Leith Militancy

The Leith dockers strike of 1913 was a strike of the dockers of Leith, Scotland from 26 June to 14 August 1913. The dockers were part of the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL) union. The strike is said by a newspaper of the time to have brought Leith to a standstill. 

Demands

The Dockers were demanding an increase in pay( a penny per hour on the day rate), better conditions(an increase in piecework rates for handling 'dirty cargo'), a ban on hiring workers outside of the union and shorter hours.

Response from the bosses

The Leith Dock Employers Association replied by bringing in 450 scabs to break the strike housing them in ships- The Lady Jocelyn and The Paris- owned by the company. They were protected by the local police forces from Edinburgh and Leith as well as others who had been drafted in from Aberdeen, Glasgow, Lanarkshire and the Lothians. The Dockers were unable to enter the perimeter wall so picketed in shifts. They were only allowed 6 pickets at a time and always escorted by the police. Questions were raised about the legality of closing a public dock. The authorities argued it was necessary to protect people and property and those with a valid permit could enter.

The strike grows

Soon enough, other workers, the railway workers, and seamen joined and refused to scab. The Lothian Miners soon came out in support of the Dockers and the Leith Dockers were supported by other dockers across the east coast of Scotland.The Railwaymen and seamen became involved and for the duration of the strike, 200 carters and 600 seamen refused to handle any cargo or work any boat operated by scabs.
The Lothian Miners backed the dockers, despite the fact the coal embargo imposed by the NUDL directly affected them and caused considerable unemployment. Dockers at Grangemouth, Granton and Kirkcaldy all refused to handle cargo diverted from Leith.

In July there was a massive outburst in strikes at the time being described as a "strike epidemic" after female ropeworkers also went on strike followed by shipmasters. This led the Leith Observer to remark “All of this has brought about a state of matters unprecedented not only in the history of Leith but in any part of the country”. The Leith Observer reported this was unheard of and that the scabs brought in to do the strikers jobs were unable to match the speed of those on strike and were costly in terms of upkeep for the employers.

This tense situation encouraged rioting on the nights between the 16th and 18th of July. The Leith observer commented that the only trade doing brisk business was the glaziers. The violence grew more intense and the scabs were often attacked while there was an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the perimeter wall with gelignite.

Rioting

From 16th to the 18th of July there was mass rioting. Those workers brought in to replace the strikers were attacked and there is said to have been an attempt to blow up the perimeter wall. During this time naval boats were sent in at the request of the authorities but this only led to hostility from sailors and marines who didn't want to be used in this way.

Effect on Parliament

Questions were raised in Parliament about the use of ships to attempt to break up the strike. The response given was that they came as a form of aid but were found to be unnecessary. MP's expressed unease about the secrecy surrounding the use of the ships. Union officials attempt to control the situation but to no avail. The local press reported sympathetically that the police had often provoked the situation.

20th July 1913

Around the middle of July, Edinburgh Tramwaymen and Boilermakers went on strike too and together on 20 July 1913 held a demonstration with dockers, seamen, firemen and other trade unionists.Local paper, The Scotsman reported there was 3,000 dockers, 600 firemen and sailors, 500 tramwaymen, 150 boilermakers, mill girls, and 350 children of the striking workers led by two labour school board teachers, all in all totalling about 4,600. During the procession, there were banners calling for a living wage and protesting the use of force. A loaf of bread painted green to look mouldy was held high which the strikes suggested was symbolising their share of profits made. The dockers and tramwaymen separated with the dockers and others heading along to Leith Links. Once there speeches were made. French Anarcho-Syndicalist Madame Sorgue spoke. A later speaker suggested the solution lay in electoral politics and advocated voting for the Labour Party in upcoming elections. James Airlie from the Boilermakers union spoke pointing out that the army had been used more times during the strike - 20 times he claimed - than during the war.

Financial support

The tramwaymen strike was called off on August 2 but they along with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers(ASE), the Leith and Edinburgh Labour party councillors and Edinburgh and Leith Trade Councils pledged financial support to the continuing dockers strike. By the 6th week of the strike, those charged with rioting were up in court and were soon found guilty. Local paper, The Leith Observer under the cover of a pseudonym ("Leith Laddie") lambasted the decision.

The end of the strike

The strike finally ended on 14 August when James O' Connor Kessack informed a mass meeting of dockers gathered at Gaiety Theatre that more scabs ready to cross the picket-line were coming from Newcastle.

Advised by the leadership of the NUDL, the assembled mass meeting voted by a large majority to end the strike but it came as a surprise to all because no one expected it to end so suddenly. The Dockers returned to work on the same conditions as before. As things returned to normal, many faced court for their part in the riots. 

Repeated strikes of the dockers of Leith would continue into modern times with another strike in 1983 and a National Dock strike in 1989. The Henry Robb shipyard in Leith was occupied in 1984 by its workers in an attempt to stop its closure.

Article based on account of Leith Dockers Strike 1913 found in Red Scotland!: The Rise and Fall of the Radical Left, c. 1872 to 1932: The Rise and Fall of the Radical Left, c. 1872 to 1932 by William Kenefick

Manifestoon (video)

Nationalism is the tool of capitalism.

What part can the Scottish workers, devoid of capital, take in any industrial revival except the toiling part? So long as private property is the order of the day it matters little to the property-less Scottish worker who rules Scotland. National boundaries may be altered—may even disappear—but such re-arrangements of things geographical can in no way abolish, or even lessen, the poverty of the many. 

The working class have no country—they have the choice of enduring the miseries of capitalism within the confines of national frontiers or enjoying freedom in a socialist planet.  Only when the over 90 percent of the world’s people, who make a meaningful contribution to life on earth, realize that their interests need a new outlet, can politics become real and meaningful.

Independence will not benefit the working class of Scotland. It will not free them from wage slavery. It will not free them from exploitation and inequality. The Scottish economy is not run on behalf of the people who live in Scotland, but on behalf of the owners of capital. For all the state intervention, it is still subject to the anarchy of production and the vagaries of the market. In the good times Scotland’s wealth grows based on the work of its citizens, most of which is stolen from them. When the market turns sour, they are shown the door, or robbed some more to balance the books. The mass of the people suffer because they own little or no property in the means of life. They are propertyless. Only when Scottish workers unite together to make the land and the other means of life the common property of all, together with the workers of other lands, will they be able to solve their problems.


Scotland is enmeshed in a worldwide capitalist system, and only by joining a general struggle to emancipate the working class of the whole world, and turn the planet into the common property of humanity will people in Scotland liberate themselves. The Scottish Nationalist Party claims to stand in the interest of the workers in Scotland. It is not concerned with the fact that because of the international nature of capitalism, workers are exploited everywhere and therefore the attack against exploitation must be on a broad front recognising no national barriers. The S.N.P. naturally cannot possibly possess this world outlook being a parochial organisation not recognising exploitation as being synonymous with capitalism. Its members base their policy on the importance of the national tate, demanding sovereignty for Scotland arguing that with its achievement the workers' troubles will end. The nationalists base their appeal on economic policy and we realise that this party of "patriots" is just another party of capitalism and has failed to produce anything new apart from the better administration of capitalism. The first reaction of a socialist born and bred in Scotland and knowing something about the past and present of the country, is that the question of independence is irrelevant. The question that the Socialist Party puts to the nationalists is—if Scotland succeeds in obtaining independence what will be the political outlook of the Scottish government? Will industry be carried on for profit? Will monetary considerations rule the field of planning and production? The answer is clear—all the machinery of capitalism will be in operation; nothing will have changed basically. The Scottish "patriots" have no compunction in pawning the freedom of the new national state to outside capitalist interests “Foreign" capitalists are to be allowed to exploit the Scot workers first, and then are to be taxed. The Scottish wage slave will have the satisfaction of knowing that the government has rented workers' labour power to outside interests in order to receive the wherewithal to keep them alive.

The future Scots Government need not worry about finance; it will be sufficient to advertise that the Scottish workers are up for sale; that they are available to any capitalist concern that cares to come and exploit them—as they are at the present time.
Is there a case for Scottish nationalism? From their own capitalist point of view there might be—it might be more profitable to operate capitalism from  Edinburgh than from London. From the point of view of the Scottish workers, the position would remain broadly the same – he or she would remain the vehicle creating surplus value. They could go to work singing “Flower of Scotland” and “ Scotland the Brave” knowing they have achieved “independence”. On the other hand they could get down to the fundamentals of socialism and throw their exploiters out and raise their voices in a mighty chorus which would reverberate through the glens and beyond. “Workers of all lands, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to gain.

This is the real message of freedom.

Fife May Day - Our Day

Nationalists - masters of deception

Members of the Socialist Party prefer to describe ourselves as "world socialists" rather than "international socialists." Socialism can only be a united world community without frontiers and not the federation of countries suggested by the word “international”. The term assumes and accepts the concepts of nations/nation-states.

Roll on 8 June so we won't hear the humbug of the politicians for a few years. The issues of poverty, unemployment and crime, however, won't disappear so easily though. There always seem to be a plentiful supply of Scottish nationalists who claim that the "English" parliament doesn't care about the Scots, who should get their own parliament and run their own affairs. The Brixton and Tottenham riots happened almost within spitting distance of the House of Commons; clearly, having the "mother of parliaments" on your doorstep is no sure way to peace and prosperity. The Scottish Parliament over the years has illustrated that it can be just as helpless as Westminster when dealing with social problems.

Capitalism has to begun to become a dirty word again. All over the world people are protesting against the profit system and the effect it is having on the quality of life .  The left-nationalists, despite referring to themselves as “socialists” have no confidence in socialism, little confidence in the workers to win through. They tell us in the Socialist Party, your socialism will come...eventually...someday ... when we are all dead and gone. The task of building and establishing socialism does not fall to them but to others sometime in the far future. There is no logic to this whatsoever. For the world is ready now and painfully waiting – how is socialism to ever come in the future when we are never to explain it to people here now, for it takes a while? What will happen that might cause this future embrace of socialism, we are not told. 

Capitalism is by its nature divisive and competitive, whether it divides people on the grounds of race, sex, nationality or geographical location. Workers have got to transcend these artificial differences and recognise our common interest - that of a degraded, exploited class. Once we recognise our basic class interests then no force on earth can prevent us from acting accordingly, and putting an end to all social division once and for all.  We have no objection to “cultural diversity”. Differences of language, food, music and the like will continue to exist in a united socialist world; indeed would no longer be subjected to “Mcdonaldisation” as today under capitalism. We would add that different cultures can exist in the same geographical area and that individuals can partake of elements of different cultures (you don‘t have to come from Scotland to enjoy its folk music or from China to enjoy Chinese food). Our objection is to the exploitation of cultural differences for political ends, as for instance to set up or maintain a state or as the basis for a political party.

  There is an old nationalist lie that we are one country, one people, working together for a common interest. This ideology allows politicians to present us as if we have one common interest. Nationalism allows the politicians to limit democratic choice on the grounds that there is only one national interest and therefore only one general programme, one set of policies to be followed. These days there are plenty of people who say that class is irrelevant and that in fact it never was. The Socialist Party is not amongst these. One of the basic points about liberal democracy is that, as we put it in our declaration of principles, "all parties are but the expression of class interests". Democracy is not a set of rules or a parliament; it is a process, a process that must be fought for. The struggle for democracy is the struggle for socialism. It is not a struggle for reforms, for this or that political system, for this or that leader, for some rule change or other—it is the struggle for an idea, for a belief, a belief that we can run our own lives, that we have a right to a say in how society is run, for a belief that the responsibility for democracy lies not upon the politicians or their bureaucrats, but upon ourselves.

Whether Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom or becomes a sovereign independent state will make no difference whatsoever to the basic structure of society where a privileged class monopolises the means of production while the rest have to work for wages and where wealth is produced not to satisfy human needs but for sale with a view to profit. It won't even make much difference to your present standard of living in terms of wage levels, housing, unemployment and the other problems you face. it is this class structure of society which is the basic cause of the economic and social problems faced by the great majority of society, those who, whatever their religious background, depend for a living on earning a wage. This is why a mere constitutional change will make no difference, not even a radical one achieved by violence. The Irish Republic achieved "independence" in 1921. What difference has this made to the position of wage and salary earners there? It has merely provided a different political framework within which they can suffer the problems of capitalism, governed by Irish, instead of British, politicians representing capitalist interests. It has meant little more than painting the pillar boxes green.  Not, of course, that staying part of the United Kingdom is going to make any difference to these problems either. The only change that will is a world-wide social revolution that would make all that is in and on the Earth the common heritage of all mankind to be used to provide an abundance of wealth to which all could have free access according to need. This essentially peaceful revolution can only occur when the great majority of people in all countries are in favour of it and organise democratically to carry it out. It involves a rejection of all nationalism and all attempts to solve problems on a national scale. 

Globalist Socialists

Those who voted leave in the EU referendum wish Britain to remain a fully independent sovereign state, with Westminster not Strasburg as the supreme law-making body. It is the narrow view of the nationalist, in this case of the British nationalist. It is a view shared by many on the Left . It is not a view shared by the Socialist Party. We are neither British Brexit nationalists nor European Union federalists but world socialists. But we can see the special fallacy of the nationalist argument. In the world as it is today, it is neither possible nor desirable for the people of one part to stand apart from the rest. We are already living in a global village where what happens in one part of the world effects us all. In terms of the production of wealth one world already exists. The goods we consume and the machines and materials used to produce them are all joint products of workers from many parts of the world - something for British nationalists to ponder over as they drink their tea. There has been a growing consciousness that we are all inhabitants of a single world, that we share the globe in common despite our different languages and cultures, is something to be encouraged. Indeed it is essential if we are to tackle problems such as global warming.

The European federalists of the SNP for all their faults, at least realise that the people living on this island off the north-west coast of the Eurasian land-mass need to be closely associated with those on the mainland. Where they go wrong is in imagining that this can be fruitful within the context of capitalism. A federation of European capitalist states will no more provide a framework for the resolution of working-class problems than the so-called independent so-called nation-state. What is required is association with the other peoples of Europe, and beyond that with those of the rest of the world, on the basis of socialism. What is required is not a European market, nor a single currency, nor a European super-state but world socialism where the Earth's resources will be owned in common and democratically controlled through various inter-linked administrative and decision-making bodies at world, regional and local levels. We appreciate that this vision of a united world represents a nightmare scenario for some but that's their problem not ours.

Capitalism is an economic system where, under pressure from the market, profits are accumulated as further capital, i.e. as money invested in production with a view to making further profits. This is not a matter of the individual choice of those in control of capitalist production – it’s not due to their personal greed or inhumanity – it’s something forced on them by the operation of the system. And which operates irrespective of whether a particular economic unit is the property of an individual, a limited company, the state or even of a workers’ cooperative. Some radicals have opted for cooperatives where workers could elect their own management committee , but not even this would make much of a difference. The coop would still have to take decisions in accordance with what the market dictated. Real control by the producers over the production and allocation of wealth is not possible within an exchange economy. The production of wealth is now a process involving millions of men and women in even,' part of the world. What used to be the division of labour between individual skilled workers has become, with the development of modern technology, a division of the work of production between hundreds of thousands of collectively-operated workplaces (farms, mines, docks, railways, factories, offices, warehouses) spread all over the world. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that every article produced today is the product of the world labour force co-operating within this world-wide division of labour. Wealth production is no longer individual or local or national; it is social and worldwide.

“Anti-globalisation” is not a very good choice of name for progressives since you can’t be against globalisation. Well you can, but it doesn’t make sense. Globalisation – in the sense of the world becoming more integrated, of the emergence of “one world” – is basically a good thing, part of the preparation of the material basis for a world socialist society.

A single world society already exists but, because the workplaces of the world are controlled by enterprises, it takes the form of a world exchange economy. The fact that there is only one, worldwide exchange economy is obscured by the political division of the world into states, each with the power to issue its own currency, impose tariffs, raise taxes and pay subsidies. The different economic policies of these states mean that conditions in the world market vary and give rise to the illusion that rather than there being one world economy there are as many "national economies" as there are states. But although states can, and do, try to change world market conditions in their favour, because of the worldwide character of the productive process they do not have the power to isolate exchange within their frontiers from exchange outside. Far from it. World market conditions are in the end the most important factor states have to take into account when formulating their policies. They, like enterprises, have to work within the terms of reference of the exchange economy. Of course, states do have the power to make laws about the production and allocation of wealth, as about any other human activity, but enforcing such law is another matter. The natural and industrial resources of the world are now controlled by profit-seeking private and state enterprises. In every state only a small minority can draw on these profits as a source of personal income. Whether or not they have title deeds to prove it, they are in practice the owners of the means of production. This applies equally to profit-taking politicians and managers and to shareholders and bondholders. Collectively these owners form a class with exclusive control — a monopoly — over the means of production. This class monopoly is the basis of modern society.

When we say “Another World is Possible”, we know what we mean, another sort of globalisation is possible: a world without frontiers in which all the resources of the planet,have become the common heritage of all humanity and are used, under democratic control, to turn out what is needed by people to live and to enjoy life. As far as we are concerned, that is the only framework within which can be solved the problems facing humanity, not only obviously world problems such as global warming, wars and the threat of war, but also more “local” problems such as in the fields of healthcare, education, transport and the like but which are basically the same in all countries.

New faces, same story

What those who want a better society should be doing is to campaign to change people's minds, to get them to realise that they are living in an exploitative, class-divided society and that the only way out is to end capitalism and replace it by a new and different system. Once a majority have come to this realisation, they will know what to do: organise themselves into a socialist party to democratically win political control and use it to bring about a socialist society. That's what socialist politics should be about.

Across the world nationalism has been rearing its ugly head again. Many on the political left will argue that Scottish nationalism is somehow progressive and should be encouraged. The Socialist Party says that this is a dangerous poison being spread by the left. The working class – by definition the class that does not possess any land or private property, including capital – has quite literally nothing to gain from a situation where one group of rulers and owners is replaced by another group. The Socialist Party argues that every nation-state is by its very nature anti-working class. The “nation” is a myth as there can be no community of interests between two classes in antagonism with one another, the non-owners in society and the owners (the workers and the capitalists). And the state ultimately exists only to defend the property interests of the owning class at any given point in history – which is why modern states across the world send the police and army in to break strikes and otherwise seek to protect the interests of the capitalists and “business” at every turn.

Constitutional reform is of no benefit or relevance to us. It leaves our lives and the problems the profit system causes completely unchanged. Exploitation through the wages system continues. Unemployment continues. A crumbling health service, a chaotic transport system, a polluted environment, failing schools, rising crime and drug addiction and the general breakdown of society all continue. Naturally, nationalists wrap its claims for independence up in democratic rhetoric. A “free” parliament in Edinburgh we are told, would be an extension of democracy, bringing power nearer to the people, so how can Socialists not be in favour of this? Yes, Socialists are in favour of democracy, and socialism will be a fully democratic society, but full democracy is not possible under capitalism. Supporters of capitalism who talk about “democracy” always mean only political democracy since economic democracy--where people would democratically run the places where they work--is out of the question under capitalism, based as it is on these workplaces being owned and controlled by and for the benefit of a privileged minority. As far as solving these problems is concerned, a sovereign Scotland is just a useless irrelevancy. You can have the most democratic constitution imaginable but this won’t make any difference to the fact that profits have to come before meeting needs under capitalism. The people’s will to have their needs met properly is frustrated all the time by the operation of the economic laws of the capitalist system which no political structure, however democratic, can control.

It is not imperfections in the political decision-making process that’s the problem but the profit system and its economic laws. And the answer is not democratic reform of capitalism’s political structure but the replacement of capitalism by socialism.  We are not nationalists--in fact we are implacably opposed to nationalism in whatever form it rears its ugly head--and we see the establishment of an independent Scotland as yet another irrelevant, constitutional reform. One of the last things the world needs at the moment is more states. Nationalism is based on the illusion that all people who live in a particular geographical area have a common interest, against people in other areas. Hence the supposed need for a separate state and a separate government to defend this separate interest. This flies in the face of the facts. All over the world, in all geographical areas, the population is divided into two basic classes, those who own the productive resources and those who don’t and have to work for those who do, and whose interests are antagonistic.
The non-owning class have a common interest, not with the owning class who live in the same area, but with people like themselves wherever they live. The interests of workers who live in Scotland are not opposed to the interests of those who live in England--or France or Russia or Japan or anywhere else in the world.


Nationalists like the SNP who preach the opposite are spreading a divisive poison amongst people who the Socialist Party say should unite to establish a frontier-free world community, based on the world’s resources becoming the common heritage of all humanity, as the only framework within which the social problems which workers wherever they live face today. This is why socialists and nationalists are implacably opposed to each other. We are working in opposite directions. Us to unite workers. Them to divide them.


Just because we are not prepared to back Scottish independence and break-up the United Kingdom does not mean that we are Unionists. We don’t support the Union. We just put up with it while we get on with our work of convincing people to reject world capitalism in favour of world socialism.

The goal of the World Socialist Movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real global community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible – but the 'imagined communities' that are nation states will be consigned to the history books where they belong. We always have a choice: we can continue to place our power as a class into the hands of institutional leaders who use it to pursue the narrow interests of a capitalist elite, or, we can take responsibility for it collectively and democratically, use it to further our own majority interest and, in the process, act in the interests of all mankind.

On the Battlefield of Ideas

We in the World Socialist Movement stand for the co-operation of all people worldwide on the basis of free decision-making and democratic control. We maintain--and anyone can check this claim--that the technical means have long since reached the stage at which we can use the world's raw materials in the most economical manner so as to guarantee everyone a sufficient supply of the necessities of life, in every sense of the term. A minimum of effort--which is an obligation for all members of a community--will create a maximum of contentment, of joie de vivre, a society based on solidarity. We are convinced that neither praying to gods nor placing one's trust in enlightened leaders is of any benefit to humanity. Nor are we nationalists. Our philosophy can be summed up by the slogan: one world, one people.  Socialism is the simplest thing in the world. It is based on the voluntary co-operation of all members of society and guarantees free access to the fruits of their labour. 

 Many of our fellow-workers regard us as utopians. This is not because our ideas are unsound but because the defenders of the inhumane profit system have at their disposal a massive propaganda machine which day and night clouds people's clear vision of things. Hear us out. Talk with us. By all means question what we and others are saying, but remember one thing: the decision lies with you and with you alone. There is one world and we exist as one people in need of each other and with the same basic needs. There is far more that unites us than can ever divide us along cultural, nationalistic or religious lines.

Together we can create a civilisation worth living in, but before that happens we need the conscious cooperation of ordinary people across the world, united in one common cause-to create a world in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilization, a world without frontiers or borders, social classes or leaders and a world in which production is at last freed from the shackles of artificial constraints of profit and used for the good of humanity. The war we should advocate is that which has to be waged on the battlefield of ideas - for the hearts and minds of the world's people. And once we unite there will be no force that will stop us taking the earth into our common possession. Once we live in a world of common ownership and democratic control of resources, there will simply be no reason to kill one another in wars. No empires to build or markets to expand or profits to increase. A world without borders brings freedom of movement to a world society. With no rich elites fighting each other over land or resources, the armed workers of the world who presently kill each other in the interests of the rich will also happily find themselves unemployed and able to follow some other more constructive and less dangerous occupation.

We live in a world which has the potential to adequately feed, house and provide clean water and decent medical care for every single man, woman and child on Earth. The resources exist to banish material want as a problem for members of the human race. Yet millions throughout the world are malnourished, live in squalor or are actually dying of starvation or hunger-related diseases. World socialism could stop the dying from hunger immediately, and provide the conditions for good health and material security for all people across the Earth within a short time. It would do this by producing goods and services directly for need. World socialism will operate with one simple and ordinary human ability which is universal — the ability of every individual to cooperate with others in a world-wide community of interests. Socialism will be a world without borders where we will all be at home anywhere. The only way to gain a world of potential plenty is to join with workers in the rest of the world to get rid of capitalism, its class rule and its production for profit. This means making the resources of the Earth the common heritage of humanity. It means establishing a world without borders where the resources which already exist can be used to provide plenty for all. We are not demanding the impossible. Our world would be a much better place to live in if we had a real democratic say in the decisions that effect us and real control over the means and instruments for producing and distributing the things we need to live in comfort. Together we can create a civilisation worth living in, but before that happens we need the conscious consent and participation of ordinary people across the world, united in one common cause – to create a world in which each person has free access to the benefits of technology, a world without borders or frontiers, social classes or leaders and a world in which production is at last freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the good of humanity – socialism. Our best weapon against our masters, is to understand that we, the workers of the world, have a common interest, and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing information between ourselves, deliberately and consciously working for our liberation without borders.deas

Workers have no country

Because the condition of the workers of all countries is the same, because their interests are the same, their enemies the same, they must also fight together, they must oppose the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie of all nations with a brotherhood of the workers of all nations.'- Engels, November 29, 1847.

Nationalism is anathema to socialists. The Socialist Party opposes nationalism and does not fall into the trap of the ‘progressive’ facade of nationalism. We have more in common with people like ourselves in other countries than with the privileged owning class of the country where we happen to live and work. The world-wide working class has a common interest, to end its exploitation and solve its problems, to join together to establish a world without frontiers in which the resources of the planet will have become the heritage of all. One world, one people, where cultural differences will still be celebrated, but where we’ll all be citizens of the world. Our opposition to the Scottish nationalism should not be interpreted as support for the Union or the parties that support it. We are not defending British nationalism and the unity of the United Kingdom in any way. That would be an endorsement for the status quo, something we do not support. So we do not argue that the present constitutional arrangement benefits ordinary people. We are just as opposed to them. A plague on both their houses is what we say. To adapt a slogan, "Neither London nor Edinburgh, but World Socialism".

The SNP tells us an independent Scotland, separate from the rest of Britain, there would be less unemployment, higher wages, more job security, better state benefits, a better health service and all the other things politicians keep promising. But it is patently absurd. This would be a purely political, not to say mere constitutional, change which would leave the basic economic structure of society unchanged. There would still be a privileged class owning and controlling the means of production with the rest having to work for them for a living. An independent Scotland would still have to operate within the constraints of the world capitalist system. It would still have to ensure that goods produced in Scotland were competitive on world markets and that capitalists investing in Scotland were allowed to make the same level of profits as they could in other  countries. In other words, it would still be subject to the same economic pressures as the existing UK government to promote profits and restrict wages and benefits.  Since it is this class-divided, profit motivated society that is the cause of the problems workers face in Scotland so these problems will continue, regardless of whether Scotland separates from or remains part of the United Kingdom.

A separate parliament in Scotland would be a capitalist parliament. It would not provide Scottish workers with any greater control over their own lives. Scotland would remain an integral part of international capitalism. An Edinburgh sovereign parliament will leave the workers in exactly the same position as before. Scottish nationalism is the reaction of one section of the Scottish capitalist class to what they perceive as the declining fortunes of British capitalism and their ‘unequal’ treatment within it. They seek to keep the taxes on North Sea oil revenues and create a corporate tax structure more suited to their own needs. The SNP advocate industrial harmony and an end to class conflict. Scottish workers are being asked to place their trust in the local employing class rather than in unity with other workers. Working-class unity cannot be easily achieved by insisting that there are supposed national differences in consciousness that distinguish Scottish workers from their English brothers and sisters. And certainly it is not aided by combining with particular Scottish bosses, which lead Scots working people to identify with Scottish businessmen and landowners on the basis of shared ‘nationality’. As an inducement, though, the nationalists entice Scottish workers with offers of a reformist programme and promises of more money and a better life. But no natural resources will be put to a sensible or beneficial use until the working class itself has gained control over the use of these valuable and non-renewable resources. A united working class enables us to combine our tactics for defending our class with the strategy of liberating our class.  Scottish nationalism does not strengthen the campaign for socialism or create a united, class-conscious working class, but fragments and weakens it.  Independence will not improve our condition one iota.  Only class struggle could do that. Success depends on close ties with the labour movements in England and elsewhere.  

The liberation for Scottish workers can only come about by overthrowing capitalism itself. If this is not done, no amount of separatism can ever succeed in bringing freedom. Instead of tragically wasting time fostering nationalism, workers should be struggling for a socialist society without national borders. 

Socialism is a world community

Socialism cannot be established in one country. Socialism must be a world system. Socialism can only be a world community without frontiers. It cannot be established in one country let alone in one factory or on farm. The kibbutzim do show that human beings can live without money and can work without wages, but their small scale means that what they can offer is very restricted so that young people are tending to leave them. In practice they have paved the way for the development of capitalism in Israel and most have become capitalist institutions employing outside wage labour and producing for the market with a view to profit.

There are those who see the constant internationalisation or globalisation of production and life, as a threat to "national sovereignty". This is a reactionary position. The World Socialist Movement does not defend capitalist national independence. On the contrary, one of our criticisms of capitalism is precisely that it has divided the world into competing and armed "nation-states." What we want is not national independence but a socialist world without frontiers. Our planet already possesses enough resources to properly feed, clothe and house every single man, woman and child on the planet. There's no need for anybody anywhere to go without adequate food, drinking water, health care, housing or education.  What trading treaties a particular country makes concern only its capitalists not its workers.

The answer to "global" warming and "world" poverty and the other problems caused by capitalism can only be found within a world framework. So we are talking about a united world without frontiers, no longer divided into separate and competing states. This will save the enormous amount of resources currently wasted on armed forces and arms, that could be redirected into satisfying the basic human needs that are now so scandalously neglected.

All the productive resources of the world should become the common heritage of all the people of the world. They must no longer be owned by corporations, rich private individuals or states. There are already treaties saying that Antarctica and the Moon cannot be appropriated by individuals or states. The same principle should apply to the whole planet, not just to its natural resources but also to the industrial plants and means of transport and communication that humans have built up by their collective labour over the centuries.

 Appropriate democratic institutions will need to be set up to control the use of this common heritage. World bodies to deal with inherently global questions such as the state of the biosphere and energy supply (as well as, initially, the urgent temporary problems such as world hunger, disease and lack of education that will be inherited from global capitalism). Regional bodies (replacing existing states and respecting cultural and linguistic differences) to organise industrial production. Local bodies to arrange access for people to the things they need for everyday living. Starting with democracy at local level, people will be able to create and maintain a genuinely people-based society.

Goods will be produced, whether globally, regionally or locally, solely and directly to satisfy people's needs, not as at present to make a profit or for sale on a market. In fact, the whole market system of buying and selling, and the whole wasteful structure of financial and commercial institutions that arise on its basis, must go. As long as the market exists we will be dominated by its uncontrollable economic laws. As long as money exists financial and commercial, not human, values will prevail. So, we're talking about a money-free society in which, instead, people would contribute according to their abilities and take as their right, from the common store what they need to live and enjoy life.  Technology will be used to provide enough for everybody in an environmentally-friendly way.


A world without frontiers or separate states, a world based on its resources being the common heritage of all humanity, a democratic world governed by what people decide they want and need not by money, profit and market forces, that's the alternative to the transnational corporate conglomerates.


We will have to step up the socialist case against nationalism. The phrase ‘nation-state’ itself assumes that the states into which the world is divided are the political expression of pre-existing ‘nations’. In fact, it’s the other way round. It is the ‘nation’ that is the creation of the state. States inculcate into their subjects the idea that they form a community with a common interest and that the state represents that interest. The result is that people come to refer to themselves and other subjects of the same state as ‘we’ and ‘us’. Socialists do not speak of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in relation to so-called ‘nation-states’ in which they happen to have been born or live. We know that, in every state, there are two classes with opposed interests: the class of those who own and control the means of production and the rest, the vast majority, who do not and, to live, have to sell their mental and physical energies to those who do for a wage or a salary.


Wars are not fought between ‘nations’ but between states, and states represent the interest of their ruling, owning class. Wars arise out of the conflict of economics between states, representing the owning class within them, over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and strategic areas to protect these. Nationalism is used by states to win support – and cannon fodder – for wars. But it can prove counter-productive if it escapes from state control, as it risks doing over the question of Europe. The interest of the dominant section of the capitalist class in Britain is that Britain should stay in the EU so as to have free access to the European ‘single market’, but as the Brexit vote showed public opinion is opposed to this on nationalist grounds. We insist that workers in one state have the same basic interest as their counterparts in other states. We are all members of the world working class and have a common interest in working together to establish a world without frontiers in which the resources of the globe will have become the common heritage of all the people of the world and used for the benefit of all. We re-assert the original socialist position that workers ought to act as a world-wide class with a common interest in working to establish a single world community.  As socialists we refuse to pander to petty nationalism but work to promote a world without borders or passports.


  Since today capitalism is worldwide, the society which replaces capitalism can only be worldwide. The only socialism possible today is world socialism. No more than capitalism can socialism exist in one country. So the common ownership of socialism is the common ownership of the world, of its natural and industrial resources, by the whole of humanity. Socialism can only be a universal society in which all that is in and on the Earth has become regarded as one country and humankind as one people. , and in which the division of the world into states has given way to a world without frontiers with a democratic world administration as well as local and regional democracy. We campaign to get workers to say no to a society based on profit, privilege and competition and yes to a society based on equality, cooperation and meeting people's needs.  It is all very well being anti-capitalist but if this is to mean something more than merely protesting against the effects of capitalism, it has got to also mean having an idea of an alternative to capitalism. 


We can see why the ruling class in the various different capitalist states into which the world is divided find it necessary to rely on “workers' identification with the familiarity of their place of nurture and 'natural' abhorrence to the occupation of 'their' land by invading forces” – it helps them build up popular support for their rule and their foreign policy aimed at protecting their interests abroad. But we can't see why socialists need to. On the contrary, political nationalism is something we need to combat as it is an obstacle to the understanding that the problems faced by workers all over the world cannot be solved within a national framework but only on a world scale. We can see why, too, ruling classes prefer moderate nationalism to bigotry – yesterday's enemy can so easily become today's ally. Thus, the “Frogs”, “Huns” and “Nips” of yesteryear are now our rulers' allies and workers who continue to believe what they were told when these countries were our rulers' enemies are an embarrassment. Socialist opposition to political nationalism does not challenge cultural diversity. We can appreciate Shakespeare or Dickens without ceasing to be socialists.  We can enjoy our warm ale, mince and tatties, or a Sunday roast, without being nationalists. 

Feeding the hungry in Glasgow

A food bank in north-west Glasgow launched a social media campaign to get donations after warning it did not have enough food for the next day. The Glasgow North West location had seen a 62 per cent rise in demand after an independent food bank closed recently, which resulted in its busiest year since opening four years ago, explained Adrian Curtis, the Foodbank Network Director of the Trussell Trust. 

Following a social media request for donations, the food bank has been heartened to see the public donate food donations began flooding in after the food bank demonstrating once again the generosity of people.

A Scotch Broth

Scotland is far from having a common history. Its population were mainly the descendants of native Picts, invaders from Ireland (the original Scots), Western Europe and Scandinavia. After centuries of tribal wars the land came under one king and the nation was born – by the coercion of the people and in the interests of a class of bandit chieftains. Right up until the union of the Scottish and English crowns in 1707 there were really two distinct nations in Scotland. The Highlanders  spoke Gaelic and had a way of life very different from the English speaking Lowlanders, not to mention the Doric speakers in the North-east, as well as those from Galloway, a word literally meaning "Stranger", referring to a population of mixed Scandinavian/Gaelic ethnicity that inhabited Galloway in the Middle Ages.


The SNP see themselves as visionaries but they cannot see beyond the narrow confines of the nation-state, conceived in pre-medieval times and as outmoded as the clan system it replaced. It is the Socialist Party who are the true men and women of vision, who look forward to and struggle for a new world of common ownership and democratic control of society's resources, and uncluttered with the frontiers and class divisions which go hand-in-hand with "the nation". To talk of Scottish, as opposed to class interests is to gloss over, to ignore the basic conflict of interests that inevitably arises from the structure of capitalism. The defenders of capitalism adopt sundry devices to hide this fundamental class-antagonism, and one of the handiest ones has been for years to play on the difference of nationality and seat of government. The defence against this stratagem is, as always. the re-statement of the socialist case and an iron confidence in the working-class ability eventually to solve their own problems.


 In Scotland today it’s true that there is a struggle – as there is in England, Wales, and Ireland. But the struggle in Scotland is not, as the SNP would have us believe, the struggle for self-government,. The struggle in Scotland, as in the rest of the world, is a class struggle: the struggle between the working class and the capitalist or owning class. The SNP talk about the Scottish culture and the Scottish way of life. But in what way is the life of a Scottish wage-slave basically different from that of an English, an American, or for that matter a Russian wage-slave? There is no basic difference in the way of life of the world’s working class because we all suffer from the same problems such as poverty and insecurity. Independence from England will not cure the poverty and insecurity of the Scottish workers, because they will still be the wages labour and capital relationship. There is no truly independent country in the world, because international capitalism has made sure of this. Independence for Scotland therefore is a myth put about by the SNP, which further confuses the Scottish section of the working class and blinds them from the real struggle – the class struggle.


While we constantly hear that we live in a globalised world, national sovereignty still resonates with many people. As socialists we reject the concept absolutely. The delineation of national boundaries within a system of world capitalism is just a reflection of the nationalist consciousness that currently prevails amongst the people of this planet. The celebration of national days, the supporting of the national team at international football tournaments, the organised remembrance of common history etc. are all manifestations of the constant encouragement to us to make identification with our fellow countrymen as the primary determinant of our political consciousness. This is a false proposition. The problems of the Irish people were not solved by independence; the hundreds of thousands of emigrants who left Ireland since 1922 are proof of that. The same will hold for the Scottish people. In the long term, the exit from the EU will not improve or worsen the overall position of the majority of the people of Britain.


As socialists, we say the only political allegiance we should give is to our fellow workers. 

The Socialist Party's May-Day Message

The first of May was set aside as a day on which the working men and women of different countries would suspend work and join in mass meetings to send to each other fraternal greetings and expressions of solidarity in the struggle against capitalist oppression. May-Day is an expression and an indication, no matter how vague, of the growing consciousness of the workers that, nationally and internationally, their interests were fundamentally identical and in opposition to the interests, of the capitalist class.

May-Day is workers' day, the day of our class. However hollow the cries and futile the demonstrations, it remains the anniversary of protest, a continual reminder of exploitation and, subjection. “Class” is the reason and the theme of May-Day – class in its fullest, truest sense. The working class is not the labourers or the artisans or the machine-minders: it is all people to whom wages are life. The working class is international: so is its cause. Among the cries and chants and slogans of May-Day, only one has meaning: “Workers of all countries unite!”

Class consciousness was never more needed than now. Workers have seen war, hunger and poverty; today mankind is under a shadow without precedent -global warming and environmental destruction. The working people of the world have it in their hands to end fear and hatred. Nationalism is not their interest but their rulers'. To the Socialist Party, class-consciousness is the breaking-down of all barriers to understanding. Without it, militancy means nothing. The conflict between the classes is more than a struggle for each to gain from the other: it is the division which reaches across all others. Class-conscious workers knows where they stand in society. Their interests are opposed at every point to those of the capitalist class; their cause can only be the cause of revolution for the abolishing of classes. Without that understanding, militancy can mean little. It is not mere preamble that the Socialist Party's principles open by stating the class division in capitalism: it is the all important basis from which the rest must follow. For over a century, the Socialist Party has addressed its case to the working class on May-Day, demanding not support but understanding. In all those years, it has seen movements rise and fall, heard slogans resonate and fade away, known panaceas acclaimed and discarded. Incredibly, the Left lectures the Socialist Party that it is impractical: impractical, when through their denial of what the Socialist Party's case they have fallen, and with them the hopes of millions! The Socialist Party’s proposition is the only practical one. Class-conscious people need no leaders. The single, simple fact which all working people have to learn is that capitalism causes capitalism's problems so that the remedy – the only remedy – is to abolish capitalism. In that knowledge, they must take hold of the powers of government – for one purpose only: that the rule of class by class shall end. Socialism is not a benevolently-administered capitalism: it is a different social system. Reform is no answer, even though at times – rare times – it benefits working people. The reformists have not even set out to change the world but accept that capitalism shall continue, and is merely trying to alleviate its worst effects. Has poverty – extreme, dire poverty – been abolished by the reforms? Ask those on benefits to the food banks or the sick. Has life been made more satisfying by the Welfare State?

The Socialist Party has been intractable in its opposition to reformists. Working class action, in fact, must be revolutionary. That is the real message of May-Day, for people all over the world. The workers of Britain have common cause with the workers of every other country. They are members of an international class, faced with the same problems, holding the same interests once they are conscious of them. There is only one way of realizing those interests: the immense productive powers of the world must become the common property of every man, woman, and child. May-Day has come again. Let it be an occasion of fresh resolve. There are many who are with us but not of us. The struggle for socialism is a long and arduous one, needing the help of every class-conscious man and woman. On this day, then, we urge the need to work for socialism within the Socialist Party. To spread socialist understanding is the great task of our time: every fresh adherent to the Socialist Party principles is another step towards the emancipation of mankind. 

Capitalism knows no frontiers, money has no accent.

  On 8 June, you will have your occasional ration of democracy. It's all very well having a vote—but are you normally given any real choice?  It's tempting—in the absence of any real alternative—to get drawn into the phony war that is political debate today. Whether Labour or Tory or SNP, they all spout the same promises. But it all amounts to the same thing—they offer no alternative to the present way of running society. The Socialist Party wants you to consider an alternative society to the present production for profit rat-race that is capitalism. We want you to look at present-day society and ask yourself: does it operate in your and your family's interest?


  It certainly does not require genius or a microscope to perceive that Scotland, like every other country, has a population which is divided into a majority who are non-owning workers and a minority who are non-working owners. And that after centuries of joint development with England that all means of producing wealth are owned and controlled by large concerns whose shareholders are spread throughout Britain and the rest of the world. Just as certainly it does not need extraordinary intelligence to know that workers in specifically "Scottish" concern merely receive in wages enough to continue working—barely enough, as for workers everywhere.


The Scottish workers don't have to attend university to know that the ruling class of Scotland since the days of the Highland "clearances" by Marx's indictments of the Scottish ruling class, referred to in biting terms in "Capital", are any less brutal than their English counterparts. Or do they? The ability of the nationalists in getting away with their anti-working class nonsense and buffoonery rests on the — as yet, political ignorance of the Scottish workers. Their political and social interests—like their fellows everywhere—are opposed to those of their masters and does not lie in schemes which will enable their employers to wring yet more surplus value from their skill and energy.

The SNP has tacked left, making social democrat noises to draw Labour supporters. There is nothing intrinsically left-wing about nationalism. Being a nationalist does not necessarily commit a person to any particular reforms or economic principles. Indeed, technically, the SNP is a one-issue party – for an independent Scotland. To talk of "fairer" capitalism that a sovereign Scotland promises is like talking of "fairer" robbery. Capitalism cannot work in the interest of the majority, it must go. It is of no concern to workers in Scotland whether they are governed from London or by a separate independent government in Edinburgh. This is because the cause of the problems they face is the capitalist economic system of production for profit, not the form of government. And the exploitative capitalist economic system would continue to exist in a politically independent Scotland. Politicians wrangle over purely constitutional matters while capitalism and the problems it causes continue.

The task of Scottish workers—like the workers the world over—is to-day—not tomorrow—to attempt an understanding of the basic nature of their problems and having done so, to organise in the Socialist Party democratically to take over power to establish socialism. Capitalism in Scotland, in England, in fact, in every country in the world produces the same set of problems to workers—poverty, unemployment, insecurity, war, and so on. The Socialist Party analysis and solution is international in scope and outlook and the only way in which the Scottish workers can assist their fellow-workers around the globe is to study, understand and organise for socialism. As they do so, the baloney of the Scot Nats will become clearly apparent. "Our" problems are the problems arising from the capitalist nature of society which is now world-wide and the solution for "us"—world socialism in which wealth will be produced, controlled and enjoyed by all.


In Scotland, society is run in the interests of those who own the wealth. They argue among each other over billions of barrels of oil, GDP rates, profits, and exports, because where the borders lie matters to them. Every border is an opportunity to wring cash out of other property owners. Scottish workers will remain dependent upon their whims and interests.  They’ll try to sway us one way or another with crumbs or the promises of crumbs but we’ll only get what they feel they can spare to protect their privilege and wealth. We will remain dependent upon their investments, making a profit for them before we can get our needs and interests met. The only way to stop this dependency would be for us to take ownership and control of the wealth of the world into our own hands. We could, together, use the wealth of the world to meet our mutual needs and gain the true independence of being able to control our work and our lives in a free and voluntary association of equals.


Join the Socialist Party to fight for an independent world and not an independent Scotland.