Our Emancipation & Liberation blog has posted articles about the EU and Migration since it was set up. The earlier postings covered the Republican Communist Network’s involvement, when it was a platform in the Scottish Socialist Party. The first debate was in 2002 over whether the SSP should back joining the euro in the event of a referendum over the issue. The majority in the SSP was anti-euro, although there was a small pro-euro minority. The RCN formed another minority, which was for a campaign of active abstention.
Continue reading “DEBATES AND DISCUSSIONS ON THE EMANCIPATION & LIBERATION BLOG ABOUT THE EU AND MIGRATION”
Dec 08 2016
DEBATES AND DISCUSSIONS ON THE EMANCIPATION & LIBERATION BLOG ABOUT THE EU AND MIGRATION
Nov 20 2016
FROM FARAGE’S BREXIT TO TRUMP’S “BREXIT PLUS, PLUS, PLUS”, AND ON TO ‘MADAME FREXIT’?
WHAT DOES TRUMP’S VICTORY SIGNIFY?
– ALLAN ARMSTRONG IN CONVERSATION WITH
ALAN BISSETT, BRIAN HIGGINS, PAUL STEWART AND
JOHN TUMMON
(see short biogs at end)
1. ALLAN ARMSTRONG – 9.11.16
“An even greater leap into fantasy land is the belief that Brexit will provide a progressive example to other member states wanting to break away from the EU…. The first and unfortunately well-known non-UK person to celebrate Brexit was none other than the Right populist US Presidential hopeful, Donald Trump. With typical crassness he chose his new golf course at Turnberry in Scotland to declare his solidarity with Brexit… Another presidential hopeful, Marine Le Pen, of the French Far Right National Front, was the first significant European politician to proclaim her solidarity with Brexit.
Continue reading “FROM FARAGE’S BREXIT TO TRUMP’S “BREXIT PLUS, PLUS, PLUS”, AND ON TO ‘MADAME FREXIT’?”
Tags: "Brexit Plus Plus Plus", 'Blatcherism', 'Butskellism', 'Madame Frexit', 'Spirit of 45', 1981-3 PSF-PCF coalition, 2008 Crisis, Alan Bissett, Alexis Tsipras, Allan Armstrong, Alternative for Germany, asylum seekers, Austria, Bernie Sanders, Blue Labour, Boris Johnstone, Brexit, Brian Higgins, Cameron, Campaign for a European Republican Socialist Party, Chicago Boys, Chile, Communist Manifesto, Cuba, Danish Peoples Party, Democratic Party, EU, European Court of Human Rights, Far Right, France, Free Citizens Party, General Pinochet, Golden Dawn, Hollande, Independent Workers Union, indyref2, Islamophobia, Jobbik, John Rees, John Tummon, Karl Marx, Ku Klux Klan, Left populists, Lexit, Marine Le Pen, Migrant Workers, National Front, national populism, neo-liberalism, New Deal, New Labour, Nigel Farage, No2EU, Obama, Occupy Wall Street, Old Labour, Orange Order, Pablo Iglesias, Paul Stewart, Podemos, Putin, Radical Independence Campaign, RCN, reactionary socialism, Republican Party, Right populists, Sarkozy, Scotland, Scoxit, SNP, Steve Bannan, Structural Adjustment Programmes, Swedish Democrats, SWP, SYRIZA, Theresa May, Tory Right, True Finns, Trump, UK, UKIP, Unionism, USA, welfare state
Mar 02 2016
THE UK STATE AND BRITISHNESS
This article, written by Allan Armstrong (RCN) in 2015, has now been updated to include a new section 3 on Scotland. It has been moved from its earlier site.
Section A – The UK State and Britishness
Section B – From the Irish-British and ‘Ulster’-British ‘Insider’ to the Irish ‘Racialised’ and ‘Ethno-Religious Outsider’ to the new ‘National Outsider’
Section C – Britishness, the UK State, Unionism, Scotland and the ‘National Outsider’
A. THE UK STATE AND BRITISHNESS
Introduction
The purpose of this article is to examine the concept of the national outsider in relation to Britishness, for the people of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This has been done through the further development of the concept of the outsider used in Satnam Virdee’s significant book Racism, Class and the Racialised Outsider [1]. Here he outlines the creation of the racialised outsider [2]. Mary Davis’ earlier, but also significant, Comrade or Brother? A History of the British Labour Movement (3), wrote, in effect, about the gendered outsider, without using the term.
The first part of this article will look at the historically changing position of racialised and gendered outsiders in the UK before the second and third parts address the changing position of the national outsider. Here it will be shown how the post-war British Labour government provided widely accepted ‘insider’ Britishness status for those who held hybrid Scottish and Welsh and ‘Ulster’ British identities. This though excluded the Catholic Irish living in Northern Ireland, giving a continued basis for an Irish nationalist politics based on the Irish national outsider. For a brief period in the 1960s the development of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement raised the possibility of widening the sectarian nationality-based ‘Ulster’-Britishness to create a new more inclusive Northern Ireland-Britishness, However, an alliance of the Ulster Unionism, Loyalism and the UK state thwarted this, leading to the re-emergence of a reinvigorated Irish republicanism, which drew support from those still treated as national outsiders by the UK state.
Furthermore, in the context of a continued imperial decline of the UK, the 1960s saw the existing Scottish-British and Welsh-British identities becoming more effectively challenged. This led to a prolonged attempt by the liberal wing of the British ruling class to try to democratise these identities within a political framework of Devolution. The failure of the Sunningdale Agreement in the face of reactionary unionism, and the 1979 Scottish and Welsh Devolution Bills through conservative unionist opposition, followed later by the lukewarm liberal unionist nature of the 1997 ‘Devolution-all-round’ settlement, have contributed to the emergence of significant numbers of Scottish and Welsh national outsiders in relation to the UK state, whilst still not fully integrating the previous Irish national outsiders. Today, the apparent inability of the UK state, with its strong conservative unionist, and growing reactionary unionist forces, to sustain a more widely supported political settlement has led considerably greater numbers to reject any notion of ‘Britishness’, particularly in Scotland.
1) The notion of ‘outsider’ and ‘toleration’ in relation to the role of the UK state in creating and maintaining Britishness
In some ways the position of black people in the UK from the late eighteenth century, addressed in Virdee’s book, represents an updated version of the toleration that appeared in the early days of capitalist development. This toleration was extended both to religious and ethnic minorities who performed a significant economic role within certain states. Such toleration was found in some city-states, e.g. Venice [4], and then in some mercantile capitalist states, e.g. the Netherlands, England, then the UK. These states produced regulations and developed practices that altered the status of those they tolerated, either for better or worse.
Continue reading “THE UK STATE AND BRITISHNESS”
Tags: 'Better Together' Campaign, 'Blatcherism', 'Butskellism', 'ethnicised outsider', 'gendered outsider', 'One Nation Labour', 'racialised outsider', 'Spirit of 45', 'Spirit of 68', 'Ulster'-British, 'Yes' campaign, 1845-9 Great Hunger, 1905 Aliens Act, 1914 British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1916 Easter Rising, 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, 1962 and 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Acts, 1971 Immigration Act, 1972 Bloody Sunday, 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, 1976 Race Relations Act, 1979 Scottish Devolution Act, 1981 British Nationality Act, 1981 Brixton Riots, 1981 Hunger Strikes, 1995-2001 Drumcree Riots, 1997 Good Friday Agreement, 1998 Scottish Devolution Act, 2014 Scottish independence referendum, administrative devolution, Alliance Party, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Anti-Partition League, Author: Allan Armstrong, Belfast Agreement, Bernadette McAliskey, Blue Labour, BNP, Break of the UK and British Empire road to socialism, Brexit, British chauvinism, British racism, British road to socialism, Britishness, Catholic, City of London, civic nationalism, Clement Attlee, Commonwealth Labour Party, Comrade or Brother: A History of the British Labour Movement, Conservative Party, conservative unionism, Council of the Isles, CPI, CPNI, Crown Powers, Crown-in-Parliament, Cumann na nGaedheal, Delia Larkin, Democratic Unionist Party, Devolution-all-round, Enoch Powell, established Church, ethnic nationalism, EU, European Union, Fascism, Fianna Fail, First Irish Republic, Free Derry, Harry Diamond, Harry Midgely, Herbert Asquith, Ian Paisley, Independent Labour Party, Ireland, Irish Boundary Commission, Irish Citizen Army, Irish Free State/'26 Counties', Irish government, Irish Home Rule, Irish Labour Party, Irish Republican Army, Irish Transport and General Workers Union, Irish Unionism, Irish Volunteer Force, Irish-British, Islamophobia, Jack Beattie, James Callaghan, James Connolly, James Larkin Junior, James Sexton, Jeremy Corbyn, Jim Larkin, Joe Devlin, Kilbrandon Commission, Labour Party, Liberal Party, liberal unionism, Lloyd George, Lord Scarman, loyalists, Margaret Thatcher, Mary Davis, Michael Davitt, National Front, National Health Service, neo-conservatism, neo-fascism, New Labour, New Unionism, Norah Connolly, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Forum, Northern Ireland Labour Party, Northern Ireland Womens Coalition, Northern Ireland/'Six Counties', Northern irish Civil Rights Association, Offensive Behaviour Act, Orange Order, partition, Pastor Jack Glass, Peace Process, Peadar O'Donnell, Peoples Democracy, Peter Robinson, Plaid Cymru, political devolution/Home Rule, Popular Unionist Party, Protestant, Protestant Unionist Party, race riots, Rdical Independence Campaign, reactionary unionism, Republican Congress, Robert McCartney, Roddy Connolly, Roy Mason, Royal Irish Constabulary, Royal Ulster Constabulary, Sam Kyle, Satnam Virdee, Scotland, Scots-Irish, Scottish Covenant Association, Scottish-British, SDLP, Sectarianism, Sinn Fein, Sir Basil Brooke, Sir Edward Carson, SNP, social conservatism, social liberalism, Socialist Party of Ireland, The 1914 Curragh Mutiny, Thomas Johnson, toleration, Tom Johnston, Tory Right, Traditional Unionist Voice, UDA, UK Unionist Party, UKIP, Ulster Protestant League, Ulster Scots Agency, Ulster Unionists, United Irish League, US imperialism, UVF, Welsh-British, William McMullen, William Walker, Winifred Carney, Winston Churchill
Aug 20 2015
THE SECRET OF ITS WEAKNESS: RACISM AND THE WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN
We are posting this review by Colin Barker (RS21) of Satnam Virdee‘s book Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider. This book is an important contribution to the debates around race and class. It was first published in the Spring 2015 issue of rs21 magazine. It can also be seen at:– http://rs21.org.uk/2015/03/21/the-secret-of-its-weakness-racism-and-the-working-class-movement-in-britain/
THE SECRET OF ITS WEAKNESS:
RACISM AND THE WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN
Satnam Virdee has written an important book. It is a history of working-class struggles to win economic and social gains, and to gain access to democracy in Britain, viewed through the prism of ‘race’.
From the start, English and then British capitalism was founded on imperial expansion, drawing under its control large parts of the world, and ‘importing’ into its territory large numbers of people from the lands it conquered, colonised and robbed. Yet many accounts of British working class development are silent on the presence and the impact of migrants, their sufferings and resistance, and the vital ‘racial politics’ that shaped both the major waves of popular resistance and the troughs between them.
Continue reading “THE SECRET OF ITS WEAKNESS: RACISM AND THE WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN”
Tags: 'Celtic race', 'Empire Windrush', 'socialist nationalism', Anti-Nazi League, APEX, Arthur Macmanus, Asians, Author: Colin Barker, British Brothers League, British Socialist Party, British Union of Fascists, Carnival Against the Nazis, Chartism, Chinese, Clyde Workers Committee, Comintern, CPGB, David Bowie, Enoch Powell, Eric Clapton, Henry Hyndman, ILP, Irish Catholics, Irish Home Rule, Islamophobia, James Connolly, Jews, Lenin, Lewisham, London dockers, Manny Shinwell, Mrs Desai, National Front, NationalUnion of Seamen, Notting Hill Riots, Nottingham Riots, Oswald Mosley, Popular Front, Racism Class and the Racialised Outsider, Rock Against Racism, RS21, Satnam Virdee, Scotland, Scottish Labour Party, Social Democratic Federation, Socialist League, South Shields, South Wales, TGWU, Tories, TUC, William Cuffay, William Morris, Willie Gallacher, Yorkshire
Aug 05 2015
WHAT THE FUK? – Fascist UK, Britannia and the Far Right
Gavin Bowd’s book Fascist Scotland, Caledonia and the Far Right has given succour to unionist opponents of Scottish self-determination. Allan Armstrong (RCN) provides a republican and international socialist critique.
WHAT THE FUK?
Fascist UK, Britannia and the Far Right
1) What is a fascist organisation?
Gavin Bowd’s book, Fascist Scotland, Caledonia and the Far Right, contains a lot of useful material about far right writings, culture and organisation in Scotland since the 1920s. However, Bowd does not define what he means by fascism, nor distinguish it from other forms of reactionary or right populist politics. These often invoke similar chauvinist, ethnic or racist themes. The purpose behind Bowd’s lack of clarity over the political basis of fascism only emerges gradually.
Continue reading “WHAT THE FUK? – Fascist UK, Britannia and the Far Right”
Tags: 'One Nation Labour', 'Red Duchess' of Atholl, 'War on Terror', 1320 Club, 1913 Third Irish Home Rule Bill, 1919 Amritsar Massacre, 1919 Spartacus Rising, 1920 Iraqi war, 1936-9 Palestinian Rising, 1944 Kirkcaldy by-election, 1945 General Election, 1945 Motherwell by-election, 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Alex Salmond, Alexander Ratcliffe, Alexander Sloan, Anders Breivik, anti-Catholic Irish sentiment, Anti-Semitism, Archie Lamont, Arthur Donaldson, Auschwitz, Author: Allan Armstrong, Axmed Abuukar Sheek, Babi Yar, Black and Tans, Boleslaw Beirut, Bowd, Braveheart, Brian Hosie, British concentration camps in South Africa, British fascists, British National Party, British Union of Fascists, Britishness, Captain Archibald Maud Ramsay, Charles Forrester, City of London, civic nationalism, Clann Albainn, Common Wealth Party, Communist Parties, Communist Party of South Africa, conservatives, CPGB, David Camerson, Dr. Robert McIntyre, Duke of Hamilton, Emrys Hughes, Ernest Bevin, ethnic nationalism, Eu referendum, Fascism, Fascist Scotland Caledonia and the Far Right, Francis Glancy, Franco, Freikorps, FS, Fullerton's Billy Boys, Gavin Bowd, George Galloway, Gordon Brown, Greek Resistance, Greens, Guernica bombing, Hamish Henderson, Harry Miller, Hector Smith, Henri de Man, Hitler, Hitler-Stalin Pact, Hugh Dalton, Hugh MacDiarmid, Ian Smart, Independent Labour Party, Irish Citizen Army, Irish war of Independence, Islamophobia, Jason Campbell, John Cormack, John MacCormick, John MacLean, John Strachey, John Taylor, Josef Stalin, Karl Radek, King Edward VIII, King George V, Kormack's Kaledonian Klan, Kristallnacht, Labour Party, Leo Schlageter, Lewis Spence, Lib-Dems, Loyalism, Mark Scott, Marshal Badoglio, Mussolini, Naqba, National Bolshevism, National Front, National Party of Scotland, Nazi Germany, Neville Chamberlain, New Economic Policy, New Labour, New Party, Oliver Brown, Oswald Mosley, Plaid Cymru, Popular Front, Protestant Action, Red Army, Red Paper Collective, Red/Brown pacts, Rical Inependence Campaign, Roland Muirhead, Scottish Democratic Fascist Party, Scottish internationalism, Scottish Neutrality League, Scottish Protestant League, Scottish Socialist Party, Scottish Unionism, Scottish Watch, Settler Watch, Shutzbund, SNP, Social Democratic Parties, Soil nan Gaidheal, Spanish Republicans, Terence Reilly, Third International, Third Period politics, Timothy McVeigh, Tom Johnston, Tony Blair, Ulster Volunteer Force, Unionism, Vidkun Quisling, William Power, William Weir Gilmour, Winston Churchill
Mar 20 2009
Blame the bosses not ‘foreign workers’
The SWP gained some notoriety on the Left when it came out against Opposition to all immigration controls
in the pre-split Respect. Now, no longer bound by Galloway’s Left British Unionism, Socialist Worker published the following useful contribution to the debate.
Millions of working people across Britain are fearful and angry at the mounting economic crisis. Manufacturing industry is now shedding jobs at a rate of 30,000 a month.
This week 6,000 workers at drugs giant Glaxo Smith Kline will become the latest victims of the jobs massacre. In the car industry, Honda workers face a shut-down until June.
Now this fear and anger has exploded into unofficial strike action with thousands of workers in oil refineries and power plants walking out.
They are right to want to fight this recession. But the central slogan of the current wave of strike action, British jobs for British workers
, targets the wrong people and points in a dangerous direction.
Any demand framed in terms of putting British workers first
inevitably paints another set of workers – foreign workers
– as the problem.
It pits British workers against Italian, Portuguese and Polish workers. It seeks gains for one group at the expense of the other.
But foreign workers
are not to blame for mounting unemployment, rampant subcontracting or worsening pay and conditions on construction sites.
The blame for these things lies squarely with the bosses – of whatever nationality – aided and abetted by neoliberal politicians such as trade secretary Lord Mandelson, the high priest of the free market.
Bad track record
The slogan British jobs for British workers
was used by Gordon Brown in his 2007 speech to New Labour’s conference. As many pointed out at the time, it has a bad track record.
It was used in the 1930s by Oswald Mosley’s fascist blackshirts to justify attacks on Jewish workers in east London and elsewhere. It was used by the National Front in the 1970s to try and force black and Asian workers out of their jobs.
These attempts to play the race card to divide workers have always been cheered on by the right, by successive governments and by the bosses. But they have been opposed by a powerful counter tradition of unity across the labour movement.
The working class of this country is multiracial and most people are proud of that fact. It is made up of people descended from migrants who came here seeking work – whether from Ireland, India, the West Indies or eastern Europe.
In recent years trade union activists in supermarket warehouses, on the buses and, indeed, in the power industry have fought hard to unionise migrant workers and ensure that everyone is paid the same and works under the same conditions – regardless of nationality.
The chorus of British jobs for British workers
pulls the rug from under the feet of those who’ve fought to create such unity.
And it can only encourage those elements who want to echo filthy tabloid attacks on migrant workers. It’s no surprise that the Daily Star and Daily Express – papers that never miss a chance to attack workers or migrants – initially welcomed the walkouts.
The real issue is not the nationality of workers, but the imposition of neoliberal regulations across the European Union (EU) that reduced workers’ rights and aided employers in every member state.
Britain’s New Labour government has championed every such piece of neoliberal legislation. Yet it has also insisted on exempting Britain from the few pieces of EU legislation that could have benefited workers – such as caps on the number of hours we work.
Lord Mandelson is now advising British workers to go and get jobs in Europe – echoing Tory minister Norman Tebbit’s advice from the 1980s that the unemployed should get on your bike
.
Of course British construction workers should be free to work in Germany or Saudi Arabia, just as workers from abroad should be free to work here. But when Mandelson talks of a “free market” in labour, what he wants is a race to the bottom. He wants Latvian workers to be employed here on Latvian wage rates, subject to Latvian health and safety laws.
That is why tens of thousands of trade unionists across Europe have held sustained and militant protests against the EU’s neoliberal attacks on workplace rights.
Workers from Italy and Portugal want decent jobs and a decent future, just like workers here. They are our brothers and sisters.
We should join their fight to ensure that all workers across Europe get the highest pay rates, the best conditions and the strongest health and safety laws. Focusing on “foreign workers” also lets Gordon Brown and New Labour off the hook. For the past 12 years they have continued Margaret Thatcher’s work.
They told us it did not matter that manufacturing jobs were disappearing, because Britain was becoming a global financial centre instead. That was before the banks went bust, of course.
They have kept Thatcher’s anti trade union laws intact and continued to privatise our public services. New Labour gave bosses the key to 10 Downing Street, but treated trade unions with contempt. And far too many in the trade union leadership have gone meekly along with this treatment – or even, shamefully, encouraged the British jobs for British workers
slogan.
Mounting anger
Anger over how working people have been treated has been mounting and is now threatening to explode. The current walkouts are a symptom of that. And they have shown that unofficial strike action is an effective way to fight.
But think how effective it would have been if trade unions had led such walkouts over job cuts, subcontracting and factory closures, rather than over foreign workers
. Such militant action could force Brown to act quickly.
On Friday of last week 400 members of the Unite trade union in Ireland occupied the Waterford Crystal factory to stop its closure. In the same week 2.5 million French workers struck over jobs, wages and pensions, refusing to pay the cost of the bosses’ crisis.
Every worker is facing the same horrors in the face of a global recession. We can’t let ourselves be divided by racism or nationalist sentiment.
We need a united fight that targets the real culprits – the bankers, the multinationals, the politicians. Let’s turn the anger on those truly responsible for this dreadful recession.
Tags: Author: SWP, British jobs for British workers, Daily Express, Daily Star, George Galloway, Glaxo Smith Kline, Gordon Brown, Honda, Margaret Thatcher, National Front, New Labour, Norman Tebbi, Oswald Mosley, Respect, Socialist Worker