We are all migrants.

"The nationality of the toilers is neither French nor English nor German; it is toil, free slavery, sale of the self. His government is neither French nor English nor German; it is Capital. His native air is neither French nor German nor English; it is the air of the factory. The land which belongs to him is neither French nor English nor German; it is a few feet under the ground." - Marx

One of the weapons of the master class in its armoury is its ability to camouflage the reality of the exploiter/exploited class relation, disguising it with religion, race, gender, and nationalism. Nationalism is manufactured to provide the pretence that we are all “free.”  Nationalism was created to reinforce the state by providing it with the loyalty of a people of shared linguistic, ethnic, and cultural affinities. And if these shared affinities do not exist, the state will create them by centralising education in its own hands, imposing as “official” language and attempting to lessen any deep cultural differences from the people's within its borders. This can clearly be seen in Scottish history. The state pre-empts the autonomy of localities and peoples and in the name of “nation”.  The nationalism in Scotland is as artificial as anywhere else.

When the capitalists tell us we are “all in it together” they are duping us into defence of their material interests. The SNP plays to different audiences, in one role they are the populist socialist opposition and in the other, less public, they are the friend to big business.Scottish independence is just a diversion from the real struggle – the class war. The nationalists mislead us with romantic myths that ‘We’re different up here’; that Scotland as a consequence of distant historic struggles for power involving medieval robber barons like Bruce and Wallace supposedly imbues its inhabitants with something meaningful, something that transcends the reality of a working class that alone produces all wealth and is international, and a capitalist class that expropriates most of that wealth. Workers in Britain, Brazil or Bangladesh have their exploitation and real interests in common, and nothing in common with the capitalist interests and functionaries and land owners that exploit them. There is only one socialist response to nationalism – Stuff it. The real issue for the world’s workers is that they face an increasingly dire future under whichever capitalist regime rules us. The world capitalist crisis has seen living standards falling across the planet since the 2008 recession emerged. It is not surprising that there has been a rise of nationalist and populist movements who all claim that the “old parties” are to blame. They want us to believe that they can manage capitalism better, that they can magically escape the effect of the global economy. Our only hope lies in getting rid of the capitalist system that produces misery and such abominations as hunger, disease, and war.

Would an independent Scotland be much different for most people who would still be powerless economically and socially? Look around the world at all the many nation-states in existence, and see the same differences in power, influence, and wealth restricting self-determination for working class people, even if they are free “nationally”. The formation of new nation-states can no more put an end to imperialism than the formation of new businesses can put an end to capitalism. "Dominate or be dominated" is as much the logic of competition between nation-states as between corporations.  The logic of the nation-state system is similar to that of competition in the sphere of production. The world's productive forces are divided into competing businesses where each can survive at the cost of another. Nationalism is nowhere a recipe for the well-being of the masses.

A society where 'profits' are the main driving force and the gap between rich and poor keeps widening is unstable.  So the employing class has to come up with a strategy to push through their cuts and at the same time deal with our anger and discontent. Therefore it is no coincidence that in this situation we witness the re-emergence of nationalism: to divide-and-rule, politicians of most parties blame the 'immigrants' for the miserable situation, but at the same time they announce that they will squeeze 'their local workers' even harder (e.g. through more zero-hours contracts and making it even more difficult to go on strike) Nationalism plays a role where we work. Many of us were not born in the UK, we speak different languages. On the job some of us might feel closer to our 'English', 'Polish' or 'Indian' manager, than to the 'foreign' person who works next to them - also because we hope that by sticking to 'our' manager we will get an advantage over other workers. BUT companies are able to use divisions and stereotypes to make us compete against each other and ultimately make more profits for themselves. We need to keep our eyes on our real class enemies.

Working people turn towards the nation (state) mainly to 'protect our jobs'. But we have to question why there are 'jobs' and 'a limited number of jobs' in the first place. 'Jobs' are created by those with money and resources, only if the jobs create more money for them. They and their market decide what jobs we do - and most of these jobs only relate to money-making: advertising, financial services, securing the wealth of the rich. If we would all just work to produce what we need for a living (houses, nice clothes, good food, funny little gadgets), then we could just share out the work equally. If we didn't have to sell our time and energy to them for money, a lot of 'unemployment' would actually be a good thing. Why? Because it would mean fewer people are necessary to produce what we need: everyone could work less and we'd have more time to do other things that make us happy. But here and now we just look and compete for jobs, because we need money, and they create jobs only if they can make more money off us. Down with their jobs, down with their unemployment. Today in the capitalist system, the introduction of new technology and its higher productivity creates the unemployment, the increased competition, and the pay cuts. The bosses keep the threat of unemployment over our heads to keep us obedient and divided. It does not need any migrant workers for this to happen - it is the normal functioning of the system. Closing our borders would not help. When the steel industry in Scotland began to close down, Scots followed the work to Corby. We are all migrants.

Socialism is the self-liberation of working class people, by their own efforts, creating and using their own organisations. There can be no separation of political, social and economic struggles. Socialists do not disdain cultural diversity nor confuse it with nationalism or patriotism. That various peoples should wish to celebrate their own traditions is not merely a right but desirable. The world would be a drab place indeed if the rich mosaic of different cultures did not replace the homogenised world created by modern capitalism.