Scottish nationalism looks much like any other nationalism

The World Socialist Movement was created in recognition of the fact that the world was not a patchwork quilt isolated national states, but a chain of interlinked nations in which events in a single country could have worldwide consequences. The capitalist class has faced up to the historical obsolescence of the nation-state by, for example, forming international trading blocs and global alliances. From an opposite class standpoint, socialists also strive to overcome national barriers as we strive towards our ultimate goal of a new world based on international socialist cooperation. We rightly reject any political ideology which preaches solidarity on the basis of race, language, culture or geography as incompatible with socialism and instead promote solidarity on the basis of class, irrespective of nationality, religion or ethnic origin. For socialists the objective is the unity of the working class across nations.  If it is not united, by definition it cannot act on behalf of its interests as a whole.  National divisions often prevent this unity. 

 For the Socialist Party, the struggle for national sovereignty can never be elevated over and above the struggle for socialism. While there has been a heightening of Scottish nationalism and a growth in support for independence, the Socialist Party has been prepared to swim against the tide of popular sentiment, declaring support for Scottish independence is essentially backward, an isolationist or xenophobic development, and it is incumbent upon us to stand against it. If the Socialist Party were to abandon the principles of class struggle, internationalism and workers' unity in favour of independence, that would amount to political surrender to the ideas of nationalism. We have, to be honest at all times and explain that it is not possible to build and sustain an oasis of socialism in the middle of a worldwide capitalist desert. Even the most industrially advanced countries in the world would be unable to survive as isolated outposts of socialism, shut off in permanent. quarantine from the rest of the world.  is vital, therefore, that the socialist movement avoids any appearance of timidity or confusion on the question of independence: our slogans and policies have to be clear, unambiguous and powerful.

Of all the nations to achieve ‘independence’ how many of the workers in these countries have had their basic needs and interests resolved by the ‘independence’ of the countries they live in? The interests of the working class, however, lie in an international unity of the class irrespective of nationality.  While those who wish to reform capitalism seek to get their hands on governmental office through operating the levers of the capitalist state, and sometimes see opportunities to achieve this more easily by making the state smaller – by having a separate Scottish state for example – this is not socialism. Solutions to unemployment and poverty; to insecurity and stress; to ignorance and powerlessness cannot be found in any nationalist programme, either left or right. They arise from the nature of the economic system not the nationality of the politicians and employers who preside over it. Class grievances are portrayed as those of a people, of Scots against ‘London’. Through nationalism, the class exploitation of workers either disappears or is rendered secondary to the more immediate demand for national ‘freedom’. At a certain stage, the true class character of nationalism becomes clearer when the new nation trumpets its cause as competitiveness with other nations in the battlefields of lower wages, lower business taxes, and willing workers.

The bigger sections of the capitalist class support the UK state, and also the European Union, because it provides the widest area within which they can advance their interests of accumulating capital with minimum obstacles to this process. While capitalism needs the state to defend its interests, and small capital might favour small capitalist states because they appear to better fit its narrower horizon (represented politically for example by the SNP or UKIP), it also seeks to internationalise its activities and have international state bodies that can support it in a way that a small nation state is less able to do. The SNP positioned themselves as the party of national interest.

The Socialist Party accepts the UK state because it is the widest area within which the working class can currently organise relatively freely without the divisions caused by national borders and the attendant nationalist politics and ideology which divides it and its organisations. Nationalism, no matter how left it is, always confuses action by the state for socialism, so it calls upon the state to redistribute wealth and take control of resources ‘for the people’, whereas socialism calls upon workers to take ownership of production itself and build the power of its own organisations so that one day these can replace the state.  Internationalism is not the solidarity of one progressive state with another but is the international action of workers – from organising in parties and unions internationally across borders, not favouring the population within certain lines on a map. Nationalism acts as a permanent brake on the aspirations of the working class. Independence will not advance the cause of socialism.

The Left-nationalists justify their support of the SNP as some way similar to the capitalist state being ‘smashed’ (the usual term used), but setting up two capitalist states where one previously existed is clearly something entirely different. It is not even that smashing the capitalist state is the primary goal of socialists.  What socialists want is not to replace one state with another, even a workers’ one.  What socialists want is a society where the state withers away and all the functions that are carried out by the State are carried out by society itself through mechanisms of workers’ and popular self-organisation.

The Socialist Party holds no interest in any nationalism and certainly not in the preservation of the Britain Ltd or the creation of Scotland Plc.