11.07.1996

Scotland denied

‘Historic’ has been a rather overused term in relation to Scottish news this week. After Blair’s ‘historic’ U-tum on the parliament for Scotland, we have had the promise of the ‘historic’ return of the ‘Stone of Destiny’, followed by the ‘historic’ visit of a prime minister to the Scottish Grand Committee meeting in Dumfries. All quite overwhelming stuff. Yet its relevance to the working class in Scotland is minuscule.

Blair and Major are indistinguishable on so many policy areas that the constitutional question, even with the referendum proposals, at first glance would seem to provide some clear blue water between them. Not so. As we have said before, Labour’s proposals and those outlined by the Scottish Constitutional Convention are a sham.

Even with the ability to raise taxes by three pence in the pound the parliament in Edinburgh would be no more than a talking shop, providing a very nice income for a number of political careerists without the hassle of travelling to London. Neither Tory nor Labour tackles the real issue that exists in Scotland - the democratic deficit: an historically-constituted people does not have the right to self-determination, up to and including the right to secede.

Communists want the unity of the working class throughout Britain, but that unity must be voluntary. As long as the people of Scotland, Wales and Ireland are denied a vehicle for exercising the right to self-determination, then nationalism will flourish as an expression of that denied right. Regardless of what Mr Major perceives the psyche of the Scottish working class to be (too many “Braveheart” and “Rob Roy” movies this year), we will not have our democratic rights bought off by the return of a lump of stone that was symbolic of the Scottish monarchy. Who wants it? James I or VI - who cares? Whether the crown is Scottish or English, Hanoverian or French - get rid of the lot of them - off with their heads.

Democracy can never be about monarchies: it must be about power for the class. Any constitutional referendum should include all the constitutional options, including the option for a federal republic.

It may be 300 years since a prime minister spoke at the Grand Committee in Scotland and it may be 700 years since the stone was stolen from Scone, but that only makes these into historical facts. It does not make them part of our cultural heritage that we wish to preserve. Both represent institutions which serve to oppress our class and both must therefore be smashed. The constitutional question does burn in Scotland and is more than just a topic for the chattering classes. The spectacle of MPs from all the parties slugging it out to obtain electoral advantage, however, is scorned upon by those who genuinely want to see the democratic deficit redressed.

No bourgeois parliament in either Westminster or Edinburgh will bring about socialism and those on the left in Scotland are wrong to foster that illusion. The right to self-determination must be fought for in a revolutionary manner, for it is the way that it is fought for that will determine what is won.

Fight for a federal republic and for an end to nationalism.

Mary Ward