Election results: Corbyn defies his critics

A few months ago, when political commentators looked ahead to 2016, there was a widespread prediction that Labour would suffer substantial losses in the council elections. Would it be 200 seats lost? Perhaps a little less, perhaps even more?

 

After all, these elections would be for seats previously contested in 2012, a mid-term peak for Ed Miliband, and it was assumed that Corbyn must be electorally unpopular. Yet Corbyn and Labour have defied the critics. The journalists and pundits have been left floundering, desperately trying to make the facts fit their narrative.

 

Local elections

 

There have been no significant losses for Labour in the council elections. This is all the more remarkable when you consider the manufactured media storm about allegations of antisemitism.

It is now clear that the media circus made no difference to Labour's vote. This must be exasperating for the small minority of hardline right-wing 'Bitterite' Labour MPs who hoped that poor results would trigger a challenge for the leadership, or at least gravely destabilise Corbyn's leadership.

Labour's vote has been sustained despite the widespread perception of the party as deeply divided, which is normally an electoral liability. It helps that the Tories are also divided, especially over the EU referendum. A section of the Parliamentary Labour Party has been determined to undermine - and in the longer term oust - Jeremy Corbyn as leader. But having made electability the central issue of contention, they have an unenviable task now it's become clear that a Corbyn-led Labour can do well at the ballot box.

In fact Labour's position was an improvement on the general election, while the Tories suffered. Critics of Corbyn say that it isn't enough: Labour should, they argue, be steaming ahead, and the current performance is insufficient to win at the next general election. But after just eight months in post (amidst very public internal divisions), and with four years to go until the next general election, it is clear that Corbyn is very much on the right track.

London

Zak Goldsmith's campaign for London mayor was perhaps the most racist election campaign by a mainstream political party in the UK for decades. It failed. Sadiq Khan was elected, returning the mayoralty to Labour after eight years with Tory Boris Johnson in the role.

 

Khan is reportedly the first Muslim mayor of a major city in western Europe. London is a multicultural city and a mainly working class city (though one with extraordinary inequality). Whatever the weaknesses of Khan himself, his victory is a welcome riposte to racists and an important breakthrough for Labour.

 

It marks the rejection of a grubby campaign, orchestrated from the top with the involvement of Tory central office and David Cameron's approval. It attempted to link Labour's candidate, by virtue of being a Muslim, to terrorism, painting him (and Corbyn) as a threat to security, even exploiting the memory of the London bombings in July 2005 for political advantage.

 

The Tories, in the final couple of weeks of the campaign, attempted to turn the London elections into a referendum on Jeremy Corbyn. The fact that Labour made a couple of gains on the London Assembly as well as winning the biggest prize suggests that's not the winning tactic that many inside the Westminster bubble assume it will be.

 

Scotland

Labour's bad news came in Scotland. Corbyn's leadership has made no impact there. The decline of Scottish Labour has deep roots and appears to be irreversible.

Every election in Scotland - whether for Westminster, Holyrood or local government - now takes place through the prism of the independence debate. The campaign for independence, the referendum itself and its aftermath have transformed Scottish politics. For many voters, Labour is defined first and foremost as a pro-Union party.

Labour is now being squeezed by both the SNP (pro-independence and broadly social democratic) and the Tories (anti-independence and right-wing). There is a diminishing social base underpinning Labour in Scotland. Note, for example, how the SNP now commands much higher levels of support than Labour across much of Glasgow, historically a Labour heartland.

Scottish Labour's disastrous fate is a legacy of the New Labour years - during which support for the SNP grew - accentuated by the impact of campaigning with the Tories to preserve the Union. Scottish politics has for some years established its own distinct trajectory; it would be naive for anyone to think that a leftwards shift in the UK-wide Labour Party will make much difference (especially when Scottish Labour has failed to shift with it).

The SNP's (very narrow) failure to secure a majority in the Scottish Parliament was a surprise, though it remains the dominant party of Scottish politics, just as it was last May when 56 out of Scotland's 59 Westminster seats were won by the SNP. In a number of constituencies where the party was in second place, it looks like many pro-Union voters have voted tactically for whichever party was likely to block the SNP from winning the seat. 

 

It was also held back somewhat by political timidity, failing to generate the kind of enthusiasm witnessed last spring when - for the general election - the party focused heavily on being an anti-austerity, anti-Trident antidote to a moribund Westminster mainstream. Having failed to win an outright majority, the SNP will now rely on support from the pro-independence Scottish Greens, who had a good election night (winning 6 regional list seats).

There has been some media hype about the Tories overtaking Labour in Scotland. This is indeed a historic shift, but it is largely due to Labour's collapse and not an endorsement of the Tories. The Tory vote share is only a source of excitement for the Tories because it has, for some time, done so catastrophically badly in Scotland. There seems to be a hardening polarisation linked to the question of independence, with many pro-Union voters rallying to the Tories.
 

What next?

 

Jeremy Corbyn and the left are undoubtedly strengthened by the results. This is particularly reassuring after a difficult couple of weeks due to the media hysteria about antisemitism allegations, which have been handled by the Labour Party in a manner that has emboldened both Labour's right wing and the Tories.

 

The 'electability' question has not been entirely settled and there is a long way to go to forming a government in 2020. But the omens are reasonably good and the results are widely acknowledged to be a move in the right direction, even if much of the media (and the Bitterite MPs) are reluctant to accept this. Speculation about a 'coup' against Corbyn has quickly receded. His position is, probably for some time, fairly secure.

 

Nonetheless, the left-wing leadership of the Labour Party is fragile in many ways. There will still be great pressure to compromise from the right, with some associated with the left joining in the calls for compromise too. Such compromise would generate disillusionment among those enthused by Corbyn's rise and the alternative he espouses. It would increasingly demobilise Corbyn's own supporters.

 

The recent, highly successful, Jeremy Corbyn 4 Prime Minister events gave a sense of the continuing appetite for what Corbyn represents. There is a wide layer of people who will campaign around left-wing demands and policies, not just electorally but through campaigns and movements, if Corbyn, McDonnell and the left provide a lead.

 

This year has already seen big demonstrations against austerity, Trident and racism, and nationwide protests and rallies in solidarity with the striking junior doctors. Those movements need to be sustained and strengthened. Their impact is magnified when leading Labour figures participate in them. At the same time, the efforts of Corbyn and his allies to permanently shift Labour to the left are emboldened when large numbers of people take to the streets and demonstrate.

 

This week has also seen Tory U-turns or partial U-turns on accepting child refugees, negotiating with junior doctors and forced academies. They are weak - and cracking under pressure from both a left-led Labour Party and the wider protest movements and trade union movement. The EU referendum and the emerging scandal over spending on their general election campaigns in some seats threaten to deepen their crisis.

 

The Tories' greatest asset is the 'Bitterites', who repeatedly take the focus away from what the Tories are doing and undermine Corbyn's opposition to Tory attacks. Corbyn and allies need to get tougher with them and effectively marginalise them. The Tories' greatest threat comes from an alliance of Labour's left leadership and the movements on the streets. This alliance needs to become more powerful than ever.

 

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8 important trends in British politics

The end of one year, and the start of another, is a good time for reflection. So I thought I'd step back from the day-to-day churn of British politics and think about the underlying trends we have seen illuminated in 2015. 

It is easy to miss many of these due to a focus on the everyday or short-term, or because of the news media's habit of exaggerating some things while overlooking others. 

What, then, are the big current trends in British politics that we can discern from events in 2015? In no particular order...

1. The Tories are steady but going nowhere. 

There was a lot of exaggeration in the responses to the Tories' general election victory. The fact that nearly everyone had forecast a hung parliament meant that a tiny Tory majority appeared to be a spectacular triumph, rather than a very narrow win helped by the electoral system. The long-term trend for the Tories has been one of decline: compare its vote share from anywhere between the 1950s and 1992 with its results since 1997 and this is clear. It is also reflected in falling membership. 

It is unlikely that the Tories will ever again reach 40% in a UK-wide general election (if Scotland gains independence, it might be a different matter). There is no particular reason to believe that the Tories will improve on its 2015 vote share. They can form a majority government on no more than 37% of the votes - as we've seen - and the likely boundary changes means this will certainly be possible in future. But I don't see how the Tory Party can restore the dominance it had in the 1980s (conversely, I don't see any reason to predict a significant fall in its support).

2. The Lib Dems have collapsed. 

The Lib Dems and its predecessor parties have historically had a small core voting base. But at times this has been boosted as a result of careful positioning - or opportunism - allowing the party to pick up votes from those disaffected with other parties. The 2010 election was a peak in this respect, with the Lib Dems benefiting from widespread disillusionment with 13 years of Labour government (but also the fact that the Tories had not entirely 'detoxified' after the experiences of the 1980s and 1990s). 

Being the junior partner in a Tory-led coalition for five years led to collapse and only 8 Lib Dem MPs were elected in May. There are no indications of any Lib Dem revival, not any reason to expect one as the party has no obvious purpose. It has returned to being a party that derives votes largely from a core base of mainly middle class and centre-ground voters, polling below 10%. 

3. The SNP dominates Scottish politics.

The SNP landslide in May - taking 56 out of 59 Scottish seats at Westminster - was a genuine political earthquake. There is every reason to expect another SNP landslide in May's Holyrood elections, with the party forecast to increase its majority in the devolved Scottish parliament still further. 

This has been a long-term process and the independence referendum accelerated Scottish Labour's decline and the SNP's ascendancy. Many people on the Labour left simply don't grasp how much Scottish politics has been transformed, and naively think that Labour can win back lost support. This involves under-estimating how discredited Labour has become, how strong the SNP's support base now is, and how important the questions of independence and (more immediately) home rule, or increased powers, are for left-leaning Scottish voters. 

4. Ukip is past its peak, while the far right is defunct.

I've been saying this for over a year: Ukip has already reached its peak. It took roughly one in eight votes nationally in May and there's simply no reason to expect it to improve on this in future local or general elections. It has a fairly settled voter base and is incapable of getting people elected in first-past-the-post elections. The fact that its sole MP, Douglas Carswell, is in open conflict with party leader Nigel Farage gives a strong sense of the problems it faces. Whatever happens in the EU referendum, it is likely to damage Ukip: once it's taken place, Ukip's core aim has been removed from the political landscape. 

The rise of Ukip is one reason, of course, why the traditional far right is absolutely nowhere. Dedicated anti-fascist campaigning also played its part, as did the far right's propensity (especially when under pressure and suffering defeats) for in-fighting. The British National Party imploded a little while ago and has not been replaced.  

5. Labour is shifting leftwards. 

For those of us on the left, the most important - and hopeful- trend is what's happening in the Labour Party. This is one that has taken everyone by surprise: 2015 has been a real game-changer for Labour. It was widely assumed that general election defeat would be followed by a consensus around moving Labour somewhat to the right. Jeremy Corbyn's huge popular success in the leadership race, galvanising a mushrooming of Labour Party membership and a renaissance for the left, changed everything.

What we are seeing is the widespread disaffection with a hollowed-out social democracy finding expression - in a unique way - through the established, and largely discredited, social democratic party itself. This results from a combination of factors and has led to a fierce conflict within the Labour Party. How this plays out is not yet settled, but Corbyn and the left do have some distinct advantages. The 'moderates' in the Parliamentary Labour Party are reconciling themselves to it being near-impossible to challenge Corbyn's position. 

6. The Green Surge is a fading memory. 

The Green Surge began in summer 2014 and continued until the general election in May 2015. There was a huge increase in membership combined with a small tilt leftwards in its profile and composition. This demonstrated - together with the SNP's triumphs - that Labour can indeed leak votes to its left, and suggested there is significant electoral space for a party positioned (in however ambiguous and tricky a manner) to the left of the neoliberal mainstream. 

Corbyn's rise to the Labour leadership has changed all that. Apparently, there has been little direct effect on Green Party membership. But there's no doubt that the whole dynamic underpinning the Green Surge - disillusionment with a rightwards-leaning Labour Party sending people to the Greens - has simply gone. This will surely be reflected, in the next year or two, in membership figures, the composition of the party and the votes it receives, most likely starting with disappointing votes in London and local council elections in May. 

7. The independent left is marginalised electorally. 

While Labour's left turn may have damaged the Greens' prospects, it has wiped out any chance of explicitly socialist organisations like TUSC or Left Unity making any progress (assuming Corbyn continues as Labour leader). These outfits were already achieving miserable results in elections - and that was before a socialist was elected to lead the Labour Party. 

I also expect the new Scottish left formation RISE to do badly in May's Holyrood elections, though I wish them well. I'm not sure there is space for something new - resting on a relatively small layer of activists, with no existing profile - when the field is already crowded with SNP, Labour and Greens. I hope to be proved wrong - we will see. 

8. Strikes remain a rarity, but unions and movements are important political players. 

Since the early 1990s there hasn't been a single year when more than two million strike days have been recorded - a sustained period of low trade union combativity like never before. This is a crucial and highly significant long-term trend for the left to register. It continues to be a major weakness on our side - and the effects of the historic defeat of the unions can be seen, for example, in the downwards trend in real-terms pay for the last seven years. 

Nonetheless, trade unions and protest movements alike have played an influential role in recent years. Street protest has been, for many years and across a wide range of issues, a central part of opposition to government policies. This year, the People's Assembly's national demonstration in June was a particular high point, while Stop the War Coalition has repeatedly made the news, especially around the Commons vote to bomb Syria. It will again play an important role in 2016 around the issue of Trident replacement as well as Syria. The connection between protest movements and Corbyn's rise to the Labour leadership has in some ways amplified the impact campaigners can make. 

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Radical Independence: how #RIC2014 took the Scottish left to the next level

The sheer scale of the 3rd Radical Independence Conference in Glasgow was extraordinary. Around 3000 people attended. Considering Scotland's population, this puts it on a different level to anything else organised by the left in Britain.

 

The atmosphere was electric, but there was also a serious sense of purpose about building a stronger movement, mapping a strategy and articulating alternatives to both Westminster and the limits of Holyrood.

 

Westminster politics and Scottish Labour were the main targets for criticism (the disgust with the latter was understandably visceral), but there were also warnings that Holyrood must consistently champion an alternative political vision and approach to the discredited British mainstream parties. For example, the recent SNP conference was somewhat half-hearted and equivocal in opposing fracking, but at RIC 2014 any calls for total opposition to this environmentally damaging practice were greeted with rapturous applause.
 

A nation in political turmoil

The great success of the conference was made possible by the political ferment which developed in the run up to September's independence referendum and which, unexpectedly, has continued without faltering since polling day. Prior to referendum day, RIC organisers assumed that in the event of a 'No' victory the conference would be at best the same size as the previous two conferences. Yet all 3000 tickets sold in a few weeks.

 

Suki Sangha - RIC activist and a member of the Scottish TUC Council - made the opening speech of the conference, in which‬ she recalled how the referendum campaign had galvanised participation in politics and public debate by many thousands of people for the first time. That political ferment and mass campaigning, she said, provided a baseline for the conference and for future action.

 

Instead of the widely predicted demoralisation, the 'Yes' movement has been, and continues to be, buoyant after a defeat that increasingly seems to have been anything but. One thing that appeared to unite conference speakers was a conviction that independence is a matter of when not if - that on 18 September independence was deferred not defeated.

But the success also rested upon serious coalition-building stretching back to the preparations for RIC's first conference two years ago. The 2012 and 2013 conferences each drew up to 1000 people. Together with the growth of local groups  nationwide and on-going campaigning, those conferences laid the basis for such an unprecedented success. Organisation matters: these things don't happen by accident.

 

Bernadette McAliskey, who became a socialist and civil rights activist in Northern Ireland in the 1960s (she was then Bernadette Devlin), paid tribute to the role RIC has already played, saying "The Radical Independence Campaign has organised from the bottom up and engaged people in the political conversations we need to have... You have reminded us old veterans how this job is done". The wider engagement of RIC activists and groups with local communities - often the poorest, those neglected for generations by politicians - through mass canvasses, street stalls and other activities marked a step forward for the Scottish left in connecting radical ideas with wider society.

 

Re-shaping the political debate

 

In general the independence debate shifted Scottish politics to the left. Increasingly the arguments for independence became centred on big social and economic issues, not dry constitutional matters or national identity. Radical Independence and other organisations with an alternative social, political vision to 'politics as usual' played a vital role in that process. The more the radical potential of independence was highlighted, the more enthused and engaged people became in the run up to independence.

 

On top of the long-term trajectory of devolved Scottish politics - with Holyrood more hospitable to 'social democratic' politics than Westminster - this makes the Scottish political landscape very different to the UK-wide level. Scapegoating of immigrants, for example, barely figures in political discourse. 17-year-old Saffron Dickson, a 'Generation Yes' campaigner speaking in the morning plenary, pointed out that she's never known a time when 'immigration' wasn't a dirty word across mainstream British politics. The Scottish political scene is proving this isn't inevitable - and opposition to the racist scapegoating sadly endemic in Westminster politics remains a key driver of support for independence.

 

This political landscape is not as it is because social and political attitudes are substantially more left-wing in Scotland, but a matter of how organised (especially electoral) politics has given expression to people's attitudes, and the whole direction of travel during the referendum campaign.

This enlarged political space for left-wing ideas - and political demands that dissent from a narrow and sterile 'orthodoxy' - was part of the context for today's ‪conference. There was a powerful sense that the terms of political debate have shifted recently, and this offers openings to RIC and the left. The conference was explicitly left-wing, yet also tangibly part of a larger mainstream political discussion in Scottish society: as RIC's national co-ordinator Jonathon Shafi noted, it is a crucial step in creating a mass left that is taken seriously and capable of influencing the national debate. 

 

Another Scotland, another world
 

There was a tremendous 'mass forum' in the afternoon with speakers from left-wing parties Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece, and socialist activists from Quebec and Catalonia, highlighting the internationalism of the movement and the lessons to be learnt from experiences elsewhere.

 

A theme of the speeches from the Catalonia and Quebec campaigners was the need to go beyond the limits of nationalist campaigns for independence and consistently campaign around specific social and economic demands. The speakers from Podemos and Syriza highlighted the potential for mass discontent with austerity and the establishment to find electoral expression - providing that is linked closely with movement struggles - though the exact implications for Scotland will be a source of on-going dialogue for some time.

 

The same session also included speakers from two important campaigns in England, indicating that RIC has nothing to do with 'separatism' but instead seeks authentic solidarity and common working class interests. A Bectu union organiser talked insightfully about low-paid Ritzy cinema workers organising and striking for a living wage and against threatened job cuts, followed by one of the Focus E15 women talking about their militant and creative housing campaign in east London (while two other members of the campaign held up a banner declaring 'London, Glasgow - one struggle, one fight - decent homes for all').

 

The conference concluded with practical commitments to take the movement forward. This was centred on the new 'People's Vow' - an antidote to the empty politicians' vow pledged, in desperation, by Westminster leaders on the eve of the referendum. The challenge now is to use it, and the whole conference, as a launchpad for concerted campaigning that can win victories, shift the political debate further to the left, and move Scotland closer to not only independence but a version of it that involves decisively rejecting the injustices and inequalities that have driven the movement this far.

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The Scottish referendum and the English Left

This was first published on Counterfire.

Mark Perryman’s 2 recent articles, published as opinion pieces by Counterfire, offer an interesting perspective on some of the issues arising from the Scottish independence debate.

I have some disagreements, but I certainly welcome the focus he puts on rediscovering some key left-wing thinkers and writers on issues of nationalism, democracy and the British state, and more importantly the recognition that such issues are integral to contemporary left-wing politics and require some fresh analysis.

The break-up of Britain is something that both Mark and I advocate and see as a progressive blow against British nationalism and a highly centralised, conservative and unaccountable British state. There are some on the left who see this question as simply irrelevant – underestimating the importance of the British state both ideologically and as a facilitator of capital – or who broadly defend the British state on spurious grounds of ‘class solidarity’. In truth, solidarity is not defined by national boundaries and the ‘socialist internationalism’ which many left-ish advocates of a ‘No’ vote advocated is a weak cover for making concessions to British nationalism.

Mark also grasps, as some on the left sadly do not, that democracy is a major battleground in contemporary politics. This is bound up with a set of social and economic grievances. The struggles over democracy do not necessarily take a straightforward ‘class’ form, which has confused elements of the left. In Scotland what’s happened is that struggles over austerity, inequality, etc, have increasingly become refracted through ‘the national question’.

This is not, as some suggest, a betrayal of class politics, but a version of it. The movement for independence became an expression of working class hostility to the neoliberal consensus and a means of fighting for an alternative to it. And that won’t go away: the aspiration to independence will continue to figure in Scottish struggles over a range of issues.

The ‘break up of Britain’ is therefore about democracy as something inextricably tied up with a cluster of issues affecting people’s lives. It is shaped by the experience of neoliberalism and by disaffection with its effects. The struggle for Scottish independence is a particular, distinctive, version of something broader – the campaign became a chance to break free from a neoliberal model that affects all of us. It is not primarily, or indeed to any real extent, about ‘national identity’ or ‘nationalism’.

The growth of working class support for independence, especially among traditional Labour supporters and most striking in places like Glasgow and Dundee, reveals something about the severe weakening of Labour hegemony over working class politics in Scotland. The same process is at work in England and Wales, but at a slower pace and in not quite such an acute form. This process is shaped by Labour’s ‘social neoliberalism’, its embrace of a set of orthodoxies pioneered by Thatcher but with some modifications which make it more palatable to working class voters.

The increasingly distinctive nature of Scottish politics post-devolution, with Holyrood as a significant dimension of Scottish politics and the SNP positioning itself as a social democratic party, has affected Labour’s place in the political landscape. Its alliance with Tories and Lib Dems in Better Together has further eroded it. It is now likely that the SNP will play a dominant role in Holyrood for some years to come, with potential for any new left-wing formation (emerging from radical independence campaigning) to eat into Labour’s vote.

Mark acknowledges that the ‘national question’ cannot be the same in English politics as in Scottish politics, but he underestimates just how different it is – and how significant this difference is. We have, frankly, no experience of a distinctively English politics that is progressive and beneficial to the left. Billy Bragg has, like Mark, often championed a ‘progressive Englishness’, yet Bragg recently acknowledged that while Scottish nationalism is ‘civic’, the English variety is ‘ethnic’; where the former (in its contemporary form) is welcoming to migrants and is multi-cultural, the latter defines itself according to xenophobia, parochialism and anti-European paranoia.

And, of course, many supporters of independence in Scotland don’t identify with any kind of nationalism – the two things are far from synonymous, and the big story of the referendum results is how ‘Yes’ won majorities in important traditionally Labour, working class territory, while failing to do so in ‘SNP strongholds’. It was in many ways a class vote, motivated by a set of class-based issues.

I use the term ‘English left’ because I have for some time recognised that a distinctive dynamic to Scottish politics – with a major focus on fighting for an independent Scotland – means there is no longer a ‘British left’ in the traditional sense. I think Mark is right to say that such a view has been rather unfashionable on the left: Labour (including its left wing) remains staunchly Unionist, while much of the radical left has been slow to register these developments, shaped as it is by an earlier era.

But – and this is important – such a designation does not mean advocating a focus on English identity or emphasising any sort of distinctively English politics. This simply isn’t feasible in anything like the way it’s been possible for the Scottish radical left, through things like Radical Independence Campaign, to locate itself in a distinctively Scottish context, as a result of there being a referendum campaign to fight.

English nationalism, like the British nationalism to which it is closely related, is generally a reactionary force. In the current climate there is a strong trend on the right – among Tories and Ukip – to exploit people’s grievances in a way that encourages anti-Scottish hostility and deploys a degree of English nationalism. Calls for an English parliament will of course do nothing for the left – we already have a largely English parliament at Westminster and it would be no kind of democratic advance. It is an issue beloved of a parochial, xenophobic section of the Right which feels nostalgic, socially conservative and embittered.

We need to be putting forward a series of demands for regional devolution (with real teeth), the strengthening and better funding of local government, an end to the cult-of-personality directly elected mayors, an elected second chamber, and so on. The new wave of discussion and debate about the future of democracy and the political geography of the UK can potentially be shaped by various different political forces. It will take considerable effort, and striving for co-operation across a fairly broad spectrum, to move the debate emphatically in a positive direction for the left.

We want to weaken the power of a highly centralised state and make advances for democracy. Celebrating any version (however seemingly progressive) of Englishness won’t help us here. What does need further investigation and debate is a whole cluster of issues around the economic and political geography of the UK: regional imbalances economically, the distinctive place of London in our economy, and so on.

In current circumstances, we are right to take constitutional politics seriously to an extent the left has rarely done so before. It isn’t some distraction from ‘the class struggle’, but rather a site of contestation. The big issues around democracy, devolution and the constitution are a mediating of deeper conflicts to do with wealth and power in our society. They are, bluntly, class issues.

Finally, it should be stressed that we do indeed have things to learn from the Radical Independence Campaign – a remarkable success story for the best elements of the left – but we need to clear they’re not lessons to do with distinctive national identity. In England we should strive to emulate their ambition, commitment to broad unity and dedication to reaching layers of society not normally involved in politics. We also need to grasp, as they have done, the centrality of democracy to contemporary struggles for social change, the importance of advocating alternatives as well as fiercely critiquing the status quo, and their tactical inventiveness.

Just as a new Scottish left has developed in the last two or three years, so there are indications of what is possible in England. We need to take the process much further in the months and years ahead.

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Scotland's vote, Britain's crisis - lessons from the independence referendum

Buchanan Street, Glasgow, 13 September. Photo: Suki Sangha

Here are 10 important things to consider, regardless of the outcome of this Thursday's referendum.

1. There is a democratic upsurge in Scotland. 97% of potential voters are registered for the referendum, with a very high turnout predicted. 'Yes' campaigners relish the prospect of a high turnout; 'No' campaigners are nervous of it. There has been large-scale electoral registration in recent weeks, much of it thanks to  registration drives by Radical Independence and other 'Yes' campaigners, especially among the young and the poor.

Just as importantly, mass meetings have taken place in every corner of Scotland attracting people who don't normally regard themselves as 'political'. There have been mass canvasses, flash mobs and astonishing scenes in Glasgow on Saturday. Thousands have become political activists for the first time, with a thriving grassroots movement for 'Yes'. This will have a permanent effect - the new activists and the newly politicised won't be 'put back in their box'.

2. The greatest hope comes from the radical grassroots. The official Yes campaign has had its strengths and weaknesses, but there has also been a vibrant unofficial campaign of activist groups, Green campaigners, socialists, websites and cultural networks which has frequently moved beyond the limits and moderation of the official campaign. It has expressed the politics of 'Yes, and...', seeing a Yes vote as merely the beginning in moving towards a more socially just future, a way of opening up greater space for contesting neoliberalism, renewing radical working class politics and articulating alternatives to a status quo of inequality, austerity and war.

It has been dynamic, creative and frequently young; both diverse and inclusive. The 'No' camp, by contrast, is tightly controlled and looks, sounds and feels rather stale. The Radical Independence Campaign (key slogan: Britain is for the rich - Scotland can be ours) especially has linked independence to a bigger vision of social, political and economic transformation, treating independence as a starting point for more far-reaching change.

3. Apathy is a myth. The widespread illusion that people - particularly young people - are uninterested in politics has been exposed as hollow. When offered real alternatives, and when engaged on matters of real substance, there is an appetite for political engagement. Normally marginal topics - from Trident to the constitution- can become matters of serious scrutiny and intense debate. There is no reason to believe this can only happen in Scotland.

Lowering the voting age to 16 made a contribution to engaging the young, though it has been about much more than that. And the independence debate has reached into deprived communities normally alienated by politics, in large part due to the efforts of left-wing and radical currents.

4. Westminster is broken. One recent poll asked Yes voters what motivates them. 'Westminster's style of politics' was the most popular from a list of options, chosen by 51% of Yes voters surveyed. It isn't simply about hating the Tories, though that is visceral, but about a (justified) lack of faith in a post-May 2015 Labour government reversing Tory attacks and making real reforms.

The deep popular disaffection with Westminster's hollowed-out democracy and its political orthodoxies can go in different directions. It can boost UKIP. But the referendum also indicates it can be channelled in a positive direction. Again: this is not something that must be an exclusively Scottish phenomenon.

5. The British ruling class is more scared than at any time in 30 years. The Miners' Strike of 1984-85 is the last time that establishment panic and hysteria reached the fever pitch levels we are currently witnessing, as politicians, banks and big business fear the threat posed by a victory for independence.

The British state remains firmly linked to British capital, and the bulk of the ruling class is strongly opposed to an independent Scotland. The markets are very jittery and will be much more than that on Friday if the vote goes the way they fear. The lack of preparation for a Yes victory - by government, civil service and the foreign policy and military establishment - speaks eloquently of the state of denial these institutions have been in. It reveals how unthinkable and appalling the prospect of independence is to them.

6. The British ruling class will do all it can to crush opposition when it is threatened. It may just be facing its gravest defeat since 1974, when the trade union movement brought down a Tory government. The hysteria of much of the British and Scottish press has been something to behold. We've even had front pages telling us that Deutsche Bank predicts a Second Great Depression as a result of independence, despite us having already had a Second Great Depression, for which banks like Deutsche Bank were largely responsible.

The BBC - a publicly funded broadcaster tied into the ideology of the British state - has generated a fierce backlash because of its shameless bias. No wonder thousands of people protested about bias and slander outside BBC Scotland. We have also seen banks, major corporations and supermarket chains threatening to leave Scotland and issuing dire warnings of rising prices or economic meltdown. The nastiness of the British state and elite institutions has been revealed for all to see. We could still see much more of this if there is indeed a 'Yes' victory, as the political, financial and business leaders of the defeated 'No' camp struggle to minimise the damage and obstruct the process of moving towards an independent Scotland in 2016.

7. British nationalism is both toxic and fragile. This is exemplified by the Sunday Telegraph's grotesque front page suggesting that independence will be a betrayal of Scottish soldiers have been killed as part of the British armed forces. This is a repellent piece of nationalist emotional blackmail - originating with former armed forces chief Lord Dannatt - but it also has a rather pathetic quality of nostalgia and decay.

British nationalism doesn't have quite the hold it once did, the institutions which once gave it some material substance are now discredited (like the BBC) or being dismantled (like the NHS), and its modern character is very post-empire, fragile rather than swaggering. This is not to deny its still considerable ideological power - nor is it to overlook the serious problems of racism and scapegoating in our society - but to note that it lacks the depth of social base it one possessed (and if there is a 'Yes' victory on Thursday its force will be eroded significantly).

8. Democracy is now a major battleground in British politics. Much of the left really doesn't get this: advocating an abstract ideal of future socialist democracy while blind to areas of current contention, from the House of Lords to the lack of regional devolution, from the slashing of funding for local government to the growth of corporate influence at Westminster. The more perceptive elements of the left grasp that democracy is important in the here and now, that people care about it, and that it is bound up with all sorts of social and economic issues. We should also be aware that if Scots vote for independence, there will be an almighty battle - south of the border as much as north of it - over the negotiation process, with Westminster and the British state putting numerous obstacles in the way. This means we could very soon face a prolonged struggle over a big democratic question.

35 years of neoliberalism have hollowed out democracy. The gaps between the mainstream parties have narrowed, politics has become technocratic and managerial, and our elected representatives are less likely than ever to come from working class backgrounds. Local government has been gutted, due to a combination of cuts, reorganisation and the preposterous craze for 'executive mayors', and anti-union laws have eroded workers' rights and weakened their resistance. This referendum campaign has offered a glimpse of something better - for Scots, yes, but also for the rest of us if we fight for it.

9. Independence is a ticking time bomb. 'No' has a substantial lead among those aged 65 or over. If it is a very narrow defeat for independence on Thursday, the long-term prospect - 10 or 15 years from now - is likely to be a victory in any fresh referendum.

The 25-34 age group - the Iraq war generation, we might say, as that was such a politically formative event for many of them - is notably more pro-independence than most. This generation, too, has provided many of the 'Yes' activists and the backbone of the Radical Independence Campaign. They learnt from Iraq how destructive the British nation state can be. They also learnt what a democratic deficit looks like.

10. The left can be rebuilt. The Scottish left, which had been so fractious and stagnant a few years ago, has emerged strengthened, with a new generation of socialist activists developing and new alliances formed (of course some have been left behind, but the more active, astute and outward-looking have seized the opportunities). This new left still has some way to go, but the direction of travel is the right one. It has proven how it is possible for socialists to make their politics relevant and to connect with wider layers of working class people, including on housing schemes (neglected by politicians) where poverty is rife.

The English left, too, can be relevant and effective - if the lessons are learnt and the fatalistic miserabilism is ignored. A left that shapes struggles against austerity, war and racism, builds broad coalitions and communicates alternatives clearly can make an impact and grow. Alternative political directions are possible.

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The Guardian's 7 reasons why Scotland should vote NO in the independence referendum

 

Radical Independence Campaign activists

Key points from the Guardian's editorial opposing Scottish independence:
 

1. Scottish nationalism is a bad thing. What's that you say? Did someone mention British nationalism? Sorry - we only recognise one kind of nationalism.

 

2. Alex Salmond is anti-English, but don't ask us for any evidence because then things might get awkward.

 

3. Yes, there are elements other than the SNP campaigning for independence, but they don't matter.

 

4. The Bank of England's governor says independence is a bad idea. So there.

 

5. Westminster can deliver social and economic justice... no, really... stop laughing!

 

6. It's bad that the SNP want to cut corporation tax, but let's not talk about how Westminster governments since 1979 have cut taxes on the rich and allowed inequality to grow.

 

7. We think independence should be rejected in favour of an elected second chamber and greater devolution, even though these things are not actually on offer (and, in any case, British democracy and political institutions are weak and deeply conservative).

 

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Westminster's broken politics and the radical case for Scottish independence

Independence dominates, as you might expect, the Scottish political landscape. The referendum this September is potentially of huge consequence. It could break up the British state and establish an independent Scotland, opening up a new set of possibilities for Scottish politics but also impacting on politics south of the border.

Even if the 'Better Together' campaign (pro-Union alliance of Tories, Labour and Lib Dems) maintains its polling lead right up election day, the referendum has already framed just about all political debate in Scotland. This will continue to reverberate for years to come.

One consequence of the referendum campaign has been increased space for discussion of political directions and alternatives. While the official Yes Scotland campaign – with an agenda dictated by the Scottish National Party, led by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond - has tended to be moderate, and the mainstream debate has been shaped by the No camp’s scaremongering, there has been an opening up of the possibilities. Unsurprisingly, there is a marked increase in political engagement by many ordinary Scots.

Radical Independence Campaign

The left-wing case for independence has been articulated by a number of forces, most notably the grassroots Radical Independence Campaign which has breathed new life into the Scottish left. It has forged new relationships among those dedicated to linking independence to a broader social and political vision. Radical independence is the politics of ‘Yes, and…’ – it regards the prospect of an independent Scotland as a starting point, a platform for articulating and campaigning for an alternative set of policies aiming towards social justice, sustainability and greater equality.

James Foley and Pete Ramand - activists in the Radical Independence Campaign - provide a detailed critique of Westminster's broken politics in their new book, 'Yes: the radical case for Scottish independence'. They also offer a thorough case for the alternative - not merely for independence, but for a far-reaching social and economic alternative.

I hope the book finds an audience in England, where there has been a remarkable indifference, at least until recently, to the Scottish independence question. There continues to be a widespread failure to grasp what is at stake or what is driving political developments.

No doubt this has been influenced by a widespread, and complacent, assumption that it can’t really happen, that it will all blow over and Scotland will reject independence and we will continue with business as usual. Yet recent polls indicate that, while retaining the Union remains the more likely outcome in September, independence is a real possibility.

The English left is far from being immune from this sluggishness, ignorance and conservatism. Elements of the left, especially those in the Labour Party, are pro-Union, while others view it as mere constitutional matter or think it should simply be left to the Scots (despite the potentially profound opportunities independence would open up for the rest of us).

Beyond Westminster

For the radical independence activists, what drives the movement for a Yes vote is not ‘nationalism’ but opposition to Westminster politics and the suffocating neoliberal orthodoxy that Westminster represents. The book’s authors note that the Yes campaign is at its strongest when it focuses on Westminster’s failings and articulates the need for breaking from its political consensus: cuts, privatisation, pro-US foreign policy, immigrant bashing and a relaxed attitude to growing inequality. What’s wrong with contemporary Britain – and the potential for alternatives to that – is the starting point.

They also highlight the class and generational dimensions of the independence debate, with the poor and the young being most likely to back independence. Surveys have found near-unanimous opposition to independence among business elites.

The UK has an electoral system that entrenches the neoliberal orthodoxy and marginalises more progressive voices. There is a Tory-led government despite Scotland and some English regions returning very few Tory MPs to Westminster. Labour is constantly pulled to the right in a bid for supposed ‘Middle England’ votes, a process reinforced by the first past the post system, while neglecting its core support. Ukip, despite not having any MPs, possess a media profile that enables it to exert right-wing pressure on the mainstream, while the left is completely marginal.

Westminster is – however you look at it, whatever angle you take – broken and very unlikely to be repaired.  There is a gaping democratic deficit and the enforcement of precisely the neoliberal policies which have enabled inequality to grow. The authors are clear that an independent Scotland does not guarantee a substantially different future, but that it does open up space for a different direction.

Under devolution, Scotland has seen a handful of positive reforms – like scrapping university fees and prescription charges – that compare favourably with England. The SNP is politically diverse and contains a conservative right wing, but on most policy issues it is to the left of the Labour leadership. Scottish political debate is – with the Tories marginal and Ukip virtually non-existent - framed  differently to the UK level. The social democratic mainstream of Scottish politics is a great improvement on Westminster politics and, with far greater powers than at present, an independent Scotland could bring positive change.

Nationalism and the British state

Independence would have repercussions for politics in the rump UK as well as in Scotland. The foreign policy establishment has lined up to warn of the terrible dangers of independence precisely because it will weaken the British state and its alliance with the US. The end of Trident is the most immediate likely effect, but the book outlines the wider challenge it will pose to the status quo.

Foley and Ramand recall how disgust at Tony Blair’s government over the Iraq war was a driving force behind increased support for the SNP in the 2003 and 2007 Scottish parliament elections; without that, the SNP may not have been able to reach the stage where it could call a referendum on an independent Scotland.

This aspect of independence is of course closely connected to the not insignificant matter of British nationalism – its history and its continuing ideological import – which, the authors note, is near-invisible in the whole referendum debate: Scottish nationalism is the object of vast amounts of commentary, but British nationalism is an ideological ‘common sense’ and thus rarely articulated openly. The book contains a very thoughtful discussion of different types of nationalism, their significance, and how they have evolved.

A central argument is that independence is not, contrary to media myth, the same as Scottish nationalism or identity – interestingly, polls reveal a very weak correlation between strength of Scottish identity and voting intentions in the referendum. Foley and Ramand also demolish the myth of ‘anti-English racism’ as a driving force for independence supporters, reminding us that more traditional and familiar forms of racist bigotry – like that directed to the Asian community – remain the real problem in terms of racism. Anti-racism and internationalism are at the heart of radical independence.

A radical needs agenda

For Foley and Ramand, however, the campaign for independence is about much more than choosing Holyrood over Westminster, opting for a social democratic mainstream over right-wing orthodoxy, or breaking from the worst elements of neoliberalism at home and imperialism abroad. The book, like the Radical Independence Campaign itself, is fuelled by a desire to move beyond those limits and champion a radically more progressive vision. This thread runs through the book, but is expressed most openly and forcefully towards the end, including an outline of a radical needs agenda for Scotland.

The radical needs agenda is a set of demands that, as the authors acknowledge, do not constitute a socialist society, but rather represent a radical alternative within the constraints of capitalism. All of them would need to be fought for, all would be resisted by powerful vested interests, and all would (in the process of fighting for them) raise fundamental questions about the society in which we live. It is a bold set of alternatives that has clearly been the subject of much research, thought and discussion; extremely well-informed and shaped by current conditions, rather than being a generic blueprint for a better society. 

Evidently one of the great advantages of the independence debate in Scottish society has been this opening up of space to discuss the future, allowing the Scottish left an opportunity to discuss and articulate alternatives instead of settling for opposition to the status quo. The authors are exceptionally good on the need for the campaign to link a critique of existing politics and an alternative vision. They explain and criticise the limits of the Yes Scotland campaign, and the SNP’s approach, which too often emphasises continuity over change, and is relentlessly ‘optimistic’ in a way  that lapses into the vague and vacuous. Voters need to be convinced that the present system is broken, but also that independence can lead to a genuine and far-reaching alternative.

This book – clearly written, coherently argued, wide-ranging in its concerns – is a must-read for anyone who supports independence for Scotland. It isn’t just for Scottish radicals, but of great relevance to those of us campaigning against Westminster’s bankrupt politics south of the border. It serves as a guide to the whole independence debate and a polemic for a radical alternative.

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Harry McShane: socialists, mass movements and the working class

I recently finished reading ‘No Mean Fighter’, an extraordinary memoir of an extraordinary socialist activist. Harry McShane was born in 1891 into a working class family in Glasgow of mixed Catholic and Protestant heritage. He became an active socialist in around 1908 as a teenager in Glasgow, and continued to be a committed revolutionary until his death, aged 96, in 1988.

The book, published by Pluto in 1978, was the product of a huge number of taped conversations between a young activist-writer, Joan Smith, and the octogenarian McShane. The project took around five years in total. It is, among other things, a powerful example of how oral testimony can be put to great use. But it helps that Harry McShane was the subject.

Turbulent times

Between McShane becoming a socialist in his teens and the age of 35, the following happened: the Great Unrest; the Irish independence struggle; the collapse of the old Second International; World War One; the Red Clydeside worker militancy; the Russian Revolution and the mutinies, uprisings and revolts it inspired in Europe; women winning the vote; the founding of the Third International and the birth of the British Communist Party; the upsurge of strikes following WW1; tremendous growth in trade unions; and the General Strike. There is no comparable period in British history.

Many of these events were not simply illustrative background for McShane’s life, but were woven into it; he was an activist, a protagonist, and his memoir is the story of someone who attempted to shape history in a time when the direction of history was very much up for grabs. 

I learnt an enormous amount from reading the book. Through the particular – McShane himself, the people he knew, his activities in Glasgow, and so on – there is a great deal to learn about important wider phenomena: the growth of socialist organisations and left-wing debates of the time; trade union struggles like Red Clydeside in World War One; popular social struggles over housing, unemployment and other issues; the nature of work in that period; and all sorts of aspects of society in the first half of the 20^th century.

There are some interesting emphases in McShane’s account – partly a reflection of his own experience, but partly a corrective to faulty interpretations of the historical experience. During World War One he regarded the anti-war campaign – however unpopular it was at first – as the most important struggle of the era, not the militancy on the Clyde which has received vastly more attention. He conveys the militancy of Red Clydeside, but also offers a sharp view of its sectional limitations and political weaknesses.

Ireland was evidently a vitally important issue for McShane and for much of the socialist movement, yet this is often neglected in overviews of the period. He recovers the rent strikes and housing campaigns of that time, recalling how John Maclean was excited about the possibility of political mass strikes developing out of them (there were elements of this, but it never quite happened). The General Strike, surprisingly, is over in a couple of paragraphs: it was controlled from above by the TUC and, for a rank and file leader like McShane, there was not much of a role and so little to say about it.

National Unemployed Workers’ Movement 

McShane’s greatest contribution was his role in the unemployed workers’ movements of the 1920s and especially the 1930s. He was an activist through and through; it is, he is unabashed in saying, what gave his life meaning and purpose. He had little interest outside work and political activism; and for much of his adult life politics was his work (though at other times he worked as an engineer or, when necessary, in more menial roles).

He joined the Communist Party in 1922 and left it in the early 1950s; his most effective political work was in the CP’s ‘mass work’ rather than in the Party’s internal life. For McShane, this principally meant being the Glasgow secretary and Scottish organiser, for most of the 1930s, of the National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM), led by Wal Hannigton and politically dominated by the CP.

The NUWM was one of the great achievements of working class struggle in the 20^th century in this country. Its scale of activity was enormously impressive , with the big ‘Hunger Marches’ being only the most visible and best-known expression of a mass grassroots movement.  The Communist Party initiated and drove it, but those active in the movement went way beyond its membership.

McShane comments at one point that there were 8 branches in Glasgow alone and each of them had around 200 members all paying a weekly sub. There were regular local protests at labour exchanges and street meetings, city-wide demonstrations of thousands, and the big national mobilisations. The history of the NUWM contained here is all the more revealing  because it comes from a rank and file leader, immersed in local agitation but with an eye on the bigger picture.

Insights into the Left

One of the book’s strengths is that it provides insight into the complexities of the British Communist Party from the 1920s to the 1950s, and how the changes in its politics and orientation were mediated by CP activists locally. McShane was a loyal activist and indeed he worked full time for the party’s paper the Daily Worker, reporting on Scottish events, during and after the war. He disliked what he saw as a growing cult of Stalin worship in the 1930s, and was often getting into internal arguments with those who uncritically handed down ‘the line from Moscow’, but he didn’t develop any alternative perspective during that period.

One reason was simple ignorance – he and his comrades didn’t know more than a fraction of what we now know about labour camps, forced collectivisation, starvation and show trials, although it is clear there was an element of choosing not to see things too. There was also the lack of any alternative. For McShane, the CP was essential to the mass movement activity that he was engaged in. It also – for a long time after ceasing to be genuinely revolutionary – could still appear to stand in the tradition of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Russia was a beacon of hope during this time – McShane was clear that it inspired him and his comrades, and made them feel strong.

The book is also interesting for its insights into the socialist movement before the Communist Party’s formation. Glasgow was the main centre of organisation for the small but significant Socialist Labour Party, which can be regarded as Britain’s earliest revolutionary socialist group. There was also the Social Democratic Federation (and later British Socialist Party), the Independent Labour Party (ILP), the syndicalists, and so on. The strengths and weaknesses of the different groups, and the political arguments involved, emerge from McShane’s recollections.

There are many brief portraits of socialist orators and campaigners who McShane encountered – both those based in Glasgow and national figures. Some of them McShane got to know well. The most outstanding figure of all was one of those who McShane worked closely with: John Maclean, the most important British Marxist of the whole period. The insider’s account of Maclean during World War One and up to his death in 1923 provided by the book is one of its most important contributions to our understanding of the socialist movement of that era. McShane’s portrait of his ally is warts and all, but in the course of it the full stature of Maclean and his contribution becomes clear. Maclean was a talented populariser of Marxism and ran Marxist education classes for many years, led the anti-war campaign in Glasgow, and was a tireless agitator in the heat of the struggle.

Socialists and mass movements

Some passages in the book are genuinely thrilling and dramatic, like those depicting militant mass protests (often clashing with the police), but McShane was also keen to explain the dynamics of a struggle and reveal how he and his comrades operated. He was (like Maclean) a natural agitator and flourished in what he termed ‘mass work’, feeling at home in demonstrations and street meetings, finding his purpose in building the NUWM in the 1930s.

He would later feel discontented at the lack of opportunities for mass movement building comparable to the agitations of the 1920s and 1930s, but he was always keen to orient himself on the closest thing available to that experience. For example, he recalls his role in organising a major Scottish demonstration, involving CND, against nuclear weapons in the early 1960s. He had retired, aged 69, in 1960 but continued to be involved in Glasgow Trades Council activity.

Although he was part of a couple of small Marxist groups, holding political discussions, after leaving the CP in 1953, it seems to have been the larger-scale movement activity that mattered most to him. That is not to deny the immense importance of Marxist ideas in sustaining him: he comments, revealingly, that in the years immediately following his departure from the CP he read more Marxist theory than at any time since his teens. He was trying to make sense of what had gone so terribly wrong in the Communist tradition, trying to recover the authentic politics of Marx and Lenin.

Although the book is overwhelmingly a story of action, the account of his intellectual development in a couple of early chapters – the story of how he became a dedicated Marxist – is  fascinating, and it is a development that clearly underpins the rest of McShane’s life story. It is impossible to survive the many twists and turns between 1908 and 1978 – including some major personal setbacks and some potentially very demoralising political defeats – without a deep grounding in the Marxist tradition.

As the book was being written, in 1976, McShane spoke at the Royal Albert Hall for the first time. He was nearly 85. Unemployment was rising again, as capitalist crisis returned. Just as the Crash of 1929 had prompted the mass campaigns of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement, the crisis of the 1970s led to the Right to Work Campaign being launched.

The new movement was initiated by the International Socialists, taking the role the CP had in the 1930s, and held a number of unemployed workers’ marches to London. McShane’s speech linked the mass movements of the interwar period with the new wave of mobilisations. His presence was a living link to the struggles of earlier generations. There are great differences between then and now, but in a period of systemic crisis yet again there is a wealth of historical experience from which we can learn.


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Disunited Kingdom - bloggers' panel

I participated in a bloggers' panel called 'Disunited Kingdom' at the Guardian website today. Here's my opening salvo - and see HERE for the other bloggers' contibutions and a wide-ranging comments thread.

'An independent Scotland would be a step forward. I welcome anything that weakens the cohesion and power of the British state and undermines British nationalism. Then there is the democratic deficit: being subject to a Tory-led central government despite hardly electing any Tories to Westminster.

Scottish politics has increasingly developed its own dynamics in recent years. Take what happened in Scotland in May's elections. Labour did badly, the Tories were nowhere, and the SNP proved the big winners. Understanding that involves a grasp of the distinctive elements in contemporary Scottish politics. Scotland essentially now has two centre-left social democratic parties – and it's the SNP which is faring better, due to disillusionment with 13 years of New Labour government.

Sections of the Scottish political and business elites are comfortable with independence. The Scottish left needs to be pro-independence and anti-austerity, campaigning for a break from dominant UK-wide policies of cuts and privatisation. There's some cynical opportunism in English Labour ranks, among those who want to preserve the Union because they want to hold on to Scottish seats. But the way for Labour to beat the Tories is to deliver serious and principled opposition to austerity and articulate clear alternative policies.'


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Founding statement of International Socialist Group (Scotland)

The Launch of the International Socialist Group (Scotland)

(re-posted from Facebook, with permission)

A group of revolutionary socialists have come together to form the International Socialist Group (Scotland).

We will participate in the movements against austerity, war and racism and will campaign around climate change, disability discrimination, LGBT and women's oppression. We believe that the Marxist tradition is essential for anyone who believes we need radical social change and will attempt to develop Marxist theory and test our ideas in the struggle- on every protest and every picket line.

The challenge which immediately faces the ISG is to engage with the growing resistance to the austerity program of the Con-Dem government. We aim to do what we can to argue for one, united, mass campaign against austerity. Now more than ever we must strive to build a campaign which unites anti-cuts groups, trade unionists, pensioners, students and the whole Left. We want to help to build a mass movement against the Con-Dems.

The May 5th elections to the Scottish Parliament require immediate and joint activity. We will be out in force to support George Galloway's election bid and send fraternal greetings to all candidates on the list.

We believe it’s vital to engage with the Left on an international level, which will start by sending a delegation to the Cairo Conference. From here live reports will be available on our website.

We will publish a monthly magazine which will agitate for action and protest, analyse world events, contain interviews with major figures on the Left and review the cultural scene. These will be sold at events, outside workplaces, on street stalls and will be offered by subscription to institutions and trade union branches. Being situated in Scotland, we will provide cutting edge analysis and debate of Scottish politics, economics and culture.

Additionally, we aim to produce a regular theoretical journal to provide space for the development of Marxist theory. We will be inviting contributions from the broad left to form set-piece debates on issues of strategy and tactics, history, Marxist theory and economics.

Over the coming months the ISG will hold a launch conference and public rally, to which we extend an open invite to socialists across the country who are interested in our organisation. Additionally, we will begin formal meetings with others on the Left to discuss how we might work together on building the widest possible movement against the cuts.

We need to bring the spirit of the Arab revolutions to Britain- a political movement in the streets coupled with workplace and trade union agitation for a general strike. The Left in Britain needs to relate to the millions, not the thousands. Everything is to play for.

We now extend to you an invitation to join the International Socialist Group (Scotland): for the Marxist tradition, for a mass national campaign against austerity, for a fresh and dynamic approach to socialist politics.

Our website will be online shortly; in the meantime you can contact us by emailing isgscotland@googlemail.com

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The revolutionary left and the anti-cuts movement

38 Socialist Workers Party members in Scotland have today resigned. The political basis of the split in Scotland is primarily the question of how revolutionary socialists relate to the anti-cuts movement. The 38 former members claim - correctly in my view - that the dominant SWP leadership has increasingly focused on a narrow kind of 'party building' which is separate from (and at the expense of) being centrally involved in movement building.

This approach diminsishes the organisation's influence in the broader movement and encourages sectarian habits. It separates party members from a growing mass movement, which they should in fact be building as their first priority. In the context of systematic coalition building it is possible to build revolutionary organisation, as well as contributing to the movement.

That is the task - creating a revolutionary Marxist pole within broad-based movements of resistance - which we in Counterfire set ourselves when we launched last March. The statement from the Scottish group indicates they are engaged in a very similar project. I, like other Counterfire members, wish them well.

Here is an extract from the collective statement - read it in full HERE.

'In particular our work around the Right to Work campaign has been confused and patchy across the country, primarily because the Central Committee - as a whole - did not drive that perspective from its inception.

In the build-up to the 26 March we could have been organising to get every possible local anti-cuts and trade union activist working together to carry out mass leafleting, but the message from the centre was to concentrate on building it through our paper sales. Those were, of course, vital; but we also needed to place ourselves alongside the thousands who were working to build the march.

Consequently the SWP's ability to influence wider layers of people provided by the biggest demonstration in trade union history was restricted. There are some very good SWSS groups, but the Glasgow students were the only SWSS group with any sizable presence on the student feeder march. Amidst arguably the biggest youth revolt in British history - and despite reports of bumper recruitment to the Party after Millbank - this should have been a massive wake-up call.'

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Sheridan: the curtain falls

Two thoughtful, balanced and sensible left-wing commentaries on the Tommy Sheridan tragedy. I recommend reading both in full. The first is from A Very Public Sociologist:

'Tommy wasn't up on perjury charges as an outcome of a protest, strike, or dispute. It was because he lied in his defamation action. He wasn't featured in the News of the World because of his record of struggle. He was, like many politicians before him and no doubt many more to come, caught with his pants down (some comrades tend to forget this is their stock in trade). And before he was named by the paper as the MSP in question he'd held his hands up to the SSP executive and confessed.

While some members may have a particular attitude to sex and fidelity, the exec didn't sack Tommy because of his peccadilloes. He was asked to step down because he intended to sue News of the World for defamation, despite admitting the story was substantially true, and because he expected *others* to risk their necks by going along with it. In other words, Tommy asked his comrades, many of whom he'd worked with for 20 years, to buy into a lie so Tommy could trouser a couple of hundred grand.'

Gregor Gall writes along the same lines for Comment is Free:

'For the radical socialist left in Scotland, this is the continuation of a fratricidal nightmare. Tommy split the Scottish Socialist party, by far the most successful socialist party in the British postwar period, which he helped found and lead. He wanted the SSP to back him up. When it would not, he then left it and set up a rival party, Solidarity.

As a result, both parties were wiped out from the Scottish parliament. The electorate looked at both and said: "A plague on both your houses". Sheridan fell along with the five other socialist MSPs. It has been said by some that this is the one crime Sheridan will never stand trial for.

For Tommy Sheridan, spending most of the past six years fighting former comrades and preparing for a perjury trial meant not only that he trained far less of his fire on the forces of capitalism and neoliberalism but he also missed out doing so at the time of these enemies' gravest crisis. The credit crunch, which led to an economic depression and a crisis for neoliberalism, is now being resolved by making citizens pay for the mess through an attack on the welfare state, courtesy of the government's age of austerity. That is the tragedy of Tommy Sheridan.'

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