26.10.1995

Scots promised sham democracy

THE SCOTTISH Constitutional Convention’s long awaited blueprint for a Scottish parliament was published last week. On Tuesday the event was described by the media as “an historic day for democracy in Scotland”, yet by Sunday it barely rated a mention.

Historic it may have been for those Labour and Liberal Democrat bureaucrats and their supporters who have spent the last six years hatching up this scheme to ensure ‘jobs for the boys and girls’ after the next election, but for the working class in Scotland the proposals will do little to meet their democratic demand for the right to self-determination.

Aspirations for change are high. They will not be met by this or any other scheme put forward by the combined Scottish establishment led by the reformers in the Labour Party.

In the Convention’s plans, finance will be established through the principle of equalisation of expenditure, where regions and nations are funded according to “assessed need”. I am pretty sure that their assessment of need would be far different from ours.

It will have the power to cut and increase the basic rate of income tax by a maximum of three pence in the pound. Any tax cuts would have to be found from within the assigned budget. There will be no power to vary corporation tax. So Westminster will be in full fiscal control.

The parliament will take on the remit of the Scottish Office, including education, the law, economic and industrial development. Westminster will retain the power over defence, immigration, nationality and social security.

Significantly, Westminster will retain the power to abolish this parliament. “Its existence,” the document says, will be “assured by its popularity”. We can all remember the fate of the popular GLC.

Labour has always allowed the SNP to set the agenda on the Scottish question. Election defeats and SNP popularity dragged the Labour Party kicking and screaming into the constitutional debate.

What it now offers the Scottish working class is a mirage. Its lack of substance will lead to greater anger and frustration. We must take the genuine democratic demands and turn them into revolutionary demands. We must use the fight for self-determination to unite the working class of Scotland, England and Wales. We as communists must lead this battle. Labour’s parliament or SNP’s independence in Europe offer no solutions. A federal republic is both a democratic and a revolutionary demand.

Mary Ward