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| ROUND IN CIRCLES |
The left nationalists in Scotland having suffered a set-back
by the referendum defeat where they propped up the SNP now seek to offer
themselves as the left opposition to their former allies.
RISE – Scotland’s
Left Alliance is a coalition formed by the SSP and various other groups with
the noticeable exception of Sheridan’s Solidarity. http://www.rise.scot/
They have taken a cue from George Galloway’s party RESPECT
by using an acronym to name itself:
Respect Independence Socialism Environmentalism
And similarly to “Solidarity - Scotland's Socialist Movement”
they require to add a qualifier on what they are – “RISE - Scotland’s Left Alliance”.
The RISE party logo is very appropriate, as you can see for yourself, for a political organisations that is going around in circles.
The SSP have said that they will not stand any candidates
next year in order to maximise the attention upon RISE, although, of course,
its leading lights such as Colin Fox will be favourites to stand as candidates for
the new party. It is a marketing
re-brand offering voters the same old same presented as something different.
It’s not. RISE offers very little new in its policies and positions from all
the previous political alignments of the Scottish left-wing such as the
Scottish Socialist Alliance. RISE are merely
re-packaging previously flawed ideas and faulty analysis.
The left nationalists urge Scottish workers to reject this
historic solidarity with their English and Welsh fellow-workers, on the grounds
that it is impossible to achieve progress at a British level; only in Scotland.
But they are wrong if they think that a more radical, more socialistic agenda
will emerge in an independent Scotland. The new Scottish state would find its
policies constrained exactly the same sort of undemocratic and technocratic rules of globalisation that left nationalists stringently oppose.
As with the formation of the Irish Republic, the political landscape will be
dominated not by a consciousness of class but of “national interest”. Working
people will be spun the line that sacrifice for the good of the nation is the
symbol of patriotism despite the pain and privation. A new Scottish state would
have an overwhelming incentive, like Ireland, to cut business taxation to gain
a competitive advantage over its larger neighbour and would actively discourage
collective co-ordinated action by workers across all of the nations of the
United Kingdom. Scottish English and Welsh workers do not respond to an
abstract appeal for “international solidarity”, they don’t need one, they act
out of their already existing unity. The fact is that we live in a single state
with a single economy and trade unions have created an organic unity with
identical interests and a common consciousness. Independence will tear the
fabric of unity apart. In Britain a division of the working class along
national lines would be a huge step backwards for the workers movement, even
from the weakened state it is currently in.
For though class struggle is at a very low level, those struggles that
have taken place, including in Scotland, have arisen out of nationwide
disputes. The creation of an independent
Scotland would break that unity and make the task of advancing the workers
movement more difficult.
The left nationalists must ask themselves if the possibility
of a few seats in a Scottish Parliament is a worthwhile exchange for an
abandonment of basic socialist principles. Is such miserly gains worth draping
themselves in the Saltire rather than the Red Flag. The truth is that there are
"socialists" of the RISE-ilk who regard vote-getting as of supreme
importance, no matter by what method the votes may be secured, and this leads
them to hold out inducements which are not at all compatible with the
uncompromising principles of a revolutionary party. They seek to make their
propaganda so attractive— eliminating whatever may give offense to bourgeois
sensibilities— that it serves as a bait for votes rather than as a means of
education. Votes thus secured do not properly belong to socialism and do
injustice to the movement as well as to those who cast them. These votes do not
express socialism and in the next ensuing election are just as easily swing to
another political party. Socialism is a matter of growth of understanding by
education, but never by obtaining for it a fictitious vote. We should seek only
to register the actual vote of socialism, no more and no less. In our
propaganda we state our principles clearly, speak the truth honestly, seeking
neither to flatter nor to offend, but only to convince those who should be with
us and win them to our cause through an intelligent understanding of the
Socialist Party's mission.
There is an alternative to nationalism and spreading false
hope amongst workers in Scotland. It’s called class politics and it comes with
working class unity and being honest with the working class, even if it’s not
what some want to hear, rather than peddling cynical opportunistic shortcuts up
deluded blind alleys to gain some supposed influence amongst workers. The
Socialist Party rejects the idea that Scottish independence represents a way of
advancing the interests of the working class.
All the arguments for independence are in essence nationalist and pro-capitalist
whatever the left-wing gloss may be placed upon them. Our opposition to
independence is not support for the status quo but for the unity of the working
class. The workers movement would be weakened by a process where regional
capitalist classes try to corner local resources and endeavour to win the
workers over to defend them. The task for socialists in all countries, whether
that be Scotland, Britain or Ireland, is indeed independence - not of nations
or of regions - but of the working class political action. This class
independence, in terms of politics and organisation, is the very foundation of
the struggle for socialism. It is
because Scottish nationalism and the call for independence throw up yet more
barriers to this unity that we urge workers in Scotland to reject the siren
song of separatism
Our task as socialists is to try to provide clarity on the
class basis for taking a position. And our position must always be based on
what is going to be in the interests of the working class movement. We
socialists want to show workers that their interests lie in the maximum unity
of all workers against all oppressors. We want them to identify their interests
with the oppressed everywhere, to discard the blood-stained Saltire along with
the blood-stained Union Jack. But we will not do that without understanding
clearly who our friends are and who are our enemies. Our job is to propagate a
class-conscious understanding in order to help workers discard harmful popular
prejudices. If we don’t do that, then there’s really not much point to our
existence, since it is only through discarding the beliefs that keep us
shackled to capitalist ideas that we will be able to build a movement capable
of building socialism. The fact that good, well-meaning people have been misled
must not prevent us from seeking truth from facts. The fact that
left-nationalists Scots wish to see British capitalism weakened, and hope that
by voting for independence they will achieve this aim, does not prove that that
is what will actually happen.
Put your class first, not your country. The world is a
“global village”. Each region may have its own particular traditions and distinct customs,
but they are part of a greater system of society that is world-wide.
That "the
emancipation of labour is neither a local nor a national but a social problem,
embracing all countries in which modern society exists…" (From the
rules of the First International) should be the guiding principle of the
working class of the world.
John Lennon sang “Imagine
no countries and the world will be as one” RISE and the left-wing nationalists
who constitute it lack imagination.
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| RISEN FROM THE DEAD |
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