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

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

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

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

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

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

The elimination or cooption of non-English elites did not produce a united British nation though. Under the terms of the parliamentary unions, the Scottish and the ‘Anglo-Irish’ ruling groups were still able to maintain their own protected national institutions (e.g. the Church of Scotland and the Irish Yeomanry). At the same time, they worked as junior partners to the English members of the new British ruling class. Together, they further developed their now shared UK state. This enabled them jointly to pursue the profits to be made from the British Empire. Although the new unified British ruling class was able to forge a top-down, British national identity for itself, it did not create a new unitary British nation incorporating all the peoples of these islands – English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh; or a unitary British state, which reduced an older Scotland and Ireland to mere historical terms, like Aquitaine or Picardie in France, after the French Revolution.

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

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

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

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

Therefore, the failure to create a unitary British state and national identity has largely been a reflection of the choices made by the British ruling class, including its distinct Scottish and Protestant Irish components, to opt for a unionist state instead, the better to maintain their pro-property alliance. The UK set-up has allowed for subordinate national elites, and newly enfranchised sections from the ‘lower orders’ in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, to hold on to, or to create new perceived nationalities, but as subordinate elements of a hybrid British identity – Scottish-British, Irish-British (more recently Ulster-British) and Welsh-British. In Ireland, it was the repeal of the Test Acts (1828) and the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland (1869) that helped to widen the earlier more exclusive ‘Anglo-Irish’ identity by creating a new Irish-British identity, which could be adopted by members of non-established Protestant denominations, and even by some better off Catholics, after Catholic emancipation in 1829.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, Conservative unionist intransigent opposition to constitutional reform had proved impossible to maintain during the International Revolutionary Crisis from 1916-21 and the Irish Republican challenge to British rule. Therefore unwittingly, the earlier majority British ruling class hostility towards political Home Rule had contributed to the first phase of the break-up of the UK state, leading to the departure of the Irish Free State (albeit still under the Crown until 1948).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Wales, Plaid Cymru was more than happy to fall in behind Labour in supporting Welsh Devolution. Plaid Cymru remained relatively weak in the populous traditional industrial South, where Labour dominated. There still remained considerable internal conservative unionist opposition to Devolution within the Welsh Labour Party. These people went on to front the ‘No’ campaign, which also included the Conservative Party. New Labour was taking a chance in Wales, but Blair wanted to give the new UK constitution some appearance of overall coherence. This meant giving political recognition to the nations of Scotland and Wales, and to the unique position of Northern Ireland [1], in an attempt to take the sting out of the existing national democratic challenges. The extent of the powers to be devolved from Westminster, to each of the three other constituent parts of the UK, reflected the level of support in each area – a type of asymmetrical devolution originally pioneered in post-Franco Spain, which had also been confronted by significant national democratic challenges in Euskadi and Catalunya.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, how do the Nationalist parties fit into the ongoing decline of British imperialism and the longer-term historical tendency towards the break-up of the UK?  Ironically, those wannabe ruling class members, amongst each of the national middle classes, will cooperate with the British ruling class to ensure that as much as possible remains of i) the UK state machinery – by upholding the Crown Powers; ii) of the City’s economic control – through the maintenance of sterling; and iii) of the state’s military capacity – with, in the SNP’s case, saltire-flagged British regiments and shared military bases. Right wing SNP government minister, Michael Russell, has termed this strategy as seeking ‘Independence within the Union’. Basically this means giving all the institutions of the UK state, located within Scotland, a good lick of tartan paint.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is strong evidence that the majority within the SNP government considers the realistic outcome of the proposed Scottish independence referendum would be the achievement of ‘Devolution-Max’, particularly the implementation of fiscal autonomy. This would also satisfy the SNP’s recent big Scottish business backers – including Sir George Matthewson, Sir Tom Farmer, and Sir David Murray (their commitment to all the trappings of privilege are shown by their knighthoods).  It would also largely satisfy prominent SNP figures such as Michael Russell and Kenny MacAskill. Furthermore, SNP Finance Minister, John Swinney is known for his support for that ultimate neo-liberal measure – flat rate taxes. So, if the SNP were able to steer the Scottish economy even further down the neo-liberal road, the demands of big business and the ultra-rich for such measures would undoubtedly increase (even to the extent that the SNP’s best-known backer, Sir Sean Connery, might be persuaded to return from tax exile!)

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

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

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

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

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

Allan Armstrong, 30.9.11

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

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

(The following piece has been written by Steve Freeman of the Bermondsey Republican Socialists for the Occupy Times)

“I think the poorest he that is in England has a life to live as the greatest he……and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to the government that he has not put himself under.” These words of the republican Leveller, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, addressing the Army Council on 28 October 1647 at St Mary’s Church in the Putney, still speak to us over three hundred years later.

The struggle for democracy has continued ever since, by revolution and reform, with victories and defeats. Far from ending the struggle for democracy, capitalism has steadily generalised it across the world. As Banks and Corporations exploit their power so people revolt and seek democratic solutions. International finance and people’s democracy stand as mortal foes.

The latest phase, the Arab Spring, began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria and recently appeared in Moscow and China. This triggered the Occupy movement in September 2011 which hit the headlines when people began to occupy Wall Street. ‘Occupy’ has become an international protest movement against financial capital and social inequality which has spread to over ninety five cities including Madrid, New York, London, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, and Paris.

At first sight the Occupy movement seems distinct from the political and democratic struggles in the Middle East. It would be wrong simply to contrast the Arab democratic revolutions with ‘Occupy’s’ economic demands. Whilst the movement’s slogan “We are the 99%” refers to the distribution of income it expresses democratic values. It has been rightly described as a “democratic awakening” – if not yet Spring at least the end of hibernation. The central feature of our movement is participatory democracy in “General Assemblies”.

This takes us back to that historic and revolutionary, if largely forgotten, general assembly of the New Model army in occupation at St Mary’s church Putney. In 1647 the active section of the England’s young people were armed and organised in the New Model Army. Each regiment elected its own ‘shop stewards’ known as the agitators. As the first civil war ended the army became effectively a people’s parliament or republic, inside the defeated Stuart monarchy.

This parliament or general assembly met to debate a new constitution. The republican Levellers proposed an “An Agreement of the People” in opposition to the Army’s ‘Grandees’ – landowning generals – such as Fairfax, Ireton and Cromwell, backed by the wealthy City bankers and merchants. History has shown the Levellers were right but Cromwell and the City had the might. Soon they used it to suppress the Levellers, and the Diggers, who in 1649 began to occupy land at St Georges Hill in Surrey.

England has turned full circle. Today’s young people are not in a revolutionary new model army. But its students and ‘redundant’ youth are rebelling on the streets. Occupy has been led by young people trying to peacefully occupy the City in solidarity with similar protests across the world. The forces of the Crown barred the route to the Stock Exchange and we ended up camped outside St Paul’s. Now, like some Macbethean witches prediction, it is time for St Paul to meet St Mary.

Steve Freeman (Real Democracy Working Group)

also see:- http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2011/10/10/2nd-republican-socialist-convention-london-february-13th-2010/

THE REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT OF THE 1870s

Greenwich in South London has been declared the first Royal Borough in 80 years. In the kowtowing tradition of his party, Chris Roberts, the Labour leader of Greenwich Council, is organizing a celebratory reception. But the area, indeed the whole country, has a vastly different tradition – the struggle against the feudal anachronism of the monarchy and for a secular, democratic and social republic.

A highlight of this struggle was the republican movement of the 1870s. The fall of Napoleon III at the hands of the Prussians, and the proclamation of a French republic, led to a revival of interest in republicanism in Britain. Republicanism had flagged since the demise of Chartism as a national movement. The leading Chartist, George Harney, had called one of his papers the Red Republican. This is where the first English translation of the Communist Manifesto appeared.

Across the country over seventy republican clubs were formed. Mass demonstrations in support of republican France were held in Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park. In September 1870 a new paper The Republican appeared. Its slogan was “Labour-The Source Of All Wealth”

In 1872 an Irish political refugee and member of the First International, John De Morgan, arrived in Middlesbrough.  He became secretary of a committee of Yorkshire Republican Clubs. This committee sent out a circular to all the clubs in the country calling for a National Conference. William Harrison Riley’s International Herald had amongst its aims, universal suffrage, land nationalization and the liquidation of the national debt. (Riley was later editor a Sheffield paper The Socialist and was a political influence on Edward Carpenter.)

G. W. Foote, secretary of the London Club, which had been formed on May 12, 1871, stated that sufficient steps had not been taken to make the conference fully representative. (Foote later became founding editor of The Freethinker and was imprisoned for blasphemy.)

Nevertheless the conference went ahead in 1872, with twenty three clubs represented. James Linton’s blue-white-green republican flag was adopted (Linton had been a contributor to the Red Republican). A National Republican Brotherhood set up with De Morgan as secretary. Riley joined its council.

Charles Bradlaugh, president of the London club and founder of the National Secular Society, attacked the NRB in his weekly paper the National Reformer. He accused De Morgan of absconding with the funds of a Manchester temperance group and said the NRB was a “treasonable conspiracy” The London Club passed a resolution saying the NRB was an illegal association. This was circulated nationally by Foote.

De Morgan in turn accused Bradlaugh, in the International Herald, of being an informer. Bradlaugh threatened libel action and the NRB’s paper changed its name to the Republican Herald.

Riley now declared himself in favour of communism. Physical force would be needed to establish it he said. “The National Republican Brotherhood is striving for a Social Republic”, he wrote.

A leading member of the NRB was Thomas Smith, its treasurer and a Nottingham member of the International. In his pamphlet, Letters On The Commune, he wrote, “The first principle of the political revolution was the emancipation of the conscience, the freedom of the mind, and in the social revolution the first necessity is universal education…” He advocated the abolition of serfdom and the equality of all before the law, the emancipation of women, common ownership of land, the abolition of war and class domination.

De Morgan defined his own republicanism in an article in his De Morgan’s Monthly in September 1876, “I take it that Republicanism can be summed up in a sentence, viz that intellectual ability, ability in conjunction with moral conduct, or moral conduct alone, ought to receive the prizes of life, and no other possessions should be regarded meritorious…In practice, an entire reconstruction of society…the undeserving rich would become poor and the undeserving poor comparatively rich.”

In 1872 De Morgan visited striking Barnsley weavers offering to organize a dramatic event for their benefit.

Early in 1873, the London Republican Club, the London Patriotic Society and the West Central Democratic Society issued a circular calling for a conference to set up a National Republican Association. Forty delegates gathered in Birmingham among them Victor Le Lubez, representing the Greenwich and Deptford Secular Society. The name chosen was National Republican League. Only moral and legal means were to be used. The NRB denounced this as constitutional monarchism.

A third organization, the Universal Republican Association, was set up at a three day conference organized by the Eleusis Club in Chelsea. Among its members was Dan Chatterton, a one man revolt against gin and gospel, monarchy and capitalism. He suggested Queen Victoria be redeployed as a washer woman.

Meanwhile the Prince of Wales became seriously ill with the typhoid that had killed his father Albert. It was suggested Bradlaugh had poisoned him. On the anniversary of his father’s death he miraculously recovered. A thanksgiving service was held in St Paul’s. Pamphlets circulated saying his illness was an invention. Reynold’s News denounced “the mean, toadying spirit of so called loyalty.”

But after this the spirit of republicanism and the national organizations gradually faded out. Bradlaugh eventually became a MP for Northampton and De Morgan emigrated to America where he became a writer of fiction.

In 1874, Hackney secularist and printer, George Stranding, started The Republican Chronicle. He advocated a Metropolitan Republican Club as the forerunner of a new national organization. A conference was held at the Patriotic Club in Clerkenwell (nowadays Marx House) but it bore no fruit.

In the 1880s the cause was taken up again by newly formed Socialist groups in particular the Socialist League of William Morris, Eleanor Marx and Belfort Bax. They nicknamed Victoria the Empress Brown and alleged that after Albert’s death she found solace in the company, and possibly the bed, of her Scottish servant, John Brown.

While Keir Hardie was a republican, the Labour Party he helped to found clings to the monarchy like a manic dog. As we approach Mrs. Windsor’s Diamond Jubilee there is a need for a republican socialist movement, which can learn from the struggles of the past.

Terry Liddle

(Some of the information in this article is taken from a pamphlet The Republic Must Come First published by the South London Republican Form and republished by Black Cat Press. Copies can still be had £2 post free, cheques payable to E McArthur, from BCP c/o 83, Sowerby Close, London, SE9 6EZ)

This is an interesting, polemical, and well-researched book. Its first thesis is that Davitt supported alliances with progressive forces and mass movements, whereas Parnell settled for alliances with ruling class parties in Britain, usually the Liberals, though one with the Conservatives. The author characterises Davitt’s approach as ‘internationalism from below’ as the necessary strategy for working class and oppressed populations. To prove his point, the author gives a potted history of the parallel lives of Parnell and Davitt. In doing this, he very much takes Davitt’s side, seeing him as being on the right track until he took the anti-Parnellite side in the leadership crisis of 1890-91.

Davitt was largely responsible for the greatest mass movement in Ireland since O’Connell’s time. With an agreed strategic turn by the Fenian movement, dubbed the ‘New Departure’, the Irish National Land League was set up in 1879. Its great impact in Ireland prompted agrarian agitation in Wales and Scotland, and spurred the development of early labour and trade union bodies. In the process, there was a braking down to some degree of the hold of sectarian religious attitudes where these held sway, especially in the North of Ireland and the islands of Scotland.

Parnell is represented as a charismatic, bonapartist figure, presiding over both the Home Rule party and the Land League and manoeuvring between different factions, the Catholic church and the bourgeois parties of Britain, so as to be seen as indispensable by everyone. In spite of his rhetorical phrase, ‘no man has a right to set the boundary to the march of a nation’, he took care to distance himself from Fenianism, which provided the sinews of the movement. Once major disagreement between Davitt and Parnell was over land nationalisation. Davitt wanted the land nationalised while Parnell, backed by conservative elements and by the Catholic church, wanted peasant proprietorship. Davitt was defeated in part by a cynical assertion by his opponents that nationalisation meant ownership by the British state.

The Kilmainham treaty is seen as one of the decisive junctures where Parnell’s strategy won out. Here the author sides with Parnell’s sisters, whose Ladies Land Legue was dissolved as too radical. The mass women’s movement, set up to replace imprisoned male leaders, had the potential to become an early feminist movement. Parnell also moved to set up reformist labour movements to weaken and sideline the more radical bodies supported by Davitt. There is some mention of the American reformer Henry George, who visited Ireland and Britain in the early 1880’s and campaigned actively on the land issue. A now forgotten figure, George was probably more influential than Marx and Engels during this period, being one of the key figures in creating the atmosphere that led to the early labour movement in the English-speaking world.

The book’s second thesis is that, through James Connolly’s work and influence, ‘internationalism from below’ was developed into a fully-fledged strategy. With Connolly, seen as a Marxist successor to Davitt, ‘internationalism from below’ became a key part of the strategic orientation of the working and allied classes. In one detail, this reviewer disagrees with the author with regard to Connolly’s romantic vision that primitive communism existed in Ireland and the Scottish islands up until the seventeenth century – it was not a feudal or a capitalist society that was found in these places, but a pre-feudal form of class society.

Be prepared for many acronyms. The book packs a lot of history; more than fifty years, in a book of 204 pages which includes a good bibliography. It should persuade some readers to reread biographies of Davitt, Parnell and some of their contemporaries. And I would agree with the author’s approach, which is to look at these struggles through a different prism, that of ‘internationalism from below’.

The author is a member of the Scottish Socialist Party, which experienced its own Parnell scandal, in which the career of a leader was destroyed and former friends became enemies after the fallout.

To end, a book well worth reading.

 Jim Monaghan (in Saothar, Journal of the irish Labour History Society)

Some Comments on Davitt and his role arising from reading From Davitt to Connolly by Armstrong

 Let me make just a few points about this book though you will doubtless think I am too traditional a Social Democrat seeing the national problem as too simply just a social one. I am guilty of a Luxemburgist deviation perhaps.

This is that Armstrong, like most sympathetic to Irish nationalism, is in his book looking at this in too political a way, or if you like super-super structural way. The decline of what you might call Davittism and the shift to the right can be seen as a result not just of Parnell and a few traitors plus the Church, but of the real and very considerable reforms, reforms from above it is true, imposed by a cunning ruling class. I do not include the abolition of tithes earlier and Irish disestablishment 1869 which must have neutralised at least one aspect of the opposition of the Roman Bishops to the Ascendancy.

A real popular front type movement with a mass following was created by the Land League in 1879 but became increasingly difficult and eventually impossible to sustain or develop. Davitt’s own call for land nationalisation was, I think never really on. As far as I know it has not been carried through or had any support among any wide section of the rural population anywhere in the world, neither Russia during the revolution, South Asia, Latin America nor elsewhere. I stand to be corrected. Even Maclean thought only of a good system of co-operatives as an immediate demand for the crofters, while collective farms were, even for him, a more distant prospect.

The reforms were, apart from the very important concessions to tenants on rents, the first Land Bill 1881, when ¾ of the purchase price of the land was to be advanced to tenants if they wished to purchase, next 1885 the Ashbourne Act, when 4/5 of purchase price could be advanced. Many landlords sold up, and there was a big transfer of land. As perhaps a typical example my g-grandfather Major RGS Maunsell, Limerick with 134 acres (rental value £323) seems to have sold up then in 1886. (With 134 acres the family were not so grand but had grand distant relatives.) Finally the Land Purchase Bill of 1890 advanced the whole price of the farm to tenant purchasers. All of this was guaranteed by the Treasury enabling a low rate of interest to be paid and thus valuing the property at vastly more than what it would fetch in the open market (See Davitt 1890 http://www.marxists.org/archive/davitt/1890/05/garrison.html) No wonder Maunsell and many like him jumped at the chance.

When you add to this the advent of refrigeration, 1882 onwards, and thus swiftly growing imports of meat and butter to add to existing imports of cereals, hides and wool to the U.K., there was a catastrophic change to the position of the Irish landlords (and Welsh ones) and a sharp falls in land values. They just could not screw out any more rent, had to make do with much less and if they were big boys probably with huge debts, mortgages, marriage settlements etc. Though this reform was designed to benefit rich London money-lenders rather than poor Irish peasants at the expense of all tax-payers, it rapidly changed the whole Irish social structure. The whole was rounded off by the final land reform in 1903. And politically Armstrong does not give enough emphasis to the Third Reform Act and the secret ballot + local government reforms, all similar to those in the rest of the UK, which meant the political power of the Ascendancy melted away like snow in summer. Earlier reforms like the First and Second Reform Acts were not applied to Ireland in the same way as the Third but Radical pressure and perhaps the G.O.M. insisted on these political changes.

So there was nothing left of the Ascendancy in the countryside. If you want to use Hayek’s categories of “spontaneous order” they were almost instantly (25 years) replaced by a cohesive society dominated by the larger Catholic farmers socially and politically tightly controlled by massive clerical power. In Ireland the ratio of the clerics to population in the census of 1911 has never been higher and was higher than in any country in the world before or since. The Northern Protestants who were pissed off by the Ascendancy because of tithes, large landholders, lack of recognition of the “Ulster Custom” etc were also satisfied by these reforms but had the advantage of a growing heavy industry enclave to absorb population growth. So they had NO joint interests, unless working-class ones, with which to agitate with the southern oppressed layers. And there was sufficient truth to the cry that “Home Rule was Rome Rule” to whip up a quasi-fascist agitation often responded to in a similar quasi-fascist way it must be said. (What was objected to though seldom – for decency – put in print, they were Victorian hung-up Evangelicals after all, was the thought of another man in the confessional interrogating a woman about what her husband got up to in bed.) And this was before contraception etc became an issue.

Of course the call for a joint English, Welsh & Scottish agitation against the landlords for land  reform also tended to die away after 1873 as the “Great depression” weakened the power of the landed classes and the labouring classes flooded out of the countryside. Thus Sassoon in “Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man” recalls the sylvan and peaceful English countryside after the more wretched proles have all been cleared out a generation before. The English nobility swiftly got rid of the Irish estates if they had alternative sources of income while keeping the odd castle perhaps. The Welsh landlords did not get a land reform act so the smaller landowners there were buggered even if sometimes large landlords benefited because of economic growth from coal mines, slate quarries and urban rents etc as in England. The smaller Welsh gentry were not able, like my great-grandfather, who left Ireland to emigrate to Bournemouth where he could tyrannise over their dependants and become good friends with the 1920s British Fascists etc, while living off his sale money. Not much was left for the children of course. (My father thought he was an awful old sod since he did not have to admire his wife’s family after all.) And as far as I know there has been little work on the sociological connection of the numerous Irish Ascendancy emigrants and the far right in seaside southern England in the early inter-war period.

There are some interesting international comparisons such as the destruction of French Royalism in the election of 1884 as a result of the phylloxera devastation of the vineyards and the replacement of the old gentry by radicals and freemasons above all in the south. Or the disappearance rather later 1900-1910 of the mass of dangerous rural vagrants etc in France analogous with the departure of the most marginal and oppressed part of the English rural population to the towns earlier.

Ted Crawford (contributor to the Marxists’ Internet Archive)

For other reviews see:-

http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2011/11/07/a-new-review-of-from-davitt-to-connolly-by-tara-osullivan/

http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2011/06/20/review-of-from-davitt-to-connolly/

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

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

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

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

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

1. THE STRENGTHS OF THE SSP

a)          Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The SSA soon threw itself into activity in support of the Glacier workers’ occupation in Glasgow, then in a variety of actions to save schools and other council facilities. By 2002, all the major political groups in Scotland were in one political organisation (2) – the SSP.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

b)          Organisation

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

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

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

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

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

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

 2)      THE WEAKNESSES OF THE SSP

 a)         Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

b)          Organisation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 3. THE CURRENT SITUATION – FACING UP TO REALITY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 4) WHAT WE NEED TO DO -

LISTEN, LEARN AND THEN MOVE ON

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

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

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

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

a)           Politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

b)          Organisation

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

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

-            The role of leadership

-            Reject the lure of ‘celebrity politics’.

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

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

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

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

Allan Armstrong, Bob Goupillot, Iain Robertson, 20.12.11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

17 December 2011

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

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

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

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

Tara O’Sullivan (from Red Banner, issue no. 45)

A review of From Davitt to Connolly: ‘Internationalism from below’ and the challenge to the UK state and British Empire 1879-95, by Allan Armstrong

Earlier in the year we witnessed much discussion of relationships between Ireland and Britain. Some was of interest, but the worst of it was that the debate was occasioned by the visit of a certain over-privileged woman with a big house in London, and accompanied by moronic assertion that acquiescing in such a parasitic presence was some sign of maturity. But the histories and destinies of these two islands are linked in plenty of ways infinitely more relevant than the backslapping banqueting of the rich and their retinues.

Allan Armstrong’s book examines such a part of our history, a history of combined efforts to break such power and privilege and end the injustices that working people laboured under. The official take on the period covered here focuses on the Westminster cattle trading between Parnell and Gladstone, the vagaries of the Liberal/Home Rule alliance up to the point where it notoriously ended in tears. Here, however, we see what could have been the makings of a very different kind of alliance, aiming for real political democracy and radical change in social and economic relations.

The book opens as the land war does, a sustained militant movement to overthrow landlordism in Ireland, which inevitably fused with the attempt to win greater national independence. As outlined here, Michael Davitt personally had higher ambitions than others in leading positions: he wanted the land nationalised, not just taken from the landlords, and an Irish republic rather than home rule within the British empire. But this point of view was only one minority strand within the movement, and one which was continually subordinated to more moderate aspirations. The author puts his finger on “Davitt’s main political weakness—his overriding concern to maintain public unity” (p 58). Again and again we read of Davitt agreeing to hush up his more radical demands, so as to prevent a common front to the enemy. The unity of the land war was firmly based on this low common denominator. In view of this, the following characterisation of Parnell’s position seems to miss the point (p 42):

“A different strategy was already forming in his mind—a slower transition to peasant proprietorship and to Irish Home Rule. He was planning his own ‘counter-revolution within the revolution’—the ‘revolution’ being “The Fall of Feudalism”, or the breaking of landlord power; the ‘counter-revolution’ being the cementing of bourgeois political, economic and social power in Ireland, with the backing of the larger tenant farmers.”

The Land League’s stated aim was to win ownership of the land for tenant farmers instead of landlords, while the Home Rule party had the explicit object of an Irish parliament subordinate to Westminster. Parnell’s strategy was nothing new, only a continuation of the agreed strategy: sticking to the original aims of the revolution (in so far as it can be called such), not a counter-revolution. It was the strategy of Davitt and his allies that would have broken new ground, extended the revolution further—and it was their failure to organise openly and independently for that which deserves blame for it not happening, not Parnell doing what came naturally to himself and the class he represented.

A particular quality of the period is well highlighted, drawing a lesson that needs reiterating today, on both sides of the Irish Sea (p 24):

“Migrant labour played a key role. The constant changes in the class composition of the ‘lower orders’, leading to the fall or rise of certain categories of labour, initially made working class organisation more difficult, as employers deliberately promoted ethnic or sectarian divisions amongst their workforces. However, migrant labour also brought its ready-made traditions of struggle, imported by workers from other nations and regions. These traditions were drawn upon and modified in the course of struggle. They contributed to the political awareness and fighting capability of a new ethnically mixed working class.”

The existence of such a contribution has been noted before, of course. Anyone who ever read a history of trade unions in England knows that if you removed all the Celtic names you would have precious little left. Armstrong doesn’t present this as just a pleasant multicultural curiosity, however, but recognises it as a powerful dynamic in the making and renewal of the working class, a dynamic which should be evident in struggles of our own day.

But is it the case that “From the early 1880s an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance, of Irish social republicans and Scottish, Welsh and English Radicals, was created” (p 25)? Though a deal of evidence is presented here, it doesn’t back up such a sweeping claim. We read repeatedly of links made from time to time between struggles of working people in those four countries, but nothing that constitutes anything as strong or as lasting as an alliance.

In fact, a strange construction has sometimes to be placed on the material to make it fit this interpretation. In 1886 Davitt addressed Welsh miners and condemned the exploitation they faced. This is portrayed as “further strengthening the link between land and labour” across national boundaries (p 82). But he was electioneering on behalf of a Liberal Party candidate, in the hope that a Liberal government might grant a more generous measure of home rule to Ireland—hardly a radical alliance forged in the heat of class struggle.

This leads to wondering why—apart from the intrinsic interest of the events themselves—the period 1879-95 is chosen. Sympathies and common action between radicals in Ireland and Britain, encompassing Irish independence and social justice, were evident in earlier periods, after all. Left-wing Chartists and left-wing Young Irelanders stood together in 1848. In the 1860s and 70s radical Fenians and the International Working Men’s Association made common cause. So why 1879-95 specifically?

Armstrong explicitly argues here and elsewhere (see ‘The need for internationalism from below’, Red Banner 33, for instance) for a mutual internationalist alliance of socialists in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, in answer to the concerted efforts of those who rule these countries. While myself and Allan have had a friendly disagreement around whether Britain and Ireland should form an especial framework of activity for socialists (see our letters in Red Banner 34 and 36), it is a noble aim which socialists here in the western reaches of Europe can only welcome.

There is something problematic, however, about reading this perspective back into history. The concept of an “internationalism from below” alliance is entirely the author’s own, not one that ever emerged in the actual struggles of the time. Solidarity with Irish struggles was widespread, but more often on an all-British basis than consciously Scottish,Welsh or English. The emergence of these national questions was more prominent in 1879-95 than before—which presumably explains the book’s focus on the period—but Britain, even the United Kingdom, still formed the dominant terms of reference.

This is evident among Marxist thinkers of the time too, who Armstrong either criticises or claims as supporters—but the proof for their support is weak. He presents Friedrich Engels in 1891 being “in support of a federal republic for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales… He now advocated a federal republic for the four nations” (p 131-2). In reality Engels had written (in a well-known critique of a German socialist programme) that such a republic “would be a step forward” compared to the UK, while still advocating a decentralised unitary republic for Britain and elsewhere. Similarly, “Connolly pursued a ‘break-up of the UK and British Empire road to socialism’” (p 21). But while of course insisting on Irish independence, Connolly’s assault on the UK never envisaged an independent Scotland or Wales, or separate socialist organisations in Britain’s three countries (despite th option of establishing a Scottish Socialist Labour Party being wide open to him around 1903).

Again, the argument is more concerned with the early 21st century than the late nineteenth. The author makes no bones about this, as in his characterisation of many British Marxist responses to the issues (p 17):

“They either see the ‘National Question’ as a diversion from the ‘real struggle’, or begin by giving their support to liberal unionist options to defend the UK. When the ‘National Question’ refuses to go away, some ‘Marxist Radicals’ end up tailing the more liberal sections of the British ruling class, when they call for more powers for the existing devolved assemblies. A few go so far as to advocate a new federal arrangement between the constituent parts of the UK.… They hide behind the formulation of support for the ‘right of national self-determination’… take their political lead over the UK constitution from the liberal wing of the British ruling class, or sometimes from the Nationalist parties…”

There is much here that we can regrettably recognise, left-wingers who would prefer if questions of political democracy would conveniently go away and leave them to the bread and butter they know best. Not alone do such issues refuse to go away, however: we shouldn’t want them to. Demands for political democracy are an integral part of our work, often powerful elements in undermining the system we oppose and developing the desire for an alternative.

But is their demand for less than full Scottish and Welsh independence the problem? Take the case of Wales. The only trouble with demanding an independent Welsh republic is that few of the people living there want one. At the moment, most of Wales wants a certain level of self-government—more than it has at present—without breaking away from England completely. This can change, of course, and any decent socialist will fight for Wales’s right to separate as soon as it wants to. But until such a time, our job is to support the Welsh people’s right to vary, weaken, or sever that link as they see fit, to determine their own national future. Socialists support the right to divorce absolutely, but leave it up to people themselves whether they want to break up or not.

This doesn’t amount to defending the UK or a reformed version of it. The grave of the United Kingdom is one every socialist should want to dance on. This forced union, presided over by acres of feudal mummery, belongs in the museum, with its Union Jack torn up for dishrags. But does it have to be replaced by discrete Scottish, Welsh and English workers’ republics, or could a socialist Britain with full autonomy and the right to separate not do the job? The oppression of Ireland has always been greater, and its partition inherently sectarian and anti-democratic, but there are a host of reasons—geographic, economic, cultural and others—why the nations which inhabit Britain might want to share a workers’ republic which accommodated their diverse needs.

If we look to mainland Europe and further afield, it is hard to find many state boundaries that don’t perpetuate some kind of injustice. The map is dotted with nations, nationalities, ethnic and cultural groups whose existence is denied and marginalised by undemocratic capitalist states. Socialism—both as a future society and as a movement aiming for it—will have to come up with various ways to respect their rights, and independent statehood is only one solution among many. Proposing it as the only or primary solution fails to do so, especially in cases where it isn’t wanted by the peoples involved themselves. For instance, a socialist England or Britain should go out of its way to facilitate as autonomous a relationship as Cornwall wants and to support the use of the Cornish language—but proclaiming an independent Cornish republic that hardly any Cornish people want would only be dodging the difficulties involved.

From Davitt to Connolly goes to the heart of such debates, spurning a bad tradition on the left of ignoring tough dilemmas which defy banal answers. It throws light on a crucial period of history for Ireland and its neighbours, one which contains lessons for us today. It is clearly written, not by someone bestowing his private enlightenment upon lesser mortals, but a socialist concerned above all to build a movement of equals that can take capitalism on in these islands and beyond. It deserves to be met in the same spirit.

Looking For A Political Soul Sister

Allan Armstrong replies to Tara O’Sullivan’s Celtic Soul Brothers in Red Banner, no. 45

Once again, Tara O’Sullivan is to be congratulated for her contribution to the continuing debate on the relationship between Socialists in the different nations and states comprising these islands 1. Tara raises some interesting and challenging questions in her critical review of my book, From Davitt to Connolly – ‘Internationalism for Below’ and the challenge to the UK state and British Empire from 1879-95.

Tara wonders why I have chosen this particular period and points to earlier examples of  “sympathy and common action between radicals in Ireland and Britain.” My book is an elaboration of a single chapter from a much larger four volume work I have been writing, entitled Internationalism from Below 2. In this work ‘internationalism from below’ is considered first in relation to the development of nation-states and nationalism; then in relation to other oppositional strategies adopted as mercantile and industrial capitalism developed along with their particular forms of imperialism.

These strategies have included – ‘universalism from above’ and ‘below’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’; support for ‘historic nations’ against ‘non-historic peoples’; and social imperialism against the ideas of Kautsky, Lenin, Luxemburg and the Austro-Marxists. Tara will be pleased to note that, in volume 2, I do take up all the other examples she gives, whilst, in volume 1, I also deal with the first ‘internationalism from below’ alliance of the United Irishmen, United Scotsmen, the London Corresponding Society and their other international allies.

The Introduction in From Davitt to Connolly highlights one of the main reasons I have chosen this particular period. It was written in the context of challenging British Left unionist and Scottish Left nationalist currents, particularly in the Scottish Socialist Party. However chapter 1 is almost like a second introduction and points to the impact of the break-up of the UK, beginning in 1922, on Socialist and Labour historians’ reading of events in relation to class struggle in these islands. Therefore, I hope that, even if people still have doubts about my full-blown ‘internationalism from below’ interpretation, they will appreciate this aspect of the book. I particularly welcome Tara’s words of encouragement in this regard.

Tara’s first criticism of my book is that “the concept of an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance is entirely my own.” In reply, I would argue that my own particular contribution only amounts to the use of the label ‘internationalism from below’ to describe the strategy utilised by the alliance of social republicans, Radicals and Socialists that developed in the period I wrote about.

By way of an analogy, the term ‘capitalism’ was not used at the time to describe the system which tenant farmers, artisans, the new working class and others were up against when they first fought against capitalist encroachment. Thomas Hodgskin was the first to use this term in 1825 in his Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital. However, Marxists and others have also been quite happy to apply the term ‘capitalism’ to describe its mercantile and early industrial forms long before this word was actually in use. Similarly, I think the phrase ‘internationalism from below’ helps us to understand what was at stake in the struggles I describe, particularly when set against the ‘internationalism from above’ alliance of the Gladstone’s Liberals and Parnell’s Irish National League (INL).

Tara also suggests the word ‘alliance’ is too strong a word to describe the international cooperation she recognises did exist. Whilst there certainly was no signed and sealed formal agreement between the various participants I do think the book demonstrates that many of those struggling in the various Land Leagues, in the Scottish Land and Labour League (SLLL) (as the Socialist League was called in Scotland), the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) and Scottish Socialist Federation (SSF), were aware of the imperial nature of the UK state and the potential for an alliance of national democratic challenges from below. People will just have to read it to see for themselves!

Tara criticises my own characterisation of Parnell’s suppression of the Irish Land League after the Kilmainham Treaty as a ‘counter-revolution within the revolution’. She states that, “Parnell’s strategy was nothing new, only a continuation of the agreed strategy: sticking to the original aims of the revolution (in so far as it can be called such), and not a counter-revolution. It was the strategy of Davitt and his allies that would have broken new ground… Parnell {did} what came naturally to himself and the class he represented.”

Tara is quite correct in stating that Parnell’s class objectives did not change. However, what she misses out is the impact of the struggle itself. Davitt, and other leaders in the Land War, more closely involved on the ground than Parnell, saw the much greater potential that the mass Land League struggle opened up. This led them to raise new demands, to extend the fight beyond Ireland, and to advocate  continued mass action. This meant prioritising the Land League’s mass campaign over the earlier Home Rule League parliamentary and the Fenian Brotherhood military strategies. The mass action aspect of the Land League’s campaign was subordinated, both in the minds of Parnell and the Fenians, to their own preferred strategies – parliamentarianism and physical force respectively. This resulted in the emergence of the INL and the Invincibles, which both contributed to the undermining of the mass action.

However, Parnell’s success in diverting this struggle into purely constitutional channels was far from uncontested, and was not that easy for him to achieve. Precisely because of the mass struggle, initiated by the Land League, Parnell was unable to move seamlessly from his initial public support for mass action (whilst distancing himself from what he saw as it excesses) to the purely constitutional politics, which he probably always really wanted. Parnell’s attitude to growing women’s involvement in the action, demonstrated by his determination to shut down the Ladies Land League (much to the consternation of his sister, Anna), is just one example of the problems he faced in getting his way as a result of the huge impact of the struggle itself . Thus, it can be argued that the launch of the Land War opened up a period of revolutionary change in the social relations found in Irish agriculture; but that Parnell, and his bourgeois and large tenant farmer backers, severely reined in the wider potential, bringing about, in effect, a ‘counter-revolution within the revolution’.

Tara agrees with the criticisms I make of  “Davitt’s main political weakness – his overriding concern to maintain public unity” with Parnell. However, she thinks I place a “strange construction… on the material to make it fit {an ‘internationalism from below’} interpretation”. In particular, she cites my reference to “Davitt address{ing} the Welsh miners and condemning the exploitation they faced.”  Tara protests, reminding readers of the context. Davitt “was electioneering on behalf of a Liberal Party candidate, in the hope that a Liberal government might grant a more generous measure of home rule to Ireland — hardly a radical alliance forged in the heat of class struggle.”

I think though, that my book highlights the growing contradiction between many of those involved in the unfolding class struggles, which demanded a higher form of politics, socialist republicanism, and the inherited politics held by these people. The two dominant ways of thinking on the Left in Davitt’s day were Radicalism (mainly in Britain) and social republicanism (mainly in Ireland). Davitt was very much influenced by both of these ways of thinking, given his Irish birth and his upbringing in industrial Lancashire.

In retrospect, it is relatively easy for us today to see the need back then for a new specifically socialist republican politics, and to understand the political shortcomings of those who were unable to make that transition. The book shows how Davitt, along with others, was very much on the cusp of such a transition, but they were often dragged back by their adherence to now outdated politics.  Yet, they still made significant contributions to the struggle.

Perhaps, we can get a better appreciation of what was happening, if we consider today, how hard it is to get self-declared Socialists to break from the old social democratic shibboleths, outdated strategies (e.g. neo-Keynesianism) and misplaced party loyalties, even when throwing themselves into ongoing struggles, for example, against austerity and cuts.

We have the example of John McDonnell, possibly the last socialist Labour MP in the UK. He is still involved in the official machinery of the British Labour Party and the UK state. Yet, he is often prepared to offer his support for real class struggles on the ground. Davitt, whilst using his 1886 tour of Britain to garner support for the Liberal-INL Home Rule electoral alliance, also used the opportunity to try to bring the miners into struggle, on the basis of opposing mining royalties. I think this provides another example of such contradictory behaviour.  Engels appears to have appreciated Davitt’s contribution, even as late as the period of ‘New (Trade) Unionism’, as I show in the book.

Of course, there will always be some tension between those to whom the political limitations of others (such as Davitt in the past) and the needs of the current movement at the time are stark; and those who still remember the earlier contributions made by such people, but who now hold things back. Despite the growing evidence of Davitt’s political failings, particularly during and after the Kitty O’Shea Scandal, I still find Davitt a sympathetic character, especially when you examine his life of struggle and the changing problems he confronted.

My book ends just before James Connolly left Edinburgh in 1896 for Dublin. Keir Hardie provided Connolly with some money, thinking he was going to set up a branch of the Independent Labour Party in Ireland. Instead he chose to set up the Irish Socialist Republican Party.  In this he was very much influenced by John Leslie’s (fellow SSF and later SDF member in Edinburgh) interpretation of Michael Davitt and the Land League legacy. This led to Connolly rejecting the all-UK strategy of British Socialists at the time. He took Davitt’s social republican and Radical-Liberal alliance on to higher plane by arguing for a new Irish Socialist Republican and British Social Democratic/Socialist alliance, effectively on the basis of ‘internationalism from below’.

Tara points out that “Connolly’s assault on the UK never envisaged an independent Scotland or Wales.” In this she is quite correct.  However, the book shows how the challenge of the promising SLLL, SSF and SLP (all of which Connolly joined after he moved back to Scotland), had been contained by the British ruling class by 1895. This contributed to the tacit adoption of a ‘British road to socialism’ by the Social Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party.  So although, as Tara points out, it was mainly Scottish members of the SDF who broke away to form the de-Leonite Socialist Labour Party, they did not form a specifically Scottish party in 1903.

It was not until 1919, that the Scottish SDF member, John Maclean, switched from its ‘British road to socialism’ course and adopted Connolly’s strategy of the ‘break-up of the UK and British Empire’. Maclean specifically added Scotland to the fault line in the UK state set-up, which he could clearly see in Ireland after his visit to Dublin that year, shortly after the Limerick Soviet. I have dealt with these developments elsewhere 3, but I also intend to write a follow up book, From Connolly to Maclean – ‘Internationalism from Below’ and the Challenge to the UK state and British Empire from 1896-1923, to develop these ideas.

Tara argues that it is not necessary for Socialists to advocate the break-up of particular states, provided that they champion “the right to separate”. There are considerable problems with the ‘right of self-determination’ both as used by Kautsky and Lenin. I have also addressed these problems elsewhere ⁴  and would need a lot more space to do so here. Indeed one of the purposes in writing my longer Internationalism from Below is to show the profound ambiguities in this formulation and how, along with Luxemburg’s and the Austro-Marxist alternatives, they undermined the full potential of the 1916-21 International Revolutionary Wave.

Tara, who lives in a state that has already broken away from the UK (if not from its wider economic stranglehold, as the banking crisis demonstrated), appears to take this (partly thwarted) revolutionary action as having been almost inevitable. This seems to follow from her quite valid comment that “the oppression of Ireland has always been greater”. However, Tara rather underestimates the initially pretty isolated position of that great revolutionary, James Connolly, when he first advocated the break-up of the UK, and his considerable contribution to bringing about revolutionary change.

The vast majority of the Irish working class at the time gave its support to Home Rule parties, which did not advocate the break-up of the UK or British Empire. This was highlighted by their role in recruiting Irish workers and small farmers in the First World War. Even the early Sinn Fein looked to an Austro-Hungarian-style ‘dual monarchy’ solution (Britain and Ireland) to the National Question. It was only in the context of the horrors of the First World War that the majority of Irish workers began to move towards the break-up of the UK strategy, which Connolly and a few others had long being arguing, but from a minority position.

There is probably greater support for specifically socialist republican politics in Scotland today (albeit still far too small) than in Ireland in the days of Connolly’s ISRP.  There is even greater support in Scotland for Home Rule (now termed Devolution) than in the days of the Irish Home Rulers. Scotland’s own ‘dual monarchy’ party, the SNP, also enjoys much wider support than the early Sinn Fein. Mercifully, the ultra-Unionist, including Loyalist forces, whilst real enough, are also smaller.

What this shows is that not only is the National Question very relevant in the UK today but, as in the period before the First World War in Ireland, is dominated by bourgeois and petty bourgeois forces. Connolly didn’t start from an opinion poll showing the extent of support for Irish independence, but from an analysis of the role of British imperialism and the contradictions it led to, and the possibilities this opened up for Socialists.  This is the approach I advocate today, when the US/UK imperial alliance, fronting corporate capital, is the dominant imperial force in the world.

The future for the working class, and indeed for wider humanity, is pretty bleak as the current capitalist crisis envelops us all. We need to find an effective strategy to challenge this. Only we cannot afford to wait for a new inter-imperialist war to win majority support!  The National Question, which Tara recognises as constituting a vital issue of “political democracy”, still acts as a fault line through UK and Irish politics. This should not be left to the Nationalist parties, which are all prepared to make their own accommodation with corporate capital and imperialism.

Connolly’s proposed alliance of Irish Socialist Republicans and British Social Democrats turned out to be problematic, especially when it came to getting British support for the 1916 Rising. The British Left remains a problem today. I have argued that, in some respects, their hard-wired sectarianism mirrors their adaptation to the UK state.  This is why we have to take Connolly’s version of ‘internationalism from below’ on to a new higher plane through a specifically socialist republican alliance of organisations in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Indeed, some of the lessons to be learned from the negative experience of the ‘British Left’ – the SWP and IS (CWI), both London centred - in helping to sabotage the promising Scottish Socialist Party are probably of considerable relevance in Ireland. Here these organisations’ ‘colonial offshoots’ look set to repeat their divisive roles in relation to the promising United Left Alliance. Although the CWI and SWP constitute their own sectarian ‘internationalism from above’ alliances, they have no strategy to deal with the British and Irish ruling classes’ own ‘internationalism from above’ alliance promoted through the ‘Peace Process’ and ‘Devolution-all-round’, nor their promotion of ‘social partnerships’.

I particularly welcome Tara’s conclusion, which acknowledges that “From Davitt to Connolly goes to the heart of such debates, spurning a bad tradition on the left of ignoring tough dilemmas which defy banal answers. It throws light on a crucial period of history for Ireland and its neighbours, one which contains lessons for us today.”

1. See our previous debates on ‘Internationalism from Below’ in Red Banner, issues no. 33, 34 and 36.

2. All these volumes will be published, as they become available for free, on an internet site. In the meantime volumes 1 and 2 are completed and can be obtained in pdf format on request by e-mailing:- intfrobel@hotmail.co.uk

3/4 These can also be obtained by e-mailing intfrobel@hotmail.co.uk

Also see:-

A Review of From Davitt to Connolly by Chris Gray, and Book Launch: From Davitt to Connolly: ‘Internationalism from Below’ by Angela Gorrie, in the current Emancipation & Liberation, issue no. 20 and internationalism from below book launch//a>

Due to an oversight this report was not placed earlier on the ‘Emancipation & Liberation’ blog

The second Republican Socialist Convention was organised by the Socialist Alliance [1] in London on February 13^th.  In its initial conception it was ambitious. With a General Election looming in the UK, the organisers attempted to bring together figures from the Left who might be offering an election challenge this year.  Those invited included Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT and someone from the Socialist Party, both involved in the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition [2], Robert Griffiths from the Communist Party of Britain (and formerly of No2EU), Peter Tatchell of the Green Left, and Colin Fox, co-Spokesperson for the Scottish Socialist Party (as well as Tony Benn, now seen as somewhat of a ‘national treasure’ by the British Left). They were all to be asked how they saw the relevance of campaigning on political or democratic issues, especially the demand for a republic. The series of apologies given, some undoubtedly genuine, whilst others more probably sectarian in motivation, highlighted the over-ambitious aims held by the organisers.

The Convention Chair, Steve Freeman, introduced Peter Tatchell as a ‘republican in spirit’. He made a useful contribution to start the debate. Peter outlined his proposed ten points for the republican reform of the British constitution. As with most of the British Left, the ‘Six Counties’ was missing from Peter’s contribution. He did think, though, that a federal Britain could solve the National Question in England, Scotland and Wales.

There was a formalism about the republican principles Peter advocated. This was because Peter had not analysed the real nature of the British unionist and imperialist state we were up against, and the anti-democratic Crown Powers it had its disposal to crush any serious opposition. Nor did Peter outline where the social and political forces existed to bring about his new republic. In particular, he did not really consider the role of republican challenges to the UK state, emanating from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Unfortunately, Peter had to leave for another meeting, whilst time for further discussion was curtailed, so Colin Fox was then left to put the SSP’s socialist republican case in somewhat of a vacuum.

Colin pointed out how the MP’s expenses scandal has shown how unrepresentative they have become. James Connolly reminded those who aspire to represent working people ‘Rise with your class not out of it’. Some 650 MP’s or ‘representatives’ are elected to Parliament. So why are they so unrepresentative? It has been subverted by the neo-liberal consensus. Being an MP has become a career not a cause. Parliament is full of lawyers, businessmen, bankers, accountants and lecturers and that’s just the Labour side!

In 2005, the Queen opened her new £440m Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood in Edinburgh. The SSP MSP’s decided not just to boycott the event, but to organise an alternative. The SSP gave its support to the Declaration of Calton Hill. Socialist republicanism is at the heart of the SSP’s politics.

The Convention then moved quickly on to the last morning session, introduced by Mehdi Kia (co-editor of the Middle East Bulletin). Medhi provided an overview of the events in Iran over the last 8 months. Initially he addressed some of the myths surrounding the recent presidential election and provided reasons for rejecting them. These included suggestions that the election was not fraudulent, that the protestors are mainly middle class, that this is another “velvet” revolution orchestrated by the US, that it is led by the reformists, and that the Iranian regime is in some way anti-imperialistic.

He went on to point out that the protestors come from a variety of backgrounds, the slogans are continuously changing and becoming more radicalised, the movement is in its very essence democratic and anti-imperialist, and within it is a growing secular republican movement (rejecting the Islamic republic) with increasingly radical slogans. He concluded that under the immense repression of the regime the tactic of street demonstrations has only limited potential and unless the various movements (women, youth, nationalities and workers) co-ordinate more effectively and adopt different tactics the movement will not succeed in its more radical aims.

The afternoon session was meant to introduce the perspective of ‘Internationalism from Below’ – England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales – which had united the contributors to the first Republican Socialist Convention held in Edinburgh on the 29^th November, 2008. The SSP International Committee had to apply some pressure for this issue to be taken seriously by the London organisers. They accepted, given the prevalence of Left British Unionism in England, that a debate was indeed needed between representatives of this tradition and speakers from both Left Nationalist and ‘Internationalism from Below’ viewpoints.  A mixture of the shortness of time, the lack of non-English contacts held by the Left in London, and various apologies limited the scope for this debate on the day.

Instead, Steve Freeman spoke about whether there was a National Question in England, beginning by considering the flags and anthems at the 1966 world cup, the Scotland-England rugby match in 1990 and the Euro football in 1996 when the flag of St George became prominent. The National Question involves issues of political institutions (parliaments etc) and identity. Whilst the National Question was recognised for Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the Left had not examined the related situation in England.

Steve considered that a British nation had been created after 1707 through the wars with France in the 18th century. He saw the UK as one nation and four tribes – the British-English, British-Irish, British-Scots and British-Welsh. Now the political institutions and the identity of the British English were being questioned. There was no British-English National Question in the past but now there were signs of an emerging crisis of politics and identity. From this a new English politics and identity could emerge. How should the Left relate to this?

Allan Armstrong, from the SSP’s International Committee (and a member of the party’s Republican Communist Network platform), then outlined some of the lessons socialist republicans could learn from the decades long republican struggle against the UK state in Ireland. He pointed out that there was now a National Movement in Scotland that is wider than the SNP. Indeed the SNP, like its equivalent parties in Quebec, Catalunya and Euskadi, is increasingly settling for Devolution-Max, and pushing the interests of local business within the existing corporate imperialist order.

Today, the British, American and EU ruling classes are united against any move towards Scottish independence. This is why any movement to win Scottish self-determination must be republican from the start. It must be prepared, in advance, to confront the Crown Powers that will be inevitably utilised against us. Because genuine and democratic Scottish independence represents such a challenge to British imperialism and the UK state, we need allies in England, Ireland and Wales too. We need to be committed to a strategy of ‘internationalism from below’. We are socialist republicans and link our political demands with social and economic campaigns. This was the course advocated by two great socialist republicans born in Scotland – James Connolly and John Maclean.

This session prompted the most debate, which has now continued on the RCN [3] and The Commune [4] websites, and in the pages of the very Left Unionist, Weekly Worker. It was a pity that enough time wasn’t given to air this debate more thoroughly on the day.

The last session was a bit of a damp squib, since the SA had obviously seen it as an opportunity to get the same sort of unity around demands over democratic issues in the forthcoming General Election, that the Left can sometimes achieve (on paper anyhow!) over economic issues. Instead it was left to Colin Fox for the SSP and Joseph Healey, for the Green Left, to outline the nature of their parties’ proposed electoral campaigns. The absence of the other Left forces contesting the election meant the SA’s aims could not be achieved in this respect.

It was good to have a Republican Socialist Convention organised in England. It was traditional Left in its mode of organisation (platform and audience), even when there were only about 20 present, but everybody who contributed did so in a constructive manner  - yes, including those from the ‘Brit Left’! I feel that more could have been gained though if the Convention had concentrated on the debate between Left Unionism, Left Nationalism and ‘Internationalism from Below’.  Maybe the next time!

 Allan Armstrong (member of SSP International Committee)

John McAnulty (Socialist Democracy – Ireland)

Shortly before Elizabeth Windsor’s visit to Dublin, the death of police officer Ronan Kerr led to a moral panic across Ireland, with demonstrations in support of the status quo and with the great and the good claiming all Irish society was under threat. In the Assembly elections which followed a new republican layer, opposed to Sinn Fein, marked up an unexpected vote. In the aftermath of the elections there has been a ramping up of state action, with statements of support for republican militarists seen as criminal acts in themselves, leading to a series of arrests.

Yet the background of the republican resistance has been one of
weakness. The republican groups have been slow to split from the
Provos, as they have split in successive waves they have fragmented,
riddled with informers and suspicious of each other. The aim has been
to resume the failed military struggle of the Provos on a smaller
scale, their explanation of the Provo collapse limited to calls of
treachery and British agents within the movement. Much of their
activity has been aimed at Sinn Fein supporters, calling on them to
return to the military struggle.

The standard claim is that these groups lack any support, yet they
have steadily grown. Old leaders have moved on, young people have been
recruited, the level of state intelligence has declined, the number of
bombs and hoaxes steadily risen. A steady pool of recruits has come
from ex-prisoners unable to adapt to the system of patronage run by
the Provos and from ghetto youth who found the bigotry and
discrimination of the new Northern Ireland little different from the
old. Control of areas in Belfast, Derry and Lurgan slipped from the
hands of the Provos. It was the emergence of this youth layer that led
to last year’s savage confrontations around Orange parades. A semi-secret dance is taking place. The republicans see increasing state repression as drawing in the mass of working class nationalists.

The state, aware of this danger, depend on the Provos, the church and Irish capital to isolate the republicans and allow focused
intelligence. So far this strategy has been successful, but the price
is a growing alienation of sections of nationalist youth, an
alienation strengthened by the asymmetric response by the state to
violence. The fact that the UVF have not disarmed, their role in
sectarian violence and the willingness of unionist politicians to
justify the sectarians all pass with only a muted response.

A more general problem is that the “peace dividend” – the economic
boom that was supposed to follow in the wake of the peace process,
never materialized. A property and credit bubble has come and gone,
unemployment is steadily rising and the Assembly is about to unleash
savage cuts in public services endorsed by Sinn Fein and the DUP. To
add insult to injury both parties endorse an enormous subsidy to
private businesses from the public purse to fund a reduction in
corporation tax. The economic vice is closing especially on young
people and a growing alienation is to be expected.

What has reduced the impact of the republicans has been the apolitical
and militarist nature of their campaign. No-one wants to return to a
blood bath, and that is all they seem to offer. What they count as
success – the killing of police and British troops – is used by their
opponents to strengthen the northern state, with Sinn Fein, the media
and all the forces of capitalist society, hammering home the message
that the only alternative to the sectarian and colonial settlement now
in place is a return to war.

All the evidence indicates that the May assembly elections were fought
and won in the furore around Constable Kerr’s killing. Sinn Fein were
able to further clarify their support for the state. The trade union
leaderships and sections of the left, by joining in the hysteria,
dismissed the possibility of a socialist alternative. Nationalist
organizations vied with each other in calling for new recruits for the
police. The republican groups largely remained silent. Eirigi issued a
statement indicating that they did not advocate a military campaign
and were attacked by Sinn Fein supporters for not going on to advocate
the use of informers and state repression of the republican
militarists.

When the elections came they were largely an afterthought and Sinn
Fein and the DUP romped home with large majorities. In the aftermath
of the elections the state has stepped up levels of repression.
Veteran republican Marian Price, a prisoner released as part of the
Good Friday agreement, has had her license revoked and been returned
to prison because she held a written speech transcript at a militarist
demonstration. A student was jailed for being in a van used by a
republican colour party.

However there was one exception. A substantial and unexpected vote was
recorded for the republican group Eirigi in the west Belfast council
elections – a political shift that was partly reflected in a large
vote for the People before Profit candidate in the Assembly elections
held alongside. The West Belfast result was accompanied by substantial
votes in Fermanagh, mid-ulster and Newry with a number of councillors
supporting the Eirigi program being elected.

Eirigi differs from the other republican groups in that it was formed
in a political split with class issues behind them, being formed in
inner city Dublin in opposition to a policy of coalition in a right-
wing Fianna Fail government. It fought the council elections by
explicitly ruling out a military campaign, by opposing the local
Stormont assembly and calling for opposition to the Sinn Fein/DUP
program of cuts.

There is obviously room for a republican movement to expand further,
but it must be borne in mind that any political movement will have to
withstand the assaults that will constantly try to link them to
military adventures, the tendencies within republicanism that tend
towards militarism and that the modest electoral gains in the North
have to be set against the enormous triumph registered by British and
Irish capitalism in the Assembly elections.

It should also be added that the current program of the republicans is
not far removed from that of left members of the Provos in the past. That program is obviously insufficient. The Sinn Fein and the DUP cuts
will lead to mass discontent that will seek an alternative, but a new
movement will have to face the class struggle around the bankruptcy of
the 26 county state and will have to seek common ground with the
socialist movement and confront the unionism and acceptance of
partition that defines sections of that movement. In the north the
frantic support of the revamped colony shown by the Catholic middle
classes gives the lie to any idea that revolutionary nationalism will
prove a mechanism for dealing with the vicious class struggle involved
in any struggle against partition.

Two telling local reports give a flavour of the current struggle. One
indicated that a majority of Catholics would vote for the continuation
of the British presence. The other indicated that the Belfast West
constituency, after 30 years of Provo electoral advance, remained one
of the most deprived areas in the north.

The potential for revolt is there. The appearance of a political
resistance from within republicanism creates a pressure for a
political representation of marginalised working class nationalists
and a discussion of class politics. A new republican movement will
force the socialist movement to acknowledge that Ireland remains a
country dominated by imperialism and it is in this context that a
working class program must be advanced.

22 June 2011 -

This article was originally written for ‘Permanent Revolution’ and was reprinted in the online version of ‘Fourthwrite’

Allan Armstrong (SSP) welcomed the participation of the veteran campaigner, Peter Tatchell, a ‘republican in spirit’, to the Republican Socialist Convention. However, there was a formalism about the republican principles Peter advocated. This was because Peter had not analysed the real nature of the British unionist and imperialist state we were up against, and the anti-democratic Crown Powers it had its disposal to crush any serious opposition. Nor did Peter outline where the social and political forces existed to bring about his new republic.

Back in the late 1960’s, socialists (e.g. Desmond Greaves of the CP and those involved in Peoples Democracy) had been to the forefront of the campaign for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland – equal access to housing and jobs, and a reformed Stormont. The particular Unionist/Loyalist nature of this local statelet, and its relationship with the UK state, was largely ignored or downplayed, in an otherwise militant and vibrant campaign. Every repressive institution used by the UK state is prefixed by ‘royal’, e.g. the RUC, ‘her majesty’s, e.g. the prisons, whilst ‘loyalists’ is the name given to those prepared to undertake the more unsavoury tasks the UK state doesn’t want to own up to in public.

Socialists paid a high price for this negligence, when 14 people were gunned down in Derry by British paratroopers on January 30th, 1972. The socialist republicanism, which should have informed the struggle had been absent, and the Civil Rights Movement gave way to the combined physical force and political republicanism of the Provisionals. When Irish socialist republicanism did emerge, the leadership of the struggle had already largely passed to others.

Some of those earlier socialists, such as Bernadette Devlin/McAliskey, recognised the need for a new socialist republican approach. However, the Provisionals were adroitly able to widen their political base, and keep genuine socialist republicanism marginalised by a resort to populism, through addressing some social and economic issues. Now that the Provisional leadership has made its deal with the UK state, under the Good Friday and St. Andrews Agreements, these populist social and economic policies are being jettisoned.

There is a strong lesson in this for socialists in Scotland and the UK today. Scotland, with its valuable oil resources, and key British military bases, is far more central to British ruling class interests, than Northern Ireland was in the 1960’s. There is a growing National Movement in Scotland. Many supporters link the idea of an independent Scotland to an anti-imperialist vision (opposition to participation in British wars and to NATO) and to defence of social provision in the face of ongoing privatisation. This National Movement is wider than the SNP. Meanwhile, the SNP is taking the road of parties like Catalan Convergence, PNV (Euskadi) and Parti Quebecois. Its leadership is seeking a privileged role for the Scottish business within the existing corporate imperialist order. The SNP is tied both to the ‘Scottish’ banks and to cowboy capitalists like Donald Trump.

The SNP’s election manifesto pledged support for an ‘independence referendum’ to address the issue of Scottish self-determination. Although, the SNP leadership has been in full retreat over this issue, it will not go away, since there is a wider National Movement, and the probable election of the Tories at Westminster will once more raise the political stakes.

The SNP has no way of achieving Scottish independence. It is too tied to Scottish business interests, which want no more than increased powers for themselves – Devolution-Max. Recently, Salmond has come out in favour of the British monarchy. What this means is that the SNP accepts that any future referendum will be played by Westminster rules.

In the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, when the British ruling class was split over the best strategy to maintain their Union, the non-political Queen was wheeled out to make an anti-nationalist Christmas speech, civil servants were told to bury inconvenient documents, mock military exercises were launched against putative nationalist forces, whilst the intelligence services conducted agent provocateur work on the nationalist fringe. Compared to the role of the British state against Irish republicans, this was small beer. However, given the timid constitutionalism of the SNP, a further resort to Crown Powers was not needed at this time.
Furthermore, the taming of the once much more militant Provisional Republican Movement, so that it now acts as key partner in British rule in Ireland, shows that the British ruling class has little to fear in the SNP.

Today, the British, American and EU ruling classes are united against any move towards Scottish independence, so will be even more determined in their opposition than in 1979. This is why any movement to win Scottish self-determination must be republican from the start. It must be prepared, in advance, to confront the Crown Powers that will be inevitably utilised against us. Because genuine and democratic Scottish independence represents such a challenge to British imperialism and the UK state, we need allies in England, Ireland and Wales too. We need to be committed to a strategy of ‘internationalism from below’. We are socialist republicans and link our political demands with social and economic campaigns. This was the course advocated by two great Scottish socialist republicans – James Connolly and John Maclean. This is why the SSP is in London today seeking wider support.

A reply to Allan Armstrong’s arguments from Nick Rogers, CPGB (Weekly Worker 805, 18 02 2010)

Allan Armstrong of the Republican Communist Network and the SSP turned to the national question in Scotland. He thought Peter Tatchell’s rather abstract republicanism was exactly what was not needed.
The Scottish National Party had shown that it was prepared to play the parliamentary game to prove that it did not pose a disruptive challenge to the corporate status quo. It was now in favour of retaining the monarchy – not even offering a referendum to the Scottish people on the issue.

A Scottish republic, on the other hand, would ditch the monarchy, throw out USA and British military bases, and reverse the cuts and privatisation. The British state would use all the resources at its disposal to resist the loss of North Sea oil and the Trident bases. Scottish republicanism was a strategy to strike a blow against the imperialist UK state, break the link with the US and build internationalism from below.

Toby Abse declared he took a Luxemburgist position on the national question. Far from believing the break-up of existing national states to be progressive, he thought the creation of a European state would provide better opportunities for socialists.

I said… we should encourage a class-based identity that encompassed migrants and the working class internationally.

However, in Scotland and Wales there clearly was a strong sense of national identity and national questions existed. The demand for a federal republic was the way to relate to the question, both in England and in Scotland and Wales.

The English must make clear that they had no wish to retain either nation within a broader state against the will of their people, but neither would they force them to separate. As for socialists in Scotland, comrade Armstrong’s argument hardly provided a ringing endorsement of the case for independence, since it would be precisely the conciliatory SNP that would lead moves to split Scotland from Britain, making every attempt in the process to avoid rocking the establishment boat.

The strongest possible challenge to the British state was to be made by the working class across Britain – and preferably across Europe, raising the demand for a European republic.

David Broder and Chris Ford of Commune spoke after me and expressed support for the RCN’s internationalism from below and the perspective of breaking up the UK. Comrade Broder did not see why unity with Europeans was more important than, say, with Bolivia, where British multinationals were just as involved as in many European countries.

Comrade Ford spoke about the opportunities the national question created for socialists. The break-up of the UK would strike a blow against a major imperialist state. For his part, comrade Healey thought that the break-up of the UK was as inevitable as the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Time was now fast running out and in a short reply comrade Armstrong commended the arguments of the Commune comrades, while telling comrade Abse and me that our arguments were typical of the “Brit left”, without actually replying to them…

Comrades Colin Fox (SSP Co-convenor) and Allan Armstrong attended as representatives of the SSP’s international committee. Treating England as a foreign country is bad working class politics and fails to recognise the reality of the British state.

A reply from Allan Armstrong (24 02 2010)

As Nick points out in his reply, I believe his comments are indeed typical of the ‘Brit Left’. The reason I didn’t reply to him at the second Republican Socialist Convention, but stated that Chris Ford and David Broder of The Commune had made some of the points I would have used, was that I wasn’t given the time.

The preference of the SSP International Committee would have been for the second Republican Socialist Convention to have devoted far more time to the discussion of the relationship between the National Question and Republican Socialism.

The non-attendance of many from the British Left, invited by Steve Freeman of the Socialist Alliance (Convention organiser), still did not create anything like enough time for this debate. The first session contributions by Peter Tatchell and Colin Fox usefully highlighted the debate between bourgeois and socialist republicanism, whilst Mehdi Kia (Middle East Left Forum and HOPI) was most informative about the current situation in Iran.

However, personally, I thought the last session could have been sacrificed in order to enable the broader discussion on the National Question to be aired. The ignorance and lack of comprehension of much of the British Left over this issue needs to be addressed.

If, as I had hoped, there were also to be speakers from Ireland and Wales, then time for discussion would have been even more curtailed. Neither Dan Finn of the Irish Socialist Network, nor Marc Jones of Plaid Cymru/Celyn were able to make it. I thought that any republican socialists in England would have made contacts amongst the quite extensive Irish republican and socialist republican community in London, but this turned out not to be the case. I then suggested to Steve that Ann McShane (Ireland) and Bob Davies (Wales), both of the CPGB, be invited instead to fill the gap and enable the debate between Left Unionism and Internationalism from Below to be more fully aired.

So, let’s examine Nick’s points. I’ll start at the end of his contribution. Treating England as a foreign country is bad working class politics and fails to recognise the reality of the British state.

The first point I would make is that Nick must hardly have been listening. The whole thrust of my contribution (see above), taking on Peter Tatchell’s abstract republicanism, was exactly to highlight the imperial and unionist nature of the British state, and the formidable anti-democratic powers the British ruling class has under the UK’s Crown Powers.

Nick, somewhat revealingly, talks of me treating England as a foreign country. Now England certainly is another country. This is even recognised under the terms of the Union – which recognizes England, Scotland, Wales and part of Ireland (officially Northern Ireland, but colloquially and wrongly, Ulster) as separate entities. However, I have never used the word foreign to describe England. Is that how Nick describes Ireland, France, or any other country in the world? There are some words and phrases, such as social dumping and foreign which I think form part of the language of hostile nationalist forces and should be rejected in socialist discourse.

Now, the CPGB takes some pride in the solidarity work of HOPI, a united front organisation it initiated. Do CPGB members consider Iranian socialists to be foreign? Does the CPGB secretly think that joint work can not be effective because British and Iranian socialists don’t live in the same state? Nick invokes a mythical international unity provided by the British Left. However, a great deal of the CPGB’s work has been trying to combat the opposition of the largest ‘Brit Left’ organisation, the SWP, to HOPI. The largest socialist organisation in Scotland, the SSP, voted to support HOPI at its 2008 Conference.

The SSP is more than willing to go to meetings in England, Wales and Ireland, organised by others, to argue the case for united action across these islands. Internationalism from below is a hallmark of how the SSP tries to organise. Our International Committee organised the first Republican Socialist Convention in Edinburgh, with socialists from all four nations. The SSP has subsequently sent speakers to both England and Ireland.
Whatever reservations we may have had about the limited time for discussion of the National Question, Socialist Republicanism and Internationalism from Below, provided by Steve at this Convention, we engaged fully, providing two platform speakers and another three members in the audience.

So let’s now look at the second largest ‘Brit Left’ organization, which was invited to participate, the Socialist Party. I will quote Nick’s explanation for their failure to turn up at a meeting with representatives of the largest socialist organisation in Scotland. Quite possibly SPEW deliberately avoided a potentially embarrassing meeting. Embarrassing for who? Certainly not the SSP.

Nick also says, We should encourage a class-based identity that encompassed migrants and the working class internationally. So how does the British Left, which Nick champions, match up to this? Last year we saw the EU electoral challenge by the Left British chauvinist ‘No2EU/Yes2D’ campaign (with its notorious opposition to ‘social dumping’), bureaucratically cobbled together by trade union officials, the SPEW and CPB. It also had the somewhat incongruous Left Scottish nationalist bolt-on provided by Solidarity (although to their credit, many of its members refused to engage, and one prominent member advised people to vote SSP).

In contrast the SSP stood as part of the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance EU-wide electoral challenge, bringing Joaquim Roland, a car worker member of the New Anti-Capitalist Party to address meetings in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee.

So, given the choice of ‘No2EU/Yes2D’ and the EACA, where did the CPGB stand? Quite frankly it made itself look foolish. It never raised the idea that ‘No2EU/Yes2D’ should form part of the EACA’s international campaign. It placed nearly all emphasis on demanding that ‘No2EU/Yes2D’ put support for citizen militias in its manifesto (support for migrant workers facing combined state, employer and union official attacks would have been far more appropriate). Then, failing to get support for citizen militias, told people to vote instead for the Labour Party and hence the very non-citizen militia, British imperial troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere! Even the SWP and SPEW didn’t stoop this low.

When Nick mentions his support for a class-based identity that encompassed migrants, he also fails to mention the woeful record of the ‘Brit Left’, in Respect or the Campaign for a New Workers Party over this issue. The SSP voted at its 2008 Conference to give its support to ‘No One Is Illegal’.

Chris Ford made the valuable point that the UK state, far from uniting the working class on these islands, divides it. The ongoing partition of Ireland is only the most striking case. The bureaucratic institutions of the British Labour Party, and the trade unions (TUC, STUC, WTUC, and the Northern Committee of the ICTU) frequently divide workers and play one national group against another.

Nick takes up the argument made by Toby Abse, to elaborate his own position. Toby had argued that the successive acts of Union {1535-42, 1707 and 1801} had had the effect of creating a united British nation, and that the British working class and its institutions were now organized on an all-British basis. Therefore, following Luxemburg, he believed that attempts to address the National Question in Scotland or Wales were either irrelevant or divisive. To be consistent, Toby should have argued that all UK state institutions, currently devolved on a ‘national’ basis, should be abolished, since they must, from his viewpoint, promote disunity.

However, Nick, who has certainly also called himself a Luxemburgist in the past, is now a member of the CPGB, so in opposing Toby, he has to make some contorted arguments. The CPGB believes there is a British nation and a British-Irish nation (the Protestants of the ‘Six Counties’) but only Scottish and Welsh nationalities. So Nick goes on to say that. In Scotland and Wales there clearly was a strong sense of national identity and national questions existed. First, you would wonder, if the historical thrust of the creation of the UK has been to bring about a united British nation (for most of the ‘Brit Left’, Ireland quickly drops from view!) and a united British working class, why you should consider it at all worthwhile to make any concessions to what could only then be reactionary national identities.

The reality, however, is that the UK state was formed as part of a wider British imperial project, which tried to subsume Welsh, Scots and Irish as subordinate identities. Whilst the British Empire ruled the roost, there was a definite thrust towards a British nation, but this was partly thwarted by the unionist form of the UK state. Once, the British Empire went into decline, those still remaining hybrid imperial identities, Irish-British, Scottish-British and Welsh-British have gone into decline too, as more people have asserted their Irish, Scottish and Welsh identities. This decline in British identification has been most rapid amongst workers and small farmers, whilst support has been clung to most fiercely by the ruling class and sections of the upper middle class.

Only amongst in the Unionist and Loyalist section of the people living in the Six Counties has a more widespread British identity been retained (although this has moved from Irish-British to Ulster-British). Indeed, it is in the Six Counties that the true nature of British ‘national’ identity is shown most starkly. It is here, amongst the Loyalists, that fascist death squads and other forms of coercion have created the worst repression, way beyond anything achieved by their ‘mainland’ British admirers, in the National Front or British National Party. The British Conservatives have just linked up with those more ‘genteel’ Ulster Unionists, but still sectarian and reactionary.

The moves to break-up the UK have their origins in wider ‘lower orders’ movements, such as the Land League in Michael Davitt’s days, the independent Irish trade union movement of James Connolly (founder of the Irish Socialist Republican Party) and Jim Larkin’s days. It was John Maclean (founder of the Scottish Workers Republican Party), with his support, particularly amongst Clydeside workers, who offered the most consistent challenge, from 1919 onwards, based upon active campaigning for the ‘Russian Revolution’ and the ongoing Irish republican struggle. He adopted a ‘break-up of the UK and British Empire’ strategy (was sharply marginalized as the post-war international revolutionary wave came to an end between 1921-3, allowing a Left British and reformist perspective to strongly reassert itself.)

In other words it has been the National Question, which has been to the forefront of the democratic and republican struggle in these islands. Without seeing this, you are left, like Peter Tatchell, supporting a rather formal republic, with no real idea where the support is coming from. Nick conjures up The demand for a federal republic… both in England and in Scotland and Wales. This is but a left cover for the last-ditch mechanism used by the British ruling class, from the American to the Irish War of Independence, to hold their Empire and Union together. The Lib-Dems keep the Federal option in their locker, to be dragged out whenever other mechanisms such as Home Rule or Devolution fail to hold the line.

Colin Fox also made clear in his contribution that the British ruling class could even accommodate a formal republic, if it felt it was necessary. So Nick’s republican suffix to his proposed federalism provides another paper cover. We saw the nature of such republicanism in the Rupert Murdoch-backed campaign for a republic in Australia. What it amounted to was a repatriation of the current Crown Powers, and their investiture in the Presidency. Not surprisingly, this proved not to be a winning formula!

Middle class nationalist attempts to renegotiate the Union have also emerged as the British Empire went into decline. The Irish Home Rule Party, Cumann na nGaedhael, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, and (I would argue) the post-Good Friday Sinn Fein have all fitted this mould. Whatever, their formal political position (e.g. an independent Scotland, or a united Ireland), as these parties have become the vehicles for local business and middle class interests, this has been matched by a retreat from their original stated goals, and new compromises with the UK state.

Just as I would argue that the CPGB’s blanket support for the British unionist and imperialist Labour Party candidates, at the last Euro-election, provides a classic example of left British nationalism in action, I would also argue that any socialists pursuing a strategy which tail ends their local nationalist party, e.g, the SNP, act as Left nationalists.

The strategy behind the SSP’s republican socialism, exemplified in the Calton Hill Declaration, is to take the leadership of the National Movement here from the SNP. To counter the SNP’s own ‘international’ strategy – support for the global corporate order, for the use of Scottish troops in imperial ventures, for the British queen, and acceptance of a Privy Councillorship (Alex Salmond), the SSP’s International Committee counters with a genuinely international strategy based on anti-imperialism, anti-unionism, and internationalism from below.

The British Left tries to mirror the UK state in its organisational set-up. This attempt to apply an old Second and Third International orthodoxy was always contradictory. Applied to the UK it just seems to confuse the ‘Brit Left’. Occasionally debates emerge within the CPGB about, whether to be a consistent Leninist, it should not reconstitute itself as the CPUK, and in the process, add its own twist to Irish partition. Both the SWP and SPEW operate essentially partitionist organisations in Ireland, highlighted by their failure to raise the issue of continued British rule (with its southern Irish government support) in elections there.

The UK currently acts as a junior partner to USA imperialism. It has been awarded the USA license to police the corporate imperial order in the North East Atlantic, and to ensure that the EU fails to emerge as an imperial challenger. Apart from its membership of NATO, the provision of military bases, and such ‘police’ actions as bringing the ‘terrorist state’(!) of Iceland into line to bail-out the banks, the UK performs this wider role, with the 26 county Irish state acting as its own junior partner.

Politically, the ‘Peace Process’ (with the Good Friday, St. Andrews and now the latest Hillsborough agreements) and Devolution-all-round (Scotland, Wales and ‘the Six Counties’) represents the British and Irish ruling class strategy to provide the political framework to most effectively maintain profitability for corporate capital in these islands. In this, these two states can draw upon the support of the EU and the USA, as well of course, their ‘social partnerships’ with the official trade union leaders.

The SSP has realized that the British and Irish ruling classes have a political strategy, which covers the whole of these islands. You could be forgiven for thinking that much of the ‘Brit Left’ finds it difficult to see beyond Potters Bar, or where its members do live further afield, thinking their politics just depends on the latest dispatches sent out from their London office.

Nick somewhat condescendingly says that, The English must make clear that they had no wish to retain either nation {Scotland, or Wales} within a broader state against the will of their people (that’s very good of you Nick!), but then bizarrely adds neither would they force them to separate. Well Nick, we all know the ‘Brit Left’ have no intention of forcing us out of the British unionist and imperial state and its alliance with USA imperialism. That is the problem.

The SSP, though, is quite prepared to take the lead in making this decision ourselves. However, we will continue to insist that the break-up of the UK and ending of British imperialism are something that workers throughout these islands have an immediate interest in achieving, and will continue to argue our case to socialists in England, Wales and Ireland. We do want unity, but not the ‘Brit Left’ imposed bureaucratic unity from above, rather a democratic ‘internationalism from below’.

Our own radical tradition is a mystery to us, that we don’t know about our historical links
with people who we should be proud of – we should be proud that James Connolly is an
Edinburgh man, why are we not proud of that? One of the greatest twentieth century socialists
was murdered by the British army in 1916. Why do we not admit what happened with John
Maclean, somebody who was murdered, who was poisoned by the State. Why is he not a
hero?

James Kelman, Edinburgh Book Festival, 26th August, 2009

James Kelman’s comments on James Connolly (and John Maclean) at this year’s Edinburgh Book Festival seem very pertinent. How did James Connolly first come to your attention?

I think Kelman’s comments at the Book Festival really hit the nail on the head about the ignorance that exists about James Connolly in Edinburgh or John Maclean in Glasgow. Personally, with my own experience coming from Edinburgh, where my family was brought up in ‘Little Ireland’, when they first arrived in Scotland, I would have been aware of Connolly from an early age. I made the connection between James Connolly in 1916 and modern politics in the early 1980’s, at the time of the Hunger Strike, particularly when Francis Hughes died on May 12th. May 12th was the date that Connolly was executed by the British state and the date that this hunger striker died. For me, this connected the history and the reality of politics at the time.

When was the James Connolly Society formed and what was its purpose?

Well, the James Connolly Society grew out of the Rising Phoenix Republican Flute Band which had been formed in Edinburgh in 1984, round about the same time as many republican flute bands appeared in Scotland, in the late 1970’s and early 80’s political context of the prison struggle. The Rising Phoenix organised the first Connolly march in Craigmillar Edinburgh in 1986. It became clear that after that initial march in the city that what was needed was a broader political organisation to take forward the memory of James Connolly as well as some of the Irish solidarity work that was required at the time. So, out of the band, came the James Connolly Society, which was formed in the late 80’s after the first march.

The Connolly march in Edinburgh was the subject of a great deal of official hostility. Why was this?

For us, the primary reason why there was such hostility from the state to the Connolly march was because of its politics. James Connolly was a revolutionary leader who was incredibly important for working class people in Edinburgh, but also important to people in Belfast and other areas of the occupied ‘Six Counties’. We felt that Connolly had been very badly neglected in Edinburgh and that his revolutionary analysis of republicanism and socialism needed to be expounded to a wider audience.

The other element, which shouldn’t be neglected, was the fact that the Connolly march was very mucha working class event, organised by young working class people in the city. That is what differentiated it from earlier attempts in the early ‘80’s to organise Connolly events in Edinburgh. These had been smashed by loyalism. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen when local, young working class people were determined to defend their rights.

Although the struggle for Irish self determination, and opposition to British troops in ‘the Six Counties’, was at the centre of the Connolly marches, the organisers always invited a wider range of speakers. What was the thinking behind this?

Well, consider the Connolly marches principal objectives – one was to show solidarity with the risen people in ‘the Six Counties’. We were very clear that the Connolly march was taking place against a backdrop of ongoing military conflict and this was an opportunity to take to the streets in solidarity with the Irish people and their fight against the British state.

The second principal objective of the march was to try and take James Connolly to a wider audience; to make the connection with other people in struggle. So, it wasn’t just about Ireland, or the Irish in Edinburgh, it was linked to various other campaigns. Sometimes speakers were from some ongoing industrial action, and speakers from Palestine, South Africa or various other international struggles. So, it was important for us that we recognised James Connolly’s work in its totality, and not just one aspect.

Despite state and labour movement recognition in Ireland, and American-Irish and labour movement recognition in the USA, there has been a much greater reticence to recognise Connolly in the city of his birth. Why is this?

We have to recognise the difficulties in Scottish society. At times, Scotland is a terribly nasty, divided, sectarian state. The Irish community in Scotland is under continuing pressure and clearly James Connolly was seen as someone of particular significance. His memory was treated with great hostility by the forces of state, including the police and the council, but also by reactionary elements like the Orange Order and British National Party, in a way that would not happen in the United States, where there would perhaps be greater recognition of the contribution immigrants have made.

Scotland has been very slow to recognise the contribution of the Irish community. And certainly, with the revolutionary politics of James Connolly, some did not take very kindly to the centre of Edinburgh being taken over by people who were expounding these ideas.

Even the Left here is hardly aware of Connolly’s key role in building the first Socialist Movement in Scotland. What do you see as the reasons for this?

I think it has to do with the particular political terrain in Scotland. We have to be honest, the Left in Scotland, in this regard, is a bit of an embarrassment. They showed very little support for the Connolly march at all, which was a disgrace. Even when the annual Connolly march was the only place where the BNP publicly organised themselves in Scotland, with counter demonstrations in conjunction with the Orange Order, publicly encouraging large groups to come along and attack the march, significantly, most of the Left decided to stay away. At times they organised events to coincide with the march to provide an excuse to stay away. They were afraid of the legacy of James Connolly, scared of the conflict that was going on in Ireland, and wanted to keep their heads down, which, as I said, was a disgrace.

When the decision to end the annual march in Edinburgh was taken by the Connolly Society, how did you see the work to commemorate his memory continuing?

We made the decision in 2006, after 20 years of the Connolly marches, that it was time for a strategic departure. The Connolly Society decided it was going to advance Connolly’s memory through other pieces of work and the establishment of the Connolly Foundation, which would be a centre for research, education and advocacy, based in Edinburgh.

It was very important that, although it was the end of the Connolly march, it wasn’t the ending of commemorating James Connolly. Indeed it was about advancing Connolly, perhaps in a way that the backdrop of the march and all the controversy surrounding it, wasn’t able for us to do. So the Connolly Foundation is a new vehicle to achieve this aim.

How is work progressing with the Connolly Foundation, and in particular, with the campaign to have a statue erected in this city to honour Connolly’s memory?

One of the key pieces of work for the Connolly Foundation in the future is going to be to raise the necessary funding and the public and political support for the James Connolly statue. We’ve signed an agreement with Tom White, an American artist, who was recently commissioned to erect a monument to Connolly in Chicago, and who is ready to go ahead with one in Edinburgh.

A statue of Connolly shouldn’t be seen as an end in itself, but as a recognition of the contribution made by the working class and immigrants to the city. There are all sorts of statues in Edinburgh to all sorts of people – mostly distasteful – but there are no statues to working class people or to immigrants. So, it is in that wider context that we want a statue erected to James Connolly.

The Edinburgh Trades Council faced a considerable political battle, both within its own ranks and from the city council, to have the small James Connolly commemoration plaque installed by his birthplace in the Cowgate. However, the recent article in the Edinburgh Evening News, announcing the campaign to have a statue erected was surprisingly sympathetic. Do you think today’s campaign will face fewer obstacles?

We recognise that there will still be obstacles, but clearly we are in a different place to where we were, when we started in 1986. The James Connolly plaque was erected in 1968 at the end of a fifteen-year campaign. We hope that we can get a Connolly statue considerably quicker than that! We think it should be a process which directly engages with the local community.

Connolly himself saw the importance of song in creating a culture of resistance.Both Irish traditional and rebel songs and music have been very important to the Irish struggle. A more recent development, which goes back to Connolly’s own songs drawing on both republican and wider socialist imagery, has been the songs of The Wakes, who are also trying to bridge this gap. Do you see this as significant?

Definitely. One of the important things about Connolly’s life was the way he used different vehicles to get across his political message. So, as well as his political activism and the organisations he joined and founded, he was also a play-writer and a songwriter. I think over the years we have tried to work with various bands, like The Wakes, who have tried to make the connection between socialist song and Irish republican song. It is definitely something we think is significant. Cultural expression is important.

You personally took the decision to get yourself involved in the Edinburgh Peoples’ Festival. Do you see this as important?

I think that the Edinburgh Peoples’ Festival, as an organisation, does a lot of good work in taking the arts to working class communities that are excluded from the official cultural celebrations that take place in this city. I think by drawing attention to James Connolly, we want to work with the Edinburgh People’s Festival in highlighting the hidden histories of this city – the different narratives that exist. I think this is fantastic work and some people are very supportive.

Are there any other ways in which you think the memory of James Connolly could be enhanced in this city or in Scotland as a whole?

I think there are various ways that this can be done. One of the things the Connolly Foundation is keen to do, is to look at some of the research around the experience of the Irish community in this city; but also to focus on some of the problems that exist for that community, looking at material issues like health inequalities, educational attainment and the interaction with the criminal justice system. So the Connolly Foundation is keen that Connolly’s memory is enhanced in the city through improving the material conditions of working class people.

Republic of the Imagination Kelman also highlighted the importance of John Maclean in Glasgow. I think that Maclean is right up there with Connolly as a giant in the Socialist movement in Scotland. I think that it is vitally important that Scotland tries to explore the history of both James Connolly and John Maclean, as well as others. Certainly, the Connolly Foundation would like to work with comrades in Glasgow to try and uncover and celebrate the history of John Maclean. We recognise his contribution in combining the wider struggle for socialism with support for the Irish war of independence.

No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and the hopes, the loves and the hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement, it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude.

James Connolly, from the Introduction to his Songs of Freedom, 1907.

The Connolly Foundation

To support the campaign to get a statue of Connolly erected in Edinburgh contact: statue@connollyfoundation.org or go to: http://www.connollyfoundation.org

James Connolly was born in Edinburgh in 1868. He led a truly remarkable life. Before transatlantic flights, telephones or the internet Connolly did not just join the fledgling socialist movement he instigated much of it. He was responsible for the formation of political parties, trade unions, workers armies and newspapers in Scotland, Ireland and the United States. He was a theoretician, military commander, propagandist, playwright, politician, songwriter as well as father, husband, cobbler, labourer and street cleaner.

Ground breaking initiatives

Indeed it is the scope and sheer ambition of Connolly’s writings, interests and activities that allow his significance to be distorted through cherry picking individual grapes from the vineyard of his life. For that reason I’ll resist the temptation to quote him at length and instead appeal to readers to view his life and work in totality. James Connolly was by his own description ‘an unrepentant revolutionist’. He judged every event by its potential to advance the cause of the economic reorganisation of society. This led him to take groundbreaking initiatives and adopt intellectual positions which often jarred with other socialists. He cared not a jot. Believing the role of revolutionary was to lead not follow.

He was unwavering in his support for women’s rights at a time when that was far from popular, even among socialists. Arguing feminists and socialists were ‘different regiments in the one great army of progress’. On religion, where his position is complex and often misunderstood, he rejected the orthodox Marxist view instead embracing a position closer to Feuerbach. While criticising (with some venom) church hierarchies he attempted to find progressive common ground with their congregations.

The great lesson of Connolly’s political philosophy is that the struggles for socialism and national liberation were not antagonistic but complimentary. He rejected the idea that a nation could be free while workers were enslaved or that workers could be free while their nation was enslaved. Furthermore he warned nationalists of the scourge of neo colonialism before the term had been coined. He argued that socialists should not just participate in the national liberation struggles but be in the vanguard. There are of course numerous examples of this phenomenon over the last century from Africa to Latin America.

Having declared during the Boer war that he ‘would welcome the humiliation of British arms in any conflict’ it is not surprising that at the outbreak of the 1914 war Connolly was one of few socialist leaders who opposed the war. Dismayed that other socialists did not oppose the imperialist war Connolly argued it was a great opportunity for revolutionaries in Ireland. This argument echoed Lenin’s call that the only ‘truly revolutionary’ position for workers was to ‘turn the imperialist war into a civil war’. For Connolly this opportunity was not to be passed up and he decided upon a course of action which would change Ireland forever.

James Connolly’s life will always be viewed through the prism of the 1916 Easter Rising. In a revolutionary action which challenged the Empire at its very core and inspired others from India to Egypt, Connolly’s role was crucial not just militarily but intellectually.His influence can be seen in the text of the 1916 proclamation which declares the ‘right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland’ and for a republic which ‘cherishes all of its children equally’. His execution by the British state has led to a distortion in analysis of his life. Nationalists focus on his position in the pantheon of Irish martyrs and socialists reject his involvement in the republican uprising as an aberration. Such partial interpretations have hindered a full appreciation of his contribution.

Permanent memorial

While it is right and proper that we should argue for Connolly to be recognised with a permanent memorial in the city of his birth, as he has been in Belfast, Dublin, New York and many other places. This should not be an argument only about bricks and mortar. The most fitting memorial to Connolly will be the end of the British state and the establishment of a socialist republic. The current constitutional and political juncture offer an opportunity to rescue Connolly from the political margins, recognising his life and work as an example which guides us towards the ‘reconquest’. As Scotland’s greatest poet, the Gael, Sorley MacLean said:

The great hero is still
sitting on the chair,
fighting the battle in the Post Office
and cleaning streets in Edinburgh

As well as an overview of events there are some comments and feedback from attendees. These are reproduced below, visit the report on the conference for more details.

Brian Garvey, Fourthwrite, Independent Workers Union:

The space given to democratic discussion, the planning and facilitation of the event was impressive and I’m fairly confident that it was because people felt valued theat the exchanges were so constructive.

The honesty and will to learn from recent experience and experiences of others is a great example to us. So to is the acknowledgement that it requires our working alongside many other individuals and organisations to create a new society and on the bus home we talked of the inegrity and earnest of our Scottish friends and look forward to welcoming you to Ireland as we get things moving.

go raibh maith agat

Dan Finn, Irish Socialist Network:

Last Saturday’s conference in Edinburgh was an excellent day, well done to the SSP for organising it.

I learned a lot from the discussions as I’m sure everyone there did.

It was very encouraging to see left activists from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England who are all working towards similar goals and facing similar challenges come together to see where our work over-laps, what we can learn from eachother and how we can support each other’s efforts.

I hope this is just the beginning.

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

Republicanism pamphlet cover

It is available for £1 including postage from the usual address.

A short extract follows.

For socialists republicanism in the United Kingdom describes the movement from below for a radical and militant democracy. Republicanism addresses those immediate democratic issues faced by the working class in the here and now. It seeks to develop a programme for expanding democracy under capitalism as far as it will go. It concerns itself with progressive and in some senses transitional demands. To the extent that we achieve these democratic demands, it will strengthen our class and will weaken the ruling class and its allies. It is a necessary and unavoidable part of the struggle for socialism.

This democratic struggle is called republicanism in the UK. It highlights the fact that we live in an undemocratic, constitutional monarchy. The ruling class has a whole host of Crown Powers at its disposal to thwart any real democratic progress, and hence hinder further economic and social advances for our class. The term republicanism also connects us to our own radical and revolutionary history.

Republican struggles in these islands provide a red thread going back to the Levellers in the English revolution in the late 1640’s, the Cameronians (radical Covenanters) here in Scotland in the 1680’s and ‘90s, the struggle of the United Irishmen, the United Scotsmen and the London Corresponding Society in the 1790’s, the Chartists in the 1830’s and 40’s, and the prospects of Workers Republics raised by James Connolly and John Maclean at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The rise of capitalism, and the struggle of the emerging bourgeoisie against the feudal state and church, led to a false association between capitalism and the spreading of democracy. In reality, wherever they have achieved power, the bourgeoisie have sought to narrow, limit and impoverish democracy, for the majority of the population. Consciously or unconsciously, they have recognised their future gravediggers in the proletariat. Hence they have sought to block any democratic path to a genuine republic because, in a truly democratic republic, the bourgeoisie and their system, capitalism, could not flourish.

Socialists see republicanism today as directly linked to the struggle for the socialist republic tomorrow. Just as socialists view industrial struggles for improved wages and conditions as a ‘school of struggle’, in which we strive to end our class’s continued exploitation as wage slaves, so we see the democratic struggle for a republic as a ‘school of struggle’, in which we strive to end our continued oppression.

Republicanism is not a sentimental attachment to yesterday’s struggles. It helps us develop a strategy and tactics to directly oppose today’s exploiters and oppressors. To declare for the democratic republic is to declare war against the existing bourgeois state.

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.

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

The ancestors would turn in graves
Those poor black folk that once were slaves would wonder
How our souls were sold
And check our strategies,
The empire strikes back and waves
Tamed warriors bow on parades
When they have done what they’ve been told
They get their OBEs.

Don’t take my word, go check the verse
Cause every laureate gets worse
A family that you cannot fault as muse will mess your mind,
And yeah, you may fatten your purse
And surely they will check you first when subjects need to be amused
With paid for prose and rhymes.

Take your prize, now write more,
Faster,
Fuck the truth
Now you’re an actor do not fault your benefactor
Write, publish and review,
You look like a dreadlocks Rasta,
You look like a ghetto blaster,
But you can’t diss your paymaster
And bite the hand that feeds you.

What happened to the verse of fire
Cursing cool the empire
What happened to the soul rebel that Marley had in mind,
This bloodstained, stolen empire rewards you and you conspire,
(Yes Marley said that time will tell)
Now look they’ve gone and joined.

We keep getting this beating
It’s bad history repeating
It reminds me of those capitalists that say
‘Look you have a choice,’
It’s sick and self-defeating if our dispossessed keep weeping
And we give these awards meaning
But we end up with no voice.

Taken from Too Black, Too Strong. Published by Bloodaxe Books (2001)

I woke up on the morning of November 13 wondering how the government could be overthrown and what could replace it, and then I noticed a letter from the prime minister’s office. It said:

The prime minister has asked me to inform you, in strict confidence, that he has in mind, on the occasion of the forthcoming list of New Year’s honours to submit your name to the Queen with a recommendation that Her Majesty may be graciously pleased to approve that you be appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire.

I get angry when I hear that word 'empire'

Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours,
I thought. I get angry when I hear that word “empire”; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my fore mothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised. It is because of this concept of empire that my British education led me to believe that the history of black people started with slavery and that we were born slaves, and should therefore be grateful that we were given freedom by our caring white masters. It is because of this idea of empire that black people like myself don’t even know our true names or our true historical culture. I am not one of those who are obsessed with their roots, andI’m certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people. Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.

There’s something very strange about receiving a letter from Tony Blair’s office asking me if I want to accept this award. In the past couple of months I’ve been on Blair’s doorstep a few times. I have begged him to come out and meet me; I have been longing for a conversation with him, but he won’t come out, and now here he is asking me to meet him at the palace! I was there with a million people on February 15, and the last time I was there was just a couple of weeks ago. My cousin, Michael Powell, was arrested and taken to Thornhill Road police station in Birmingham where he died. Now, I know how he died. The whole of Birmingham knows how he died, but in order to get this article published and to be politically (or journalistically) correct, I have to say that he died in suspicious circumstances. The police will not give us any answers.

We have not seen or heard anything of all the reports and investigations we were told were going to take place. Now, all that my family can do is join with all the other families who have lost members while in custody because no one in power is listening to us. Come on Mr Blair, I’ll meet you anytime. Let’s talk about your Home Office, let’s talk about being tough on crime.

This OBE thing is supposed to be for my services to literature, but there are a whole lot of writers who are better than me, and they’re not involved in the things that I’m involved in. All they do is write; I spend most of my time doing other things. If they want to give me one of these empire things, why can’t they give me one for my work in animal rights? Why can’t they give me one for my struggle against racism? What about giving me one for all the letters I write to innocent people in prisons who have been framed? I may just consider accepting some kind of award for my services on behalf of the millions of people who have stood up against the war in Iraq. It’s such hard work – much harder than writing poems.

And hey, if Her Majesty may be graciously pleased to lay all that empire stuff on me, why can’t she write to me herself. Let’s cut out the middleman – she knows me. The last time we met, it was at a concert I was hosting. She came backstage to meet me. That didn’t bother me; lots of people visit my dressing room after performances. Me and the South African performers I was working with that night thought it rather funny that we had a royal groupie. She’s a bit stiff but she’s a nice old lady.

Let me make it clear: I have nothing against her or the royal family. It is the institution of the monarchy that I loathe so very much, the monarchy that still refuses to apologise for sanctioning slavery.

There is a part of me that hopes that after writing this article I shall never be considered as a Poet Laureate or an OBE sucker again.

Let this put an end to it. This may lose me some of my writing friends; some people may never want to work with me again, but the truth is I think OBEs compromise writers and poets, and laureates suddenly go soft – in the past I’ve even written a poem, Bought and Sold, saying that. There are many black writers who love OBEs, it makes them feel like they have made it. When it suits them, they embrace the struggle against the ruling class and the oppression they visit upon us, but then they join the oppressors’ club.

They are so easily seduced into the great house of Babylon known as the palace. For them, a wonderful time is meeting the Queen and bowing before her presence.

I was shocked to see how many of my fellow writers jumped at the opportunity to go to Buckingham Palace when the Queen had her “meet the writers day” on July 9 2002, and I laughed at the pathetic excuses writers gave for going. I did it for my mum; I did it for my kids; I did it for the school; I did it for the people, etc. I have even heard black writers who have collected OBEs saying that it is symbolic of how far we have come. Oh yes, I say, we’ve struggled so hard just to get a minute with the Queen and we are so very grateful – not.

I’ve never heard of a holder of the OBE openly criticising the monarchy. They are officially friends, and that’s what this cool Britannia project is about. It gives OBEs to cool rock stars, successful businesswomen and blacks who would be militant in order to give the impression that it is inclusive. Then these rock stars, successful women, and ex militants write to me with the OBE after their name as if I should be impressed. I’m not. Quite the opposite – you’ve been had.

Writers and artists who see themselves as working outside the establishment are constantly being accused of selling out as soon as they have any kind of success. I’ve been called a sell-out for selling too many books, for writing books for children, for performing at the Royal Albert Hall, for going on Desert Island Discs, and for appearing on the Parkinson show.

...and this is what he could have won!

But I want to reach as many people as possible without compromising the content of my work. What continues to be my biggest deal with the establishment must be my work with the British Council, of which, ironically, the Queen is patron. I have no problem with this. It has never told me what to say, or what not to say. I have always been free to criticise the government and even the council itself. This is what being a poet is about. Most importantly, through my work with the council I am able to show the world what Britain is really about in terms of our arts, and I am able to partake in the type of political and cultural intercourse which is not possible in the mainstream political arena. I have no problem representing the reality of our multiculturalism, which may sometimes mean speaking about the way my cousin Michael died in a police station. But then, I am also at ease letting people know that our music scene is more than what they hear in the charts, and that British poetry is more than Wordsworth, or even Motion. I have no problem with all of this because this is about us and what we do. It is about what happens on the streets of our country and not in the palace or at No 10. Me, OBE? Whoever is behind this offer can never have read any of my work. Why don’t they just give me some of those great African works of art that were taken in the name of the empire and let me return them to their rightful place? You can’t fool me, Mr Blair. You want to privatise us all; you want to send us to war. You stay silent when we need you to speak for us, preferring to be the voice of the US. You have lied to us, and you continue to lie to us, and you have poured the working-class dream of a fair, compassionate, caring society down the dirty drain of empire. Stick it, Mr Blair – and Mrs Queen, stop going on about the empire. Let’s do something else.

This article is reproduced from the Socialist Democracy website

I have no embarrassment at all. No shame.

Bono, 2006

The quotation above was Irish rock star’s Bono attempt at self deprecating humour. However, being devoid of the humility required to make it work as a joke, it stands more as a statement of obvious fact; a self penned epitaph if ever there was one. Its accuracy was confirmed yet again with the announcement late last month that Bono was being awarded an honorary knighthood by the British Government. This important news was relayed to the world in a statement from Tony Blair posted on the Downing Street and U2 websites. Greeting readers with Hi folks and describing himself as a huge fan of the singer, he went on to express his delight that the award, which recognised an outstanding contribution to music and remarkable humanitarian work, had been accepted. A spokesman for Bono said he was very flattered to receive the award, particularly if it helped him with his campaigning work.

Most of the mainstream media either welcomed Bono’s knighthood or wrote it off as yet another gimmick. However, in many ways it does signify the changing relationship between Britain and the southern Irish state. In the past, such awards were rare. With a stronger nationalist sentiment amongst the population, which could be heightened by events such as Bloody Sunday and the hunger strikes, acceptance would have been frowned upon and the recipients written off as west Brits. However, the ending of the Republican struggle and the development of the peace process in the North, along with influx of foreign capital into the South over the last fifteen years has changed that. The southern bourgeoisie, increasingly dependent of imperialism for the maintenance of their economy and the political settlement that secures partition, now feel free to dump their watered down nationalist ideology and grab their gongs. After all isn’t this all part of the process of reconciliation?

Bono is merely the amplified personification of this class. He is one of the wealthiest men in the state, and his group U2 are a corporate entity. They have benefited greatly from the neo-liberal polices pursed by successive Irish governments. As artists they pay virtually no tax.

However, even this minuscule amount is too much. Last year the band moved part of their multipound operation to Amsterdam to avoid paying tax on royalty earnings. Around the same time Bono’s California-based venture capital firm, Elevation Partners, invested £157m in Forbes, the US business magazine described as the bible of capitalism. Roger McNamee, an Elevation partner, said Bono was drawn to Forbes because it has a point of view. He said the singer drove this part of the discussion and likes the fact that there has been a consistent philosophy throughout its history. This philosophy is an unabashed celebration of wealth and capitalist consumption.

Self-styled image

While this might seem at odds with Bono’s self-styled image as an anti poverty campaigner in reality they are wholly compatible. In the guises of both corporate predator and campaigner, he is preaching the gospel of capitalism. This can be seen in the campaigns that he has associated himself with. The campaigning vehicle he created for himself, Project Red, advocates a combination of consumerism and charity as a means of tackling the AIDS epidemic in Africa. This has seen Bono and his celebrity friends promoting the products of mobile phone and credit card companies on the basis that a tiny percentage of the profits go to AIDS charities.

The ethos of Project Red was expounded most extensively when Sir, Dr, Mr Anthony, Tony O’Reilly allowed Bono to edit an edition of the London Independent. The Red Indy as it was styled consisted of photographs and profiles of self promoting celebrities, sycophantic interviews with politicians, and extensive corporate adverts.

Inevitably Bono found space to tip his hat to the White House with Condoleezza Rice naming her top ten musical works. Declaring herself a big fan of Bono, she named anything (couldn’t even remember one of their songs) by U2 as number seven on her list. The best summary of Project Red came in the interview with BBC radio DJ Zane Lowe in which he declared that: The only thing people who are trying to make a difference can do is work alongside corporations. Another glaring thing about the Red Indy was the absence, apart from the Nigerian finance minister, of any African voices. There was also no mention of the arms trade or the exploitation of the continent’s natural resources. It was surely no co-incidence that some the corporate sponsors of the Red Indy, Motorola for example, were implicated in this gangsterism.

Privatisation of aid

The ethos of Project Red is very similar that underpinning Band Aid and more recently Live8, both vehicles of that other Irish knight Bob Geldof, in which Bono has been heavily involved. Band Aid was Geldof’s response to the famine in Ethiopia in the mid eighties. People will remember the pop concerts in London and Philadelphia, the charity records, appeals for donations, and the lobbying of politicians. While all this appeared very worthy, apart from boosting the careers of the people involved (it gave U2 their break in the US), it actually achieved very little. Indeed, it could be argued that Band Aid exacerbated the famine as most of the money raised went to the Ethiopian government, enabling it to prolong the war that was its main cause. At that time Geldof liked to portray himself as challenging the British and US government over their polices towards Africa, cultivated the image of the angry impassioned man banging the table and demanding action. In reality Band Aid fitted well with the polices that were being pursued by Thatcher and Regan, of reducing the social responsibility of the state, and putting the responsibility for the ills of society onto the individual. In this schema, famine in Africa could be solved through charitable giving; the privatisation of aid as one of Thatcher’s assistants described it. Governments (particularly the US) who were helping to fuel the crisis in Africa through political and military intervention were absolved of any responsibility.

Live8 was a figleaf for imperialism's responsibility for displacement and poverty in Africa

Minimal concessions

More recently, Bono and Geldof have been campaigning against extreme poverty in Africa. The centrepiece of this was Live8, a lobby of the G8 group of the world’s wealthiest nations to reduce the debt owned by Africa states. This involved another pop concert in London, and a demonstration at Gleneagles in Scotland where the G8 leaders were meeting. In the event, Live8 produced very little in concrete terms to reduce poverty in Africa.

The G8 offered only minimal concessions on debt, and even these were conditional on African governments introducing further neo-liberal reforms such as privatisation of public services and concessions for foreign investors.

While anti-poverty campaigners were disappointed with the G8 proposals, Geldof and Bono enthusiastically endorsed them.

This once again exposed their phoney radicalism, posing as challengers to the status quo while in fact they are among its strongest defenders. Live8 provided a fig leaf for the continued imperialist domination of the continent of Africa, by accepting the political and financial structures that have plunged millions of Africans into extreme poverty. It proposed a programme for alleviation of poverty that would actually deeper poverty and inequality. For example, Bono and Geldof go on about on increasing trade, but they ignore the fact that record trade surpluses and extreme poverty for African states exist side by side. There was also an element of racism in Live8. This was not just in the almost all-white line-up at the pop concert, but in the portrayal of Africans as victims who are dependent upon the benevolence of western states and wealthy individuals. The idea that people who are oppressed can free themselves through their own struggles is dismissed. When a movement does arise in Africa to challenge imperialism the Bonos and Geldofs of this world will be among the first to denounce it.

In some ways the likes of Bono and Geldof are more dangerous that politicians. Few have any illusions in Bush and Blair, but people are willing to give a hearing to pop stars who appear to have humanitarian impulses. Unfortunately, this delusion has been aided by sections of the left who threw their weight behind the demands of Live8. Socialists should be exposing the fact that Bono, Bush, Geldof and Bair share a common agenda. Blair himself made this clear in the personal letter that accompanied Bono’s knighthood:

I want personally to thank you for the invaluable role you played in the run up to the Gleneagles G8 Summit. Without your personal contribution, we could not have achieved the results we did

.

Bono and friend

Bono bashing is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, your attacks can’t fail to hit the target. Despite his rock star status he is an enemy of the working class and the oppressed, and should be exposed as such. If you have any doubts then the selection of his quotes in the box should quickly dispel them.

Condemned from his own mouth

Bono on Blair leading Britain into the war in Iraq. – …anyone can make a mistake….,

Bono on Bush. – Well, I think [President Bush has] done an incredible job

Bono on racist and anti-gay US Senator, Jesse Helms. – I found him to be a beautiful man

Bono on Blair and Brown – the Lennon and McCartney of poverty reduction.

Bono introducing a song about Bloody Sunday – this song is not a rebel song. This song is Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Bono on the struggle for an Irish Republic – Fuck the ‘revolution’!

Bono advising Bush on how to conduct the war in Iraq – I think America has no experience with terrorism or even with war. In Europe, we know a little bit more about these things. We must not make a martyr out of Saddam Hussein. He’s good at propaganda. Let’s not make it easier for him.

Bono on the ‘War Against Terror’ – The war against terrorism is bound up with the war against poverty.

10am Wednesday March 1st, Oval Basin, Cardiff Bay

Mrs Windsor will officially open the National Assembly for Wales’ new debating chamber on March 1st St. David’s Day.

Our National Assembly does not have the powers to meet the needs of the people of Wales. It has fewer powers than a council – it is little more than a talking shop. It cannot make laws and itcannot raise taxes.

The new Welsh Assembly building

A demonstration has been called by Cardiff Social Forum. We demand:

• the right of the National Assembly to decide for itself which powers it has and to determine its relationship with Britain and the rest of Europe
• powers for the Assembly to pursue policies for full employment, the expansion of public services and official status for the Welsh language
• constitutional rights not the ancient royal prerogative and the abolition of the expensive monarchy
• an equal Wales, free from prejudice and a political system free of patronage, deference and corruption

A Government of Wales Bill is on its way through Parliament. It will give greater powers to the Westminster-based Secretary of State for Wales to block any law the Assembly might wish to make. We oppose powers being taken from the Assembly to be given to a minister of the Crown. Wales should be able to decide its own legislation without interference from the crown via Westminster ministers. If it’s good enough for Scotland, it should be good enough for Wales.

For more information about this demonstration or Cardiff Social Forum’s other activities, contact: cardiffsocialforum@yahoo.co.uk

Rae Bridges

Opposition to commemoration

Following the furore over the recent Bloody Sunday commemoration in Glasgow it is perhaps time to reflect on the political questions raised. Why did the BNP and the Orange Order target this particular march? Why did Strathclyde police behave in such a blatantly partisan manner? And what does it say about devolved Scotland that hundreds of people would gather in George Square giving Nazi salutes and singing ‘Beautiful Sunday’ at relatives of Bloody Sunday victims? Oh yes, and where are the Scottish Left?

Just days before the 2005 Bloody Sunday commemoration in Glasgow the First Minister responded to questions from the media about the event, which was to be the first republican march through Glasgow city centre for a generation, by stating people want to see fewer of these marches. In fact there are only about ten republican marches in Scotland each year. These events are spread throughout the country and throughout the year. Only four are in Glasgow and only one through the city. The Orange Order have over 1500 marches, dozens through the city of Glasgow and sometimes several on the same day. So people may want to see ‘fewer of these marches’ but the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration would not be high up on their list.

What Jack McConnell and other politicians were doing, intentionally or not, was legitimising the BNP and Orange Order plans to oppose the event.

They were siding with those who wish to deny the Irish community in Scotland their right to mark such a significant event. Several diverse but connected interests were beginning to coalesce around opposition to the Bloody Sunday commemoration.

Firstly the BNP needed to portray itself as the defender of the unionist working class, able to confront republicans on the streets. The Orange Order meanwhile was outraged that we had the temerity to go through our own city centre. All of this has a familiar ring to it of course. The BNP had been behind attacks on previous Bloody Sunday marches in London. And the Orange Order fought tooth and nail to keep nationalists out of Belfast city centre and indeed adopted the same exclusive position in Edinburgh in the early nineties.

Engaging with civic Scotland

For the state it was an opportunity to put republicans on the back foot. Cairde na hEireann had continued to break new ground, establishing cumanns in working class areas throughout the country. Irish republicans had also decided to engage meaningfully with civic Scotland. For the first time local and national politicians were being challenged on their failure to properly represent our community. When Jack McConnell decided to tackle the issue of sectarianism in Scotland, marches was one of the first areas he and others identified as a problem. While recognising this as another attempt by the state to attack republicans and indeed the rights of the wider Irish community we none the less decided to engage positively with the Executive and John Orr’s Review of Marches and Parades.

We made this decision because we agreed that sectarianism was a major problem in Scottish society and we, as republicans, had a responsibility to play our part in challenging this anathema to all we stand for. It was also an opportunity to offer our analysis of anti Irish racism and to represent our community who have to live with the consequences of this multifaceted problem.

In its written submission to the Orr Review Cairde na hEireann set out our principles on the issue. Including our defence of the right to march and our support for community involvement in the decision making process. We also placed the current discourse in its political and historical context. Finally, consistent with our view that all of these issues can only be resolved through dialogue based on the principle of equality, we offered to meet with the Orange Order and discuss both organisations calendar of events and issues of concern to both communities. As expected the Orange Order refused the offer of talks.

Marching in hnour of one of Scotland's greatest revolutionaries

Positive impact

In tandem with such political developments we also instigated our own changes to the way ourmarches are organised. Recognising weaknesses and taking responsibility for our decision to take to the streets. Three years ago republican marches were small affairs organised locally and taking place largely in peripheral housing schemes. Strathclyde police had insisted that people attending must stay on the pavement and merely observe the bands. No political speeches were held at the end and on the whole no one knew or cared that such events were taking place.

Now Cairde na hEireann marches are the largest independently organised political marches inScotland (or England). Those attending well publicised and overtly political events are no longer spectators but now participate. We have initiated training for stewards and a hugely successful political education course run for young people throughout the country. The positive impact of this strategy can be seen in the fact the 3000 people attended the Bloody Sunday commemoration at less than a weeks notice.

It is against this backdrop the Strathclyde police’s actions must be seen. For eighteen months we have been challenging the Scottish Executive about the way the Justice system, and Strathclyde police in particular, interact with the Irish community. As our events have become more successful and better attended, the police response has become more irrational. In 2005, by their own estimates, there were 400 BNP/Orange Order protesters at the Bloody Sunday commemoration. They were recently forced to admit that despite the march being attacked at several points through the city Strathclyde police arrested no one.

Not one.

This year Strathclyde police appealed to Glasgow council to ban the event on the basis of secret intelligence reports of planned violent protests. When the council gave the march the go ahead the police responded by publishing the revised route and time on their website and releasing a daily press statement in the run up to the event outlining their worst fears. This ‘I predict a riot’ approach served only to heighten tensions when others were trying to calm thesituation.

On the day the police delayed the start by half an hour for no reason and then delayed it a further ten minutes when we were within sight and earshot of the fascists.

All of which only added to an already tense and dangerous situation. So how many of those launching missiles and abuse where arrested this time: Three. And if that is not bad enough, six marchers were arrested for responding to the provocation, mostly by taking photos on their mobile phones. Political policing of this kind has been going on in Scotland for generations. You are still more likely to end up in court and in jail if your ethnicity is Irish.

We have written to the Justice Minister demanding an inquiry into Strathclyde police’s handling of these matters.

So where are the Scottish left when all this is going on? It is hard to imagine any other ethnic minority being subjected to this treatment without plenty of rhetoric from socialists of all shades. When you add the BNP into the mix it’s difficult to explain the absence and silence of the Left. Or is it? Scottish society remains, as novelist Andrew O’Hagen said, a divisive and bigoted society .

In such a country revolutionaries must tackle national fault lines such as sectarianism and racism with principle not populism. Pandering to working class bigotry on the basis that they might vote for you is an abdication of responsibility. Claiming both sides are as bad as each other, as some on the left do, is not a flawed analysis it’s a lack of analysis, both of the British state and of power.

Battle for hearts & minds

What we are engaged in is a battle for hearts and minds. Gordon Brown’s call for the Union Jack to be embraced was certainly heeded by those in George Square. The debate about Britishness is one we should relish. Unionism, whether in Ireland or Scotland, is reactionary and inherently racist.

Scottish socialists should not be running justice campaigns for the forces of imperialism. We must be on the side of the marginalised, the silenced or as Wolfe Tone said the people of no property. If we are going to build a Scotland of equals we must expose and challenge intolerance wherever we find it.

The political landscape has been transformed since last year’s IRA initiatives. We all occupy a new and challenging reality. If we are going to take advantage of these new and exciting vistas we must be prepared to build new alliances and develop new strategies for the battles ahead. If those of us, republicans and socialists, who want maximum change in society do not occupy the space created others will. That would be a travesty for the people of these islands. We will not improve the lives of the people of Scotland or Ireland in fancy dress or with empty slogans.

This year is an important one for Irish republicans as this month marks the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the 1981 Hunger Strikes. We will be holding several events throughout these islands to commemorate the sacrifice of ten republican volunteers, including a march in Glasgow. A priority for our commemoration events will be the need for discussion and education not just on the prison struggle but also on the kind of Ireland that these men died for. Socialists should use this opportunity to enter into debate and critically analyse their role in building a new Ireland of equals.

Unbroken chain of resistance

James Connolly was the first Irish Hunger Striker of the twentieth century. This year, marking the 90th anniversary of his execution, reminds us of the unbroken chain of resistance to British rule in Ireland and reinvigorates us in our determination to bring the struggle to a successful conclusion. In order to do that republicans and socialists must work together in Ireland and Scotland against the common enemy. That socialism and republicanism are not contradictory but in fact complimentary has been true every day since Connolly said it. Let us find a way of recognising the commonality of our struggles.

Starting this June when together we march through Scotland’s capital honouring one of Ireland and Scotland’s greatest revolutionaries. And bringing to life Sorley MacLean’s famous lines

The great hero is still
sitting on the chair
fighting the battle in the Post Office
and cleaning the streets of
Edinburgh.

So how did the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations go from a republican perspective? A quick survey of the three and a bit nations making up the UK shows quite a wide variation in response. Undoubtedly the best protest and republican celebration took place in Wales. Cymru Goch, the Welsh socialist republicans, took the lead in this. We provide a report from their paper, Y Faner Goch, of their Festival and the arrest, charging and acquittal of Tim Richards.

Perhaps the biggest surprise though was the lack of response in the Republican heartland of Northern Ireland. The Queen even ventured into County Tyrone, something that would have been unthinkable in 1977, the year of the Silver Jubilee (see John McAnulty’s report in E&L 2). Leading Irish republican, Danny Morrison, spoke at the Radical Bookfair in Edinburgh on the 19th May and entertained us with an account of events in Belfast in 1977. However, when asked what sort of protest should be organised this year, he thought the Queen’s visit should be ignored!

This sort of attitude from the official (for surely, with all the official recognition they get, they can no longer be considered provisional) Republican Movement prompted Fourthwrite contributor, Patricia Campbell, to ask why? After all, the Queen’s union flag adoring supporters came out to catch a glance and greet her. All the ‘Establishment’ parties participated in the festivities (but) Sinn Fein stayed silent, which was considerably different with their stance on her last jubilee visit. Was it a matter of ‘silence giving consent’? Or was it that in true imperialist fashion the ruling classes have extended privilege to enough natives to ensure their easy passage through the territory?

On Sinn Fein’s road to constitutional respectability a lot of republican baggage has had to be dropped. If there had been any unseemly protests, would Alex Maskey have been elected Lord Mayor of Belfast? Following a certain inexorable logic, Alex Maskey, laid a wreath on the British First World War memorial in Belfast during the summer – hardly the tradition of James Connolly! This prompted an interesting correspondence in the pages of An Phoblacht. But what are the political implications of all this? Do Republican leaders now believe that openly asserting their republicanism might be seen as sectarianism by loyalists. And do they believe they show they aren’t sectarian by joining in the Unionists’ imperialist commemorations. It is a sad day when the British state has managed to persuade Republicans they are indeed just one of two warring tribes!

Unfortunately, loyalists don’t respond favourably to such concessions. They took the Jubilee as an occasion to celebrate in the style they know best. The UVF launched its pogrom on the small nationalist enclave of the Short Strand in east Belfast (see Northern Ireland – Is the peace process under threat?) Despite Scotland’s own republican tradition, tentatively beginning with the Cameronians, taken up enthusiastically by the United Scotsmen, the Chartists and of course, John Maclean, there remain many, including leading SSP members, who see the R word as Irish, not Scottish. When the Republican Communist Network called for a republican protest against the Queen’s visit, at the SSP’s Dundee AGM, ISM and CWI speakers decried the use of the word republican. Instead we had a Citizens not Subjects party on Glasgow Green on June 3rd. Keef Tompkinson (ISM), the SSP youth organiser, didn’t take kindly to the RCN criticisms of the political limitations of this event. He protested in the SSP electronic debate. After all 350 turned up for an afternoon in the one-time empire’s second city. Yes, there were nasty letters in the press, but the Scottish establishment didn’t feel challenged. Quite different from the response to the 300 who turned up to Cymru Goch’s whole weekend event in the small Welsh town of Pontypridd.

But Scotland did see a bigger republican demonstration on June 8th in Edinburgh, where several hundred marched (see our front cover). Only this was organised by the James Connolly Society. However, they too were operating under a self-denying ordinance on the jubilee, only one imposed by the Irish Republican Movement, so there was no anti-monarchy protest, despite it being an enthusiastic and successful event (with solidarity for Palestine much in evidence). However, as in east Belfast, this sidelining of antimonarchism didn’t stop an attempted loyalist (and BNP) disruption.

Now, whilst Scotland has its own distinctive republican tradition, this has always linked itself in solidarity with Irish and English republicanism. The SSP is beginning to make some hesitant steps towards republicanism. The last time the RCN raised the issue of the parliamentary oath before the first Scottish Parliament elections, the idea of refusal to swear was poo-pooed. Tommy said he would take the oath with his hands behind his back.

In the event, he made a much more defiant and publicity-making gesture with a clenched fist. At our Dundee conference this year, Tommy even used the dreaded R word three times. And he held a very good, impromptu Citizens not Subjects street meeting, attended by 100, when the Scottish Parliament went on tour to Aberdeen. This got good TV coverage. In Pontypridd Alan McCombes has even stated he supports a Scottish Socialist Republic. It could have been more helpful at the SSP’s Dundee conference, where many of his ISM comrades haven’t yet got the message!

The SSP is expected to do even better in next year’s Scottish parliamentary elections than in 1999. Clenched fist salutes won’t have the same impact the second time round. It is time for all our MSP candidates to openly declare they won’t be taking any loyal oath and to defy any attempt to remove them from the parliament. It is also time to bring the SNP and Labour’s hidden republicans out of the closet. And we can raise the SSP profile even more.

As well as standing for MSP’s on the average wage, we need to have MSP’s who publicly declare their loyalty to the people (who elect them).

The SA in England is a hybrid organisation – neither a party nor a federation. On the one hand it consists of several Left Groups who seem intent on maintaining their own identities. On the other hand it attracts individual members who would probably prefer the SA to be more like the Scottish Socialist Party. It is an organisation in transition.

United organisation is needed

In my view it should be in transition towards a party. This means the Left Groups should have some strategy of withering away within the SA in the not too distant future. As I see it there are no major political differences between these groups that could not be contained in an open and democratic socialist party. The most important differences used to relate to the nature of the old Soviet Union – was it a deformed workers’ state, state capitalist or bureaucratic collectivist? Some believe it still is a workers’ state apparently – good luck to them – but is it a dividing issue here and now? I think not. So why do they still maintain their separate existences when the crying need is for a united organisation to fill the vacuum left by the implosion of Stalinism and the commitment to global capitalism of Social Democracy?

Events in the recent French presidential elections show that this is not just a British disease; the French Left is split into several Left Groups for no obvious political reason. The separateness is historic, stemming back into faction fights in the 1950s. These Groups find it difficult to move on politically, to think strategically or to work with other people without running the show. They seem stuck in the world of several decades ago yet with an incredible air of smugness and self congratulation – in spite of what is quite clear to everybody else – that they have failed to attract a large working class base. Frankly would you like to live in a society run by Peter Taaffe or Chris Harman and his cohorts or by Lutte Ouvriere, the Lambertistes or the Sparts for that matter. I rest my case. The working class may be somewhat backward in consciousness at the moment but they are not entirely stupid – they are not going to vote en masse for these people. These Groups appear to outsiders more like the revolutionary groups in The Life of Brian than anything that is seriously going to change society.

The two characteristics of Left Groups almost as an iron law are sectarianism and bureaucratic centralism. I take sectarianism to mean putting their own organisation first above the interests of the working class as a whole. I take bureaucratic centralism to be a top down approach from the central committee – no real democracy, no accountability, no involvement of the creativity of the membership or of the working class. To me these two features of Left Groups need to be exposed and fought against; they are obstacles on the road to building a mass working class party.

Sectarianism

Examples of sectarianism abound but just to take a few examples. The December 1st Conference of the SA in England saw the sectarian departure of the Socialist Party who had to some extent dominated the SA since 1996. At that time they had seen the SA as a tactical means of heading off the possible appeal of Scargill’s SLP. They really did not have any strategic idea of what to do with the SA. They could pick it up and use it for their own party building or drop it as the case may be. They could have developed it along the lines of Scottish Militant and the SSP. They chose not to do so. In the run up to the December Conference the SP comrades in Coventry argued for a federalist structure for the SA on the grounds that why should they give up the hard won contacts and bases that they had built up through consistent work day in and day out so that the SWP could walk into their patch and make members — why should their members be told what to do by people with less commitment and experience. To me the role of the SP in the SA has been sectarian from day one. They put the building of their own party before developing a broad alliance. Their view now is that the SA is a rival to be fought against.

Since December 1st the SWP have become the dominant force in the SA. At the SA public meeting in Coventry during the local elections, on every chair was placed a leaflet advertising the next SWP Marxist Forum meeting, not the next SA meeting. The SWP do not seem to be clear what to do with the SA either! They seem to see SA activities as a vehicle for SWP party building in the same way as the SP did.

Old habits die hard of course but they have to die and be given a kicking on the way. Some comrades argue that it is a really good sign that the Left Groups have come together. Others argue that this is more a sign of huddling together for warmth rather than a desire to build something new. Perhaps it is a mixture of both. At the first meeting of the SA Independents in Birmingham in January there were two main points of view. One welcomed the new SA structure and the involvement of the SWP. Their idea was to swamp the SA with more independent socialists so that the members of the Left Groups become less dominant, less sectarian and the political differences less obvious. The other view was more critical of the SWP and gave examples of SWP sectarianism in their SA branches which make it very difficult or well nigh impossible to work with them. Their view was that the Left Groups are actually a barrier rather than a help in recruiting independent socialists to the SA.

In my view sectarian behaviour should be exposed on every available opportunity, even at the risk of being called sectarian because you are being critical! As Trotsky put it in the Manifesto of the Fourth International – not for one single day should we tolerate sectarians in our organisation.

No to Machiavelian manoeuvrings

The question of bureaucratic methods should also be exposed. The internal regimes of most Left Groups make the bourgeois courts seem enlightened. Members are encouraged to behave like sheep rather than being trained like self sufficient Bolsheviks. In some cases Left Groups from the Stalinist tradition like Scargill’s SLP do not believe in democracy and at least that is clear. To me that is a splitting issue; we should have nothing to do with people who are against democracy. No say in the running of the organisation – no membership. Marxism and socialism must be heard and must be debated openly. No diktats from above, no Machiavelian manoeuvrings and spindoctoring. Full accountability of the Central Committee with instant recall. At the moment it is as though some Left Group leaders are frightened of their membership and certainly frightened of them talking to heretics from other groups or independents in case they get contaminated.

Open political and theoretical discussion is absolutely vital in the SA branches. There are a number of reasons for this. It is no longer clear what socialism means any more. The Stalinist and Social Democratic versions have gone but their message still lingers on. The idea of nationalising all industries as in Clause 4 of the LP constitution was a simple slogan. But in the age of globalisation we need more international ideas for running a socialist economy. And nationalisation itself is not the end of the matter. We can demand the re-nationalisation of the railways but what we want is a socialist integrated transport policy. What would that be like? We can demand more money for the NHS and an end to privatisation but what would a socialist health system be like? Green ideas of sustainability must be addressed; the ideas of changing the course of rivers and moving mountains about like Trotsky promised during the Russian Revolution seem to us like a nightmare today. We need to draw together programmes for a socialist future – not just react in a defensive way to the attacks of the ruling class. In planning our programmes we should draw on the experience of the workers in the industries and services concerned.

Prioritise long term aims

Political discussion at a time when the answers are not obvious must be open. That means comrades must be prepared to say what they think and sometimes get it wrong and change their mind. It must be a process where comrades develop politically not an arm wrestling contest between various Groups or factions or a fight for who can win the vote.

To transform the SA into a mass party, creative ways have to be found of involving the working class – the youth, the women, ethnic groups as well as Trade Unionists. This means organising in working class estates in a consistent manner not just arriving at election times. This is not easy but it is very rewarding and examples of good practice need to be shared and copied. This sort of work tends to break down sectarianism and bureaucratic methods because the long term aim of building a working class party is put before the short term aim of winning a few recruits or a vote for a particular sect.

It was a momentous day for Republicanism in Ireland. Tuesday the 23rd of September 2001- the day the Provisional IRA decommissioned weapons in order to save not only the Good Friday Agreement but also the Stormont Assembly. The shock waves are rumbling through the Republican heartlands ever since.

A number of phrases are heard – At least ‘the stickies’ didn’t decommission, an act of unparalleled treachery, we told you so and so on.

When the issue was first raised in the early days of the peace process the IRSP was sceptical about the whole process but did not believe that decommissioning was an issue or that any republican group would voluntarily decommission its weapons.

Representatives of the Republican Socialist Movement met with representatives of the Provisional Movement on a number of occasions over the last five years and were assured that decommissioning of weapons would not happen. We had no reason to disbelieve the sincerity of those we spoke with. It was a matter for them; it is still a matter for them.

But for all that there is no doubt that shock, disillusionment, feelings of betrayal, and a shaken trust in the leadership, and a reluctant but necessary step all summon up what strong supporters of the Provisional Movement feel.

Betrayal & disillusionment

Emotions run high and talk of what about Bombay Street? etc echoes through the streets of Belfast. The image of the burning streets of Ardoyne in 1969 runs through the mind as the northern nationalist working class tries to come to terms with this event.

It is always a good thing to become disillusioned. That is the throwing away of false illusions and the start of seeing things as they really are. The IRSP feel for those whose have feelings of betrayal and disillusionment. Within our own history we have suffered our own disillusionments. So we understand why many out there are feeling bruised and sensitive to criticism.

But now is the time to see things as they really are, not as we wish them to be. When the Civil Rights Movement started not only republicans of all shades but socialists of all shades didn’t know how to react.

Those who later went on to form the Provisionals were reluctant to become involved in what was a reformist movement. Those who later went on to take the Official IRA down a dead end street of arrogant political self seeking saw the Civil Rights Movement as the only way forward and tried to suppress both the emergence of a more militant brand of republicanism and any manifestation of class struggle.

Those of us who consistently and persistently raised social and economic issues within the mass struggle that the Civil Rights Movement became, were derided as ultra left-ists, wreckers, trots and looney lefties. Socialists veered between a full acceptance of the nationalist agenda or swallowing whole a form of British Imperialist socialism under the guise of an exotic form of communism.

Out of all this confusion the Provisionals emerged from the ashes of 69 and the failure of the Official leadership to re-arm the North in a time of increasing political tension. The Provos rejected a reformist agenda and launched an armed campaign on the single issue of Brits Out. Later in 1973/74 the Official Republican Movement split again and eventually the IRSP/INLA emerged to re-establish the Republican Socialist tradition that they felt had been betrayed by the Officials. The programme the IRSP then set out has still not yet been met. We have not yet attained a Broad Front, removed the Brits, or established the Socialist Republic.

Much water has flowed under the bridge since the seventies and there have been many changes. The Provisionals have accepted, albeit 30 years later, the reformist strategy first put forward by the Officials. The reason for armed struggle has gone and their goals can be achieved by political means and the growth of the catholic population. The Good Friday Agreement saw the Provisionals ditch one of the pillars of Republicanism, non-sectarianism when they accepted the sectarian headcount that gave them seats in the Stormont Cabinet.

This can all be very confusing for those who trust in leaderships and go for the personalities in politics. A trust in a Gerry, a Martin or even a Ruaridh will eventually lead to disillusionment. All of us as individuals are influenced not only by our parents and neighbourhood but also by the interaction between our core beliefs and our actions. We are formed in specific historical and economic conditions. We all are, in a sense, prisoners of history and also of the organisations we are members of.

The Provisionals were an all-class alliance merging militarists, disaffected urban nationalist youths and traditional nationalists from rural areas. During the seventies this alliance while capable of launching ferocious military attacks made no political progress. Sinn Fein in the 70‘s was a right wing pro catholic and anticommunist mouth piece for the IRA with the occasional radical articles to appeal to more left wing elements.

When the Hunger Strikes occurred the urban based northern seized the leadership, swung the movement towards the left to soak up the militant radicalised working class youth, the growing republican minded women’s groups and the radical intellectuals politicised by the mass actions around the hunger strikes.

During all this time regular contact was kept up with the British Intelligence services through various contacts. This was because the Provo leadership recognised that eventually they would have to do a deal with their enemy. They knew from the mid eighties that the continuation of the armed struggle was a road to nowhere.

Armalite & Ballot Box

The Armalite and Ballot Box strategy saw the Provisionals make many political gains. They were able to exercise a strangle-hold over most nationalist working class areas in the north and through the exercise of social and economic control, which they had wrestled from the SDLP/Catholic Church, were able to create a middle bureaucracy of supporters who formed the intellectual backbone for their control in the ghettoes. All opposition whether militarily or politically was ruthlessly crushed within their areas of control.

Throughout all this they were able to retain the loyal support of their base because of their militancy and also their astute political leadership. This leadership was trusted. The development of their peace strategy was an advance from the Armalite etc strategy. It was strongly driven by their support base in the USA. The swing to the left of the early eighties was slowed, a distancing began with anti-imperialist movements worldwide, the suits came in and the advisers multiplied. Now they were appealing to the emergent nationalist middle classes within the north and they began to occupy the ground that the SDLP had once walked on.

That is because they represent bourgeois Ireland. That is why they can occupy seats in a capitalist Government and introduce privatisation schemes into the educational system. Of course they will oppose corrupt practices and use radical phrases but their whole function now as a political organisation is to make Ireland a more effective and efficient place for international capital to invest in. That is the importance of the USA connections.

Obviously the creation of one Republican Governmental system on the isle of Ireland will reduce bureaucracy make easier access for multinationals to Government and speed the integration of Ireland into the whole NATO defence scheme. This will be in spite of the desire of individual Republicans to keep Ireland neutral. Their subjective wishes will come up against the brutal logic of Imperialism and objective reality will always over-come subjective wishes.

He who pays the piper…

Witness the response to the Colombian Three, the Turkish Hunger Strike and the September 11th massacres. There is no way that their principal leaderships will be identified with any radical movements from now on. No matter how much that leadership may support the cause of the Turkish Hunger strikers they can not be seen to do so. Some of the middle tier leaderships will be allowed to associate and participate with safe leftist tinged causes but not the leadership. He who pays the piper calls the tune and be under no illusions the tune is now called from Washington.

That is not to say that the IRSP have all the answers. We don’t. It is always easier to criticise than to put forward solutions. Since the return of the Republican Socialist Movement to its political roots following a bitter political and military struggle in the mid nineties we have been measured in our criticisms of other Republicans. While critical of the Good Friday Agreement and the political basis of the peace process we accepted the verdict of the people of Ireland as expressed in referenda and persuaded the leadership of the INLA to call an unconditional ceasefire. We are for peace. We are for politics. We are for the democratic road. We are against militarism.

But we are not for republicans, or socialists for that matter, taking their seats in a capitalist Government. We are not for decommissioning and we are for the defence of working class areas from sectarian attacks.

I owe my allegiance to the working class

Does that lead to political impotence? We don’t believe so. Our politics have always been based on a class analysis and can be best summed up in the words of Seamus Costello, I owe my allegiance to the working class. The working class of all countries are our friends and allies. The capitalists of all countries are our enemies. Capitalism is ruthless in its logic as it breaks down national barriers and creates a global economy. There can be no Socialist Republic built in Ireland in isolation. The idea of a socialist paradise isle surrounded by capitalist states is a fantasy. That is why republicans have always been internationalists from Tone to Connolly from O’Donnell to Costello. Republicanism itself was an import to Ireland from France. What is going on today in Afghanistan, in Columbia, in Sierra Leone and Iraq, impinges on the day to day life of people in Ireland. In its relentless pursuit of profit modern day capitalism is no respecter of states or governments. Hence the creation of super states like the European Union.

It is in this context that we in the IRSP are internationalist. The international capital market profoundly affects the Irish working class. Many of the 1200 workers who have only recently been told that they are facing redundancies are instinctively aware of the internationalist nature of capitalism. It is the task of socialists and republicans to bring together the best elements of both republicanism and socialism and create an alliance of the dispossessed within this isle that can successfully challenge the cosy capitalist consensus that accepts the permanency of the capitalist system. The provisional movement has clearly shown by the actions of its leadership that it accepts that consensus. We do not.

An all class alliance of nationalist Ireland while it may weaken the unionist case also weakens the working class. It is a case of labour must wait as De Valera said during the war of Independence. But now it is the current leaders of Sinn Fein who are saying labour must wait.

We disagree. Labour, that is the needs and aspirations of the Irish working class, can not wait, must not wait. They are the only class capable of building a just and equitable society on this isle. That is why we repeat the call we made a number of years ago for the creation of a Republican Forum with which to rally the disorganised and demoralized forces of the left. There is a way forward for the republican and socialist left and we intend to play our full part in rallying the Irish working class. If you are radical, republican and working class play your part. Join us in the struggle.

On to the Republic.

Belfast Socialist Forum

A non-sectarian socialist discussion group has been set up in Belfast. Initiated by Socialist Democracy and supported by left activists and the International Socialists (former members of the Socialist Workers Movement who have resigned in protest at the SWM’s lack of democracy), it is open to all socialists interested in debate and education in socialist ideas.

Decisions on discussions, activities and speakers are taken by open meetings of Belfast Socialist Forum, which is open to all socialist activists.

For further details contact Socialist Democracy PO Box 40, Belfast or ring 028 9060 1555)

The year 1887 opened with rioting by the unemployed in Norwich. Two members of the Socialist League were arrested and later imprisoned. The Socialist League was a split by members including Eleanor Marx, from the Social Democratic Federation, Britain’s first Marxist organisation, William Morris and Belfort Bax, who could no longer stomach the dictatorship of H.M. Hyndman. By 1887 the Republican agitation of the 1870’s was but a memory but the tradition of staunch opposition from below to the monarchy was kept alive by the new-born groups of socialists, particularly the Socialist League. Some Socialist League members, such as Joseph Lane had cut their political teeth in Charles Dilke’s earlier Radical republican campaign. The Socialist League aimed at the realisation of complete Revolutionary Socialism.

On January 12th, 1887, at a Liberal Party meeting, the national anthem was hissed and members of the audience cried out for the Marseillaise. This was a period of labour unrest. In April 1887, William Morris, who edited the Socialist League’s paper Commonweal, travelled to Northumberland to address a crowd of 10,000 striking miners. A demonstration for the miners, organised by the Glasgow Socialist League, attracted 20,000 people. This was also the period of the grab for Africa, when the imperialist powers of Europe were annexing every acre of land they could occupy. War was raging in the Sudan, a war the socialists of the time bitterly opposed. At an anti-war meeting Morris caused a stir when he attempted to move an amendment stating that the Sudan had been invaded in the interests of capitalists who wished to exploit it.

Policy of coercion

In Ireland the government continued its long-term policy of coercion against nationalists. When William O’Brien and John Manderville organised a meeting to oppose this policy they were summoned. At a preliminary hearing in Mitchelstown, County Tipperary, scuffles broke out and the police opened fire, killing two men and wounding several others. O’Brien was later imprisoned.

In March of the same year, socialists organised the anniversary celebration of the Paris Commune. The English translation of the first volume of Marx’s Capital had appeared. On April 11th there was a mass demonstration, over a 100,000 strong in Hyde Park, against the Irish Coercion Bill. Under its terms the Irish Land League was outlawed. Any manifestation of Irish nationalism was treated as an outrage. Gladstone spoke for the Liberals, George Bernard Shaw for the Fabians and Tom Burns for the Social Democratic Federation. Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling spoke from the Socialist League platform.

The agitators of the Socialist League had been hard at it, speaking at numerous meetings, particularly those of the Radical Clubs. Aveling held a series of classes at Plumstead Radical Club. The Radicals constituted a working class left wing of Liberalism and socialists were trying to win them over. The Plumstead Radical Club, for example, would eventually affiliate to the Labour Party.

The Radicals felt a great affinity for the Irish. The Patriotic Club, nowadays, Marx House, held a meeting on Clerkenwell Green to protest the landlords’ rack-renting and evictions. A delegation of Radicals had visited Ireland to express their solidarity with the small farmers’ struggles there.

On May 14th, Victoria went to the East End to open the so-called People’s Palace. This was a bourgeois philanthropic scheme to bring art and culture to the deprived masses of the area, without, of course, improving their wages, working or housing conditions. All along the route she was jeered. To the socialists she was Empress Brown, a title given by William de Morgan, after she had been crowned Empress of India. It was rumoured that after the death of her husband, Victoria not only sought spiritual consolation from her Scottish servant, John Brown, a powerful medium, but also shared his bed, even having his illegitimate child.

William Morris first came into conflict with the monarchy in the 1870’s when he opposed the efforts of the ruling class to drag Britain into another war with Russia, something Victoria greatly favoured.

At last on June 21st there dawned the great day of Victoria’s golden jubilee. Some 26,000 children were entertained in Hyde Park and a twelve year old girl was presented with an award by Victoria in person. Crowned heads from Europe and beyond came to attend the celebrations as well as Presidents from several republics. An envoy from the Pope was also present.

Hypocrisy & corruption

At the bottom of the social pyramid, the jubilee was far from popular. The Metropolitan Radical Federation issued an appeal for an anti-jubilee service on June 19th. The Socialist League issued a leaflet subtitled A word on the class war, outlining the technological advances of the previous fifty years and saying that Victoria, a mean old woman, had not had a hand in any of them. At a meeting in Llanelli, Victoria’s name was greeted with hissing. Neath Town Council refused to pay for any celebrations and Cardiff Trades Council refused to participate. A meeting in Bristol, addressed by socialists, carried two militant republican resolutions.

Writing in the Commonweal, William Morris stated, The powers that be are determined to show what a nuisance the monarchy and court can be as a centre of hypocrisy and corruption, and the densest form of stupidity.

He returned to the attack in the issue for June 25th. Whilst stating that it would benefit socialists little if the abolition of the monarchy gave place to a middle class republic, he felt it necessary to vent his anger at what he called tomfoolery and monstrous stupidity.

At least some people benefited from the Jubilee – in India, 23,000 prisoners were set free.

The pioneer socialists had to fight hard to carry out their activities. Open air meetings were often broken up by the police and speakers fined. In November a demonstration to protest at O’Brien’s imprisonment was savagely suppressed and William Cutner, a member of the Deptford Radical Society, which had a staunch Republican tradition, was killed, along with two others. Cutner’s funeral was closed with a song penned by William Morris. Socialists continued to attack the monarchy. In 1893 two members of the Commonweal Group were heavily fined for flyposting an attack on a royal wedding. Kier Hardie lambasted the monarchy in parliament and in his paper, the Labour Leader. The socialists who controlled Battersea Council, refused to celebrate Edward VII’s coronation and Edward was attacked in the pages of The Socialist, which became the paper of the new SDF breakaway, the Socialist Labour Party. The Social Democratic Federation included the abolition of the monarchy and the Lords in its 1903 edition of its programme.

In the 1930’s the Daily Worker regularly published brilliant anti monarchy cartoons. These were the work of Desmond Rowney, who was killed in action defending Republican Spain.

By 1977, at the time of Mrs Windsor’s silver jubilee, republicanism outside of Ireland was at a low ebb. However, republicans gathered in the rain on Blackheath, to celebrate the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and the Chartist demonstrations held there in the 1840’s. An anti-jubilee event in East London was attacked by fascists. The SWP did a good trade in Stuff the Jubilee badges. These haven’t yet reappeared.

This time round the monarchist ardour is on the wane. A celebration of the life and work of the Red Republican, George Julian Harney, has already taken place. On May 30th, the Socialist Alliance will be holding an anti-Jubilee rock concert in Brixton. And there will be Thomas Paine and Charles Bradlaugh celebrations in June and a meeting on Bradlaugh in Bromley in April. On May 25th there will be a march and meeting to remember the heroic struggle of Bobby Sands. There will be a strong anti monarchist element in the Socialist Alliance local election campaign in May. The war in Afghanistan is far from popular and the prospect of war in Iraq even less so. Mrs Windsor’s jubilee could well be the last!

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.

Freedom Come Aa Ye (Scots)

Roch the win i the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the clouds heilster-gowdie owre the bay
But there’s mair nor a roch win blawin
Thro the Great Glen o the warl the day
It’s a thocht that wad gar our rottans
Aa thae rogues that gang gallus fresh an gay
Tak the road an seek ither loanins
Wi thair ill-ploys tae sport an play

Nae mair will our bonnie callants
Merch tae war whan our braggarts crousely craw
Nor wee weans frae pitheid an clachan
Murn the ships sailin doun the Broomielaw
Broken faimilies in launs we’ve hairriet
Will curse ‘Scotlan the Brave’ nae mair, nae mair
Black an white ane-til-ither mairriet
Mak the vile barracks o thair maisters bare

Sae come aa ye at hame wi freedom
Never heed whit the houdies croak for Doom
In yer hous aa the bairns o Adam
Will fin breid, barley-bree an paintit room
Whan MacLean meets wi’s friens in Springburn
Aa thae roses an geeans will turn tae blume
An a black laud frae yont Nyanga
Dings the fell gallows o the burghers doun.

Freedom Come All Ye (English)

It’s a rough wind in the clear day’s dawning
Blows the clouds head-over-heels across the bay
But there’s more than a rough wind blowing
Through the Great Glen of the world today
It’s a thought that would make our rodents
All those rogues who strut and swagger,
Take the road and seek other pastures
To carry out their wicked schemes

No more will our fine young men
March to war at the behest of jingoists and imperialists
Nor will young children from mining communities and rural hamlets
Mourn the ships sailing off down the River Clyde
Broken families in lands we’ve helped to oppress
will never again have reason to curse the sound of advancing Scots
Black and white, united in friendship and marriage
Will result in the military garrisons being abandoned and empty

So come all ye who love freedom
Pay no attention to the prophets of doom
In your house all the children of Adam
Will be welcomed with food, drink and hospitality
When the spirit of John Maclean returns to his people
All the flowers will blossom
And black Africa will bring crashing down
All Imperialism’s dreadful apparatus of oppression

Translated by Dick Gaughan

One of the unfortunate things about being long in the tooth is that you occasionally have to confess to being present at historical events. I have to confess to being a political activist at the time of the last jubilee, 25 years ago. In fact, following a broad meeting of republican and left activists, I had the honour of being appointed chair of the Elizabeth Windsor welcome committee in Belfast. The title indicates the rather light-hearted approach that we took. A series of counter-events would surely expose the arrant nonsense of this feudal relic ruling over us.

Internment by remand

Unfortunately the British state did not take such a light-hearted view. A few days later the RUC smashed their way into my home at 5.00am, arrested me, interrogated me for several days in the notorious Castlereagh torture centre, charged me with possessing information likely to be of use to terrorists, and held me on remand for the next six months. I was released hours before the British would finally have had to produce evidence in court to justify my imprisonment. This was a common practice at that time, generally called internment by remand.

The other members of the committee continued with the organising work and by the time of the Windsor visit they had built a mass demonstration of tens of thousands of people that marched down the Falls Road and attempted to enter the city centre to protest the visit. The British state took an even less light-hearted view of this. Not only did they launch a vicious attack on the demonstrators, they did so after surrounding the demonstration on all sides and ensuring that there was no escape. Everyone, from young babies to pensioners, cowered in crushed groups of 20 or 30 in tiny terraced houses while those left on the street were spread-eagled on the ground and systematically beaten. I learned then that the Windsor dynasty was not some leftover relic of the past but a vital component of the British state, forming a number of vital functions.

Some of these functions were particular to the North of Ireland. Here the symbols of royalty were also the badges of sectarian privilege and of sectarian discrimination and consciously used by the state in mobilise a loyal Protestant militia. Members of the Royal Family were used as a sort of opium to pacify loyalism when it became restive. The sight of loyalist thugs swelling up with a boozy sentimentality would have been funny if it were not for the horrific reality.

In addition you had the usual run of gongs, bells, medals and titles designed to cement politicians and minor state functionaries even more closely to the throne. Usually this involved only the most loyal of Castle Catholics, while the rest of the Catholic middle class looked on enviously and cursed their inability to join in.

Denial of democracy

Above all, of course, the Royal Family represented a denial of democracy. Undemocratic in their own right, they were doubly undemocratic standing under the soil of Ireland and claiming dominion there.

It is important to recognise however that when we oppose the Royal Family we oppose its modern incarnation as a mechanism of capitalist rule. The institution of royalty represents the right of capital to rule directly without any necessity for elections or parliaments. The armed organs of the state swear allegiance to the crown.

What was refreshing about the mass struggle in Ireland, what wedded socialists to republican activists was what Lenin called the general democratic content of the programme of revolutionary nationalism. As a sentiment this is alive and well in the North of Ireland but it lacks any major form of political expression. As with so much else in mainstream republicanism democratic principle has been recast as culture. Catholics respectfully keep their distance while respecting Protestants right to be slaves of the Windsors. The idea that there is a democratic principle that seeks to unite Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter under the banner of revolution has been lost in the capitulation to bourgeois nationalism.

The infrequent hurried royal visits to the North, buried under the cloak of secrecy are to be replaced by a leisurely 3-day triumphal tour in May.

Even so the coming Jubilee visit to the North still attracts some nervousness. In the early ‘60s, when opposition to British rule seemed totally crushed, the Queen made a visit to Belfast. Two republican workmen were arrested after a brick fell from high above Royal Avenue onto the Royal cavalcade.

I am far from suggesting that a well-placed brick can replace class struggle as a means of resolving the feudal elements of the British state or the British occupation of Ireland. The sentiment that aims the brick is however a good starting point.

It is the queen’s jubilee time and the Socialist Alliance in England supports all republican activities which seek to expose the lack of democracy at the heart of British society. The jubilee does not end on June 4. That is just the beginning of the monarchist jamboree up to the 50th anniversary of Elizabeth Windsor’s coronation, which is in 2003.

Socialist Alliance branches should discuss ways they can raise republican sentiment where they organise: in the localities, trade unions and in the campaigns they support. Rather than celebrate an unelected parasite on a throne for 50 years and the constitutional system she represents, the working class and socialists should celebrate the republican tradition of Britain. The Levellers and Diggers, Thomas Paine, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Chartists, the Suffragettes, William Morris, Tom Mann, the formation of the Communist Party, the general strike of 1926 and even diverse characters from society from Oliver Cromwell to the Sex Pistols. We should take the opportunity offered us in the following weeks to make propaganda for a democratic republic, the abolition of the House of Lords, proportional representation and a democratic society.

For this to happen, the working class needs to take a lead on democratic questions. The Socialist Alliance has a role to play in this. Our activities against the jubilee celebrations should seek to raise republican sentiment among the working class and to organise republican and anti-monarchist events across the United Kingdom Socialist Alliance National Council resolution, February 2002. However the June extended Bank Holiday should not be the end of it. Socialist Alliance policy is to seek to establish an ongoing organised working-class campaign for a republic after the jubilee celebrations. On the basis of activities by republicans both in and outside the Socialist Alliance we should seek to build an ongoing campaign.

What you can do:

• Hold republican social events on the June bank holiday weekend: picnics, Barbecues, street and estate parties. Get your friends, family & comrades together to celebrate republicanism.
• Apply for funding for your republican activities from your local authority. You probably won’t get approval, but send a press release saying that legitimate activity relating to the jubilee year is being blocked by the council.
• Demonstrate when the queen visits your area. To find out her tour dates go to: Golden Jubilee – now defunct
• Hold a gig, invite local bands.
• Hold a public meeting on republicanism, the monarchy and democracy.
• Hold a Socialist Alliance members meeting on the question of the republican tradition.
• Have a debate with monarchists.
• Write letters to the national and local press. Don’t let the republican voice be silenced.
• Raise the matter in your trade union.
• Hold a public event/stunt at your local town hall against the monarchy. Invite the press.

If, like me, you view the events of the coming Jubilee with a mixture of revulsion and anger, then you may well be assuming that the republican left has gone to sleep or all been deported such has been the lack of activity from our side. The palace spin-doctors have done what they always do and couched the event in such reasonable and philanthropic terms that only mad extremists could possibly have room for complaint.

The Labour Party left (what remains of it) has been warned to be at best mildly supportive at worst silent. The media looks forward to a photo bonanza while we in the SSP can look forward to a conference battle on whether or not we, as an anti monarchy party, should just close our eyes and hope the Jubilee goes away or whether we actually organise democratic events in opposition to the parasitic rule of the unelected monarch and her family.

Anachronistic pulling power

The appeal of the monarchy and its continued support from members of the working class can appear on the surface to be one of life’s great conundrums. Why does this anachronism have the pulling power it does and why do we as republicans need to redouble our efforts to smash it out of existence. Surely we would be better off ignoring it and allow people to enjoy the romance and soap opera that the royal family acts out on a daily basis?

The House of Windsor has done what successive successful dynasties have done before it. In the face of democratic demands or republican revulsion, it has adapted to survive.

This is not a new phenomenon, since the time of George III and his fears of a republican uprising in the wake of the American and French revolutions, our royal millstones have to one degree or another been successful in staving off republican revolt by conceding reforms and by matching the popular mood.

Charitable donations and royal patronage although no more than insulting crumbs, have meant that our royals have become associated with good causes. The deification of the Queen Mother and the perceived wisdom of the Queen are illusions that are hard to shatter. These women appear part of a bygone age, which conveys, in the establishment’s eyes, all that was and is great about Britain. They have endured and that in itself is a powerful symbol. Revolutionary ideas are seen as mere flights of fancy in the face of this perpetual symbol of capitalism’s legitimacy and stability. Royal scandals involving sex and or drugs have been portrayed as endearing showing how in touch our royals are with the problems of modern society – just an ordinary family with extra-ordinary wealth and unelected power!

The question of the power of the constitutional monarchy is often subject of debate. Does the royal prerogative and the other vestiges of feudalism have any real bearing on the lives of the majority of people in the so-called United Kingdom?

Monarchy bolsters modern capitalism

Sadly the answer is yes. The monarchy, the House of Lords and the hereditary landlords who control much of the Scottish countryside are living examples of the structures, which bolster modern capitalism. They are more than icons; they are an integral part of the system, which perpetuates the drive for profit over the provision of human need. They are part of the trappings designed to keep us in our place and to prevent us challenging the status quo. They provide us with a voyeuristic escape into a world where pomp and ceremony is combined with dirty deeds between the sheets. Charles choosing to shag Camilla over Diana provided as much speculation as who shot Phil Mitchell – only with posh accents.

Thus we have ready-made diversions from the crucial question; how can we be a democracy and yet continue with a monarchy, an unelected second chamber and a plethora of lairds who demand the doffing of the cap.

While on the one hand the monarchy is there to perpetuate the current system, it also highlights this fundamental contradiction. It cannot nor must not be ignored; it must be abolished through a popular movement from below.

This Jubilee provides communists with the opportunity to expose the contradictions within the state in which we live. It provides the left generally with the possibility of raising democratic and republican demands within a context that people will understand and relate to.

When the government demands street parties to show our thanks and appreciation of 50 years of Elizabethan rule, we must respond with street carnivals of republicanism demanding the abolition of the crown and all its paraphernalia in favour of democracy. The bourgeoisie have no response to the democratic question; it is unanswerable. They fall back on tradition, myth and ultimately on the class system they represent.

Fight for democratic rights

We republicans have a tradition which is rich and worth celebrating. Those brave comrades who fought resolutely for democratic rights have had a resonance, which has caused monarchs to tremble. So much so that republicans from Thomas Paine to George Harney to James Connolly are still condemned by the establishment.

There is also a powerful weapon in MP’s or MSP’s refusing to take the oath of allegiance. This is a debate within the SSP, which must continue. There is a real danger that the SSP is prepared to sacrifice much in pursuit of parliamentary numbers. Next it will be parliamentary respectability and the idea of a combat party will be diluted beyond recognition. The SSP could take the lead as a republican party in more than just name. We are not suggesting that we use the refusal to take the oath in any way as a gesture but as part of a republican campaign, which would ultimately demand our comrades, take their seats without taking the oath. This requires a long-term republican strategy, which the SSP does not have. It is too immersed in reformism.

The best republican propaganda we can use in the coming year is in organising working class people around the political demand to abolish all hereditary privilege. We must be imaginative in this. We should ask for this year’s James Connolly march in Edinburgh to highlight this democratic struggle. We must work with other republicans to organise a people’s festival in Glasgow Green and we must meet the Royal Tour with inventive forms of protest. We undoubtedly have right on our side. The leaders of the left in Scotland must show what
colours they are attached to; no red white and blue but red all the way through.