The RCN urges Conference delegates and visitors to apply the following principles when they discuss, debate and vote on this year’s Conference motions.

• 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.

by D.R.O’Connor Lysaght

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.

Uniting the Left on the basis of ‘Internationalism from Below’

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

Taken from SSP website

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.

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.

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

The Scottish Socialist Party is inviting your organisation to send a speaker to Socialism 2008 to be held on …………… at ………………

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 agrees to contact socialists in England, Ireland and Wales to discuss a republican socialist
strategy to counter current US and British plans to maintain imperial control over these islands on behalf of the global corporations. If the initial discussions prove fruitful then the SSP should, if possible, organise a conference in 2008 to bring together socialists from across the UK and Ireland.

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.

Taken from SSP website

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.

Allan Armstrong interviews Alan McCombes, a key influence on the theoretical direction of the SSP and a member of the SSP national executive. He gives us his views on Salmond’s SNP government, the future prospects for socialist unity, and the SSP’s constitutional conference.

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.

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.

Platforms, tendencies, factions – call them what you will – exist in all organisations, not just in political parties. Sometimes they are suppressed (by the controlling and usually undeclared, leadership faction, of course), sometimes they are tolerated and occasionally they are welcomed.

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.

As the SSP’s 2008 conference approaches, our party is still feeling the effects of the long running perjury investigations and charges linked to the libel trial brought by Tommy Sheridan against the News of the World.

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.