Is it Better to be Exploited by One’s Fellow-countrymen?

As the General Election approaches, many of Scotland's self-avowed “left-wing” intellectuals and trade unionists, who say they want to defend the interests of the Scottish working class have started promoting tactical support for the SNP. The electoral successes of the SNP have pushed to the fore once more of the question of Scottish independence. Some on the left regardless of reservations about the SNP argue for support for independence for Scotland, albeit for a ‘socialist’ Scotland.  The Socialist Party does not, of course, defend the present centralised UK state but it does not support separatism in Scotland.

Left-nationalists preach that socialists and Scot Nats shared common agendas. They endeavour to wed socialists and nationalists into a marriage of convenience. You can make all the fine-sounding speeches you want to about mixing socialism with a supposedly progressive nationalism but that doesn’t alter the reality. Socialism cannot be accomplished without the capture of political power by the working class. Nationalism, on the other hand, is completely compatible with the continued existence of capitalism and the possessing class is past masters at exploiting nationalism when they need it. As a result, self-described left-nationalists end up despite themselves, promoting the interests of their own national bourgeoisie. Scottish nationalist agitation, whoever carries it out, does not strengthen the force for socialism, a united, class-conscious working class, but fragments and weakens it.

Left-nationalists insist that their nationalism has nothing in common with the nationalism of right-wingers and that theirs is a nationalism of liberation.  How many peoples are now paying a heavy price for having put their faith in nationalist leaders? In spite of their “formal independence” many countries are still governed according to the rules of capitalist exploitation and foreign domination. Surely, Scots have enough experience to know that they cannot place any confidence in the capitalists, even if they are nationalists.

History has already taught us that the “nation of the nationalists” is a very deceptive notion. The “nation” – in the programmes of the nationalist parties and at election time, especially, when victory seems possible – designates everyone without exception: firefighters, workers, politicians, police, judges, industrialists, housewives and unemployed. But once the nationalists are victorious, at the first important conflict we see the “national” police clubbing the “national” workers by order of the “national” state whose legality is maintained at all costs by the “national” judges: the “national” housewives and their children go without basic necessities, the “national” industrialists maintain their profit level and the “national” finance companies do a great business. The SNP leadership, in its blind ambition to end the hegemony of the City of London financiers are is ready to make every concession to the bankers of the EU.  Perhaps the separation of Scotland is hard to accept for a section of Scottish and British capitalists, but capitalism itself wouldn’t be hurt by it. Strengthening one enemy at the expense of another by exploiting the contradictions within enemy ranks, is something the working class may do when it serves its interests and advances its struggle. But under no circumstances can it do this when it means sacrificing its fundamental interests when it hinders rather than serves its revolutionary strategy. This would definitely be the case if Scotland were to separate. Separation would undoubtedly weaken a certain section of the British bourgeoisie, but it would also do considerable damage to the Scottish working class as a whole. If we don’t oppose independence, it can only lead to the growth of nationalist ideas among Scottish workers, rather than internationalist ideas that go beyond even Fortress EU.

Independence is nothing but a dead-end road. It doesn’t bring us closer to socialism, only farther away from it. It maintains and reinforces the divisions within the British working class – a real boon for the different sectors of the bourgeoisie which do their best to keep us divided. Furthermore, it pushes narrow nationalism and in so doing, strengthens the SNP.

  One thing is sure, we’re not going to get any closer to socialism by building up the SNP, a party that represents capital and the interests of Scottish capitalists in particular. Whether they like it or not, the people who are pushing this option descend into class collaboration.  Fine talk about capitalist exploitation amounts to nothing but hollow words. Their attacks against the SNP are only for show. But their performance can’t hide what’s at the bottom of their position – it’s compromise, concessions, collaboration, critical support for the Scot Nats. How absurd is the left-nationalist position once it is reduced to its bare bones: for lack of a socialist party we should be content with a capitalist party!

There is only one alternative – a world socialist cooperative commonwealth