfront in relation to membership of platforms.

Some platforms measure their success in terms of recruitment. It is perfectly natural to want to recruit but aggressive recruitment as a tactic tends to go hand in hand with the What to Think educationals closely related to the What Way to Vote performances at Conference. There are obvious long term dangers for the party where any platform, especially the dominant platform, adopts the Winning the Vote rather than the Winning the Argument philosophy.

So many factions see debate as a continuous bludgeoning exercise to assert the superiority of their particular line. Yes, sometimes there are real differences that need to be aired and real principles that need to be upheld. However there is also the possibility of a new higher level of understanding arising from debates which involve a number of different points of view or experiences. This is what the RCN wants to achieve in the SSP.

The RCN starts from the position that all SSP members are comrades, brothers and sisters. There may be particular actions, or lack of actions, which we will criticise individuals for quite strongly, but we do not enter into the debate on ideas with a disparaging dismissal of other party members, just because we disagree with some of their politics.

The reality is whatever the outcome of any future court case, the fight for socialism has not been made any easier. However, whatever those conditions, it is imperative for socialists to stay organised and to continue to raise the red banner and to champion working class causes in Scotland, across these islands and internationally.

Stick to the task

The SSP has stuck to this task despite those unfavourable conditions. In recent months we have been on picket lines with striking civil servants, campaigned against Post Office closures, commemorated the 5th anniversary since the invasion of Iraq, stood in council by-elections and continued to discuss and debate the key political issues of the day.

Another vital task is to learn the organisational lessons of the previous two years. In the wake of the split by Sheridan and his supporters, the SSP set up a commission to precisely address these issues. The commission has conducted an exhaustive and extensive consultation with the SSP membership.

The main business of the March conference will be for the democratic structures of the party to decide what changes should be made to the Party’s constitution to ensure history does not repeat itself. This process, whilst time consuming and laborious, is necessary for us to lay the foundations, to re-build our party into a mass socialist party of the working class in Scotland.

However, we will be trying to do this in a situation where the SSP can no longer claim to be the party of socialist unity, uniting all the major forces of the socialist Left in Scotland; but is now having to campaign for socialist unity. This means we have to behave in a manner, which recognises that we are not, at present, the only force on the Left, and have to consider, how we can remain open to others, whilst maintaining our democratic structures and socialist principles.

Therefore, a key debate at conference will be whether the SSP upholds the principle of trade union affiliations. At heart this is a debate over whether the SSP builds as a labourist or a socialist party. Trade union affiliations allow many passive, indeed sometimes unknowing, workers to be seen as party members. In reality, trade union bureaucrats usually use these members’ passive support to wield ‘sledge hammer’ block votes at conferences to get their way.

Instead, we want the SSP to be a socialist party which is active within the trade unions, either by supporting Left (usually) opposition groupings, or when the political climate permits, branches of active party members within workplaces. This, of course, does not prevent any trade union supporting particular SSP campaigns. Indeed, we should be encouraging trade union members’ active participation in the use of their unions’ political funds, as an alternative to automatic support for Labour.

The main focus of this conference and the purpose of any changes to the constitution of the party must be to enhance party democracy from the bottom upwards and to extend accountability, building, in the process, a mass democratic party of action. If conference is to have a theme or a slogan then it must be politics over personality. This is reflected in the various proposals around the post of Convenor.

Accountability and democracy

Accountability and democracy must be central to the debates around the role of the Executive, party committees and the elected leadership. A crucial part to achieving this is through a network of healthy, active branches which should be the foundations on which the party is built. Among other things, there has to be assurances that any motion passed at conference is not quietly kicked into the long grass, but is instead acted upon. There needs to be a tightening up of how party committees operate: timetabled meetings, available minutes and bound by conference decisions.

Finally, the issue of platforms. There has been a call for the abolition of platforms. This right of members to organise in open platforms has been in the party constitution from day one. That, in and of itself, does not make it correct. However, without this right it is unlikely that the SSP would have been created in the first place. As a pluralist socialist party, we should recognise that a range of political viewpoints is a source of healthy debate and new ideas. Banning platforms would also further isolate us from the wider European Left. All the major organisations, such as the Portuguese Left Bloc and the French LCR have this provision, and consider it an essential component of socialist unity. Platforms or tendencies should be welcomed by the party as a way of promoting political discussion.

We do recognise that a couple of the platforms that have recently left the SSP did have a negative side to their involvement in our party. Often, they put their narrow, sectarian interests above the interests of the SSP and the working class as a whole. In our view, platforms should not just have rights but also have responsibilities. They must put the interests of the party first and not try to promote their own front organisations over the democratic decisions of the party as a whole. Below we re-print an extract from our editorial in Emancipation & Liberation No. 8 (Autumn 2004) explaining in more detail why we fight for the right ‘to platform’ in our party.

The agenda is still to be confirmed so watch that page for details. The page also contains links to the motion which led to the convention taking place and an article on it.

Link is now dead and does not appear to be archived

Mary McGregor

We all knew the Scottish parliamentary results in May would be bad for the SSP. You could not go through the damaging Sheridan trial, the split in the party, the fall out from both these events and not expect an electoral disaster. But none of us really took in how bad it would be. Both Gregor Gall and Pam Currie cover this well in their articles and one would hope that it would provide a wake up call for socialists to realise once and for all, that here is no room for two socialist parties, fighting on virtually the same policies in Scotland today.

As I stood at the North East of Scotland count in Aberdeen, watching BNP supporters smile, the Solidarity supporters groan and our own supporters become more demoralised, the urge to get back home to Dundee and leave the night behind, became overwhelming.

Obvious target

Driving back down the A90 in the small hours, we were overcome with the need to blame someone. Disgust and horror at the unfavourable comparisons between our vote and Solidarity’s vote made Tommy Sheridan an easy and obvious target. There is no doubt in my mind that the political crime committed by Sheridan, the SWP and CWI of splitting the left in Scotland is a set back which will be regretted by generations to come. Even if we had no MSPs but still had the party intact, we would have been disappointed but we would have had a strong and dynamic force with which to rebuild and to focus on extra parliamentary activity. The SSP is now much weaker, much worse off financially and has substantially fewer activists than before the split.

The SSP is fragile and fractured but it does have a core of cadre and a democratic structure. Solidarity consists of two parties who hate each other (SWP and CWI), a number of individuals and a cult figure as leader. The credibility of the left in Scotland has been decimated and the only winner in the Sheridan libel trial was the British state, which has consequently had quite unprecedented access to both parties as it has carried out its investigations first into the libel case and subsequently into the perjury accusations.

Grotesque caricature

Gregor and others are right to point out that the objective political conditions were different in 2007 from our zenith electorally in 2003. But we did, as he says, Take a hit for allegedly ‘doing Tommy in. The Tommy Sheridan brand turned out to be much more powerful than the SSP brand. In today’s celebrity-obsessed media, this is hardly surprising given Sheridan’s profile. With his name on every ballot paper, it also appeared as if Tommy himself was standing in every council and list seat the length and breadth of Scotland; quite a grotesque caricature of I’m Spartacus!

Frighteningly, the prospect of the perjury trial and or News of the World (NotW) appeal may in fact enhance Tommy’s image of everybody’s favourite socialist that ‘they’ are all out to get.

The courts are seldom places for socialists to fight their battles. Everyone in Solidarity’s leadership knows that Tommy was wrong to take the NotW to court. The leadership of the CWI tried to talk him out of it. This has been no victory for the working class of Scotland. The repercussions go way beyond appeasing one man’s ego. It is indeed in question whether either Solidarity or the SSP can ever regain credibility as a political force across Scotland and our position of being the most successful socialist party in the British Isles has gone.

Having no MSPs means that our access to the media is limited. We no longer get the headlines when we attack the hypocrisy of the SNP from a republican perspective or the imperialism of New Labour. At the moment, the only time Solidarity gets any press is when Tommy has notorious underworld figures like Paul Ferris on his Fringe talk show or the Sunday Herald speculates on the perjury trial. The SSP is getting very little coverage at all. This is all a far cry from front pages on Free School Meals bill or Faslane protests!

Gregor Gall (left), picture by Eddie Truman, www.scottishsocialistparty.org

What happens next?

The most important question as Gregor suggests is what happens next? It is not clear how, or indeed whether, the SSP or Solidarity will survive the perjury trial but honest, hard-working committed socialists in both organisations will. How will we organise and take the fight for socialism forward when so many comrades feel profound disappointment and in some cases despair?

It must be so much worse for those comrades who thought, or still think that the SSP is the ultimate organisational form and will take us to socialism. In the RCN we have always believed that the SSP is the best organisational form so far, but we have always been conscious that as objective conditions change, then the form of socialist organisation may also need to change. We have been loyal SSP members but we have not been blind to its shortcomings or limitations.

The split has made the fight for socialist ideas more difficult in the coming period yet reunification in some form – ultimately the only way forward – is not on the cards in the short-term future. We cannot dismiss the profoundly painful and damaging experiences of some comrades over the last few years and demand they just have to get over it and reunite for the good of the class. This is naive in the extreme. For one thing, it’s not over yet! There may be even worse to come if the perjury trial takes place.

On the other hand, those at the centre of the case cannot demand that those who have been less damaged do not consider how to move us collectively forward. There seems to be near hysteria in some quarters at the suggestion that SSP comrades even speak to others in Solidarity. But the experience of comrades across the country pre and post split has not been uniform. There are SSP members who are friends with others in Solidarity and those friendships have survived. There are others who have already found themselves in meetings with Solidarity members where the same hatred and bitterness which exists between the two leaderships has not prevailed.

The Solidarity candidate in the North East of Scotland publicly commended the SSP candidate and other SSP representatives as good socialists with whom he had no quarrel. I believe that disagreement with the isolationist approach of some leading SSP members should not be conflated with disloyalty.

Consequently, Gregor’s call for a new left unity party should not be dismissed out of hand but should be considered premature. The process by which this could happen is at a very early embryonic stage. Sadly both the SSP and Solidarity have to play out the perjury case and appeal. More people will be damaged and some people may go to jail – something no socialist should relish the thought of. The fall out from this next phase then has to be dealt with and only after all of that will we be able to work towards genuine growth and the prospect of principled work with former comrades can become a reality.

If both parties survive, I imagine all of us having to go through a pre alliance phase working in a principled united front basis with perhaps electoral accommodation being the next step. Surely everyone bar the most sectarian can see the folly of us standing against one another. Only after that long process will the prospect of a new party be on the cards. We have a long way to go.

Parochialism

Even though there are very hard times ahead, this does not mean that the SSP and especially those of us who have not been at the heart of the Sheridan case, should be paralysed. Gregor is right when he says we need to focus on getting involved in our communities and in the need for robust party education but I fear what he is arguing is a form of parochialism which will do nothing to give comrades the much needed credibility we agree is required.

So while I agree with him that comrades must be grounded, I do not see this in opposition to espousing the high ideals of socialism. The real skill of respected, socialist politicians is the ability to do both. We have to build our cadre in order to dig those deep roots that Gregor talks of and I do not see that happening without articulating a socialist vision. The starting point for this needs to be real political education and discussion within the party on what our vision of socialism should be in the 21st century.

This does not mean just taking the lead from current political thinkers within the party but by doing what I know is an anathema to some comrades and reading the texts of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, MacLean, Connolly and others. We need to study new progressive movements like the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Bolivarists in Venezuela, and to develop our Marxism to take account of the events of the last 150 years.

Neither can the SSP be content with putting all its effort into community and trade union work, vital though these are. In Scotland, this would leave ‘high politics’ to the SNP. The SNP’s current diet of populist and consensual politics can not last. Wider events, such as the political fall-out from US and British imperialism’s wars, access to North Sea oil in the context of the rising oil prices, and the forthcoming Westminster imposed budget cuts, will form part of the ‘national conversation’, whether Alex Salmond likes it or not. When choices have to be made, the rightwards moving SNP will come down on the side of its business backers. It will also avoid any head on collisions with either the UK state or NATO.

When it comes to the constitutional issues there are strong pressures, within both the SSP and amongst the ‘Tommy can do no wrong’ supporters in Solidarity, to tail-end the SNPs political project of seeking an ‘Independence Referendum’. This isn’t likely to happen soon; nor is it likely to achieve what it seeks.

Real opposition needed

The SSP lost the political initiative when it abandoned the movement to build upon the Calton Hill Declaration. Instead the leadership opted to fall in first, behind the SNP leadership-policed Scottish Constitutional Convention and then, Independence First, run mainly by the political groups on the Scottish nationalist fringe. Neither of these bodies can lead the fight against either the British state’s Crown Powers, or Scotland’s continued involvement in NATO. Real opposition to both is needed, if moves to greater political independence are to open up better prospects for the Left and the working class.

Therefore, it is also vital that the SSP articulates a clear Scottish internationalist vision, based on sound democratic, secular and republican principles. Fortunately there is more chance of this happening within a democratic SSP, than in the political
‘marriage of convenience’ of left unionists and nationalists which constitutes Solidarity.

Nevertheless, we cannot live in a vacuum where Solidarity does not exist. Where we engage with them – and we must or we cut ourselves off from the anti war movement, the Palestine struggle, and any industrial dispute which occurs – we must act and be seen to act in a principled, non sectarian manner. If sectarianism occurs then it must not come from us. If Sheridan refuses to share a campaigning platform with us, then we must question his motives and whether he puts his personal animosity above the cause. We must not indulge in tit for tat retaliation.

I think Gregor is wrong in suggesting that we do not recruit to the party via united front work. We should not go on raiding missions but we should be open and honest about who we are, what we stand for and encourage people to join us. We can do that without resorting to sectarian lies or abuse. This will enhance credibility and put us on stronger ground for any future negotiations with former comrades.

Gregor is right when he says that the business as usual approach is wrong but so is the politics of retreat. Weekly stalls are a façade if that is the only party work which is going on but they are a way for hundreds of people weekly to get the message that the SSP and socialist ideas are still here.

Democratic bedrock

Most worrying about Gregor’s contribution was his dismissal of party branches. I see the branches as the democratic bedrock of the SSP. I know hat since the split, some individual members are isolated but the way to respond to that is not to turn us into a party of isolated individual members but to link vibrant branches with those who need support. I know that in some areas even where there are members, branches have not been functioning and a priority should be to engage those members who have had the courage and strength to stay with the SSP in a functioning and enjoyable party branch.

Many people out with the Central Belt fear that the party has long been dominated by Glasgow and Edinburgh in an insensitive way. Those in the other regions have felt, not without some justification, that we are second class party members in terms of the service we have received from party centre. I hope the Commission into Party structures will take account of this in its recommendations and will ensure that the party branch remains the basis of party building and democracy.

I am fearful of what would replace the branch. Would it be a party of self selecting Networks? How would representation be ensured at all levels? Yes we would get rid of the cult of the leader – all in favour of that – but we could be replacing it with the cult of the clique or a non elected leadership – not in favour of that one. I am sure that the commission will look to preserve and enhance what is best in ourdemocratic structures and I see the branch as fundamental to that.

Pam Currie, picture by Eddie Truman, www.scottishsocialistparty.org

Defensive

But Gregor is to be commended for opening up the ‘Where next?’ debate. Pam’s response reflects, Ithink, a defensive and at times unrealistic position.

Pam is doing a brilliant job as party secretary and is part of a group of dedicated comrades who are holding things together in the eye of a hurricane. She correctly raises the issue of sexism within the SSP and its role in Tommygate. Issues around gender ran right through the court case and the subsequent split. Tommy’s public attitude to family life promoted a bourgeois stereotype with his wife Gail as the loyal partner whose main interests are fashion and the wean. However, Pam’s experiences over the Tommygate period colour her vision of the present and the future. Pam extols the virtues of the United Left organisation which I am sure was a terrific support to Pam and others at a very difficult time but she needs to see the negative effects of such a defensive grouping.

The UL assumed all pro party forces would join the UL – this was far from true. The UL assumed that their experiences and conclusions reflected those of party members across the country. This was also untrue. If the UL was to be seen as more than a support group for those being attacked by Tommy and Co, or more than a group of Tommy haters, then they should have become a bona fide platform within the SSP. Many outwith the eye of the storm were left saying, What was the point of that? rather than, What a brilliant model for future democracy within the party.

The future is unpredictable and precarious for socialists in Scotland. We all individually do make a difference but the need to work as part of a collective is essential for anyone who understands what socialism means. We need to build the SSP and look beyond our current boundaries. We need to prioritise socialist education and party democracy. We must seek to build a culture where the cult of the individual is recognised as anti socialist. Most importantly we must see that sectarianism is futile and unproductive. Let’s hope the lessons of these last few tumultuous years have been learnt – we have a responsibility to ensure a socialist party, with credibility exists to articulate the aspirations of all those who suffer under capitalism.

The suffragette movement was a bourgeois movement

I’m a Marxist not a feminist, I stand for the liberation of all workers

The socialist movement played no significant role in the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s, which proves the Marxists really do not care about women

Historically, Marxism hasn’t recognised the oppression of women as a sex. It is only concerned with the oppression of women as workers.

I’m a socialist, I believe in equality for all workers. Positive discrimination is just discrimination against men

What is feminism?

Many of the above statements have been made in discussions and debates around socialism, feminism and Marxism. The SSP has been a microcosm of many of these discussions since its conception. There has been a battle regarding ideology around feminism, women’s liberation and oppression but at times the debate appears to lack praxis, the praxis of theory into practice.

No doubt women are changing. We need an appropriate word which will register this fact. The term feminism has been foisted upon us. It will do as well as any other word….It mean’s women’s struggle for freedom.

(New Review, 1914, paper of American Socialist Party)

What do we mean when we call someone a feminist or refer to feminism? Why does it have so many different meanings? And why can it be seen as a positive expression of liberation politics or a term of abuse? And more importantly what is socialism’s relationship to feminism?

Feminism, means many things to many people but perhaps the best way to explain feminism is to see it not as a theory, a practice or ideology but almost as part of anthropology regarding women’s position in society. Feminism is the naming of women’s oppression, women’s rights, the women’s question etc. This was first posed by Mary Wollstonecraft in 1790 in her book The Vindication On the Rights of Woman. Wollstonecraft named the problem, she described women’s relationship to men and to society as oppression, that women are infantilised, sexualised and ignored, they are denied their full human potential by lack of economic power, the vote or say in their own or anyone’s else’s lives. Many of Wollstonecraft’s ideas and questions were taken up and raised in the French Revolution and many women and men discussed her ideas. Indeed Wollstonecraft moved to Paris during the revolution.She was hailed by many liberals and revolutionaries as a true visionary.

Wollstonecraft brought the vindication of women’s rights into the liberal and utopian socialist movement and since then women’s rights have been discussed and debated as a moral, political, ideological, scientific and social problem.

Feminism is best explained (crudely) as a spectrum between radical and reformist. Feminists of all kinds oscillate on the spectrum between radical and reformist.

Feminists who describe themselves as radical feminists are the feminists who wish to change the system, have a radical approach to the world. However radical feminists rarely agree with one another. They are often diametrically opposed to one another. The two main spectrums are materialist feminists (usually Marxist but may be anarchistic) and the political feminists, who see patriarchy (men) as the problem.

Radical feminists share an understanding that society and even the class system need to be overthrown, however they may differ (greatly) on how to solve the problem. Political feminists are often wrongly described as bourgeois feminists (e.g. Andrea Dworkin etc). Materialist feminists want to defeat the class system with the working class; political feminists want to defeat the domination of men or the patriarchy by feminist action and may see little role for men.

Reformist feminists want to reform society to make it better for women, They can be liberal feminist (sometimes known as bourgeois feminists) who want to compete with men and have what men have within class society. On the other side, are economist feminists (socialist feminists fit into this categorically when calling for reforms), who want economic and legislative reforms to address women’s oppression.

The problem is that rarely does any feminist fit into any one category all of the time but the key issue is how we are influenced by the ideas and solutions in addressing women’s oppression.

A materialist feminist may be involved in an economistic demand for equal pay or a woman managing director (liberal feminist) in supporting a campaign against men’s violence against women (political feminism).

Many comrades dismiss feminism on the basis of coming across feminist ideas and/or practice they disagree with. Instead, the methodology should be – if you have identified that women are oppressed and something has to change that is identifying with feminism. The real dilemma is how do we address this oppression and bring about women’s liberation? Some people, usually men feel more comfortable describing themselves as pro-feminist.

Marxism & Feminism

However to understand politically the ideas of feminism i.e. the acknowledgement of women’s oppression and the need for women’s liberation, we must first understand it historically and materially. Revolutionary Marxists in the past (though not always consistently) have waged an unremitting struggle within the broad working-class movement in order to struggle for women’s liberation. Marxists were not only involved in raising the consciousness of women to recognise their oppression and to demand their liberation but to educate the advanced working class to an understanding of the significance of the struggles by women for full equality, emancipation and for the liberation from the centuries-old degradation of domestic slavery. Throughout the past 160 years the struggle has been more intense than at other times.

At the time of Marx, debates were held about women’s liberation and oppression. In Marx’s Communist Manifesto of 1848 he stated:

On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family based? On capital, on private gain……The bourgeois sees in his wife, a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women.

Marx identified that women’s oppression was based on her relationship to production but also her relationship to men and to the family. There were many debates with the utopian socialists about this subject before the Communist Manifesto. Fourier and Owen were fervent champions of the emancipation of women but they saw it as a moral question rather than a materialist question. Marx explained that the oppression of women lay in its relationship to their role in the family and the system of production, based on private property and a society divided between a class that owned the wealth and a class that produced it. Marx (and Engels later in The Family, Private Property and the State) identified the role of the family in perpetuating the oppression of women.

Marx and Engels explained how the abolition of private property would provide a material basis from transferring to society, as a whole, all those social responsibilities borne by the individual family – the care of the old and sick, feeding, clothing and educating the young. Relieved of these burdens, Marx pointed out, the masses of women would be able to break the bonds of domestic servitude, and they would exercise their full human potential as creative and productive – not just reproductive – members of society.

Marx gave a solution. Just like Dorothy’s red shoes, the solution was there all the time, the solution being the working class, created by the capitalist system, which could become the force to overcome class society. However the wish wasn’t just for a better society but to begin to organise how to bring it about. In bringing about a communist transformation of society, women would be liberated. However women would only be liberated if they were organised and involved in their own liberation, as part of the liberation of the class.

In the First International there was a debate whether women should be allowed to join. Marx himself presented a motion in 1864 to the General Council that special women’s branches be organised in factories, industries and cities where there were a large concentration of women workers. He made it clear that this should not cut across building mixed branches as well.

However the next year a massive row broke out in the German section of the First International between the Marxists and the non-Marxists. In 1865, and for twenty years following, the German SDP was divided between the followers of Lassalle (the reformists) on one side and the Marxists under Bebel and Liebknecht on the other. There were sharp differences on organisation and ideology but one of the major debates was on women. The Lassalleans were opposed to demanding equal rights for women. Their demand was women should not be forced to work for a wage, that their rightful role was in the home with the family and that a man should have a family wage to support his wife and children. Liebknecht and Bebel argued ferociously that women had the right to be economically independent from men and to be liberated from the family. The SDP’s original demand was for full political rights for adults which left the demand open as to whether women were indeed considered adults or not.

The decisive arguments that won the victory for the demands were published in 1883 in Bebel’s Woman and Socialism and Engels’ The Family, Private Property and State published 1884. In 1891 the SDP demanded political rights for all, regardless of sex, and the abolition of every law which discriminates against women in any way.

The SDP in 1896 organised women into autonomous groups in order women could be educated and organised to concentrate on specific campaigns particularly political equality, insurance for childbirth, protective legislation for women workers, education and security for children. Until 1908 women were banned from joining political organisations in Germany but women could join societies. Women within the SDP had proportional representation from their societies and committees to the National Committee of the SDP.

Whilst the German SDP were debating whether women were adults or not or had the right to be independent both economically and sexually – the debate echoed around the world, particularly in the demand for the vote, the right for women’s franchise. (This article cannot properly address the suffragette movement)

The year before women won the vote (well those with property and over 30) in Britain in 1918, women in Russia went on strike under the demands of Bread for our children, bring home our husbands and sons from the trenches. Indeed it was International Women’s Day of 1917 that was the first day of the Russian Revolution. Women had organised themselves as women, despite being workers and Bolsheviks. Before the revolution, demands such as contraception, the right to abortion and to divorce were not common demands, however by 1918 they had become part of Soviet legislation.

Alexandra Kollontai, the only women on the Bolshevik Central Committee toured throughout the Soviet Union with her comrades Inessa Armand, Emma Goldman, Clara Zetkin and many others, in arguing women were central to the revolution and their own emancipation. Previously in 1913, Kollontai had organised a day long lecture in St Petersburg on the Women’s Question and all the organisers and speakers were arrested for immorality. In Britain, the British Communist Party organised a Kollontai lecture where working class women queued up in their hundreds to hear of the reforms of the Russian Revolution, though many believed they would be told how to practice birth control and be given Russian contraceptives.

In 1921 the Communist International made it obligatory for membership, that communist parties throughout the world had set up women’s bureaus and there had to be at least one full time member of staff to co-ordinate the work. There was an International Women’s Secretariat to oversee the work with six monthly conferences with representation from all sections to discuss the work with women and demands to put forward to support women’s liberation. Unfortunately the rise of Stalinism put an end to the progressive nature of this communist tradition and women were not to organise themselves so radically for another 50 years.

Conclusion

This article is in response to the confusion of whether, as socialists or Marxists, we can identify with feminism. To suggest that we do not is ahistorical. It does not fit the praxis of our theories about class society and human liberation.

Surely it cannot be argued that women, currently, are fully equal to men and even if they were, are they so liberated they can reach their full human potential? No sane socialist or Marxist would suggest such a thing. The debate to reject feminism in the socialist and Marxist movement is a false one, denying uncomfortable truths and realities. Many male socialists do not enjoy the accusation that they may wittingly or unwittingly benefit from women’s oppression and many female socialists do not want special treatment or to be victimised because of their gender, all of which can be addressed in a vibrant socialist organisation with debate, discussion and trying very hard to solve problems when they arise. The debate now needs to be about how do we address the specific issues of women’s oppression and exploitation and more importantly how does a party like the Scottish Socialist Party deal with feminist action and identification as part of the working class movement to change the world.

Mass actions

In that time, the SSP MSPs have played a tremendous role in being at the forefront of working class and democratic campaigns throughout Scotland. From the nursery nurses fight for better pay, the fight to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons, to campaigning against the war in Iraq, against the G8 at Gleneagles and defending the right to stay of asylum seekers, our MSPs have been at protests, picket lines and demonstrations, participating in mass actions, not embedded behind the brushed metal and the distressed pine of the Scottish parliament building.

The Scottish parliament will never legislate socialism

However, the impact of having six MSPs revealed that the party was, initially not best prepared to deal with the demands placed on them. This criticism is not aimed at our MSPs. Instead the party needs to take responsibility for the accountability and activity of any elected representatives whether they are MSPs, councillors or trade union representatives.

The political situation has changed quite considerably since May 2003. In some ways, conditions have improved for socialists. The Labour Party continues to rule at Westminster, Holyrood and in many local councils. They continue to pursue a mixed agenda of right wing populism and the promotion of corporate interests. These include attacks on civil rights, the criminalisation of large sections of society, the ‘War on terror’, the Iraq war, PFI and privatisation, cash for honours and the cover-up over the BAe corruption enquiry.

In some ways this year’s Holyrood election resembles a replay of the 1997 Westminster election. Then, New Labour was able to win a substantial vote from all those people thoroughly disaffected, after 18 years of Tory rule. Now, the SNP hopes to garner a protest vote from people disillusioned both with Blair’s wretched Westminster government and McConnell’s toadying Scottish Executive. In 1997, New Labour promised us, Things could only get better in the UK; now the SNP is, in effect, promising us, ‘Things can only get better in Scotland’. However, the SNP’s social democratic credentials are also fading fast as its business-friendly, independence-lite policies attracts some of the great and the good of Corporate Scotland.

Electoral gift

Yet, the SNP has been handed an
electoral gift on a plate. In 2003 many people looked to the united SSP to protest against warmongering New Labour. The SNP was weak. Now it is the Left which is divided, and a lot of the protest vote will go to the SNP in 2007.

Therefore, things are far worse for the Left in Scotland than in 2003. The events around the libel trial instigated by Tommy Sheridan in the summer 2006 have had a seriously detrimental effect on the struggle for socialism. His splitting of the SSP with the establishment of ‘Solidarity’ was a serious blow against the principle of socialist unity. (For extensive coverage of these issues see E&L 13 and Frontline Volume 2, Issue 2).

What does this mean for the Scottish parliament and council elections?

The SSP has taken the correct decision to stand candidates in all the Regional Lists. Unfortunately, so has Solidarity. Unless some sort of ‘socialist common sense’ prevails, based on a broader and more mature class perspective, this will ensure that the impact of any socialist vote will be diminished as it will be split between the two organisations. So who does this benefit?

This will serve to reignite the cynicism and defeatism by some sections of what’s the point in voting for any of you when you can’t get your act together to fight the real enemy.

The split by Solidarity has appeared to give added confidence to the BNP, announcing they intend to stand in all regional lists – something they have never attempted before. Surely this is no coincidence.

However, any socialist unity must be on a principled basis. At this time though, progress to any type of unity is extremely difficult. Electoral agreement is impossible while leading Solidarity members continue with their attempts to destroy the SSP. One concrete example of this is evidenced in a document presented to the National Steering Committee of Solidarity in December by Steve Arnott entitled Strategic objectives, priorities and tasks for May 2007. In it he writes:

A good result in the Scottish Parliament in 2007 would be the re-election of Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne as Solidarity MSPs, with the winning of any other regional seats and/or council seats a marvellous bonus. If, however, Solidarity can poll 2-3% elsewhere across the country, that would also give us the added benefit of assuring the wipeout of the SSP at Holyrood.

(emphasis added). Solidarity? More like sectarianism!

Sadly, the elections are likely to heighten the divisions and thereafter there will undoubtedly be recriminations. Despite this, the principled unity of all socialists or communists into a single organisation must still be our goal. Without it, socialism in a real sense is a pipe dream. The SSP is still the vehicle for that unity.

Whatever the outcome of these elections, as socialists we must be clear why we fight in bourgeois elections. Whether it is the Scottish parliament, local councils or Westminster, the principle is the same. Standing in these elections gives us an opportunity to raise the ideas of socialism in a period of heightened political activity. It enables us to win new recruits to the ideas of working class struggle, solidarity and socialism. Parliaments – Scottish, The Scottish parliament will never legislate socialism Westminster or European – could not legislate for socialism. The organised power of the capitalist state would not allow it. Socialism will only come about through the self organised, mass movement of the working class. This is why it is vital that socialist representatives, whether in local councils or at Holyrood, must remember that the cause of socialism is best served by being an organiser in their working class communities and by being a tribune of those communities when in the debating chambers.

(A more detailed analysis of the rise of Scottish nationalism is published on our website at: The SSP, ‘Independence First’ And The Scottish Independence Referendum)

Dear Comrade and Friend,

The SSP has reached a crossroads. The issues raised by Comrade Tommy Sheridan’s titanic victory over the gutter rag News of the World have underscored a number of political differences, outlook and methodologies within the SSP that have been increasingly apparent over the last few years. The collaboration with the scabs of News International during the trial by leading ‘comrades’ of the now declared ‘United Left’ faction, and their camp followers, saw a new and saddening low reached in Scottish socialist politics.

These actions were a shameful and colossal misjudgement from any point of view of socialist solidarity. Let us never forget that the party NC voted overwhelmingly in 2004 to respect Tommy’s right to take his action, to keep his confidentiality and to keep the party out of the trial.

It was the actions of the cabal, in first of all taking and keeping a dodgy minute of the 9th November 2004, and then advertising its existence to the media that saw the party dragged into what should have been, in essence, a private action.

The Executive of the SSP is now a redundant body until we can elect a new leadership in October. The EC ignored both the spirit and the letter of the decision by the Emergency National Council of the party to give Tommy 100 % political support in his fight against the News of the World.

We understand the ULN faction have distributed the illegitimate ‘minute’ of 9th November to party members, together with a sectarian anti-Sheridan rant disguised as official party documentation. We call on genuine socialists to treat this document with the contempt it deserves.

Despite their inevitable protestations to the contrary, the ULN has been a centralising and bureaucratising tendency. It became clear in the course of Tommy’s defamation trial that these individuals met and caucused outwith the party structures prior to Executive Committee [meetings] of the party – including preparing the stage managing of the meeting which saw Tommy Sheridan resign as Convenor of our party.

The time has come to take our party back! SSP Majority arose from hundreds of rank and file activists pledging their full support to Tommy Sheridan in his battle with News International. It is not a platform, a faction, or a network, but exactly what it says on the tin the majority of SSP members who are heartily sick of the antics of this minority grouping and who now want to see the democratic renewal of the Scottish Socialist Party in time to fight as an effective political force for working people and their families at next year’s Scottish Parliamentary and council elections.

The signatories to this Open Letter propose to harness that democratic, renewing spirit and to utilise the SSP Majority blog and e-mail network to build for National Council in August and Party Conference in October. We call on all members and branches to:

• Take our People not Profits campaign, with its ten key demands out into the streets, workplaces and communities over the next period, campaigning proudly in the best traditions of the SSP
• Demand the immediate resignation from their positions of all party workers who co-operated and collaborated with the News of the World and their lawyers, thereby ignoring the clear will of the party as expressed at our Emergency National Council of 28th May
• Ensure all other decisions of that Council are upheld
• Defend the right of all party members to a private life, without prurient party judgement or interference
• Offer the hand of friendship and reconciliation to those party members who have been genuinely politically mislead or misinformed by the posturings of the ULN faction (declared and undeclared) and who now want to work with the majority to reunify and build a broad, open party. It is not to late for those who made mistakes for reasons they believed to be genuine to return to the fold
• Organise Majority supporting delegations both to the National Council on the 27th August, and for Conference in October
• Campaign for the de-selection from the Executive, and all key party positions, of ULN members and co-travellers, and for the election of SSP Majority signatories and supporters at the first available opportunity. Only by taking vigorous and decisive action now can the SSP be put firmly back on track, and once again become a potential mass pole of attraction for working people and socialist politics in Scotland and internationally.

Signed:

• Tommy Sheridan MSP
• Rosemary Byrne MSP
• Steve Arnott Highlands and Islands
• Mike Gonzalez SW Platform, EC
• Penny Howard SW Platform, EC
• Sinead Daly CWI Platform, EC
• Philip Stott CWI Platform
• John Aberdein Author and activist
• Anne Macleod Highlands and Islands
• Gill Hubbard SW Platform, EC
• Jim Walls TGWU Convener, Opencast Miners Scotland
• Alan Brown NEC PCS, Vice-President DWP (personal capacity)
• Janice Godrich CWI Platform

Please note this communication was paid for by individual donations from supporters of the SSP Majority (sic).

Comrades and friends,

I’d like to make a short contribution to the debate now raging about the future of organised socialism in Scotland.

We came very far in a short period of time with the SSP, but that party may have reached its historical limits. The ULN faction has come to dominate key positions out of all proportion to its weight in the SSP and has abused our democratic structures. Individuals within that faction have ignored the will of the National Council. They have crossed the class divide in siding with the NOTW against a socialist and, consequently, have turned the party we have built together into a colossal train wreck.

They have tarnished the SSP banner – perhaps beyond all repair. At meetings with comrades individually and collectively over the last few days I have raised the following points for consideration, which I would now like to raise with you – the 360 signatories to the SSP Majority.

I have no doubt we could recapture the party apparatus and leadership at our conference in October – but we must ask ourselves what would be we be recapturing? The ULN will remain a constant thorn in our side, its extreme gender politics, fixation with personalities and infantile ultra leftism dragging the name of the party through the mud. Its obsession with rewriting the verdict of my defamation trial would continue to be a stone weight around our necks.

The policy and press co-ordinator of our party, Alan McCombes, declared in the Herald last week that the EC is now at war with me. I thought the only war we were interested in conducting was the class war against injustice and inequality.

Do we really wish to spend our energies and talents fighting an incessant internal struggle with these people for the next two months and beyond, without an end in sight? Or would it perhaps be better to make a clean break and begin anew, with a fresh, untarnished vehicle for socialist politics in Scotland? Is the best use of our time fighting an internal enemy while thousands of people out there in the real world want to build on the victory over Murdoch?

Would we not perhaps be better to take the best of our number – the trade unionists, members and branches who have stood united around principled socialist politics – and build a new party of the Scottish left that would be the kind of broad, open, campaigning party working people and their families can once again believe in?

I have in mind a new movement that would continue the battle for the vision we all hold dear – of an independent socialist Scotland free from poverty and want, of internationalism, of freedom from environmental destruction, of opposition to Bush and Blair’s imperialist wars – but bigger, bolder and better than anything that has gone before.

I raise these questions with you in the most serious manner and ask that you ponder over them over the next few days and weeks. I hope you will come to the All-Scotland meeting called by Rosemary and myself and have your say on these issues. The meeting will be held at: The Central Station Hotel, Glasgow. 1.00pm on Sunday 3rd September.

We have a historic decision to make. Whatever that decision is to be we must make it and take it together, standing and fighting as one.

Tommy Sheridan.
16 August 2006

Published on the Scottish Socialist Party website and reproduced here.

Dear comrade,

I write to you as a socialist and trade unionist whom I value, in sorrow and in anger at the wreckage being done to the party I helped to initiate, organise and build. I am not a member of any faction; I am a loyal, committed SSP member who appeals to you to save the SSP as Scotland’s class-struggle socialist party, the vehicle for working class struggle and socialist change, for an independent socialist Scotland.

Tommy Sheridan and a few others are threatening to wreck the party of socialist unity that hundreds of decent, honest socialists have built through years of selfless commitment. The SSP remains the natural home for the cream of Scotland’s trade unionists and working class.

Unrivalled track record

Look at our unrivalled track record of struggle, solidarity and socialist leadership in every major and most localised strikes and struggles for better conditions since the day we were formed.

The fire fighters; nursery nurses; public sector pensions battle; railworkers’ campaigns; NHS workers’ rights; postal workers’ jobs, conditions and privatisation; civil service jobs and pay; BBC jobs, pay and pensions…. to name but some.

Look at the SSP’s policies – £8 minimum wage, shorter working week, abolition of anti-union laws, public ownership, union democracy, MSPs on skilled worker’s wage, etc.

There is no place for two socialist parties in Scotland – no political justification in Tommy or anyone else splitting away to form a new party with policies shamelessly stolen from the SSP’s manifestos. The only winners from such wrecking tactics would be the pro-market parties that abhor trade unionism and socialism.

Tommy’s proposed split-off is an act of utter disloyalty and irresponsibility to the hundreds of thousands of working class people whose hopes have been raised by the Scottish left uniting into the one party – the SSP. It would be aparticularly cruel deceit of those courageous trade unionists who fought for and won affiliation of the RMT and CWU to the SSP.

These workers did not affiliate to Tommy Sheridan – they affiliated to the party whose working class socialist policies and fighting record matches their aims and aspirations. Why should they be dragged off into the wilderness by a split-off from the SSP?

Divisive act of revenge

Hot on the heels of his legal victory against the dirty tabloid rag News of the World, Tommy Sheridan declared he would challenge Colin Fox as SSP convener – a divisive act of revenge towards those decent, honest socialists with the courage to tell the truth.

Tommy was contracted by the anti-SSP, pro-New Labour tabloid Daily Record, paid £30,000, put up in a top hotel, and whilst in bed with these enemies of socialism, launched his front-page diatribe that he intends to ‘destroy the scabs’. This thuggish language has failed to intimidate those of us with the courage and integrity to tell the truth – however unsavoury the truth might be.

Now, because he has no confidence that he would win a democratic election for SSP convener, he wants to split the party built by those whose blood, sweat and tears put him into parliament.

In his statement calling for a split off, he accuses others of a fixation with personalities! Why should the principled socialist unity of the SSP be wrecked for the sake of one man’s career? Since when should one individual’s control and power take precedence over the greater good of the socialist party that has stormed Scotland with our open, honest, democratic socialist vision?

The SSP remains the champion of socialist unity. We remain Scotland’s only trade union party. Our policies and principles remain unchanged, untarnished and as urgently relevant as ever in the class war against poverty, inequality, war and capitalism.

Refuse to rewrite history

It takes courage to be honest, but only an honest, open, campaigning socialist party is capable of winning mass support for the vision we all hold dear – of an independent socialist Scotland.

Far from being ‘scabs’, ‘liars’ or ‘conspirators’ in ‘the mother of all stitch-ups’, I and others have upheld the honesty and integrity of the SSP, refusing to rewrite history. We have refused to add fuel to Tommy’s ‘mother of all inventions’ that the SSP is a party indulging in frame-ups, forged minutes and monstrous methods that Stalin would have envied.

We refused to join him in scorching the very earth the SSP stands on.

Read the real facts of the choices we faced once Tommy defied all friendly advice from me and others and forged ahead with his court case. By doing so he put the party on trial as much as News of the World.

I am a loyal, dedicated socialist who does not have a penny to his name because of working for the socialist cause for decades.

I appeal to you to read on and join us in defending the very integrity and existence of the SSP. No split off! Yours in solidarity, honesty and socialism,

Richie Venton

On behalf of the Irish Socialist Network, I wish to express our solidarity with the SSP at this challenging time. In recent years, the SSP has been a source of encouragement to radical socialists who are working to build new parties of the working class.

Like many, we are dismayed by recent attacks, both personal and political, on SSP members. We are glad to see that the SSP has rebounded from recent setbacks, to continue challenging capitalism in Scotland by building a class struggle party fighting for an independent socialist Scotland.

While closely following the development of the SSP, we have never tried to slavishly follow a particular model, and we know the comrades in the SSP respect the right of socialists in different countries to chart their own road towards liberation. True internationalism is based on an equal cooperation and respect between parties, not dictation from distant ‘centres’ or instructions from all-powerful leaders.

As a participatory, democratic and revolutionary socialist organisation, we share with the SSP an anti-war, anti-imperialist outlook firmly grounded in class politics and a commitment to working class unity.

We salute your firm stand in favour of internal democracy, equality, and accountability. Our mutual commitment to principle is not the same as dogmatism and we know that all of us must learn new ways of organising, including a commitment to participatory educational processes and democratic structures.

We look forward to working with comrades in the SSP, and throughout the world, in building societies controlled from top to bottom by working people.

Paul Moloney, National Secretary,
Irish Socialist Network, Dublin

Originally published on the CWI website

The Committee for a Workers International platform of the SSP has agreed to support the building of a new party of socialism in Scotland.

We believe the SSP is now effectively finished as a party that could seek to organise and represent the working class of Scotland. The name of the SSP has been dragged through the mud by the actions of the leadership majority. The CWI believes that the energies and efforts of socialists is now better utilised in building a new force for working class struggle and socialism.

While supporting the idea and building support for a new party the CWI will argue for:

• Any new party to be expressly socialist in character, including in its name.
• At least a basic action programme that deals with the central issues of poverty, low pay, war, workers rights, opposition to neo-liberal policies and other issues facing the working class movement in Scotland and internationally. Central to this is the need for a socialist solution to these problems.
• Democratic structures for the party including an accountable leadership with the right of recall and the right of tendencies and platforms to organise and sell and distribute its material, including publicly.
• All elected representatives of any new party to live on a skilled workers wage.

We will build for a maximum turnout for the September 3rd meeting called by Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne to discuss launching a new party for socialism.

The CWI platform of the SSP welcomed the victory of Tommy Sheridan over the News of the World. It was a victory for the left and for socialists in Scotland and internationally over one of the biggest media empires on the planet. Its owner Rupert Murdoch is close to both Tony Blair and George Bush. This victory therefore carried important political implications.

None more so than the impact it has had on the Scottish Socialist Party itself. Despite our political differences with Tommy Sheridan, which led to Tommy and other leading members of the SSP leaving the CWI in 2001, we believed it is should have been possible to utilise this sensational defeat of News International to help rebuild the SSP.

Potentially Tommy Sheridan’s victory should have been a victory for the entire SSP. Unfortunately, a majority of the current Executive Committee have, by their actions, made it clear that they will never accept Tommy Sheridan’s victory. And at all costs, no matter what the damage to the SSP, they seem set on a scorched earth policy.

That is the only conclusion to be drawn from their actions which have included a sustained personal campaign against Tommy Sheridan since his court victory. They have abused their control of the EC, the website of the party to pursue their campaign against Tommy Sheridan. All this has done is to increase their political isolation especially amongst workers and trade unionists both inside and outside the party. We expect the overwhelming majority of active trade unionists to now leave the SSP.

There is an urgent need to rebuild the socialist movement in Scotland on a principled basis. There are hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland screaming out for an alternative to the tired establishment parties. All of whom are pursuing variants of the same destructive neo-liberal capitalist agenda.

Despite the political differences we have with him we support Tommy Sheridan playing a central role in that alongside the hundreds of ordinary SSP members and the thousands of trade unionists, young people and anti-war activists who want to build a fighting principled socialist movement. The chaos and carnage in the Lebanon and the burning need to build a movement to end poverty and inequality here in Scotland demands a socialist response. The CWI is committed to helping build that alternative for the working class of Scotland.

Committee for a Workers’ International
21st August 2006

There can have been very few times when there was such widespread public revulsion against the government. Lebanon is on everyone’s lips and the world seems an increasingly dangerous place in Bush and Blair’s hands. It seems that the only people who do not see the connection between imperialist war and the growth of terrorism are a few Cabinet time-servers.

In that sense the need for a political formation that can express and organize that anger and frustration was never more urgent. We know the people who are demanding that kind of organization; we have marched with them on anti-war demonstrations and most recently in protest at the destruction of Lebanon by Israel. We mobilised with them for the G8 demonstrations and most importantly for the Alternative Summit that followed the Make Poverty History march.

The potential for a mass organization of the left that can draw together all these people is obvious. Yet it is also very clear that the SSP has completely failed to build it.

The reasons for that are political. Underlying the bitter personal exchanges of recent months is an idea of political organization very different from ours. We joined the SSP to build a mass party that could draw together those opposed to war, those fighting discrimination and oppression, those who had joined an anti-capitalist movement to fight the multinationals and their political servants, those who were shocked at environmental collapse, those Muslims who were now more than ever the object of racism and harassment.

That is still our purpose. Sadly, it is obvious that the SSP is not that party, as we had hoped it would be, and despite the work and effort we put in to try and make it happen. Yet the need as well as the potential support for this broad, democratic and active anti-capitalist organization are greater than ever. And there are many both inside and outside the SSP today who have stated their commitment to the project. That is what we now have to build. And it is important that people have the opportunity to express their support in their activity as well as electorally.

We can build that united activity around the key issues on which there is already broad agreement. We are opposed to the imperialist war in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Lebanon. We are in solidarity with the Muslim community in Britain who are part of our movement. We are committed to fighting racism in all its forms. We are internationalists who see ourselves as part of a global struggle against the capitalist system. We are implacably opposed to all and any discrimination on grounds of gender whatever form it takes. We are committed to social justice and the proper use of society’s resources for the benefit of all its members. We are for the defence of pension rights. We support trade unionists wherever they struggle to improve and defend their members’ rights and conditions of work. We are for a defence of the environment against the rapacious economic instruments that destroy it in the name of profit.

Today it is clear that war is the central question that unites us all. A new Scottish left can find its focus and its launching point in our common revulsion against Blair and Bush’s war. On September 23rd the whole of the British left will march on the Labour Party Conference in Manchester under the banner Out Now Britain and America out of Iraq, Blair out of power. Let that be the founding moment of a new Scottish left that looks resolutely out at the world and shares the determination to change it.

Mike Gonzalez for SW Platform

Motion passed at SW meeting on 20.08.06

At a members meeting held today in Glasgow, the members of the Socialist Worker Platform of the SSP unanimously agreed the following motion.

This aggregate of the Socialist Worker Platform recognises with some sadness that the SSP is no longer the broad and open mass party of the left we committed ourselves to building when we joined it some five years ago. While the imperialist war intensifies and spreads into Lebanon, and the level of public anger and opposition grows, the SSP has proved unable to respond to that anger or provide any direction for it.

The potential for building a broad and inclusive organization of the Scottish left is as great as ever. It is the duty of socialists to respond to and build on that potential. We welcome the initiative of calling an open public meeting of the Scottish Left on September 3rd in Glasgow and will actively work to build it, in the belief that it could represent the first stage in building new political formation that can answer the needs of the many socialists and activists in Scotland, embracing all strands of the movement including Muslim organizations taking a leading role in the antiwar movement and all those involved in the resistance to G8.

The SW Platform believes that the ‘Time to Go’ demonstration at the Labour Party conference in Manchester on September 23rd can provide a common focus for every section of the movement and a launching point for a new Scottish left that will be open, democratic, internationalist and committed to the building of a new and better world.

The Scottish Socialist Party has been held up throughout the UK and beyond as a model for socialist unity. It was built on the firm ground of direct action and working class resistance. It included the vast majority of socialist organisations in Scotland and local branch organisations of British trade unions.

The SSP is now fighting for its very existence. In the wake of his battle in the bourgeois courts, Tommy Sheridan, the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) and the Socialist Workers’ Platform have all called for a split and are attempting to form a new party.

The RCN has argued that by taking his libel case to the courts, Tommy Sheridan has not only been doing battle with the News of the World but has also used the same court room to conduct another battle – against the SSP. He has in fact been carrying out an anti party agenda.

Fiction

Tommy’s initiation of legal action against News of the World, against the unanimous advice of the party’s executive led to the dragging of eleven SSP Executive members (including 3 MSPs) and office bearers to court against their will. They were not prepared to perjure themselves under oath; to say that the party’s official minute was a lie; and that they were part of an anti-Tommy conspiracy. This is what Tommy demanded in order to maintain the fiction of his chosen public image.

Sheridan’s actions since winning the case have confirmed this: He sold his story to the Daily Record, a New Labour tabloid, attacking those comrades who had advised him not to take the case and then were compelled to attend court as scabs. He then announced his intention to take back my {his} party at the next conference by challenging Colin Fox (who he previously supported) for the party convenorship. He said the SSP required a man of steel to see it through the difficult times.

Sheridan has now made a call to split the SSP supported by the CWI & Socialist Worker platforms. We can only assume that he has added up the numbers and is not convinced he can win a conference majority for his return.

Solidarity: an inauspicious beginning

The basis for the proposed new party is not very auspicious. The essential founding principle of the new organisation appears to be unquestioned support for Tommy and Gail as President and (unelected) First Lady. The two other main sponsors, the CWI and SWP can not bear to be in the same organisation in England, Wales or Ireland. In England and Wales they each promote their own front organisations, Respect and the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party. Similarly in Ireland, the CWI’s Socialist party stands separately from the Socialist Workers party. In the ‘Six Counties’, the CWI promotes single issue candidates and trade union officials in elections to the Assembly, whilst the SWP promote the populist Socialist and Environmental Alliance.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, Tommy Sheridan, a prominent sponsor of the nationalist ‘Independence First’ campaign, and supporter of mandatory sentencing for knife crime, is allied with these two Left unionist organisations, which also strongly disagree with each other over trade union work and the current anti-war movement. Further splits would appear to be likely.

The RCN opposes the cult of the individual which has led in part to this situation. No one individual is above party democracy. Tommy’s ego has led him to ignore the sound advice of his comrades not to take this case to court. Since the case, he has indulged his celebrity through exposure in the media, even posing in white dressing gowns with his wife and child!

Defend the SSP, defend socialist unity

The RCN has worked as an open platform, firmly committed to the SSP. We promote socialist republicanism and internationalism from below. We continue to defend the gains represented by the SSP.

The split in the SSP is a major setback for the socialist and working class movement particularly in Scotland but also by extension, in England, Wales, Ireland and internationally.

The RCN will continue to fight for socialist unity by taking account of the mistakes that have been made.

Democracy, transparency and accountability are essential in a socialist organisation. We argued that the executive minute should have been made available to the party immediately. It could then have been challenged/corrected/amended or agreed as a correct record. It is worth remembering, that Tommy also asked for the minute to be kept secret.

Socialists should not use the bourgeois courts in this manner – If Tommy had been injured as the result of an article in the gutter press, the political response would have been to mount a mass campaign against the News of the World, involving trade unionists and the working class.

We are for the unity of the SSP, against splits, witch-hunts and expulsions. Disputes between members or groups must be sorted out via party structures – not via the media or courts. The interests of the working class and the fight against imperialism are much more important than a court case about someone’s sex life.

The gains made by the SSP in Scotland have been considerable. As well as six MSPs, we have the respect and support of hundreds of thousands of working class people across the country. If we throw away the hard-won, principled unity of the SSP, we are failing our class. We call upon those determined to split to think again!

27th August 2006

I bring comradely greeting to this meeting from the Socialist Alliance.

The executive of the Socialist Alliance will be meeting shortly to discuss our attitude to the split in the SSP. We have been debating the issue on our discussion list. Whilst we don’t yet have an agreed position, most if not all comrades oppose the split. I am sure the vast majority will continue to support the SSP. As a member of the Executive of the SA, this is a personal contribution which reflects what I intend to argue at the SA Executive.

At the last SSP conference, Nick Rogers and I attended as a delegation from the Socialist Alliance. We had discussions with Frances Curran, and spoke informally to Alan McCombes, Tommy Sheridan and Colin Fox. Our aim was to register our support for the SSP and seek support from the SSP for our effort to rebuild the SA in England and Wales.

We are back again unfortunately this time because the SSP has split. Since there are no strategic or programmatic differences, there is no political basis for two parties. We are opposed to splits, expulsions and witch-hunts.

Of course the main base of support for the SSP is the Scottish working class. How will Scottish workers view the split? They will surely expect an honest accounting of the mistakes that have been made. I don’t mean by that simply to blame the other side. In England comrades have said it was a black mark against the party for trying to hide those minutes from the working class and then the humiliation of having them dragged out by the bourgeois courts. What other mistakes have been made? An honest and self critical debate can only help the party.

Outside Scotland the main ally of the SSP is the working class in England. It is worth saying why the politically active part of the working class in England supports the SSP. First let us set aside a couple of red herrings

• Don’t make the mistake of equating the English working class with the opportunist manoeuvrings of the SWP and the SP/CWI.
• Don’t mix up the English working class with ‘London based’ organisations. Only seven million live in London. The rest live in Birmingham, Coventry, Liverpool and Manchester, Newcastle etc.

So why do the advanced workers in England respect the SSP?

• Because the SSP has been the most effective party opposing Blair and New Labour.
• Because the SSP has been a socialist unity party – the need to unite all socialists into one party is the order of the day. The SSP did it.
• Because the SSP practised a more open democracy with platforms and publications

Because of the split in the SSP these virtues, admired in England, may come under threat. The SSP must continue to make the fight against Blair the main priority. It must continue to fight for socialist unity. It must keep up the battle for more openness and greater democracy. Otherwise the SSP will be lost.

At the last SSP conference we saw evidence of a debate over strategy in relation to the national question. One side put emphasis on Scottish independence and an alliance with the SNP whilst the other side put more emphasis on a Scottish republic and internationalism from below.

If there are such differences in the SSP, it is not surprising to find workers in England are somewhat more confused about the national question. Of course this is mainly because they have been miseducated by the Labour Party, the SWP and the SP.

If the national question is about democracy, the sovereignty of the people, republicanism and working class internationalism then not only will the English working class support that but will want some of it for themselves.

If the national question is about Scottish capitalists grabbing a bigger share of the cake in a dirty fight with the Anglo-British capitalists, and with the Scottish workers being lined up patriotically behind their own capitalists the SSP will get the thumbs down.

That is what the working class in England want the SSP to explain. In the long run when all the dust of the split has settled, this will be what is really decided.

Winners and losers?

What are the best and worst we can hope for? One story from this split is that the SSP lost Tommy Sheridan but gained the support of the working class in England and Wales. The other story is that the SSP lost Tommy Sheridan, and then lost the support of the working class in England in exchange for a pat on the back from Alex Salmond.

The fight for the SSP must be extended into England. In my view the SA should conduct that struggle with the backing of the SSP. I hope that between now and the next SSP conference we can work out how best to do that.

You can contact the Socialist Alliance, PO Box 4123, Rugby, CV21 9BJ
Published by Steve Freeman
2 September 2006.

As Tommy Sheridan emerged from the Court of Session in Edinburgh on August 4, he compared his victory over the gutter press, right wing, union bashing News of the World to Gretna beating Real Madrid.

Remarkable though the victory was (in strictly legal terms) if I were to use a football analogy, it would instead be to compare the current situation for socialism in Scotland with the Munich air crash, when another team in red, the brightest hope of its generation (albeit in football, not politics) perished in the ice and fire of a dark German runway.

Compare the two protagonists in the court case, which one do you think is in most turmoil, the cause of socialist unity in Scotland or Rupert Murdoch’s News International? Rupert must be laughing his head off, he’s destroyed the most united far left party in Scotland for generations, and the cost to him has been what would pass as loose change from his grossly overstuffed pockets.

Theatre of the Absurd

Even by the exacting standards of the Theatre of the Absurd, socialism in Scotland has proved that when it comes to grand farce no one does it better. The only thing missing so far has been the ghost of Brian Rix running into a meeting somewhere and dropping his trousers.

And the play is not over, only the first act. But, so far, it has had audiences spellbound and Sold Out notices there have been aplenty. Depending on whose truth you believe:

• Socialist ‘Sold Out’ fellow socialist.
• Tommy ‘Sold Out’ to the Daily Record.
• And the News of the World and the Sun? Well, they just sold out at the newsagents.

Round about the time of the trial the Sun overtook the Daily Record as the best-selling daily paper in Scotland, quite probably on the back of its reporting of the trial. Bear that in mind if anyone ever tries to tell you that socialists don’t do irony.

A change of tune

Following the trial, Tommy and his supporters swore to win back the SSP, but again depending on whose truth you believe, the tune has changed and Tommy is off to set up another party, Solidarity.

So, now we are to have two socialist parties in Scotland. As a long-time admirer of satire and aficionado of the absurd (there’s that word again) I really don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Consider this scenario.

Some time in the not-too-distant future the firefighters/nursery nurses/civil servants/whoever are on strike. On the cold, wet midwinter picket lines (why don’t they ever strike in the summer?) they are approached in the early morning gloom by two individuals, who each introduce themselves to the shivering pickets thus.

I come as a representative of the SSP/Solidarity (delete as applicable), urging you to stand together. I warn you that the bosses will try to divide you. But, remember this, the workers, united, will never be defeated.

Shop Steward:

Hmm, didn’t you lot used to all be in the same party?

SSP/Solidarity member (together):

Yeah, we did, but we split.

Shop Steward:

Well, in that case, clear off and don’t come around here preaching unity and solidarity. Go and get your own house in order!’

Surreal? Bizarre? Ludicrous?

(Again, delete as applicable, but if you want to use all three, do feel free.)

But, anyway, back from the future to the time of the trial.

What were we doing while Lebanon burned?

At this time, when Lebanon and Gaza were in flames and pundits pronounced the ‘start of world war three’; at this time, while the attack on pensions was still bubbling away in the background, with the prospect of future generations having to work longer for having the sheer audacity to live longer; at this time, as the country we lived in became a place where going to the wrong place of worship or having the wrong colour of skin, or wearing the wrong clothes could get you harassed, attacked in the street, or even killed; at this time, what was the priority of many socialists in Scotland?

Look outward

On both sides of the divide they were busy indulging in an orgy of effigy burning, mud slinging, name calling and generally behaving in a most decidedly uncomradely fashion towards each other. If ever there was a time when unity on the left and looking outward was needed, this was it.

Someone should have phoned Nero to see if he was finished with the fiddle. Though what to play on it might have proved a trifle problematic.

While The Internationale may indeed unite the human race, finding a song to unite the warring socialists of Scotland was proving a tad more difficult as the SSP descended into civil war. However, that for those who were not involved with either of the factions It’s My Party (And I’ll Cry If I Want To) was probably as good as you could have hoped to find. But, with the split, farce darkens into tragedy.

Autumn is now with us and a familiar noise fills the skies. Looking up we see skeins of geese flying in familiar V formation, heading for their winter feeding grounds.

They never fly in a perfect V, there’s a certain raggedness about it, one leg of the V is usually longer than the other, and there’s sometimes a straggler or two slightly detached from the rest.

Which is actually a pretty good description of what the SSP was like before the split, with all its platforms, factions, networks, individuals flying in some kind of formation.

It never was a perfect V, but it had direction, a kind of unity and a destination.

But now the skein that was the SSP has hit some turbulence, and where before there was one skein, now there are two, still heading in the same direction, still with a final destination, and, by the sound of it, making the same noises, but with unity shattered.

Which side are you on?

In my years in the SSP I took a conscious decision to remain independent of all platforms, factions, networks, etc. Now that the split has finally happened I’m reminded of a few lines from the old Bob Dylan song, Desolation Row.

Praise be to Nero’s Neptune,
The Titanic sails at dawn,
Everybody is shouting,
Which side are you on?

Which side, indeed! And there’s the tragedy, for, surely, when you cut away all the debates, all the arguments and all the differences, aye, even all the bitterness, what you should find at the heart of anyone who wishes to call themselves a socialist is a dream — the dream of a better world, a world where the socialist ideals of harmony, justice, peace and fairness for all have replaced the system of exploitation, enslavement, division and waste which we call capitalism. This dream remains a fundamental truth which links all socialists, wherever they may be, whoever they may be.

A few paragraphs back, I quoted from Bob Dylan, and now I’m going to end with another quote.

We cannot think of uniting with others until we have first learned to unite amongst ourselves. We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.

—Malcolm X.

I remain comradely yours, till the end, In the sure and certain knowledge of the revolution,

Rae Bridges

Learn the lessons and defend the SSP

The last two years have been a turbulent and destructive time for the SSP. Starting with the Emergency Executive meeting in November 2004, which led to Tommy Sheridan’s resignation as convenor, through to the ordeal of the libel court case he brought in the full glare of the media, concluding with the split and the launch of Solidarity.

Most members, including many who have joined Solidarity, will have gone through emotional turmoil and will have kept asking the question – when will this all end so we can get back to fighting imperialism and rallying the working class to the cause of socialism?

As the dust settles over the chaos of the court battle and the impact of the split becomes clearer, it is time to attempt to make some assessment and ask some searching questions about where the SSP stands now, what its immediate tasks are and what are the lessons to be learnt?

In this edition of Emancipation & Liberation we attempt to bring together the central events and their political significance, supported by some of the key documents and articles produced to explain them.

It will be quite clear to the reader that we have not only reproduced those that support our position to stay in the SSP. We need to understand why others have walked away from the SSP. A drawing up of a balance sheet is vital, for socialists to learn the lessons of these regrettable events. The SSP conference in October will be significant in dealing with these and moving on.

Why did the RCN decide to stay with the SSP and not join Solidarity?

We are clear. The decision of Tommy Sheridan to pursue his court case against the unanimous advice of the SSP Executive Committee represented a rejection of inner party democracy and the accountability of party officials to the membership – an anti-party action, which has had dire consequences for the SSP. It was a gross political mistake.

The subsequent decision to form a new organisation, Solidarity, on little other political basis than personal support for Tommy Sheridan, represents a continuation of this anti-party action and heralds one of the most serious mistakes made by socialists in post war Scottish politics. It places personality and individual egos before principled politics. It weakens the working class in the face of the current ruling class offensive.

Sectarian agendas

The decision of the SWP and CWI to back this split, further demonstrates their own sectarian agendas. These organisations’ lack of commitment to principled socialist unity has already been clearly shown by their separate ‘unity’ initiatives in England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland (Six Counties); whilst in Ireland (26 Counties) the SWP and CWI just promote their own organisations.

From the birth of the Scottish Socialist Alliance through to its transformation into the SSP and beyond, the RCN and its members have been partisan and dependable SSP activists. The political and organisational development of the SSPhas been at the core of our work. We continue to recognise that a united socialist party is essential if there is going to be any chance of socialism being established. In that sense unity is strength. To this end, the RCN has put the building of the SSP above the recruitment to our own platform. Unlike the SWP/CWI we have never seen ourselves as an alternative ‘leadership in waiting’ focussed on toppling the incumbents but rather concerned ourselves with promoting the major lessons of the international class struggle. First and foremost amongst these is the necessity of promoting and defending a comradely and democratic culture within a united socialist party, the SSP. A key strategy of the SSP was to unite the Left

However, while doing this we have also been fierce and vocal critics of some of the directions and policies that the SSP has pursued. We have not been afraid to voice our opposition to proposals that we feel would have a negative effect on the socialist movement in Scotland.

Socialist morality not bourgeois morality

One of the key lessons that must be learnt is that a socialist party must have a socialist morality at its core, informing its politics and practice. This should not be confused with bourgeois morality. This socialist morality has to be built on honesty, transparency, democracy, accountability and an absence of the hypocritical double standards displayed by bourgeois politicians. To establish genuine and lasting roots within the working class and to be worthy of the name Socialist, a socialist party must be honest with our class. Honesty has to extend from policies to organisational matters, such as membership figures and the numbers who attend demonstrations or meetings that we organise. The SWP is notorious amongst the left and the organised workers’ movement for deliberately inflating attendances at its events.

Do they not trust their readers and members with reality? How can the working class movement, and socialists within it, be expected to make informed decisions on deliberately distorted information? If you are fast and loose with the truth, why should workers trust you? To paraphrase Trotsky, one small cut can lead to gangrene!

Democracy, transparency and accountability must go hand in hand. These combine to act as a guard to ensure that the party leadership is in touch with the membership, reflecting and representing its collective view and acting as a check on the rise of the cult of a particular personality or leader.

For open and principled platforms

From its founding the SSP has, almost uniquely, allowed open platforms/factions to exist in our party. This is a healthy tradition that must continue. Some blame our current predicament on this tolerance of platforms. While the behaviour of some platform members has been unacceptable, this is also true for some SSP members who are not in platforms.

Furthermore, Tommy was himself a member of the International Socialist Movement, the dominant platform in the SSP, along with Alan McCombes and Keith Baldassara. A strong argument could be made that it was the weakening and decline of the ISM platform which removed much of the discipline that had reined in Tommy’s destructive ego, and permitted Tommy’s strengths as a communicator to be used for the benefit of the SSP. Principled and open platforms can be one way to increase accountability. The alternative can be the formation of an undeclared ‘leadership faction’, which tries to avoid accountability and hides the truth from the members.

The socialist transformation of society requires the widening and deepening of democracy within society including the democratic control over all the resources of society. This commitment to democracy must be reflected within any socialist organisation otherwise it is just another political cul-de-sac which working class activists and their allies should rightly shun.

Shared values and concerns

The RCN welcomes the formation of the new SSP-UL platform. The SSP United Left Statement (June 11th, 2006) makes a number of important points with which we are in agreement. The SSP, since its inception, has been a beacon of hope to the workers’ movement in Scotland and internationally. We also very much agree that uniting the left into a working, fighting political party has been a major achievement of the SSP.

The RCN also shares the SSP United Left’s concerns that the party’s community activism, socialist education and internal unity have failed to match our electoral success and that representatives may not be sufficiently accountable and note that in recent month, internal debate has been conducted via the mainstream media rather than through the democratic structures of the party.

The SSP United Left’s specific proposals on Building the SSP, Accountability and Participation, Self-organisation and Education share much of our own thinking on these matters. We particularly value the methods of working outlined in Our Network, and would want to work together to ensure these are entrenched in the practice of the whole SSP. This need is particularly evident after the marked departure from such methods displayed at the May 28th 2006 Emergency National Council meeting.

Why platforms are important

Some SSP members have attacked the declaration of the SSP United Left platform. We think that, even where SSP members oppose (some of) its principles, they should support the right to form particular platforms. Of course, it is incumbent on all platforms to conduct themselves in a principled, democratic and comradely manner towards others who do not necessarily share all their views. There clearly are political reasons for the formation of the SSP United Left. However, this decision was not taken lightly, partly due to many of the new platform members being former members of the former ISM platform, which had ceased to be viable due to growing political differences amongst its members.

It is quite clear that the unanimous agreement, originally shared by all members attending the SSP Emergency EC of November 9th 2004, over the handling of Tommy Sheridan’s standing down as SSP Convenor, has long broken down. When the EC maintained a bureaucratic united front against the membership, at the November 27th 2004, NC, the RCN opposed this. It would have been far better for both sides, in this particular dispute, to have brought their grievances to that NC meeting, so they could have been resolved then. Instead these differences have been allowed to fester. As a result some relatively small political differences have become considerably greater, whilst growing personal animosities have not been fully disentangled from political differences.

When Tommy Sheridan launched his Open Letter at the May 28th 2006 National Council meeting, it could be construed as a platform declaration, around which Tommy has asked SSP members to rally. The SW Platform, and quite a number of other SSP members, have answered his call. Therefore, like it or not, the major division in the party at present is over the issue of Tommy’s resignation. The formation of the SSP United Left, like Tommy’s Open Letter, represents a particular political response to this situation. The formation of particular platforms is the correct response to major differences in politically mature organisations.

Current SSP leadership weaknesses over our party’s relationship to the state and media

The RCN also believes that the current crisis has highlighted a particular political weakness, shared by all sections our current leadership. We believe that the EC was correct on November 9th to advise Tommy not to resort to the state’s courts to seek redress from the scabby News of the World. The RCN is opposed, in principle, to any resort to the state’s courts, when attempting to seek redress and judgement over our internal party matters (and those of other working class organisations), including the conduct of any office bearer.

We should only seek the opinion and judgement of the working class. Alternative working class methods of seeking justice include:- the use of our own press and website, open letters to the offending media, followed by direct appeals to the trade union members working in these bodies and, if necessary, boycott actions. The state’s courts are not our natural arena. We should never initiate actions which seek the state’s judgement over the conduct of our own affairs. We might, of course, be forced to attend courts to defend ourselves, as best we can, against the attacks of others. However, we do not do this in the belief that they will deliver real justice. Furthermore, resort to the bourgeois courts for justice is a rich man’s game.

Therefore, the compromise public agreement, whereby the November 9th Emergency EC did not give its backing to Tommy’s misguided course of action, but supported Tommy’s individual right to pursue court action, caused problems for the party. The state eagerly seized the opportunity provided by Tommy’s court case to intervene in the internal affairs of our party. We have now witnessed the jailing of Alan McCombes, raids on our premises and members’ houses, a major surveillance operation upon our party, followed by punitive fines. Minutes, or no minutes, the state has been given an opening to find legal excuses to attack our party. Tommy’s case could never have been confined to a personal issue. As far as the News of the World is concerned, Tommy’s celebrity status is linked to his political position. Therefore, we welcome those who recently advised Tommy to reconsider and withdraw from his court action, when the damage it was inflicting upon our party became strikingly evident.

Just as our party has to learn lessons over its relationship with the institutions of the state, the RCN is also concerned that lessons are learned about the off-the-record leaks to the press (including the alleged affidavit given to The Herald) made by various parties in the current dispute.

The SSP currently has no principles set down for dealing with the courts or the press, when dealing with internal matters. Given this weakness, the RCN favours the drawing up of a set of party principles, which would form the basis of our representatives’ and members’ future conduct over these matters.

The way forward

Our Annual Conference needs to be brought forward, the position regarding Minutes needs to be clarified, and a wider discussion opened up about the new political situation.

The SSP United Left has taken no position on the issue of dealing with the state’s courts and the bourgeois media. The RCN do not think that this debate can, or should be, avoided. We support the idea of moving the SSP’s Annual Conference forward to this Autumn. Furthermore, there are no longer any excuses for not providing SSP members with the Minutes of the November 9th, 14th and 24th ECs, now that they are in the hands of both the state and the News of the World. We need to stop both those who wish to rewrite history (something with a very bad record on the Left!) and those who have speculated on the content of these minutes with malicious intent.

A Conference, however, which concentrated purely on internal affairs, would represent too obvious a target for the media; and would possibly also discourage many SSP members. The wider political context has also changed considerably since our Conference earlier this year. There is growing evidence that our 2007 electoral campaign for the Scottish Parliament and Local Councils, will take place in a situation where New Labour face the prospect of losing their dominant position. Our Conference needs to address this situation.

Addressing the issue of Women’s Oppression

We also recognise the leading role many SSP United Left members have taken in advancing the party’s understanding of women’s oppression. Gender Equality forms a significant part of the Statement. Much emphasis is placed upon the hard-won, ground-breaking 50:50 policy. However, the current political divisions in the SSP, over the handling of Tommy’s court case, do not reflect the original political divisions in the SSP over the 50:50 decision – the SW Platform then being prominently in favour.

Despite reservations, we accept that the 50:50 rule is now in place. But we also recognise that much more needs to be done to ensure that women play a full and active role in the party at all levels. Furthermore, we would wish to deepen our own understanding of women’s oppression, feminism and the different political approaches and experiences over this matter. The RCN invites SSP United Left members to give a lead at one of our meetings. We would also welcome an invitation to any SSP United Left or wider party educational on this matter.

The RCN will continue its longstanding policy of working with any platform, or individual SSP member/s, where we can find common agreement. We also accept majority decisions taken by our party (compatible with the wider interests of the working class in Scotland and internationally). We hope for a fruitful working relationship with the SSP United Left.

Republican Communist Network
20 June 2006

Women’s vital role in the struggle

From an early age, I considered myself a socialist, and spoke out about inequality, class and poverty. For as long as I can remember, I’ve also been assertive about gender issues. I soon learned that for some people on the left, there could be tensions between these two areas.

Seeing the industrial action in which my father was involved during the early 1970s, I became aware that it was usually women who had to deal with the practical repercussions of strikes. They were the ones who had to send the weans out to wait in the bread queues and make sure there was food on the table. There was almost a privileged role for the men in conducting the struggle. But while the women enabled it to happen by keeping the family going, their vital role never seemed to be properly valued, though it’s now recognised that if it hadn’t been for the magnificent work done by women in the miners’ strike, the men wouldn’t have been able to stay out as long as they did.
…
There are lots of progressive, right-on, feminist-thinking men within the SSP. But a few members still seem to resent the progressive gains we’ve made as women, particularly over the 50:50 issue. I was surprised by Tommy Sheridan’s recent comment that we are a class-based socialist party, not a gender-obsessed discussion group, because I understood he supported 50:50 at the time the policy was agreed, although he wasn’t an active participant in the debate.

You hear a lot of patriarchal, macho language within the Scottish Parliament. That kind of chest-beating appeals to some people. But to me, and other women within the SSP, the important question is: how are we going to change society – by having competing strong leaders, or by empowering every single member of society so they can change it on an equal basis? …

Carolyn Leckie

It would be unfortunate if comments about gender obsessed discussion groups were seen as representative of the SSP’s views on women’s issues, because that would be inaccurate. Our party has progressive policies on gender.

We have talented, committed women who are upfront and arguing on that terrain, at the same time as they are fighting on the picket lines and in their communities against hospital closures, school closures and privatisation. I don’t accept that you can’t do all of that while also tackling gender inequality, racism and other oppressions. …

White knuckle ride

How can you liberate the working class without liberating the half – or more than half – who are female? Compared with the left in general, the SSP has been phenomenally successful in advancing women’s issues. With progress, however, there is always a competing tension. Right now, the party is under tremendous strain, and those tensions are in unusually stark relief. The next few weeks and months are going to be a white-knuckle ride. But I am confident that we’ll come out the other end intact. …

So we will survive, because there is a demand for a party such as ours. Because all the problems we are trying to tackle within society, are not going to go away. They may be about to get worse.

This is not a time to rage, but a time to reason. Not to fight within ourselves, but to unite behind the fight for a better world. A time to keep our heads, and hold fast to our principles.

We are a substantial group of Scottish Socialist Party activists from across Scotland and across the party, who have a number of concerns with the current direction of our party.

The SSP, since its inception, has been a beacon of hope to the workers movement in Scotland and internationally. In establishing the SSP, we achieved the impossible – uniting the left into a working, fighting political party with a radical agenda and strong, innovative ideas for campaigning and recruiting.

Working together in this unprecedented way, we made real gains, not just electorally, but at a grass roots level. We can, if we unite as a strong socialist party, create a generational change in society, putting socialist ideas back on the mainstream agenda, and engendering further, deep-rooted change. This is no small matter, given the domination of free market ideology and the pessimism and disillusionment this has bred in two, even three generations. We must always remember that the enemy is without, not within.

But we are deeply concerned that the party’s community activism, socialist education and internal unity have failed to match our electoral success. We are concerned that individuals, branches and even regions are susceptible to external interpretations of the SSP’s internal politics, created via the media. We want our elected representatives to be wholly accountable to the party, putting the collective interests of the party before individual concerns. We are concerned by a growing culture of indifference, even hostility, to our commitment to gender equality. Finally, we are committed to a united and non-sectarian Left, and in favour of a transitional approach to socialism, where no struggle, whether based in a community, workplace, or around a gender or race issue, can be ignored. We actively support and participate in all such work.

It is with all this in mind that we feel now is the time to launch an open, democratic, pro-SSP network, open to SSP members and informed by the following points:

Building the SSP

Our network is for activists whose aim is to support, promote and build the SSP as a broad, outward looking socialist party, working within communities and workplaces, trades unions and colleges, in the streets and on the march, as the party that fights for peace, justice and socialism.

We seek the transformation of society through workers’ democratic control of the means of production. We understand that the dismantling of the UK state, and the creation of a Scottish, socialist republic, is an essential part of this process.

Accountability and Participation

Our network aims to build a grass roots leadership of the SSP. We believe in participative democracy, where activity and engagement are encouraged and supported, and where democratic decisions are made by active participants.

Instrumental to this is the SSP’s constitution, which we recognise and whose sovereignty we defend. We will campaign within the SSP for full accountability of all elected representatives and bodies, including the commitment to take the average wage of a skilled worker.

Gender Equality

Our network is committed to the principles of equal representation and gender equality at all levels of the party and remain dedicated to the hard-won, ground-breaking policy of 50:50, which facilitates the participation in socialist politics of women who might otherwise, through poverty and shouldering the burden of family care, notably working-class and ethnic minority women, be excluded.

Self-organisation

Our network values and encourages self-organisation amongst oppressed and marginalised groups, and recognises and celebrates these groups’ contribution to the political development of our movement. Self-organisation is essential to raising the consciousness and confidence of those whose voices may not otherwise be heard.

Education

Our network will promote socialist education within the network itself and in the SSP, using progressive and inclusive educational techniques, to encourage critical thought and thinkers throughout the party.

Our Network

Our network is built on the principles of openness, inclusiveness, equality and respect, where all contributions are valued and comradely debate is welcomed. We are a grass roots, bottom-up organisation and as such, promote participatory meeting techniques, where all members are encouragedto speak up and have their say, without fear of being ridiculed, intimidated or shouted down.

We, the undersigned, invite comrades who share our principles and ethos to join us and raise an SSP standard for all socialists to rally round.

11th June 2006

The split in the Scottish Socialist Party is a tragedy. The Workers’ Unity platform has made strong criticisms of important aspects of the SSP policy and strategy. We were specifically formed to oppose the SSP’s turn to nationalism. And to oppose its determination to split the forces of socialism north and south of the border by building as a matter of principle a separate socialist party in Scotland.

However, by uniting the majority of organised socialists in Scotland and by establishing significant support in working class communities, the SSP demonstrated that a socialist unity project was feasible.

The collapse of that project can only lead to the disillusion of many activists and supporters. We must all maximise our efforts to ensure that the setback is as short-lived as possible.

Unfortunately, neither of the current organisations that have emerged from the crisis that followed Tommy Sheridan’s victory in his libel action is acting in a principled manner.

No to personality-cult politics

Solidarity, the organisation to be launched by Tommy Sheridan, the Socialist Workers’ Party and the Committee for a Workers’ International, is founded on the principle that the executive committee of the SSP had no right to hold its convenor to account. And on the preposterous lie that the majority of the EC and the SSP’s parliamentary group have engaged in a conspiracy to concoct evidence about Tommy Sheridan’s private life.

Already Solidarity is demonstrating that it will exploit the celebrity of Tommy Sheridan and others to the full. What price internal democracy and accountability in the new organisation? What price socialist principles?

Workers’ Unity believes that the SSP’s executive behaved correctly in refusing to support Tommy Sheridan’s ill-conceived libel action and in insisting that he resign as convenor when he rejected the options they laid before him.

However, it was a calamitous mistake to try and hide from the working class why the SSP’s leader had been sacked. It was an even bigger mistake – one that exposes flaws at the heart of the SSP project -to allow a new socialist force to become so dependent on one charismatic figure. Yet there are few signs that the leadership of what remains of the SSP is prepared to learn lessons about the party’s internal culture that could provide the basis of a revitalised socialist party.

No to nationalism

Instead, in a desperate bid to mark out a distinctive political space, the leadership of the SSP is resorting to petty-nationalist abuse. Even while the SWP and CWI continue to give credence to the illusion of an independent socialist Scotland, the attacks become shriller. By asserting that a socialist initiative involving London-based organisations is in some sense unacceptable, the leadership rejects the inclusive basis on which their own organisation was built.

It is true that the SWP and CWI have been outrageously opportunist in manipulating the SSP’s crisis. This reflects the sectarian nature of much of the left, rather than the national basis on which it is organised. If the leadership of the SSP has abandoned the objective of socialist unity, they will themselves be condemned to building a sect – and one that is more nationalist than socialist.

Workers’ Unity supports Scotland’s right to self-determination, campaigning against independence, but supporting the right of the Scottish people to choose it. But we have always argued that an effective socialist challenge to the British state was only possible by organising in an all-British socialist party. What the SSP’s crisis demonstrates is that neither can there be a resolution of the wider crisis of the British left exclusively in Scotland.

There are no short cuts to building the socialist organisation required by the working class. We can only begin with an honest evaluation of past mistakes.

This document was produced by the SSP National Secretary in the run up to the National Council meeting on 28th May 2006. He details, in chronological order, the meetings and decisions taken by SSP bodies in November 2004 and corrects some of the distortions that had become common currency over the intervening months.

Introduction

It is 18 months since the Executive Committee meetings and the National Council meeting in November, 2004. The minutes have been kept confidential since then. Can I take this opportunity to remind members of the situation at the time, based on the formal minutes, the hand written notes and my memory. Unlike anyone else, until very recently, I have had the advantage of frequent access to the minutes and notes over the past 18 months to remind me of the twists and turns of these frequent meetings that quickly came one on top of the other.

We should remember that the media were aware of the EC meeting on 9th November 2004 within hours of Tommy’s Sheridan’s resignation as convener being reported in the Record on Thursday 11th November. The fact that the EC met on 9th November was covered in almost all Scottish newspapers by the weekend, along with false and damaging speculation about infighting and power struggles being the ‘real reason’ for Tommy’s resignation as convener.

The EC meeting of 9th November 2004 quickly became the most publicly known EC meeting in the party’s short history and generated by far the most speculation, much of which is inaccurate.

EC Meetings, November 2004 – the status of the meetings and documents

As National Secretary, in conjunction with the two co-chairpersons at the time, I called the 3 EC meetings. I was responsible for the safe-keeping of all the minutes and hand-written notes taken of these meeting.

The Executive met on 9th November, 14th November and 24th November 2004. Each time the meetings were clearly called as Executive meetings. At no time did anyone at these meetings argue that they were not EC meetings. The Executive Committee meetings were reported to the National Council on 27th November as EC meetings and again no one objected to them being described as Executive Committee meetings.

At the Executive meeting on 24th November, all present were given a set of papers and asked to sign for them. The signature was under the heading Papers for Special EC – 24 Nov 04. Each set of these papers contained 2 sets of minutes that were headed SSP Executive Committee – Draft Minutes, Emergency Meeting -Tuesday 9th November 2004, Glasgow and SSP Executive Committee Meeting – Sunday 14th November 2004, Glasgow. This procedure (for numbering and returning papers) was proposed by myself at the start of the meeting, was agreed and was followed to ensure all minutes passed out were returned to me.

For the entire week in the build up to the meeting on the 24th, there had been considerable speculation in the media as to why Tommy resigned, including many false and damaging reports. The minutes, which do document why Tommy resigned as convener, were obviously important. I put to the meeting on the 24th a number of points about dealing with the minutes – past, present and future. There was no dissent to any of my proposals. My proposals came towards the end of the meeting.

It was recorded that the draft minutes of 9th November were challenged by one comrade during the meeting. It was pointed out that she was not at that meeting and the challenge was dropped.

There were no other challenges to the minutes and the minutes were agreed as part of my package of proposals later in the meeting. The EC minutes of 9th November (probably the most crucial ones) were subsequently amended to minutes (‘draft’ being removed). It is normal practice, as per the constitution, for all EC minutes to be circulated to the NC and the wider party. I proposed that all the November minutes were kept but, in the exceptional circumstances, with the future agreement of the forthcoming NC, should be kept confidential. The NC subsequently, as part of accepting my report, accepted that the minutes should be kept confidential -there was some debate on this at the NC (not everyone agreed).

I then proposed that the written notes of the meeting of the 24th and the forthcoming National Council should not be typed up into minute form and not be routinely presented to the next meeting(s) as is normal practice. I stated that I would keep these written notes with a proviso that they would be typed up if necessary and, if so, I would do this. I argued that this would help us get out of the cycle of confidential minutes.

So, in short, there are formal agreed minutes for the EC meetings of 9th and 14th November but, in order to get us out of the cycle of confidential minutes, only hand written notes of the EC meeting on 24th November (which agreed the minutes and their confidentiality) and the NC of 27th November (which agreed that they could be kept confidential).

Scottish Socialist Party: doing what it does best

Style and contents of the EC Minutes of 9th November 2004

The style of the minutes is the same as the standard practice for the minutes of EC meetings – the introductory contributions for each section are summarised and subsequent contributors are listed as having participated. The introductory contributions of Tommy and Alan McCombes were summarised and included in the minutes in order for there to be a record of the issue under consideration.

The minutes refer to what efforts were first taken, including suggestions of informal meetings that were not taken up, before having to call an Emergency EC. The minutes contain no intimate details of Tommy’s personal life nor any moral judgments decided, positive or negative, about Tommy’s personal behaviour. There were no moral judgments made regarding Tommy’s personal life.

The minutes were kept as a record of the reason why the Executive Committee unanimously asked Tommy Sheridan, National Convener, to resign from this post. A verbal explanation was/is to be given to party members.

Wed 10th November – Duncan Rowan spoke to News International

Duncan Rowan (at the time SSP North East regional organiser) went to the News International offices and spoke to the NoTW, including about the previous night’s EC. It is quite possible that Duncan was victim of an elaborate ‘sting’ (we understand that Duncan is now out of the country).

From this day on it was highly probably that the NoTW would, at some point, be seeking our minutes and other documents of the 9th November EC meeting in the court action that Tommy would take out later.

Wed 10th November – Record Newspaper learns of Tommy’s resignation as convener

By late afternoon/early evening, the Record were phoning Alan McCombes and Tommy Sheridan saying they had learned that Tommy was resigning as National Convener, that their source was reliable and that they would print the story.

Tommy and Alan consulted by phone. Without time for wider consultation they agreed that Tommy would say he was resigning as convener for personal reasons. Alan, on behalf of the party, would confirm that Tommy has resigned and leave Tommy to outline the personal reasons. As is known, Tommy told the Record that he had resigned to spend more time with his wife who was pregnant.

We do not know how the Record got this information. The Evening Times, Thursday 11 November, falsely and damagingly speculated that Colin Fox had leaked the information.

One possibility is that someone in the NoTW (where they had taped and photographed Duncan that day after he had walked around the corner from the party to the NoTW offices) passed the story to the Record – either a Record ‘plant’ in the NoTW (apparently the tabloids can work this way towards each other) or someone in the NoTW offices saw an opportunity to make a quick buck if they sold the story to a daily before the NoTW printed it on Sunday.

At the time we did not consider Duncan’s tape recorded outpourings to the NoTW as being a possibility as we did not yet know of the existence of these tapes (it would be Sunday before that would be revealed).

We could further speculate on this and other possibilities but, in truth, we just don’t know.

Thursday 11th November — Record front page — Tommy Sheridan resigns as convener

The Record story quoted Tommy saying he was stepping down to spend more time with his wife who was pregnant. This was feverishly followed up by media everywhere.

Press and other speculation on the ‘real reason’ for Tommy’s resignation as Convener

By Sunday 14th November there were a whole range of newspaper stories speculating on the ‘real reason’ that Tommy had resigned as convener. This speculation was at fever pitch for at least another week in the media and has sporadically reappeared, with greater or lesser intensity, from time to time over the past 18 months.

Much of this was downright nonsense but damaging nonsense. For example here is a reminder of just a few of the false and damaging reports from the time. There was a report that it was the personal ambition of Colin Fox to become leader of the SSP that was really behind manoeuvres leading to the EC asking for Tommy’s resignation. The Mirror had a front page story that there was a plot involving Carolyn Leckie and Alan McCombes. Some reports claimed there was a group of feminists who were out to get Tommy due to his lifestyle as a young man.

Other reports vaguely speculated that personal jealousy and/or a power struggle for the SSP leadership was the real motive for the EC asking for Tommy’s resignation as convener.

EC Meets on Sunday 14th November

The EC was set for the Saturday but, with Record already having broken the news of Tommy’s resignation as convener, the date was changed to the Sunday.

The NoTW had printed a story about an alleged affair involving Tommy. This was the first time that the EC heard about this allegation. A photo of Duncan Rowan beside extracts from the tape of him speaking to the NoTW was also published.

The EC were particularly anxious to counter the false impressions being created as to why Tommy resigned as these were clearly very damaging to the party.

The following press release was unanimously agreed at the EC:-

Statement from Scottish Socialist Party Executive Committee

14/11/04

The SSP Executive confirms its acceptance of the resignation of Tommy Sheridan MSP from the post of National Convenor.

Tommy remains a valued member of the most dynamic team of MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. The Executive completely dismisses the rumours that have circulated in the press that Tommy’s resignation was provoked by a leadership challenge, a factional power struggle or any other form of internal in-fighting.

The party remains united in its support for an independent socialist Scotland, its opposition to war and racism, and the other policies detailed in our previous election manifestos. We understand that recent allegations in a Murdoch newspaper may be the subject of a future libel action by Tommy Sheridan and consequently the Scottish Socialist Party does not wish to comment on matters concerning the allegation. The party will now look at a number of options on the question of the convenorship in full consultation with party branches and members around the country.

There will be a press conference of the party’s MSPs and key members of the Executive on Tuesday at the Parliament to outline our internal and external priorities.

This statement was agreed unanimously by the Executive of the SSP on Sunday 14 November at 6.30pm.

EC meeting 24th November

By the EC meeting on the 24th, there had been widespread further speculation in the media, including parts of the left press, on why Tommy Sheridan resigned as convener. False and damaging impressions of the reasons for Tommy Sheridan resignation as convener were now widely promoted. Infighting, power struggles, moral Puritanism were typical false reasons given as to why Tommy had resigned.

The Guardian, unbelievably, falsely stated that Tommy’s resignation as convener was really down to political differences – that the SSP leadership were against the troops out of Iraq campaign that Tommy Sheridan backed!

Some of the left press in England were even wrongly reporting that the SSP EC had forced Tommy to resign because we had made a moral judgment over his personal life. One written report even positively quoted the slander in the Guardian about the SSP being against the troops out of Iraq campaign.

This was the meeting that agreed the minutes of the 9th and 14th but agreed that they should be kept confidential.

The EC unanimously agreed to a number of proposals from Allan Green about the forthcoming National Council meeting.

• For a verbal report on the reasons for Tommy’s resignation as convener
• to report that there are minutes of the 9th November meeting but that they should remain confidential
• to put a motion to the NC in 2 parts – to accept Tommy’s resignation and to endorse the EC’s handling of the situation
• to ask for no other motions to be taken at this NC

The EC, including Tommy, agreed to work together to ensure that an accurate and unified approach would be taken in future.

Build up to the National Council meeting

There was much press speculation as to whether or not the NC would back the EC’s stance in relation to the resignation of Tommy as convener.

With differing public accounts of why Tommy Sheridan had resigned as convener appearing in the press, the party was under constant pressure to clarify what happened. Journalists asked if there were minutes and were told that there were minutes but that they were confidential.

This situation was commented on in a range of newspapers. For example, on Saturday 27 November 2004, the day before the National Council, the Herald ran an article titled SSP leaders to face the party without crucial meeting’s minute. The article stated that the minutes existed but that the EC were proposing to the NC that they remain confidential.

Already, 18 months ago, the EC minutes of 9 November 2004 had become the most publicised minutes that the party had ever produced.

National Council, 28th November 2004

I introduced the meeting, along the lines agreed by the EC. My report was endorsed by Tommy Sheridan.

There was a widespread debate before the following EC motion was voted on in 2 parts. It was pointed out that, in effect, the EC asking for an endorsement to continue with the strategy as explained verbally

Part One

National Council recognises the difficult decisions faced by the Executive Committee at the November 9th special Executive Committee meeting. This NC supports the unanimous decisions made at that meeting concerning the convenor’s position.

For – 85; Against – 20; Abstentions – nil

Part Two

The SSP National Council confirms its acceptance of the resignation of Tommy Sheridan MSP from the post of National Convenor.

Tommy remains a valued member of the most dynamic team of MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. The National Council completely dismisses the rumours that have circulated in the press that Tommy’s resignation was provoked by a leadership challenge, a factional power struggle or any other form of internal infighting.

The party remains united in its support for an independent socialist Scotland, its opposition to war and racism, and the other policies detailed in our previous election manifestos.

We understand that recent allegations in a Murdoch newspaper may be the subject of a future libel action by Tommy Sheridan and consequently the Scottish Socialist Party does not wish to comment on matters concerning the allegation.

The party will now look at a number of options on the question of the convenorship in full consultation with party branches and members around the country.

For – 93; Against – 10; Abstentions – 2

The following press statements were then issued

From the SSP Executive – a rework of the press statement of 14th November 2004 (see above) along with the resolutions agreed by the National Council.

From Tommy Sheridan

/ wholeheartedly support the SSP Executive Committee statement agreed at today’s meeting. The Scottish Socialist Party has today showed great maturity in reaching a unified position on the way forward. I would like to take this opportunity to confirm that my resignation as party convenor has nothing at all to do with internal power struggles. There is not and never has been any internal squabbles or back-biting about a leadership challenge. We are a party of principle and action.

We have drawn a line under these internal deliberations. I will now work alongside the other party MSPs and the wider party membership to campaign for justice, equality, peace and socialism.

Extracts from the resolutions and Tommy’s statement were reported in several newspapers and the TV.

Allan Green
National Secretary
24th May, 2006

Tommy Sheridan and his supporters distributed this letter to the media and delegates at the SSP‘s National Council meeting on 28th May 2006.

Comrades I write this letter with a very heavy heart. The Party I have invested so much time and energy to build from scratch has displayed serious signs of internal decay over the last 18 months. Alongside many other comrades we sought to build a class based socialist party, able to appeal to the broad masses of Scotland around the political principles of struggle, solidarity and socialism. Today there exists an unsavoury cabal of comrades at the core of the leadership, their hands on the apparatus, who are more interested in pursuing personal vendettas, through vile lies and slander, than conducting the class struggle.

Over the last two weeks I have resisted any public comment, despite the clear and consistent strategy of politically isolating me in the press, and attempting to implicate me as the culprit for the current News of the World and bourgeois court led attempts to destroy us. Yet who is responsible for the mess we are in?

Who decided that our party should examine and discuss the private lives of comrades at meetings? Who decided that any such confidential discussions should be recorded? Who decided to keep secret copies of such private and confidential discussions? Who decided to deliberately leak to the press and media that such a document existed? Who decided to appear in court and admit to the existence of such a secret document? The section of our EC who promoted and executed this strategy are clearly to blame for the political crisis we now find ourselves in. It has been a strategy alien to the socialist and trade union movement and more akin to the dark days of Stalinism. Apparently the secret document contains personal information about myself.

Imagine an employer held such a document about an employee. The employee would have the basic human right to see such a document, challenge the content of such a document and demand a copy of such a document. Up until two weeks ago I had never seen the document. I have still never read it and I am denied the right to challenge it or hold a copy. We have acted like a bad employer and breeched basic human rights and trade union principles.

Let me state clearly. There should never have been a meeting convened to discuss a member’s private life, which was then secretly recorded and documented without the knowledge of the individual, their cooperation or their right to challenge the accuracy of such a document being denied. It is simply an outrageous practice, outwith the spirit and principles on which we were founded. However, now that such a disputable document has been constructed, concealed from the individual concerned, constantly leaked to the media and admitted to in court, I believe it should be handed to the court to trigger the release of Alan McCombes. I believe that Alan and a core group of 7 or 8 other leading comrades have misled the party into their current quandary, but I salute his courage and determination to resist the undemocratic power of unelected judges to interfere in the internal affairs of democratic political parties. The problem is that we cooperated with the courts in the first place. It is none of their business whether we possess recordings of meetings or not.

They should have been properly defied in the first place and the party removed from a personal libel action against the most reactionary scab outfit in the world. Instead we have been dragged into that case because of the mis-leadership and the desperate attempts of the scum of the world to salvage a case which had all but disintegrated due to their downright lies. Now a comrade is in jail and our resistance to the disgraceful and undemocratic interference of unelected judges has been displayed. He must languish in jail no longer. The document in question should be handed to the court under protest, submitted to the court in a sealed envelope and debated over under protest or handed to the court via my legal team under protest. Further resistance at the expense of a comrade’s personal freedom is not acceptable.

Make no mistake, The Scum of the World’s attack on me and our party is an extension of the class struggle. They are our mortal enemy. They want to destroy me, the party, and more importantly, what we stand for. They are bullies of the gigantic type. They seek to destroy trade unions, socialist ideas, class solidarity and individuals through callous lies and distortion. I refuse to bend the knee to their assault on me. They have spread cruel lies knowingly and in a fashion calculated to discredit me as an individual and as a socialist. The four year affair they have accused me of is a complete fabrication. I expect such slander from these organs of the state because they are the scum of the planet. But what about the political witch-hunt conducted via vile personal lies promoted by leading SSP members?

Over the last 18 months I have been accused of heinous crimes in a coordinated fashion by a group of comrades so blinded by their personal hatred and spite towards me that they have failed to see the enormous damage to the party. In the Brel(?) Bar in Ashton Lane just over 12 months ago one of the three female MSP comrades who have consistently sought to undermine me and discredit me, accused me of being involved in woman trafficking. Eastern European women to be precise. Her devastating lies were witnessed by three individuals, one of whom is a journalist in a Sunday newspaper.

At a youth event last year, several members spread poison to the effect that I regularly used prostitutes. According to comrades picking up stories on the pub/club and party circuit I regularly go to lap-dancing bars. I am also apparently involved in drug dealing. All of these stories have been checked by me through several sources, not all friends or supporters of mine. My name, political credibility and status within our party has been consciously attacked. Talk of how to get rid of me, arrange my deselection and isolate him completely is commonplace and coordinated.

Alan McCombes is imprisoned for refusing to hand over EC minutes

Over the last 18 months I have sought to build unity in our party, internally and externally. Others have sought to destroy me and build their own empires. Those with their hands on communications within and outside the party have acted as an undeclared faction. Certain individuals are promoted while others are ignored or discredited. I am not the only one. Comrade Hugh Kerr was guilty of giving up six years of his time to build our party, 4 years as my unpaid press officer, his face didn’t fit. He was rounded on and removed. Comrade Rosemary Byrne thought her election in 2003 would herald a new dawn for socialist politics. She was not on message. She didn’t support the 50:50 campaign. She believes class politics and identity are more of a priority than gender politics. She was ignored, cold shouldered and isolated for months. She was forced to consider quitting. Now she’s fighting back!

Comrade Mick Daly, the West of Scotland organiser, was guilty of inexperience, and not being part of the Stanley St. grouping. He was isolated and undermined, his face didn’t fit. His resignation was sought after and keenly encouraged. I should have done more to defend all these comrades. I let them down. I myself was faced with a stark ultimatum 18 months ago. Accept and support the EC position that I should step down or be responsible for an internal civil war. I chose the unity option. I was wrong. Sections of the EC saw it as a sign of weakness and have sought to undermine me ever since. From the day a group of socialists were asked if they backed me in my court battle with the reactionary, rabid and anti-trade union Scum of the World, and publicly declined, to the recent public undermining of my case through issuing a public call for me to drop my case, this party has shamefully failed a basic socialist test. Whose side are you on when a socialist takes on the Murdoch empire? Sections of the EC are clearly batting for the wrong side. That is unforgivable in the eyes of large sections of our class and the left across the world.

Recently things have got even worse. Comrades, yes comrades have been phoning around Cardonald branch members to gather information about who attended the recent meetings, who spoke on the recent motion that was passed, who voted in the meeting? WHY? For who is such information being gathered? It is to assist the State in an action against the branch for daring to suggest that no records of private and confidential discussions should exist. Who told the Herald newspaper that Alice Sheridan was a member of the Cardonald branch. She has only recently moved to Cardonald in the last three months. She has only been well enough to attend meetings recently after 10 days in hospital with a blood clot. Most comrades would recall her as a Pollock branch member from recent conferences. So who stuck her in? Members of this party are effectively acting for the state. That is a disgrace.

Despite the motivations of those in the undeclared faction who want me out of the SSP and deselected as a Glasgow MSP, I refuse to leave. The SSP is my party. It’s internal regime should be warm, friendly and trusting. Not revolve around personal spite, secret documents and personal character assassinations.

Its outward appearance should be to the broad mass seeking solutions to the horrible insecurities, grotesque inequalities, grinding poverty and bloody wars of capitalism. We are a class based socialist party. Not a gender obsessed discussion group. Our socialist principles and class identity defines us first. Not our gender or sexual orientation. Engaging with the broad mass of Scotland around real issues of concern has to be our strategy. From council tax abolition to free school meals. Scrapping prescription charges to promoting public ownership. Anti-war and defending asylum seeker campaigns to solidarity with all workers in struggle and independence. This is the future strategy and orientation of the real SSP. Not the McCarthyite obsession with members’ private lives and circles of friends. Let’s build a united SSP, yes. But on solid foundations, not the bile and decay around those who promote personal dislikes before politics. The battle to reclaim the SSP to class politics begins today.

Tommy Sheridan
28th May 2006

SSP United-Left statement in response to Tommy Sheridan’s defamation case

Hollow victory

This summer has seen slaughter in the Middle East, Blair lurch from crisis to crisis, the world economy hover over the precipice as oil prices rocket and the ruling Labour administration in Scotland admit it may be in decline at the 2007 Scottish elections. Yet, against this backdrop, the Scottish Socialist Party has been incapacitated and distracted by a grotesque circus, watching in horror as our former convener and Glasgow MSP Tommy Sheridan pursued his bogus defamation action in the Court of Session in Edinburgh. His victory today in obtaining £200,000 damages from News International is a hollow one, because of the despicable things he did, in order to achieve this.

For five long weeks the party has been splashed over the front pages of the tabloid press – for all the wrong reasons. Even those initially empathetic to Tommy Sheridan’s fight with the Murdoch press will have been stunned by the events of this case. But this is not a sex scandal, no matter how the tabloid papers sell it. It is an absolute political scandal.

On 31st October 2004 the News of the World printed a story about an unnamed MSP who had an affair with Anvar Khan, a journalist and visited a sex club in Manchester with her and others. This story was based on a chapter of Ms Khan’s book Pretty Wild.

Members of the EC were aware that Tommy Sheridan had frequented this sex club in the past, Tommy Sheridan was confronted that he was the unnamed MSP. Comrades attempted to meet with Tommy Sheridan in the days after the News of the World article however he refused to meet with them. Some members of the EC met together informally to discuss what action should be taken as there were concerns that there may be follow up stories. There was disappointment at Tommy Sheridan’s reckless behaviour. The National Secretary, Allan Green, and the Co-Chairs – Carolyn Leckie and Catriona Grant – convened an EC meeting for the 9th November 2004. It was made clear to all EC members that this was an emergency EC to deal with a specific crisis in the SSP before attending. Tommy Sheridan attended this meeting and made a statement about visiting Cupid’s sex club on two occasions in 1996 and 2002. He admitted his behaviour was reckless, asked for support but wanted to deal with the events “in his own way” which included denying the visits to the club, and that he would sue the News of the World on the basis that they “could not prove” their allegations.

Recklessness

It was not moral outrage, but his preparedness to pursue a reckless action by lying in court that was the principal factor behind the Executive’s unanimous decision to force Sheridan to resign. The Executive took the view that the consequences of such an action would be disastrous for both Tommy Sheridan and the party. This meeting was minuted as it was an EC meeting, as per the constitution of the party. Barbara Scott, Minute Secretary, was visibly taking notes at the meeting. At no time was there a request for the meeting not to be minuted by anyone in attendance at the meeting (including Tommy Sheridan).

It was agreed that this decision was to be reported, verbally, to a series of aggregate meetings of SSP members in November 2004 by the Regional Organisers and those present at the EC.

The minutes were prepared by Barbara Scott and they were agreed and ratified unanimously at the EC of the 24th November 2004. Tommy Sheridan asked that the minutes of the 9th November 2004 be kept confidential, this was agreed and an emergency motion to keep the minutes confidential was put to the National Council on 27th November 2004. This emergency motion was accepted by the National Council.

Tommy Sheridan resigned on the 10th November 2004. On the 12th November 2004 he disclosed publicly that he had had a relationship with Anvar Khan in 1992 in an article in the Scottish Mirror (this fact had NOT been discussed at the EC). He denied that he was the unnamed politician of the 31st October 2004 story and denied having any affairs since being married in 2000.

On 14th November 2004, there was a follow-up story in the News of the World regarding Fiona Maguire, and another story about Duncan Rowan, North East Regional Organiser, who had gone to the News of the World in the belief he was protecting Fiona Maguire, and he named another comrade to the News of the World, without that comrade’s permission. At the EC, Steve Arnott reported that Duncan Rowan had resigned and apologised. Fiona Maguire had not been discussed at any length at the 9th November 2004 meeting except by being alluded to (though not named) by Duncan Rowan, who was in an upset and agitated state.

There was an attempt to move on after the November 2004 events, however the Scottish media were used by Tommy Sheridan to launch attacks on the party and comrades in the party, using terms such as plotters, dark arts etc.

Rewriting history

Despite these attacks, no-one could have imagined the lengths that Tommy Sheridan and some of his supporters would go to to rewrite the party’s history.

In the intervening 18 months Tommy Sheridan launched an incredible campaign of disinformation, inside and outside the party, alleging that he was ‘done in’ by those supposedly jealous of his status, or driven by personal and political ambition.

This is complete fantasy and nonsense.

In fact, it was Tommy Sheridan’s closest friends and comrades who advised him of the inherent dangers of the kamikaze path that he was preparing to embark on. Their advice has been proven to be 100% correct. Tommy Sheridan would have been wise to have listened. Instead he has used smears, innuendo and outright lies to attack those same comrades and friends – in a vain attempt to save his own vanity and political career.

The Scottish Socialist Party has been tortured and tormented by the court case brought by Sheridan. The state has been able to intervene in the internal affairs of the SSP, the party has been heavily fined in the run-up to the court proceedings and comrades called on to testify in the case have been placed in the position where they have been offered a choice of being either scabs or liars, to cite one saying making the rounds in the SSP during the case.

Wounded vanity

The case has been an unmitigated disaster for the SSP, brought about by the wounded vanity of one man, Mr. Sheridan.

The strategy to defy the courts’ pursuit of our minute of the 9th November was agreed at the EC of 21st May 2006 as it was congruent to the democratic decision of 27th November 2004.

The minutes of the 9th November 2004 meeting were handed over to the courts after a heated debate at the SSP National Council on May 28, 2006 – a position supported at the time by Tommy Sheridan – and against the wishes of the Executive. At the National Council, Tommy Sheridan appealed to hand the minutes over and at no time suggested that these minutes were fabricated in an elaborate attempt to frame him. At the time of the National Council, the News of the World and their legal team had been handed a set a false minutes that had not been seen, agreed or ratified by the EC at an time. Where these minutes came from remain a mystery, yet Tommy Sheridan during his court case referred to them as correct minutes until the judge, Lord Turnbull, ruled them out of order.

Subsequently, leading members of the SSP have been dragged through the highest civil court in Scotland and had their honesty, integrity and socialist commitment questioned – not by the News of the World, but by one of the party’s own members – Tommy Sheridan.

Once the minutes were in the hands of the court and the defiance strategy defeated, the choice facing SSP members was to tell the truth about the meeting or state that the minutes were fabricated, thus lending support to Tommy Sheridan’s bizarre allegation that he had been framed by the very members he had brought to court.

Only viable option

Some comrades have suggested that those forced into court should have lied to protect Tommy, or at the very least, say that they could not remember what happened at the meeting. That is just not a serious or credible position. How would this have applied to the Minute Secretary, Barbara Scott?

Do comrades really think that Barbara Scott should have stood in the witness box and said that she could not remember taking the minutes or that she fabricated them as she was delusional at the time or part of a political plot to undermine Tommy Sheridan? Telling the truth was the only viable option.

Colin Fox, SSP convenor is accused of a frame-up by Sheridan, by Myra Armstrong

SSP members have watched with shock and disgust as their former Convenor and Glasgow MSP accused 11 members of the SSP, including Colin Fox, of framing him. The SSP United Left defends absolutely those members who, under protest, were forced to attend court and tell the truth about the party’s history and to defend their socialist integrity.

To call these people grasses, traitors or scabs, as some of Sheridan’s leading supporters have done is both laughable and outrageous- yet their choice of language gives the game away about who is telling the truth in this sordid affair. If the 11 comrades were lying, then why are they not just called plain liars?

The United Left launched on 11th June 2006 condemns the misguided efforts of those who failed to uphold the truth about our party’s history, our minutes, our democratic decisions and the actions of our elected office bearers. They may have done this from a misguided sense of loyalty, but they helped fuel the myth that Tommy Sheridan had been framed – a myth that they knew not to be the case. They were prepared to shore up one man’s reputation, thereby assisting in the savaging of the reputation of eleven others.

Insult to socialist integrity

Tommy Sheridan’s supporters have stated that this court case is part of the wider struggle of the labour movement. To suggest that a bogus campaign to defend a secret life is, in any way whatsoever, part of the class struggle is complete rubbish. Moreover, it is an insult to the integrity of socialist struggle.

This court action had nothing to do with the struggle against capitalism. There is nothing in the history of the socialist movement which permits you to put a woman that you have had sex with and members of the elected EC (of 2004) in the witness box and castigate them as liars and plotters when they tell the truth – all in a grotesque attempt to preserve the family man facade that have been presented to the public.

Moreover, for these women (the comrade and the women who allegedly witnessed him in an hotel with a footballer and a prostitute) to be cross-examined by Tommy Sheridan himself raises serious legal and moral questions which need to be addressed in the socialist and wider movement.

Sadly, many, many people will have seen Tommy Sheridan exposed in the eyes of the public in the last few weeks. He has abused the trust placed in him by tens if not hundreds of thousands of working class women and men who believed him when he said that he was different from all the other politicians, that he deplored dishonesty and hypocrisy, that he was a politician who dared to be different.

From being seen as a principled socialist fighter, he has been rebranded as man desperate to do anything to preserve a false image and prepared to trash his former comrades and friends in the process.

Over the last 20 years Tommy Sheridan gained widespread support for being seen as a man of integrity. That has turned out not to be the case. It is an uncomfortable truth, but not one that can be turned away from. The truth is not what is politically useful.

The SSP must decide now how to
hold Tommy Sheridan to account
for his destructive acts and his appalling approach to fellow socialists. We call on Tommy Sheridan to begin by giving an uncompromising apology to the party as a whole for putting them through this tortuous process, and to the individual members that he has slandered, castigated and cross-examined in a hostile fashion. It is time he started taking responsibility for his own actions.

The SSP became a model for the left in Europe because it combined a pluralistic, open structure with a pro-active vision for fighting for socialist change at a grass roots level. Never again can the left allow one individual to wreak such mayhem and destruction within a pluralistic socialist party.

All SSP members are equal

The SSP United Left believes we need to re-establish the SSP on this basis. There needs to be an assessment of accountability within party structures through strengthening democracy.

Moreover, there needs to be the development of a grass roots leadership across the whole of the country with an emphasis on political education – carried out in a fresh, egalitarian way.

The SSP is NOT the property of any one individual. All members ARE equal and NO-ONE is more equal than others.

4th August 2006

Former convenor of the Scottish Socialist Party Tommy Sheridan won the first round of his defamation action against the News of the World in (the Scottish Court of Session in early August, on a majority (7- 4) decision of the jury.

He was awarded his claimed £200,000 in damages. The News of the World has said it intends to appeal and an investigation by police has begun into allegations of perjury committed during the trial: this inquiry is expected to last six months or more.

Sheridan has moved quickly to split the SSP. He has called a rally for Sunday September 3 to form a new party. Both the major platforms in the SSP, the Socialist Workers Party and Committee for a Workers International platforms have met, declared support for his call, and are building for the September 3 rally.

Socialist Resistance is opposed to this split and supports the United Left and others who are appealing to the members to stay in the SSP and continue to build it, The unity of the Scottish left, on which the SSP was built, has to be defended. It was not just Tommy Sheridan and the News of the World who were involved in this trial. Others were drawn into it whose integrity has been trashed. There were the 18 witnesses for the News of the World, including 11 members of the SSP EC, dragged into court against their will.

These SSP members have been branded as liars by their decision to tell the truth to the court. They now face possible perjury charges. Both the SWP and the CWI immediately lauded the decision of the court as a “fantastic victory”. No doubt for Sheridan it was. But for the Scottish left it is a disaster. It is also a setback for the British and European left, given the positive influence the SSP has had on the development of the European left since its foundation eight years ago.

Sheridan’s decision to take the News of the World to court, and his refusal to consider any other course of action, was the cause of this disaster. Once he went down that road the SSP was certain to be dragged in and the outcome disastrous – whatever the decision the jury had taken.

Mistakes were no doubt made by the EC, who were desperately trying to deal with the crisis Sheridan created, but the responsibility was his.

Sheridan’s unilateralism reflects the idea that a party is built around a central charismatic leader, who in the end regards himself as bigger than the party, and unaccountable to it. This is one of the dangers which small mass parties like the SSP face.

Articles

This crisis was triggered by two articles published in the News of the World in November 2004. These claimed that Sheridan had had extra-martial affairs, engaged in group sex at a Glasgow hotel, and had visited Cupids (a sex club in Manchester).

In response to defamation charges filed by Sheridan, the News of the World defended the articles as substantially true. They cited five women witnesses who claimed to have either had affairs with Sheridan, or had seen him at Cupids or having group sex in a hotel in Glasgow.

The evidence of two of these as witnesses was tainted in that they had sold their stories to the News of the World. But this is not proof that they were telling lies.

The News of the World also cited evidence from within the SSP Executive Committee concerning statements Sheridan had made, at a meeting of the EC on November 9 2004, called to consider allegations published in the first of the two News of the World articles.

These allegations referred only to a married MSP, but it was clear from the context that it was Sheridan. He admitted to the meeting that he had indeed visited Cupids in Manchester on two occasions.

He made it clear nonetheless that if he was named by the News of the World he would sue them for defamation. It was on the basis of the stance – that he would sue over allegations which were none-the-less true – that he was asked to resign as SSP convenor by a unanimous vote of those present. It was his stance which created the depth of crisis in the SSP.

He could have ignored the allegations, come clean, or denounced them and they would have blown over. The idea that the only way he could survive politically was to take the News of the World to court was nonsense.

The News of the World obtained a citation that the minutes of this meeting be used as evidence at the trial. They had controversially extracted the minutes from the SSP through the powers of the court after Alan McCombes went to prison in an attempt to keep them confidential.

Open letter

Central to the process of splitting the SSP was the open letter Sheridan circulated at the emergency SSP National Council (NC) meeting on May 28 2006, called to discuss the situation and held whilst Alan McCombes was in prison.

The letter had been issued to the media prior to the meeting.

It said:

Today there exists an unsavoury cabal of comrades at the core of the leadership, their hands on the apparatus, who are more interested in pursuing personal vendettas, through vile lies and slander, than conducting the class struggle.

It goes on to describe them as: akin to the dark days of Stalinism; McCarthyite and effectively acting for the state.

The letter was designed either to stampede a majority into supporting him at that meeting, which is what happened, or provide the basis to lead a minority out of the SSP.

The open letter also contained a dangerous claim that feminism is alien to class politics. It attacked the SSP’s 50-50 policy which ensures equal numbers of women and men in elected positions and insisted that;

We are a class-based socialist party. Not a gender obsessed discussion group. Our socialist principles and class identity define us first. Not our gender or sexual orientation.

‘Conspiracies’

In court Sheridan claimed that there were two separate conspiracies against him. The first, he said, was by the News of the World, the other was by a faction inside the SSP leadership who were out to oust him as part of a political takeover.

This nonsense neatly diverted the proceedings away from eyewitness accounts of sexual activities to political conspiracy theories which the jury were hardly in a position to assess. There had been political tension in the SSP, but that is very different to a factional conspiracy.

The News of the World cited 11 of the 24 SSP members who had been present at the November 9 2004 EC meeting as witnesses. They were able to make these citations because of a fabricated set of minutes of the meeting been sent to the News of the World anonymously, presumably by Sheridan or one of his supporters. These contained Sheridan’s version of proceedings and included an incomplete list of those present.

These witnesses attended court under the strongest protest. Each was asked under oath, if the official minutes were accurate, and if Sheridan had admitted that he had visited Cupids. They each confirmed that both were the case.

Sheridan promptly denounced them as liars and perjurers and the minutes as a fabrication. It was he said the mother of all stitch-ups. It was not just the News of the World that Sheridan had put on trial – it was the SSP as well.

In fact of the 19 present at the EC meeting of November 9, 15 have confirmed the accuracy of the minutes – the 11 who appeared in court under citation plus four more who were not cited but who have issued a statement since to that effect.

The other four EC members appeared as witnesses for Sheridan and said exactly the opposite. They agreed with him that what he had actually said at the meeting was that he had never visited Cupids, and that the minutes had been fabricated. Only one set of witnesses could be telling the truth – hence the perjury investigation. The conclusion is inescapable.

Tommy Sheridan lied his way through the case and in the course of this repeatedly accused others of lying whilst knowing they were telling the truth. He had expected the entire EC, who had urged him not to take court action, to lie in court in order to back up his case. He then regarded them as traitors because they refused to do so.

Moralistic

Sheridan was prepared to go to any lengths to defend the moralistic reputation he had cultivated as a clean living sexually loyal husband. Right up until the momentous NC meeting on May 28 -when everything changed in the SSP, when the framework was set for the trial and the split, and when the SWP and CWI platforms swung behind Sheridan – the validity of the minutes of November 9 2004 had not been in question.

Sheridan’s open letter proposed, on the one hand, that the minutes be handed to the court and on the other questioned their authenticity – claiming that they were falsified as part of a conspiracy to remove him from office.

Once he had proposed handing the minutes to the court he either had to drop his defamation action or discredit the minutes which, until then no one had questioned.

Sheridan also claimed in his open letter, that he had never read the minutes. This is flatly contradicted by Alan McCombes who insists that the minutes were discussed in a meeting between Allan Green, Colin Fox and Sheridan on May 12 2006 soon after they had been cited by the News of the World.

McCombes reveals it was Sheridan himself who proposed the adoption of the policy of refusing to hand the minutes to the court. This only made sense if he accepted that the minutes were accurate in the first place.

Sheridan, the CWI, the SWP and others argue that it a scandalous that 11 SSP EC members appeared in court as witnesses for the defence. But if they had refused they would have been arrested and charged with contempt of court.

If they had refuted the minutes and lied they would have risked perjury, which carries a heavy prison sentence. Were they to deny something in court which they knew to be the truth in order to protect Sheridan’s image as a respectable married man?

There are certainly times when socialists would do otherwise, but this would be in situations where what is at stake was the defence of collective action or an issue of principle.

This was not an issue of principle. These comrades were being asked to put the interests of one man above the collective interests of the SSP.They were right to say no.

Allegations

The scandalous allegations of scabbing (i.e. crossing class lines) escalated after the trial, finished. It relates to Sheridan’s demagogic claims – taken up with relish by the SWP and the CWI – that the trial was a battle between capital and labour in the form of a battle between Tommy Sheridan and Rupert Murdoch. Socialists have to know which side they are on in such a battle, they have repeatedly claimed. This is simplistic nonsense, reduces politics to crude sloganising.

The treatment of some of the women witnesses by Sheridan was demeaning to say the least. After sacking his legal team Sheridan examined them himself.

The minutes of the meeting of November 9 2004 should never have been taken in the way they were. But in the end it was not the minutes that were the problem for Sheridan. EC members could still have been cited to appear and asked to explain what happened at the meeting and exactly why Tommy Sheridan had been asked to resign.

It is hard to see where the policy of withholding minutes from court was going after the NC on May 28. The policy that the EC put to that the NC was not sustainable. It was the non-viability of that policy which – although he had proposed it himself – gave Sheridan the opening in that meeting which he seized upon.

SSP marchers

Pluralism

This damaging split in the SSP does not in any way devalue the importance of building broad pluralist parties of the working class. Such parties are the product of objective political developments: the collapse (or semi-collapse) of the communist parties; the march to the right of social democracy; the decline of the Labour left; and the emergence of mass resistance in the form of the global justice and anti-war movements.

The need for such parties is not about to go away. What has to be re-emphasised, however, is that genuine pluralism, gender equality, democracy and accountability – including the accountability of the most prominent members – are not an optional extra for such parties. They have to be built into their culture and their practice if they are to have a long-term role.

The starting point for Sheridan’s new party is not good, based as it is on a wrecking action against the SSP over the refusal of SSP members to lie in court in order to protect his personal reputation. It will be an alliance between Sheridan and the SWP not unlike the alliance between George Galloway and the SWP which forms the basis of Respect. It would be a huge step back from the democratic unity on which the SSP was constructed.

The CWI will be in an awkward
situation given their hostile relationship with the SWP in England and Wales and the model they are pushing for their new mass workers party. These are all forces which were held together inside the SSP by the existence of the ISM which formed the core of the organisation from its inception.

These developments are a defeat for the radical left in Scotland and internationally. This is a defeat brought about by the determination of one man to put his ego, his desire to create an image of a respectable family man, before the interests of the party he and others had worked for nearly a decade to build.

The only winners from a split in the SSP will be the pro-market forces in Scotland, the nationalists, and the Blairites. Socialist Resistance will stand with the comrades of the SSP in their determination to rebuild their party out of the debris.

Why have the SSP retreated?

It is three years since the massive international demonstrations, held on February 15th 2003, in protest against Bush and Blair’s’ impending war in Iraq. These were the biggest demonstrations ever seen in the world. And, just three months later, the SSP won six seats in the Scottish Parliament, a fact widely recognised as a substantial breakthrough for the international socialist movement.

Conventional wisdom in our party thinks that everything was going well, until the crisis occasioned by Tommy Sheridan’s resignation in November 2004. Accusations were levelled against the party of internal bickering, backstabbing and treachery. Needless to say, things were considerably more complex. Nevertheless, whichever side comrades took in the ensuing debate, there appears to be common agreement that the resignation and its handling blew our party off course, and that it is still suffering from this.

And then, just last month, we had the Dunfermline by-election. The Lib-Dems pulled off an impressive victory, anticipated by virtually no one. New Labour, and Gordon Brown in particular, were humiliated. Yet the Lib-Dems had entered the campaign with only a caretaker leader, a scornful press relishing the party’s recent history of internal bickering, backstabbing and treachery, and making the most of accusations of alcoholism, resort to rent-boys, and personal denials of sexual orientation!

Although the earlier press attacks on our party were unpleasant and malevolent, they were not as sustained as those the Lib-Dems experienced recently. Yet, these attacks didn’t seem to derail the Lib-Dems in the same way. So perhaps we should be looking elsewhere, at more fundamental reasons, for the fall away in support for our party. This will involve looking at the SSP in a wider, international context.

Weaknesses in the opposition to the war

First, it is necessary to look at the other side of the massive February 15th 2003 demonstrations. Unlike the post-1968, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, these were not mobilised on a specifically anti imperialist basis. Support was sought on liberal pacifist lines. No matter how massive, such protests left the US and UK ruling classes with much more room for manoeuvre, since they didn’t challenge their interests fundamentally.

Illusions were built up in a possible UN solution, despite the UN being run by a Security Council, which answers only to the major imperial powers. Some even saw France, which opposed the war in Iraq, as showing the way. Of course, the French ruing class only opposed the Iraq war for its own particular imperialist interests. It has been up to its neck in imperialist ventures in Africa (including sharing some culpability for the notorious Rwanda genocide) and it supported the US-led overthrow of the elected Aristide government in Haiti. Even though the widely welcomed electoral defeat of the Conservative, Aznar-led, government in Spain did lead to the removal of Spanish troops in Iraq, many were redeployed to Afghanistan and Haiti, by the incoming ‘Socialist’ government. They helped out US imperialism in another role.

The longer-term danger, of dependence on liberal pacifist opinion, was highlighted, in both the USA and UK, by their principal anti-war movements’ wooing of the Democrats and the Lib-Dems respectively. These are both very much pro-imperialist parties. Both parties believe they offer imperialism a better, less foolhardy, strategy than that being pushed in Iraq by Bush’s Neo-Conss and Blair’s New Labourites. Not surprisingly, the Democrats and Lib-Dems have been highly ambiguous in their ‘opposition’ to the war. However, the anti-war movements’ strategy of trimming demands to what was acceptable to these pro-imperialist parties’ leaderships had the effect of building them up as a credible electoral opposition. This fitted in well, with ruling class attempts to marginalise the anti-imperialist component of the movement.

The ruling class reclaim lost ground

The international Left, including the SSP, hasn’t appreciated the current imperialist strategy. The Left has concentrated nearly all its attentions on Bush and Blair, or the Neo-Cons and New Labourites.

However, the western ruling classes have learned lessons from the earlier massive mobilisations of the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements. They could see the threat posed by an international mass movement, outside the control of the mainstream political parties. They know how important it is always to have a safe government-in-waiting. Thus they have deliberately created a political space for a soft liberal imperialist alternative. This has meant a sustained political and media offensive to present such parties as the US Democrats and the British Lib-Dems as more caring and less belligerent.

The international Left has fallen for this right across the board; not only in the USA where it has traditionally been weak, but in France and Italy too, where it has been much stronger. The Left has concentrated its attentions on the ‘big, bad wolf’ – Bush Blair, Le Pen or Berlusconi, conceding much of the political terrain to the ruling classes’ officially-promoted liberal ‘alternatives’.

The Democratic Partys candidate wanted even more troops sent to Iraq than Bush

At the time of the November 2004 US presidential election, the antiwar movement fell in behind the Democratic candidate, Kerry. Yet he argued for even more troops to be sent to Iraq, and was even more pro-Israel than Bush! Prominent anti-war activists also argued for a vote for Lib-Dem candidates in the June 2005 UK general election. The reason liberal ‘opposition’ candidates are usually the best placed to win elections, is that they are the most acceptable to the ruling class, and are actively promoted by their media, the better to undercut more radical challenges.

In the French presidential election, the majority of the Left ended up giving its support to Chirac as a ‘lesser evil’ to Le Pen. Yet Le Pen enjoyed no significant French ruling class support and was hardly in a position to launch a fascist take-over with a Mussolini-like march on Paris. The Left’s capitulation allowed Le Pen to appear as the only ‘opposition’ to the French ruling class.

This year, in the forthcoming Italian general election, Rifondazione Communista is not only arguing for a vote for Prodi’s Blairite Olive Tree Coalition against Berlusconi, but is even considering an offer of entering a wider governmental coalition! The last Olive Tree coalition governmentcollapsed in ignominy, after launching major attacks onworkers.

The liberal ‘opposition’ in practice in Scotland

In Scotland we have the ‘privilege’ of seeing how a liberal ‘opposition’ behaves, when it takes office. For, of course, the Lib-Dems are already in coalition with New Labour in the Scottish Executive. NATO use of Scottish airbases for the war in Iraq, US ‘rendition’ flights, undermining the right to protest against the imperialist warmongers at Gleneagles – for the Lib-Dems it is either outright acceptance, or only the most timid of reservations.

In Scotland, we have also seen just how far the ruling class is prepared to go to marginalise the Left. At last year’s G8 Summit, held at Gleneagles, the ruling class made a deliberate attempt to colonise the opposition. The ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign, led largely by charity organisations, was adopted and promoted by New Labour. Blair and Brown in no way felt threatened by the officially-sanctioned activities on July 3rd, 2005. Rather they saw the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Edinburgh, and the concert-goers in Hyde Park, as constituting a mass lobby for New Labour’s efforts at Gleneagles. Blair and Brown wanted the G8 leaders to pursue a better strategy to promote imperial interests worldwide, particularly in Africa. Geldof and Bono merely acted as their populist running boys, with the ear to the rich and powerful on one hand, and another for a concerned populace, safely assembled on tightly-policed demonstrations or cocooned in pop concerts.

We, in the SSP, got one indication of how far the ruling class is prepared to go to beat down any principled opposition to imperialist designs. Our MSP’s mild parliamentary protest was met with an unprecedented attack on democratic rights. The Scottish Executive (at the undoubted prompting of Blair and his allies) launched this attack.

Once the British ruling class (including its Scottish component) had indicated what they considered to be limits to any protest, the liberal ‘opposition’ – the SNP and the Greens, ever eager to appear acceptable – joined in the attack. After all, they too want to follow the footsteps of the Lib-Dems, and enter into a future government coalition, here they would bow to the needs of US and British imperialism and the global corporations. The official attack on the SSP presented the SNP and Greens with a perfect opportunity to show off their respectable credentials.

Nusrery nurses fought a spirited campaign in 2004

Current lack of working class opposition

Of course, a key factor, which has contributed to the growing marginalisation of the Left, in Scotland, the wider UK, and Ireland, has been the lack of sustained working class opposition to the current ruling class offensive. The nursery nurses ran a spirited strike campaign in 2004, but were unable to break out of the isolation imposed by a UNISON leadership, wedded in partnership to New Labour. Even our own excellent parliamentary campaign of support could not overcome this weakness. Similarly, the government has found it relatively easy to divide those forces which threatened it over pensions. Some on the Left (including the CWI platform) have even gone along with deals which have divided workforce from workforce, and long-established workers from the newly-employed. In Ireland, last November, a massive strike and demonstration took place to challenge Irish Ferries’ attempt to smash the minimum wage and give them control over those they employed. Yet it too failed to deliver a knockout blow. This campaign remained firmly under the control of a union leadership wedded to government in a partnership deal.

The much-vaunted Awkward Squad has turned out to be not that awkward – well at least as far as New Labour and the employers are concerned. Many such leaders have backed down and now only seek a more prominent place for themselves in the designs and dealings of any Labour government. Winning leading trade union officials to the SSP will not necessarily enhance our reputation with the rank and file, who have become cynical over the continuous unnecessary compromises and retreats. Our policy of having a worker’s MP on a worker’s wage is both principled and popular. It is about time our leadership stopped shillyshallying over the policy of having trade union leaders earning the average wage of the members they represent. This would also help to provide a longer term basis for building up a genuine rank and file movement in the unions.

False hopes

Currently, the SSP faces a similar situation to the wider international Left. A ruling class counter-offensive has rolled back many of the gains we made in the first years of this decade. The Left is once more relatively marginalised. It is this, more than anything else, which explains the current doldrums, the SSP faces, particularly when contesting elections.

Even if Tommy were to come back as SSP leader, it is very unlikely that this would overcome the wider problems we face. There were many in the SNP, who thought that the return of Alex Salmond would revive their party’s fortunes.

Recent poor results, in by-elections in West Lothian, Cathcart and Dunfermline, have shown the falsity of this argument. At the moment, the US and British ruling class are fully committed to New Labour’s policy of ‘devolution-all-round’ and know it would be hard to find a party more committed to promoting wider imperial and corporate interests. The SNP still have some way to go in convincing these powerful forces that their ‘independence’ project would offer them a better deal. Nevertheless, the SNP leadership is falling over backwards to demonstrate its pro-imperial and pro-corporate intentions.

Of course, the SSP can not follow a similar path and try to gain acceptability by showing that we too are ‘sensible’, ‘responsible’ and ‘acceptable’. To pursue such a path would end the most impressive political gain we still retain – socialist unity in Scotland. Unfortunately, the current marginalisation of the SSP has led to various strategies being promoted, which would threaten this unity.

The SSP’s nationalist wing (the SRSM and Kevin Williamson), which wants to turn the party into a pressure group on the SNP, represents the most obvious immediate threat to unity. The SNP Rightwards trajectory is obvious to most. Despite this, the SSP’s nationalists now want to consign the party’s hard-won democratic republican orientation to some distant future. We can remain sentimental republicans but republicanism would have no real bearing on our current strategy.

Instead we should follow the SNP’s forelock-tugging constitutionalist path of pursuing a referendum on ‘independence under the Crown’! This would permit the SNP to pursue itsstrategy of simultaneously enhancing the position of Scottish capitalists and better integrating them into the workings of the ‘New World Order’, without facing any real Left challenge.

Routinism and sectarianism

There are other dangers too facing the SSP. The SW platform has now got itself into a bit of a rut. More than any other Left force, it has been responsible, both in the antiwar movement and anti globalisation movements, for bowing to liberal pacifist sentiment. The argument behind this is to build the biggest possible ‘opposition’ to Bush and Blair. This strategy demands the building up of one demo after another. Even though the liberal forces have largely abandoned the streets for an occasional visit to the voting booth, the same tactics are pursued without questioning their continued usefulness. Demonstrations get smaller; but this isn’t compensated for by being more consciously anti-imperial and militant.

Another worrying feature is the method the SWP uses to insulate itself from Left criticism. It sets up one party-front organisation after another – the Anti-Nazi League now mutated into the Anti-Fascist Alliance (better name, but no better politics), Globalise Resistance, and now the Campaign Against Climate Change. These are answerable only to the SWP’s Central Committee. The SSP was partly created to develop new democratic and non-sectarian ways for uniting the Left. Our party needs to make clear to the SWP that its bureaucratic and sectarian methods are not acceptable. SWP members should be quite capable of arguing their distinctive politics at democratically constituted meetings, and accepting united front principles when it comes to providing leadership for campaigns.

Lack of principle opens the door to reactionary forces

At present, the SWP is still basking in George Galloway’s victory in the Bethnal Green seat at the last general election. However, Galloway’s misguided personal decision to participate in Big Brother highlights some likely future problems for the Respect alliance. At present, SWP hopes are mainly pinned on the forthcoming local elections in England. The SWP has failed to resolve the real political nature of Respect. Nor are there any democratic mechanisms in place to ensure the accountability of any potential councillors. Tensions have already emerged in Tower Hamlets in London over the SWP’s desire to have its leader, John Rees, adopted as a local council candidate. A substantial section of the local Bengali Muslim community wanted to put forward their own candidate.

The SWP might want to promote Respect as an electoral front, which offers Old Labour politics and is also firmly opposed to Islamophobia. However, other forces, representing a reinvigorated political Islam, seek a new deal for Muslims in Britain – with better state funding for their religion, enforced bans on perceived ‘anti-Muslim’ activities (including books and plays) and their own schools. The SWP has got itself into a position of not being able to challenge this other political agenda, since to do so would betantamount to ‘Islamophobia’!

There is a marked parallel between the position of the new Muslim communities in Britain and the position of the largely Irish Catholic communities in Scotland, at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Socialists fought to win Irish Catholics to socialist politics, whilst Labourists accommodated themselves to the Catholic hierarchy, in order to win votes. In the process, the Catholic hierarchy achieved a relatively privileged position for itself in the Labour Party, effectively operating a veto over some progressive social policies. Any attempts to challenge this were met with, what amounted to, charges of ‘Catholicophobia’. The SWP seems to be currently pursuing the Labourist, not the socialist, path.

SSP also dodges awkward issues

Quite independently of the SWP, the SSP leadership has come to a somewhat similar conclusion with regards to ‘religious’ issues in Scotland. Religion is being more and more politicised by the Right (encouraged by New Labour). Yet faced with the continuation of state-funded Catholic schools, and now the possibility of state-funded Muslim schools, our party has remained almost silent in public. Socialists have long been committed to secular education, whilst championing the right of people to practice their religion without facing discrimination. We need to be far more vocal in upholding this policy, otherwise we give the religious Right a free rein, increasing the possibility of both sectarianism and racism.

Difficult issues, such as opposing religious separatism, or defending those fighting for a democratic and secular, united Irish republic, can not be avoided. At present, our leadership seems to be concentrating on one particular strategy – defending the six seats we have in the Scottish Parliament. Yes, it would be good if we could achieve this. However, if such an attempt is made by lowering our political sights, and by ignoring or downplaying controversial issues which may alienate potential voters, then this is far too high a price to play.

The Left still hasn’t produced a convincing socialist alternative

No easy recipe can be found to help the Left overcome recent setbacks. The fact that this is happening in much of Europe shows that there is a common underlying problem. Yes, the Left made considerable gains during the earlier anti-globalisation and antiwar protests. Yet, it proved relatively easy for the imperialist ruling classes to recapture much of their lost ground.

It was much easier for the Left to oppose particular ruling class strategies and policies – neo-liberalism, privatisation, deregulation, or the Iraq war – than to offer a positive alternative. The statism and partyism, which formed the underlying basis for both the official Communist and Social Democratic versions of socialism up to 1989, has collapsed. There has not been a wholly coherent socialist alternative to replace this. Indeed much of the current Left’s thinking is still tied to aspects of the older models – state control and welfarism. This makes it relatively easy for the ruling class to recuperate aspects of some of these measures and appear more ‘liberal’, when under some pressure; or to denigrate them when they feel confident.

John McAllion enjoys campaignin for the SSP in the recent Dunfermline & West Fife by-election

Creating socialists, not just winning votes

A major job for the SSP is the education of a new generation of socialists. This means the SSP hasto provide a much better educational programme than at present for its members. We also need to begin a debate on what exactly we mean by ‘socialism’ – something which is quite distinct from Old Labourism or State Communism. Just trying to say we differ from the past models because we are ‘democratic’ is not very convincing. Social Democracy and early Communism made democratic claims too.

We need to be able to outline a convincing democratic alternative, which offers the majority in society real control over all aspects of their lives – political, economic, social and cultural. We also need to be able to link this vision to a convincing contemporary process of political and economic transformation, rooted in today’s conditions. Republicanism and secularism today are two vital bridges to a future society. They also provide us with a viable alternative to challenge the ruling class’s current antidemocratic and socially divisive strategy.

Dodging difficult issues, in the here and now, may enable us to win a few more short-term votes, but will not help us to develop a sound, longer-term base of support. It is far better to enter electoral contests with the primary aim of putting across more difficult, but principled, politics to a smaller number, in order to win active recruits to socialism, than to gain mainly passive voters for the SSP.

Furthermore, ‘clever’ voting strategies, suggested either by Kevin Williamson or our Executive, are just as likely to backfire. If we convince voters that the SNP’s ‘independence referendum’ strategy offers the best way forwards, they are very likely to give both their votes to the SNP in 2007. We took quite a substantial vote from the SNP in the 2004 Scottish elections. John McAllion found this to his cost, when we stood down to give him a free run in the Dundee East seat!

The winning of one-time SNP voters could provide us with a base for gaining more of their supporters to a specifically republican and socialist party, as the SNP continues its gallop rightwards. The Calton Hill Declaration and the demonstration on October 30th 2004 showed the possibilities. Now is not the time for the SSP to lose confidence in socialist politics or to abandon principles.

First-Past-The-Post: to stand or not to stand

There is a debate raging within the SSP which, like so many others, actually goes far beyond the superficial topic of the debate, and goes to the very essence of the nature of our party. The debate on whether or not to stand in first-past-the-post seats in the Holyrood elections, as well as in the list seats, is not simply about political tactics. It is about whether or not we are a nationalist party or a socialist party and what we see as the purpose of elections for socialist organisations.

The debate will be had out at the 2006 SSP conference and will undoubtedly be acrimonious. It has angered many party members to see Kevin Williamson use his very privileged position, as a weekly columnist in the Scottish Socialist Voice, to argue against current party policy. He contends that we should not stand in first-past-thepost seats but we should also call on our supporters to vote for the Scottish Nationalist Party – a defender of capitalism and big business! He has been supported by Hugh Kerr, one time MEP and former party press officer. Although neither of them currently holds an elected position within the SSP, they are, however, representative of a trend within the party that views elections as important only if we can get someone elected or if they can aid the push towards independence for Scotland. Comrades should note that they do not differentiate between a socialist and a capitalist Scotland. Thus they are propelled forward to a quite logical position of voting for a party as devoid of principle as the Scottish National Party.

Hugh Kerr argues, …You can’t vote Labour!

Agreed Hugh but neither could I, or should I, vote SNP!

Debates like this have gone on since the days when we set up the Scottish Socialist Alliance. At that time I remember arguing that we should offer a socialist alternative at every possible opportunity. No one talked about the SNP but were more concerned with not upsetting Good Labour Lefts. Ironically, in Dundee East at the last election, we did stand down in favour of good Labour left candidate, John McAllion and he lost his seat. This position was initiated by the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) platform in the SSP.

Although RCN comrades did not agree with, and argued against this move, it was done as an exception rather than the rule. It was democratically decided by the branches with the full knowledge of the party nationally and was accepted by all comrades as the party position once the vote had been taken. I am sure the CWI comrades who pushed for this exception, will be totally against the executive’s proposals to turn the party’s position on its head and make this the norm.

There are other principled exceptions we could cite such as standing down for Rose Gentle, the anti war campaigner whose son Gordon was killed in Iraq.

However, what is now being proposed is far from a principled socialist position. It is being fought for by some who want to save the party money. Some who think it will increase our vote in the list – or second vote – and allow us more elected representatives (although no evidence of this being the case has so far been produced). And by some who really believe that tailing the SNP will somehow bring us to socialism.

No vote for the SNP

Anyone who believes that the SNP are on our side is sadly mistaken or wilfully nationalist. The SNP, where it has power in local government, are just as ruthless as those councils in Labour clutches.

Look at how the SNP council in Perth and Kinross supported the G8 protests or ask the nursery nurses in Angus how the SNP dealt with them during their heroic strike!

Although on the war, the SNP was to the left of Labour; for a nationalist party, it is distinctly of the more reactionary variety. We are not dealing with revolutionary nationalists who fight for national rights against the oppressor nation. We are dealing with a party which, through its firm adherence to capitalism, is complicit in the oppression of the working class.

It is not a republican party and goes to great lengths to accommodate the monarchy and envisages a role for the crown in an independent Scotland! There was a recent stooshie when one of its MSPs called the union flag the butcher’s apron (widely accepted on the left as an effective metaphor for the blood shed thanks to imperialism). Very quickly retractions were made and blame for this perceived gaff, laid at the door of a party worker. Those members in the SNP who do share socialist tendencies, have to keep them firmly under wraps less they affect the respectable image of the party.

It is firmly a capitalist party hoping to follow the Celtic Tiger of the Irish Republic. It has failed to support the SSP on getting rid of the council tax and demanding the right to march to Gleneagles against the G8 warmongers. In fact, the SNP helped ban the SSP MSPs from the parliament for a month after they staged a peaceful protest in the parliament. They thus denied our comrades and the party workers their wages for that month and they denied our elected representatives the right to participate in the democratic process. Why should we support them? Oh, because they want an independent capitalist Scotland!

It is not good enough comrades.

I have some sympathy with those who put forward the view that where we do not have a branch or members then it can be counter-productive to parachute candidates in then simply leave. Even then, this can be justified if the election can be used as a vehicle for building a branch. On the whole, however, these should be treated as exceptions and the local branch’s view should be allowed to prevail.

The general position should be that we stand wherever possible in order to allow the working class of this country the opportunity to vote socialist at every opportunity. We fight the election arguing the case for socialist politics and if we get someone elected, then that is a welcomed bonus but is not the reason for standing.

By pulling out of the first-past-the-post seats, we reduce our credibility in the eyes of the electorate and appear to be only interested in the fight to win the hearts and minds of a nation when there is payback for us in terms of seats. This does not differentiate us from the mainstream parties; it makes us just like them!

The comrades, like Kevin Williamson, who argue we must vote in the first vote for an anti union candidate are elevating separation of Scotland above all other considerations.

Independence First is not a socialist concept. A very long spoon is necessary to sup with the SNP and other reactionary elements that make up that particular coalition. The fight for independence must be integral to a socialist fight or it will lead us to exactly the same place as the Irish Republic: tied firmly to international capitalism!

SSP must reject a Vote SNP but... strategy

Minimum demands

There have been many times throughout history where socialists have not stood and have responded in a principled fashion by setting up a series of minimum demands to put to candidates from other parties in order to decide, whether or not, to give them critical support. If the SSP adopts this retrograde position at conference, then at the very least we should follow in this tradition and not give blanket support to any capitalist party but demand of its individual candidates they support such a programme.

The National Executive should draw up a short, straightforward, list of principled demands for example:

• Support for an independent Scottish republic
• Immediate withdrawal of British armed forces from Iraq
• The removal of all nuclear weapons from Scottish soil
• No new nuclear power stations to be built
• For a comprehensive National Health Service free at the point of delivery

These would then be formally put to all the candidates, standing in the seat. We would then publicise the responses of the candidates as part of our election campaign. We would urge our supporters to vote for only those candidates willing to publicly declare their support for this basic platform.

This method, which has an honourable history within the socialist movement, gives us a way of supporting progressive candidates (if such exist) in any rival party and avoids giving blanket support to any other rival party. If no candidate in a particular seat is able to publicly and unequivocally support the platform, then we publicly call for an active boycott of the first-past-the-post election in that seat by writing socialist on the ballot paper.

Only this approach is worthy of a socialist organisation. If we do otherwise in relation to the SNP then we have to question whether we are nationalist party or a socialist party.

The party’s website has been under construction for the past four months and members haven’t received a newsletter from the Wrexham HQ.

Those who quit are citing disagreements with the political direction of the party – specifically a secret deal party leader John Marek struck with the Tories to stand a spoiling candidate in marginal Cardiff North at the General Election – as well as the lack of internal democracy in the party. This has led, they say, to key decisions made at conference being ignored by Marek and a close clique that surround him.

They are also disillusioned with Marek’s poor performance in the Assembly, where he has put more emphasis on his role as deputy speaker than campaigning for his new party and winning affiliation from unions such as the RMT.

More locally, there has also been dissatisfaction with Marek’s handling of the crisis surrounding the planned redevelopment of Wrexham Football Club’s stadium, in which he has openly aligned himself with disgraced former chairman Mark Gutterman who is hated by fans.

The activists who have left are re-grouping locally in the Wrexham Socialist Forum and include a quarter of the party’s candidates in last year’s council elections.

Fewer than 100 members remain in the party throughout Wales and the number of activists has dwindled dramatically.

A picture emerges of key members quitting

One of the party’s founder members told E&L:

Forward Wales was born from an alliance of former Labourites and socialists who were united in wanting to challenge Labour’s unhealthy grip on Welsh politics. Key differences over the national question were fudged – a fatal mistake with hindsight – but it also emerged that revenge and spite was a more powerful driving force for some of the ex-Labourites than any real desire to build a radical political alternative for Wales.

Forward Wales, which was almost exclusively concentrated in Wrexham and Clwyd South, managed impressive results in those areas in the council elections – standing candidates in more than half the borough’s seats and gaining 23% of the vote. It also played a prominent role in campaigning against the sale of school playing fields and housing stock transfer, which Wrexham tenants rejected decisively.

The ex-member said:

The party was a very real threat to Labour in the north-east and had the potential to win over disillusioned Labourites throughout Wales. But the party’s dependence for its influence and finances on John Marek meant it was vulnerable to an undemocratic clique grouped around the
AM. This led to decisions on candidates being pushed through with no real debate or discussion – what Marek wanted, he got in the end.

There’s no doubt Marek was very generous with his money – he stumped up many thousands personally to pay for the Assembly and the Westminster elections. But he failed to realise that real political change is based on building parties between elections – there was never any money forthcoming for that. The national secretary couldn’t even get stamps to mail out to members at times!

A picture emerges of key members quitting and many more peripheral members drifting away disillusioned with the party’s failure to build on its early promise.

Some founder members, who saw Forward Wales as a Welsh equivalent of the
SSP, have decided to join Plaid Cymru. One former member said:

Plaid Cymru is a socialist party that’s clearly pro-independence. That’s a great step forward from Forward Wales’s fudge and muddle.

It’s possible FW will limp on to the 2007 Assembly elections, partly because Marek can afford to fund another set of candidates and partly because Ron Davies wants to return to political power. But Forward Wales as a political party is dead in the water, reliant on two fading ex-Labour politicians.

The RCN article in March’s Frontline was very welcome in that it identified and clearly described many dangers facing the SSP, and competently argued the case for a new ‘Marxist pole of attraction’ within the party.

The purpose of my article is to try to address the most fundamental, pressing question for all socialists in Scotland: how do we advance the working-class movement, and how do we organise against the dangers of parliamentarism and populism; namely; how do we take the SSP forward into a new era of dynamism and success?

As discussion and debate around this subject has gone on, it has become clear that there is significant agreement amongst comrades on what the problems are, and – crucially – what the way forward is. The RCN article explored in depth the problem of ‘Bureaucratic Populism’. This has been a creeping problem, and it didn’t come from nowhere. Had the party membership been on the ball a bit more, we could have predicted it and nipped it in the bud, but in the excitement and momentum of electoral success, it was almost unheard of to criticise the leadership.

A look at the role of the SSP sheds some light on this.

The origins of the SSP

By combining radical anti-capitalist policies with a credible political force, the SSP successfully attracted the most progressive, radical layers of workers and youth in Scotland. For the first time, the anti-capitalist left was united and going places. Climaxing in 2003, we reached an average electoral support of 7% nationally, and up to 28% in some parts of Glasgow. We were playing an ebullient leading role in the anti-war and anti-capitalist movements. SSP street stalls in communities across the country were buzzing, and our new team of MSPs stormed into Holyrood in a tour de force of anti-establishment politics.

However, once the radical workers were won over, and the socialist activists united in a single body, the party’s support hit a ceiling. What should we do next? How do we gain more support? We were faced with two options:

1. Popularise our program, and campaign on less-radical lines in order to attract less-radical workers or

2. Agitate among these workers to radicalise them.

This dichotomy faced us from May 2003, but we failed to realise it. In effect, we did neither of these things. Instead, we kept plugging away at our now-tired campaigns, while party morale slipped.

Turning Point

One turning point came in 2004, when leading ISM members were behind a move to woo Campbell Martin, a renegade SNP MSP, to our party membership, via some subtle tweaking of our bedrock worker’s wage policy. None of the justification that was given for this proposal eased the minds of many ISM activists, and we were extremely worried that if this rule was bent once, it could be broken in the future.

Myself and others could scarcely believe that comrades whom we had trusted and admired were behind such a dreadful error. But such errors are the natural consequence of over-focussing on Holyrood.

If we are going to attract Campbell Martin, why not just sign up Margo McDonald and Dennis Canavan too? We could have a left wing parliamentary dream team, and forget about party activists and all those boring meetings; let the media do our canvassing for us…

We argued that under no circumstances must the worker’s wage principle be tampered with, and in any case, recruiting MSPs from other parties is a path littered with dangers. Campbell Martin’s record in the following year has borne that out; a number of pamphlets that he has produced show him to be a non-socialist, and his voting record is poor.

Had the leadership of the party had their way, we would have sacrificed our principles for an extra MSP who would have been a liability at best. One positive to come out of this, was that the party grassroots mobilised against the EC and defeated it, and more importantly, convinced several EC members including Alan McCombes of our position.

Populism

The RCN rightly condemns the disappointing comments and actions from the party leadership – which have not helped to boost morale – including Tommy’s repeated calls for stiffer mandatory sentencing for knife carriers, and Colin’s unfortunate photocall with David McLetchie

Also alarming was Tommy’s call for convenorship elections to be on the basis of ‘one member, one vote’ in the future, saying that the omission of this in the past had been an ‘oversight’. The continued Posh n Becks -style dramatisation of Tommy’s family life in the media is as depressing as it is puerile and anti-political. This is not the way a revolutionary leader of the working class should behave.
This is not mere parliamentarism. Alongside it is a dangerous parallel of personality politics, a kind of mirror-image of the bourgeois parties.

Before Lula was elected as President of Brazil, he was canonised by left-wing activists and PT members who hung portraits of him in their houses, and identified the whole movement with him. There was not sufficient understanding in their party of the dangers of idolizing leaders, and as a result, the socialist movement in Brazil has been shattered and demoralised following Lula’s capitulation to the IMF and imperialism.

We should pay heed to such lessons. There is a way out of the stagnancy that our party suffers from, but it will require a culture change in the party, and everyone has a part to play in this. The danger is now that as the RCN article says, the party leadership bows under parliamentary pressure and tends towards populism.

But what the article didn’t say is how tentatively these actions have been criticised. The leadership of our party is rarely given thorough criticism. When the leadership is questioned or criticised at National Councils and Conferences, the only robust Marxist criticism of the party regularly comes from the CWI platform. Many party activists are suspicious of CWI politics because they tend to be linked to their own agendas, and can sound stuffy and pretentious.

We can change this by systematically highlighting and criticising every occurrence of populism or reformism in a fraternal but robust way. In this way, SSP activists can demand more control over every aspect of our party.

The task of Revolutionaries

Revolutionaries face a dual task in a party like the SSP. We must, first and foremost, promote the SSP amongst our class, and become the radical, active and dynamic face of the party. But we must also work hard inside the party, in its branches, structures and networks, to revolutionise those party members who have not yet arrived at a Marxist conclusion.

Young comrades who are attracted to the party’s radical stance have little or no access to the kind of political education which older comrades benefited from. This has to change. If party structures are not sufficiently strong to give SSY members a grounding in Marxism, then individual comrades must take it upon themselves to do so.

The RCN article also calls for day schools and educationals to take place more often; I support that call. The SSP has huge shortcomings in the subject of members’ education. But again, if the party is not organising these events, we must make more noise about it.

This ties in with the problem of trade union affiliation. Why doesn’t the party organise regional day-schools on the subject of rail privatisation, using Alan McCombes’ excellent pamphlet as reading material, and invite all local RMT members to attend?

That would be a great way of introducing them to our party and our ideas, and introducing party members to an organised radical workforce. We want rail workers to be a driving force in social change, don’t we? We should not be so slack in our attitude towards them.

The SSP is not yet at a political crisis point, but if grassroots revolutionaries continue to be complacent and disorganised, the crisis will bite us.

Internationalism

Our party must develop closer and more formal links with revolutionaries abroad. In times of crisis, an objective view can be invaluable. Why are we not developing proper links with the EACL, or parties like the DSP in Australia, and the movements in Venezuela and Bolivia?

We have many friends abroad. At a recent event held by the Fourth International in France, I was taken aback at the high regard in which young European Socialists – and the leadership of the FI – had for the SSP, and the way we built our party.

With right-wing journalists hovering like vultures, all the establishment parties ganging up on us to suspend us from Holyrood, and George Galloway prowling around Scotland, barely disguising his distaste of the SSPour party has no few enemies closer to home.

I have covered many of the points raised by the RCN in their article, and hopefully made my own position clear. Marxists should be working much more closely together on politics and direction, and in the education of SSY members.

Our party can only move forward and be successful if it is steered in a revolutionary direction, with our minimum demands more clearly linked to our overall program of changing the way society works. To do this, there must be more dialogue, more understanding and more co-operation between revolutionary comrades. Old differences must be pushed to one side; thankfully, this seems to be happening.

Revolutionary socialist politics is not an indulgence, it is a necessity. Any other brand of politics, including parliamentary ‘socialism’ is a betrayal of our own class and a compromise to our opponents. Revolution is a living, breathing movement which is sweeping across Latin America in its infancy, throwing off the reactionary US backed juntas and sparking forest fires of revolt against imperialism and war. The same movement is slowly emerging in Europe, and the SSP is a leading force in this. The future success of our party is in the hands of those who wish to take it forward.

Tony Blair managed to avoid saying that the hand of history was on his shoulder, but even without that there was enough overblown bombast from London, Washington and Dublin to reward the Provisional republican leadership for their 28th July announcement effectively disbanding the IRA. No-one managed to outdo Alex Reid, the Catholic priest who lubricated the Provisionals’ transition from revolutionary nationalism to co-operation with imperialism. He claimed that the statement marked the end of the centuries of Irish resistance to colonial rule!

The Provisional leadership did their bit to add to the bombast, with simultaneous announcements from the four corners of the earth and a special website where cheesy smiles from their collection of TDs, MLAs, MPs and Euro MPs subliminally suggested that the three decades of death and pain could be justified by the electoral gains of their political current. Concessions from the British tried to keep the party mood going – wanted republicans (on the run) would be allowed to return to their homes. Repressive legislation specific to the North will be disbanded – much has now been incorporated into the general framework of law in Britain itself. Prominent British military installations were dismantled. More troops will be withdrawn, leaving a still adequate garrison. The British promise to disband the Royal Irish Regiment, descendent of the infamous B Specials, if the security situation permits and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has promised legislation to allow northern representatives to speak in the Dail on matters directly concerning them. On the streets however the mood among nationalist workers was one of indifference. The road to republican surrender involved the demobilisation and depoliticisation of the mass of their members, retreats by the organisation are telegraphed months in advance and are the subject of secret mass counselling meetings to drain out all the negative feelings of the membership.

No political rewards

However there are no real political rewards for their surrender. All the structures and trappings, the comic-opera Stormont assembly and ministerial positions lie in ruins. The Provos surrender because they must, because Tony Blair, following the May elections and the Paisleyite victory, had torn up the Good Friday Agreement and announced to the Westminster Parliament that he was considering a new strategy that would exclude Sinn Fein from power. London, Washington and Dublin now insisted on surrender and had started to apply the whip to force a response. Rita O’Hare, who travelled to Washington to announce the glad tidings, had recently been barred as a warning that the US welcome was beginning to wear thin.

Dublin minister Michael McDowell had led a sustained attack on behalf of the Irish government, outing Adams and others as members of the army council and indicating that IRA activity would permanently bar Sinn Fein from a junior role in coalition with Irish capital. Sean Kelly was imprisoned to remind the IRA that most of their members were prisoners out on licence and that they could all be imprisoned at the whim of the British. Kelly was released when the British were informed that that the surrender statement was on its way. In a similar way the fate of three republicans arrested in Colombia and charged with training FARC guerrillas has ebbed and flowed with Sinn Fein’s approval rating in Washington. The surrender statement was quickly followed by their appearance, free in Ireland.

The political reward for surrender, to use the word reward loosely, is that Sinn Fein can rejoin the capitalist alliance that designed the Good Friday Agreement – London, Dublin and Washington, and work with them on plan B – persuading Unionism and Loyalism to install Ian Paisley as Prime Minister and agree to include Sinn Fein in the coalition government.

The fact that this crazy project is taken seriously, despite being denounced by Paisley at every turn, is a sign of imperialism’s desperation to cobble together a settlement and of the collapse of political understanding in Ireland. The project contains a number of implicit assumptions that, once stated, stretch the bounds of credulity.

A rational Unionism

The first assumption is that the aim of Unionism is to reach a stable political accommodation with nationalism and that it is a rational organisation able to agree and operate such an accommodation.
This is false. Unionism does not operate as a political philosophy but as a conspiracy to enforce sectarian division and political and economic power. The old Stormont regime applied across-the-board discrimination against Catholics and used pogroms and all-out state repression to prevent revolt. When that revolt eventually arrived it began to debate a strategy of making concessions to retain power. In over three decades, starting with Terence O’Neill, every leader who suggested concession was overthrown from the right. The British built the Good Friday Agreement around the concept of a moderate unionism willing to do a deal with Irish capitalism and thus ensure the indefinite survival of their sectarian statelet. They got the unlikely figure of Trimble and then his slow fall under pressure from forces to the right of him and now they have the full-blown bigotry of Ian Paisley with Empey, the assassin of Trimble, in supporting role.

Now the British have built the present plan around the ghost of moderate unionism. There may not be any moderates about, but there is a widespread recognition that the sheer size of the nationalist minority requires a modification of sectarian rule and some accommodation with Irish capital. Reg Empey made a point of recognising this in his acceptance speech. Behind the scenes Nigel Dodds and Peter Robinson have made similar noises. The idea is that if unionism is placated they will eventually produce some compromise that the republicans can sign up to.

However the last 30 years carries eloquent evidence of the inability of unionism to advance any compromise, no matter how clearly this would defend their long-term interests. The present leadership of both the DUP and UUP are the outcome of generations of selection where the road to power lay in toppling the leader who showed the slightest ambiguity in their defence of sectarianism.

‘No selfish, strategic or economic interest’

Behind the false assumption of unionist accommodation is another false assumption – the keystone of the present process – the statement by Britain that it has no selfish, strategic or economic interest in Ireland. It follows that its intention in the present process is to withdraw from Ireland, that it will not tolerate Unionist obstruction and that, if Unionists refuse an accommodation, the British will punish them.

This again is false.

The British fought a 30-year war which cost billions and have now spent another decade of intense political activity trying to get their ramshackle deal to work. It is worth this amount of effort because the northern economy is essentially part of the British economy and, however much it costs the state, levels of profit at the level of individual firms are very healthy, because the British retain a very significant stake in the core elements of the Southern economy, because a stable capitalist Ireland is a central concern of the British state and because Britain, as the former colonial power, is looked to by the other powers to guarantee order in this part of the world.

The mechanism by which Britain meets its political objectives is the occupation of part of the Island and that in turn depends on the active support on a mass unionist base that legitimises the occupation. This in turn means that, in every situation where a unionist leader suggests any level of accommodation with nationalism, the British conciliate the right wing. They tried to save Trimble by bending the Good Friday agreement to the right. Each concession merely emboldened the ultra-bigots and left Paisley and Empey as the leadership of the DUP and OUP respectively. Are we to ask which one of these is the moderate?

This has very direct implications for the coming political negotiations in September and January. They are not in any sense a matter of laying down the law to Unionism, of forcing them to accept reform or of punishing them. What is planned is that the British will create an environment where the Unionists will feel able to agree to some form of coalition government. This in turn will involve moving further from the Good Friday model and towards the preferred unionist models of either an assembly without government, where the sectarian groups lobby the British, or a giant county council with a majority unionist leadership and nationalists in committee chairs.

Provo duplicity

This British strategy is based around a further assumption, one that they don’t believe themselves. That is that it is duplicity and intransigence by the Provos that have caused the difficulty in the implementation of the Good Friday agreement. This again is false. For example, the British routinely talk of the £26 million Northern bank heist as having brought down the last attempt to form a local government. In fact the heist occurred after Ian Paisley had exploded the agreement. The same mechanism has occurred at each of the numerous crises that finally demolished the Good Friday Agreement. The unionists refused to implement the deal and the British, using the ‘Independent Monitoring Committee’ set up by themselves, provided cover by seizing on some, often quite routine, elements of IRA activity as post facto justification for unionist intransigence. However this British assertion is key in understanding how the mechanism of normalisation will proceed.

Political negotiations will be held to construct a local assembly in the North of Ireland with the aim of placing the arch-bigot Paisley, or his nominee, in the post of first minister. The foundation of these talks will be the surrender of the IRA. However the British have already indicated that the words of the declaration will be meaningless on their own. The future of the negotiations will depend on the actions of the IRA in disarming, winding up military structures and activities and ceasing money-laundering activities. The final word on these issues will lie with the British, through the mechanism of the IMC. Given that the IRA will depend on British cover on a number of issues – the armed section retained to provide protection for the leadership, the army structures needed to ensure the loyalty of volunteers and the financial activities that will need time to be legitimised – it should be self-evident that the British will be in total control of the negotiations and their outcome.

Their immediate aim, already expressed, is to explore what is meant by ‘democratic means’. The IRA are too deeply penetrated to represent a significant military threat. The importance of the surrender statement is its unconditional recognition of the democratic credentials of the British colony. At the moment this is a passive recognition. The next step is active support of the state forces, membership of the police and of the policing boards. Police chief Hugh Orde issued this call immediately after the IRA statement, somewhat indiscreetly confirming that Sinn Fein are already secretly in contact and co-operating with the police at every level.

Orange marches: sectarian provocations

Republican police

The fact is the republicans have already begun to fulfil a number of policing roles. No sooner were the elections over than both unionist parties indicated that the ‘right’ to sectarian provocation with Orange marches was a precondition to further talks. Immediately local committees in Derry reached an ‘historic agreement’ accepting an Orange march in the town. The republicans policed the violent reaction of nationalist youth, as they now routinely do in Ardoyne.

There are difficulties for a republican police. A feud amongst loyalist groups over control of drugs in which three people have died throws into sharp relief the unremitting sectarianism of the northern state and the continuing sectarian privilege of the loyalist groups.

The rationale for official indifference is that there is no question of these groups being in government, but this ignores the fact that the British pump millions of pounds into their coffers to buy them off and provide a whole network of ‘community’ structures to give them political influence.
In the ongoing feud a group of loyalists were able to take over a Belfast estate and force families out while the police looked on. The fact that the Garnerville estate is beside the police headquarters underlines the immunity the state extends to loyalism.

The call from police, unionists and the British is for conciliation – that is that criminal gangs should divide up drug zones by negotiation while the state stands aside.

A permanent atmosphere of sectarian intimidation permeates the North. Political unionism bedecks the local councils with Union Jacks. The loyalist groups repeat the exercise on the streets and follow it up with low-level ethnic cleansing.

Just how little northern society has changed was shown by the proposal to hold a republican march in Ballymena, a key Paisleyite base. The proposal was followed by a series of bomb attacks on local Catholic businesses and sectarian graffiti at local churches. The British, through the Parades Commission, having supported thousands of coat-trailing Orange marches, directed that the march stay within the confines of the only nationalist estate.

Sinn Fein’s willingness to conciliate unionism in the interests of the bigger picture and the embryonic police structures they have set up in nationalist areas indicates that they will increasingly find themselves in conflict with their own working class base.

Reform?

The fourth assumption within the normalisation process, the one the republican leadership believe themselves, is that it is a process of reform. They understand that they have agreed to support the sectarian colony in the North but believe that it is to be a reformed colony, where a share of sectarian rights for nationalists will, over time, translate into a united Ireland. If this were the case then the promise to disband the Royal Irish Regiment would be of great significance. The removal of what is essentially a Protestant militia within the British army would significantly weaken the Northern state. But this is not the experience provided by the Good Friday Agreement. The promise that the police will in the far future be 50% Catholic still stands but has been eroded around the edges, with the pledge to disband the RUC reserve abandoned and the civilian workers within the police excluded from the deal.

More significantly the police still fulfil their traditional role, with the standard sectarian reflex to Orange marches and loyalist intimidation. Hugh Orde recently announced that Orangemen have the right to walk and nationalists the right to ineffective protest – word for word the policy of the Orange Order. Police policy is that intimidation involving loyalist flags fixed at the victim’s doorway is not a policing matter but ‘community relations’. Moreover, if you remove the flag you are committing theft and must return the flags to the sectarian aggressors!

With this background it is likely that the disbandment announcement is a ploy by the British – in one stroke convincing republicans that real gains are on offer and on the other hand sending a wakeup call to Paisley that loyalism needs to be represented at the September talks.

You only surrender once. Only for one day do your former enemies clap you on the back and congratulate you on your statesmanship and far-sightedness. Within a few days it is business as usual. The future looks grim for the Provisional leadership. The British have them by the throat in the negotiations, able, through the IMC, to indicate at any time the status of the IRA ceasefire and to reward or punish Sinn Fein accordingly. Irish justice minister Michael McDowell has already indicated that there will be no letup in the massive financial investigation into IRA affairs in the 26 counties. Most significantly of all Taoiseach Bertie Ahern issued a statement reiterating his view that their would be no united Ireland in his lifetime. Ahern is not making a prediction or stating an opinion. He is enunciating the policy of southern capital, now determined to remove a united Ireland from the agenda and to underline for Sinn Fein exactly what they are signing up for in their subservient relationship to Dublin, London and Washington.

Despite being a founder member of the Welsh Socialist Alliance, Cymru Goch will not be re-affiliating to the WSA for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the WSA has failed to develop as an alliance in terms of attracting non-aligned members who put the alliance before party affiliation. For the first four years of the WSA, Cymru Goch put the alliance first in terms of our priorities and have consistently pushed for a deeper, broader alliance to bring together the left in Wales. We have always supported calls to become a party on the Scottish model – one that united the majority of the Welsh left – but this has been resisted by others for what we feel are narrow, sectarian reasons. An opportunity has been missed.

Secondly, it remains little more than an electoral flag of convenience. The SWP, which is the largest grouping in the WSA, has been content to use the WSA for electoral purposes (alongside other front organisations, such as the Anti-Nazi League and Globalise Resistance), while neglecting to do the long – term local campaigning necessary to build a credible electoral force. Electoral results in the UK general election and subsequent by-elections demonstrate the importance of having a base in Welsh working class communities.

Thirdly, it has failed to understand the need for an independent socialist Wales. Any alliance has to involve compromises and we compromised on this issue, but we are unable to compromise our socialist republicanism indefinitely. We feel our politics are out of step with the majority of the present WSA members – in many ways we’re speaking a different language to most other WSA members.

Cymru Goch will therefore not be re-affiliating to the WSA as an organisation.

We will always be ready to work alongside comrades in the WSA on campaigns in a non-sectarian way and would hope to avoid any electoral clashes in the future. Individual Cymru Goch members may choose to continue as WSA members, which we have no problem with, as we are not a centralist organisation. We will continue to work for the maximum unity of the left in Wales to achieve a Welsh socialist republic and a socialist world.

Cymru Goch, May 26 2002

More than 300 people attended the three day Stuff the Monarchy festival organised by Cymru Goch in Pontypridd’s Clwb y Bont over the Jubilee bank holiday. Those attending were a broad mix of republican, socialists and greens from across Wales and enjoyed a laid-back variety of debates, videos, music, poetry and drinking.

The event opened with a great speech by Alan McCombes of the Scottish Socialist Party. Alan spoke about the need for a Scottish Socialist Republic in his own country and the way the SSP was advancing that vision. He made it clear both during and after his talk that Welsh socialist republicans would be welcomed in future in Scotland.

The history of Welsh republicanism was explained in two separate sessions by Pedr Lewis and Tim Richards. Pedr outlined the history of the Welsh Republican Movement in the late 1940s and 1950s in a session that delighted many younger comrades and drew praise from IRSP speaker Terry Harkins.

The one notable absentee was Simon Brooks of Cymuned. He pulled out after the Welsh Mirror highlighted the fact that he was sharing a platform with an Irish republican socialist – which in the Mirror’s warped logic became the British leader of the INLA!

However, prominent Valleys socialist republican and member of Cymru Goch, Tim Richards, had his house raided and was charged before being given bail on condition he was banned from Trehafod where the Queen was going to visit! Tim went on to explain the reasons behind this.

Let’s not forget all police officers swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen and we were slagging off the monarchy. I think they were looking for an excuse to criminalise Welsh socialist republicans. The Special Branch is essentially political and its role is to monitor dissent, particularly socialists, greens, anarchists, anti-capitalists, etc. In my case they went one step further by trying to trump up a charge against me for political reasons but it has backfired badly on them.

The support has been great. My first worry was that it might affect my job, but support from my colleagues (Tim is an FE lecturer) has been 100%. In Abertridwr (Tim’s home village), once again the support has been magnificent and it has to be said that the political support has been surprisingly wide. One of the first people to support me was Dafydd Iwan and Welsh Assembly Members from Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal-Democrats, anarchists, greens and so on have been marvellous. It shows that while not everyone might agree with my republican views they feel the police vendetta is a massive overreaction.

It is an interesting reflection on what the establishment perceives as a threat. Unfortunately, they feel quite secure against socialist politics, but less so when it comes to Welsh republicanism. The English establishment are not used to having their Queen criticised by us Welsh peasants. Cymru Goch led the anti-Jubilee protests in the UK and that was not to be tolerated.

The wider implications are that we are going through a dark period in civil liberties. Even before September 11th, New Labour had shown itself as an authoritarian party more interested in law and order than justice. Tony Blair’s government is holding a number of Moslems in prison without trial and has already deported people without any legal justification. Internment is a direct attack on the civil liberties of all of s.

When Tim’s case finally came to Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court, it was revealed that two undercover police officers had attended Cymru Goch’s Stuff the Monarchy festival posing as would-be demonstrators. Socialists and republicans rallied in support of Tim with large noisy pickets outside the court hearing. There was also a positive outcome with excellent public meetings in both Pontypridd and Wrecsam on the arrest and its wider implications for free speeech in the wake of the war against terrorism.

After the case was dismissed, Tim said, I am relieved that this farcical case has been dropped, but I am angry that it should have happened in the first place.

In addition the success of the Pontypridd republican festival has prompted Cymru Goch to make it an annual event for the Mayday weekend.

Scotland is the part of the United Kingdom with the widest anti monarchist feelings, yet it is somewhat ironic that the Scottish Socialist Party, despite being the most influential socialist grouping in these islands, showed its usual reluctance to deal with the issue of the monarchy at our February Conference.

The reason for this is not hard to seek. Traditionally, Militant was notoriously unionist and anti-republican; so much so, that their partners in the Six Counties would rather be associated with the loyalist Progressive Unionist Party (linked to the pro-British Ulster Volunteer Force death squads) than with Republicans. The CWI, by and large, still adhere to this position, despite their more recent support for a break-up of Britain road through an independent socialist Scotland! Obviously there are major problems in trying to remain British unionist in Northern Ireland and Scottish nationalist up here. In the process of breaking from the CWI, the ISM however, has become aware of this political inconsistency and has recently tolerated Republicans on socialist platforms, provided they were balanced with loyalists!

However, this warring tribes approach also remains politically inconsistent. Yet it still marked the ISM contribution to the anti-Jubilee debate at Conference. The fact that Tommy Sheridan mentioned the previously dreaded R-word three times in his Conference introduction, still didn’t prevent other ISM comrades stating it couldn’t be used in Scotland, because it was too associated with Ireland. Although not openly stated, underlying such contributions was the fear that the use of the R-word could cost us votes, particularly in the west of Scotland.

The fact that republicanism has historically been an inclusive brand of politics, uniting protestant (anglican), catholic and dissenter, whilst loyalism has been sectarian and exclusive – protestant and Orange, is completely lost on those who uphold a warring tribes approach. Of course Irish republicanism has had its own struggles with sectarian Irish catholic nationalism and has not always been successful in these. However, this battle between non-sectarian and sectarian forces has been continuous. Needless to say there has been no such history within the forces of loyalism. Loyalism has been marked by a crude anti-catholic sectarianism and the worship of the monarchy and empire. The struggle between republicanism and loyalism has represented the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor and between national liberation and imperialism. Refusing to take sides in such a struggle leaves the SSP disarmed when sectarianism does rear its ugly face in Scotland. It puts us in a similar position to those old socialists who used to say that you shouldn’t challenge a man who beat up his wife, if he was a good trade unionist at work!

The Edinburgh-led James Connolly Society has been at the forefront of the struggle against loyalism and its apologists in the old Edinburgh District Council and also against reactionary and sectarian catholic nationalism. Every year socialist speakers are invited from a wide variety of backgrounds – Labour, SNP, Turkish hunger strikers, black American women, as well as from Sinn Fein, to address the James Connolly Commemoration held in Edinburgh. Despite this CWI/ISM speakers have over the years tried to demonise the JCS as an anti-socialist and sectarian. It came as no surprise when, once again, they resorted to the same stale old arguments to remove any reference to joint work with the James Connolly Society from the anti-jubilee motion to Conference. Yet in 1992, before the Scottish Socialist Alliance had even been founded, the James Connolly Society stood a candidate in the St. Giles/Holyrood ward of Edinburgh on the following platform:-

• for free speech, against censorship
• for a £250 minimum weekly wage
• for pensions and benefits at the level of the weekly wage
• for a united Ireland
• for a Scottish republic
• against racism and fascism
• abolish the monarchy
• for socialism

Quite clearly this is a fairly sound republican and socialist platform. Yet, although the CWI and ISM were against any major republican protest, this could still have been won at the SSP Conference, if the SWP had placed its weight behind the motion. Unfortunately, the SWP were split. This partly reflects a quasi-unionist political training which draws on Neil Davidson’s theory that the Scottish nation merely developed as a component of a greater British nation state. In his book, The Origins of Scottish Nationhood, Neil has provided a leftist supplement to Linda Colley’s influential book about the development of Britain – the well named, Britons, The Forging of A Nation. Whilst Colley outlines the British ruling class’s success in promoting a top-down British identity through a wider loyalist mobilisation; Neil highlights the role of Scottish/British constitutional reformists in the construction of a British nation state. What is completely missing from Neil’s book is the role of Scottish republican internationalists, such as Thomas Muir and the later leaders of the United Scotsmen, who quite clearly drew upon a distinct Scottish revolutionary tradition to promote a new internationalism from below, in alliance with Irish, English, French and Dutch republicans, against Britain. Today we need a new republican socialist alliance from below uniting our class in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Welsh Socialist Republicans have been at the forefront in building a coalition against the Queen’s Jubilee Jamboree in June. Cymru Goch, Earth First! activists, leading trade unionists and socialists have come together to form an ad hoc group called Stuff the Monarchy to oppose the event.

The weekend of the official celebrations will see a Republican Festival in a Welsh social club called Clwb y Bont, Pontypridd, which has been declared a people’s republic for the duration of the weekend. It’s going to be a vibrant exchange of ideas, debate, music, poetry and videos from struggles around Wales and the world. Speakers include socialist republicans from Scotland and Ireland as well as anti-globalisation campaigners, community activists, trade union militants and direct actionist greens.

The weekend will also be the final chance for campaigners opposing the Queen’s visit to Wales on June 11-13 to get organised. The Festival will also be an informal meeting place for like minded socialists committed to national liberation. We see this as a chance to break with the stale electoralism of the Welsh Socialist Alliance and build a real alliance of socialists, direct action campaigners, trade union militants and community activists who have not been enthused by the lukewarm reformism of the current WSA.

The traditions of republican resistance to the monarchy are well established in Wales. The traditional method for the monarchy to win over the rebellious Welsh was a subtle thing called the Investiture of the Prince of Wales. This imposition first happened soon after military conquest and was repeated whenever the natives got restless. In 1911 and most recently in 1969, there were protests from radicals opposed to British rule in Wales. This very crude symbol of Wales’ annexation by England (no-one seems to remember needing a referendum for that one) remains a live possibility for when Queenie pops off and Charles finally gets a day job. It’s possible that William will be made Prince of Wales, but much will depend on the kind of reception the royals get on their tour of Wales.

Our Stuff the Monarchy campaign isn’t just about the Jubilee – it’s about ensuring that Charles is the last Prince of Wales and urging his Divestiture. It will continue beyond the Jubilee frenzy being whipped up by the Palace media machine and loyal newspapers. They have a steep climb to convince an apathetic population – and a hostile youth – that Royalty means anything to Wales.

There are interesting developments beyond the orthodox (i.e. Brit) left – a new radical language movement called Cymuned (Community) has sprung up in Y Fro Gymraeg (the Welsh-speaking heartlands) with 1100 members in just 10 months. Its recent conference placed it firmly in the camp of non-violent civil disobedience with a commitment to oppose colonialism and racism. It stands up for the rights of a community – the Welsh language community of 500,000 people and specifically the 300,000 or so who live in majority Welsh speaking areas in the West – to exist. It pits that right against the right of an individual and freemarket forces to destroy a fragile community and culture. In these areas at least, it is becoming a mass movement against speculative housing developments that are far beyond the reach of low-paid young local people.

Similarly, campaigners against waste incinerators and further opencast mining in some our most deprived communities are taking new and novel forms of direct action and lobbying to get their message across. All are being ignored by the mainstream political parties.

These new movements are part of a trend against capitalist party politics, against globalisation and for an imaginative rethink on who controls our communities and world. The trend towards direct action rather than electoral success underlines the common consensus that if you vote for Tweedledee or Tweedledum, you end up with Tweedledummer.

Welsh Socialist Republicans who are casting off the tired old orthodoxies of the British left are well placed to take their part in this new alliance of rebel forces.