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.

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)

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 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.

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.