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<\/p>\nThis article by Allan Armstrong (RCF) looks at the aftermath of the May 6th elections in Scotland, Wales and England, the current situation in Northern Ireland, and then to the political significance of new movements from below across these islands, culminating in the people of Govanhill challenging the UK state’s Home Office Border Agency’s attempted forceable removal of two migrants in Kenmure Street in Glasgow on May 13th.<\/p>\n
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On May 6th<\/sup>, simultaneous elections were held for the Holyrood and Cardiff Bay devolved assemblies, the London mayor, the English local councils and the Westminster Hartlepool constituency.\u00a0The outcomes of these elections and by-election have highlighted the very different political situations in the constituent units of the UK state.\u00a0Furthermore, the ongoing political crisis in Northern Ireland, most immediately focussed on the much narrower DUP leadership election on May 14th<\/sup>, just adds to this.<\/p>\n The multifaceted political, economic, social and environmental crises which face us have focussed on the inability of the existing UK state constitution to address these. The British ruling class, with its long historical unionist and related imperial experience, is the most conscious of this. They have opted for a Right populist and reactionary unionist strategy to address their problems. Constitutional nationalists are also aware of particular shortcomings of the UK state, but mainly in regard to its impact on their own particular nations \u2013 Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland\/Ireland, and not to the UK\u2019s deeper nature as a profoundly anti-democratic, unionist and imperialist state, based on the sovereignty of the Crown-in-Westminster.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, aware of the current significance of constitutional issues, constitutional nationalists have emerged as the principal leaders of struggles against the UK government in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In addition, some liberal unionists have made weaker criticisms of the UK government\u2019s reactionary unionist offensive, particularly in Wales. There is a wider, but still weaker British liberalism, acting under these combined pressures, hoping for cosmetic reforms of the UK state, e,g. \u2018Devo-Max\u2019 (which they misleadingly term ‘federalism’, something impossible under the Crown-in-Westminster set-up). They are also concerned about what they see as the unsavoury turn to Right populist politics under Johnson\u2019s Tory government, downplaying their own role in preparing the grounds for this.\u00a0However, today it is probably the Left in these islands, through a combination of economistic and national exceptionalist thinking[1]<\/sup><\/a>THE BRITISH LEFT AND THE UK STATE<\/a><\/span><\/span>