11.04.1996

SWP shuns Scottish Socialist Alliance

An interesting article by Charlie Kimber, under the title ‘Scottish parliament: alliance with who?’ appeared in Socialist Worker (March 23) justifying the Socialist Workers Party’s boycott of the Scottish Socialist Alliance.

Kimber correctly upholds the principle of self-determination by stating that “the people of Scotland should have the right to determine the sort of parliament they want”, while cautioning “a Scottish parliament will not bring about fundamental change. But even worse, the carrot of a Scottish parliament has been used to divert workers away from struggle.”

However, for the SWP, ‘struggle’ is almost exclusively reserved for the workplace and the unions; it sees everything through the prism of trade union politics. The SWP proclaims the right of nations to self-determination, but then fails to provide a way for the Scottish people to exercise that democratic right. So while revolutionaries should fight hard to defeat all forms of Scottish nationalism and separatism, we have to realise there is a ‘democratic deficit’ that needs resolving.

The campaign for a Scottish parliament is a reformist cross-class recipe for disaster which assumes a parliament in Edinburgh delivered by a Blair government is the answer for the Scottish people. This is nonsense. The Scottish Constitutional Convention and its component parts will only develop a tartan version of Westminster, with proportional representation.

The only way the working class has ever won anything worthwhile is through struggle and fighting for it, not through voting and parliament.

Kimber’s observation that the Scottish Socialist Alliance has nationalist leanings is well made. There are individuals and organisations involved in the Alliance who definitely do have that perspective, but what should revolutionaries do, Charlie? This organisation is an alliance, a movement of the working class in Scotland, which is explicitly anti-capitalist and based on the concept of struggle. What should we do? Stand on the outside tut-tutting and refuse to get our hands dirty?

No. Revolutionaries, including those in the SWP, the Socialist Labour Party or any other organisation, should get into the Alliance and work hard to increase its influence as a working class socialist pole of attraction opposed to the Labour Party.

As well as supporting and leading industrial and trade union struggles, the Alliance must play a leading role in ‘political’ struggles, such as the national question. While leading the fight against nationalism, we have to address the ‘democratic deficit’. I believe the most effective way to achieve this is through the fight for a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales.

This would give the people of Scotland, Wales and England the mechanism to decide democratically whether they want voluntary separation or a voluntary union. As communists we should unequivocally fight for working class unity across all borders, but we must be the best fighters for genuine democracy and uphold the democratic right to separation.

Andy McLean