12.09.1996

National question at the heart of debate

Nick Clarke on the dangers of tailing either Labour Party sops or nationalism in Scotland

In Scotland today the national question is the topic of debate. In homes and pubs, shopping centres and canteens across the country words such as ‘devolution’, ‘referendum’, ‘independence’, ‘the Union’, ‘parliament’ and ‘assembly’ are common currency. In short what is being discussed is the constitution - how does Scotland relate to the other constituent parts of the United Kingdom? Unwittingly in many ways, the Labour Party has moved the constitutional debate to the very heart of politics and public consciousness in Scotland today.

Although it has been central in Scottish political life for many years, Labour’s hapless grapplings over the last three months have focused public attention on this question in an almost unprecedented manner. Following the most recent change of line, Blair’s two-day tour of Scotland was a charm offensive to show his confidence in his beleaguered shadow Scottish Secretary, George Robertson, and to show the party activists that he was still behind Labour’s version of a Scottish parliament. Blair would like us to believe that the controversy over Labour’s mid-summer madness was just in the imagination of the chattering classes and the media. As much as I am sure he would like to believe this, it is not true. In current opinion polls Labour is losing points to the SNP, precisely on the confusion (perceived or real) over its attitude to a Scottish parliament.

At this point it is worthwhile briefly looking at Labour’s catalogue of U-turns. It is less than a year since the Scottish Constitutional Convention, following seven years of painstaking negotiation, came up with a blueprint for a Scottish parliament. Labour had reached a consensus with its main partners, the STUC and the Liberal Democrats. The parliament would be partly based on proportional representation and would have limited powers - including the ability to vary tax by three pence in the pound, but excluding defence, foreign affairs, social security policy and central economic policy. What Labour also emphasised was that a general election victory would be a sufficient mandate: ie, no separate referendum was necessary.

By May the Tories’ ‘tartan tax’ offensive was beginning to worry some Labour Party apparatchiks. A month later the fear that this campaign would portray them as the party of high tax and consequently damage their standing in middle England led to Labour’s leadership declaring they were now committed to a referendum before a Scottish parliament would be set up. Much to the horror of their activists and their partners in the convention, this referendum would consist of two questions: one on the principle of a parliament, the other on the tax-varying powers. Now whether this idea sprung from the head of Robertson, Blair, or even Gordon Brown, the lack of consultation and the ditching of this policy caused great consternation within the Labour Party in Scotland.

The rebels, who were determined to take on the leadership and fight for a one-question referendum, launched their campaign, and at the crunch meeting of the Scottish executive snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They and the leadership compromised, if that is the correct term, plumping for two referenda and three questions! As Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP, pointed out, “It made the proverbial dog’s breakfast look well ordered and thought out.” Less than a week later, Robertson eats humble pie and announces the destruction of this Frankenstein’s monster and a return to the previous position of one referendum and two questions. Despite this humiliation, one bright spot for the leadership is that the erstwhile rebels are so relieved at the ditching of the two-referenda option that they have been silenced - for the time being anyway.

Understandably following this comedy of errors, Blair is anxious to change the political subject. While on his visit to Scotland he was prepared to deal with questions on it, but he took every opportunity to change the political agenda to health, unemployment or education. The Labour Party does not sit easy with its position on Scotland. The Tories, a marginalised political force in Scotland with 15% in the opinion polls, have pushed it onto the back foot and into retreat on what should have been one of its flagships.

Labour’s problems on the implementation of a Scottish parliament are causing great amusement and relief to their political opponents. However, taking at face value Blair’s claims that he wants a Scottish parliament with tax- varying powers, it is important to analyse the powers it would have. In reality what Labour is proposing is little more than an old-style regional or county council for all of Scotland. It will take over the powers that the Scottish office holds today: education, law, health, local government, transport, the environment and industry and the infamous 3p in the pound tax-varying powers (referendum permitting). However, it denies Scotland the right to decide on crucial aspects, such as defence, social security, immigration or central economic policies. Therefore it will fail to give the Scottish people genuine self-determination.

The Socialist Labour Party is no better, if the first edition of its paper Socialist News (September 1996) is anything to go by. It carries an article by Jim McDaid, entitled deceptively “Scotland must decide”. The content of this article can best be described as an abject tailing of Labour’s pre-referendum policy. He gets excited about “the prospect of a genuinely democratic Scottish parliament” and “a Scottish parliament with real powers”, while in fact Labour’s talking shop will neither have real power nor be genuinely democratic. Thus McDaid reinforces the idea of a utopian parliamentary road to socialism. The only difference he appears to have with Labour is over the two-question referendum, which he condemns as “a huge betrayal of the Scottish people”.

It is essential that if the SLP is to be built into a revolutionary working class party, independent of bourgeois ideas, then it must fight for a principled position on all questions, including the national question in Britain. And if the SLP is to have any real impact on working class politics in Scotland, then it should not continue to stand aloof from the Scottish Socialist Alliance.

Communists and socialists must be the best and most principled fighters for genuine democratic rights, not some halfway house or sop. On the national question it means we fight for the right to self-determination, whether in Ireland, Kurdistan, Scotland or Wales, up to and including the right to secede. We do not advocate separation for Scotland, but ultimately it must be up to the Scottish people to decide.

The SSA in its declared aims and objectives, expresses that idea:

“The SSA stands for the right of the people of Scotland to self-determination and will fight for a sovereign Scottish parliament which has the right to decide which powers to retain in Scotland and to determine its relationship with Britain and the rest of Europe.”

Now admittedly there are problems with this formulation, not least over the definition of the word “parliament”. However it does encapsulate the essence of self-determination of the people, deciding on all powers, not just a select few.

What is needed by the people of Scotland is a mechanism, whether it be called a constituent assembly or a sovereign Scottish parliament, to deliver the right to self-determination and to decide how they wish to be governed. There is a danger that some elements within the SSA may support Labour’s referendum as a kind of halfway house to the Alliance’s stated aims. This road can lead to disaster: witness the left in the Scottish Labour Party, who originally opposed the referendum, but seem content now to settle for two questions, as opposed to the perceived greater evil of a second referendum. It has distinct echoes of the ‘lesser of two evils’ theory, which many on the left in Britain are so keen to advocate.

It is one thing to recognise the democratic deficit which exists in Scotland, but another to tail nationalism. Scottish Militant Labour, for example, believes in a socialist federation of Britain, yet it publicly argues for “a strong Scottish Parliament”. This is dangerous, because not only does SML foster illusions in parliament, it fosters illusions in nationalism. We must wait until some undisclosed time in the future, when the working class is ready, before SML reveals its grand federal plan.

The demand for the abolition of the ‘United Kingdom’ state and its monarchy, and its replacement with a federal republic of Scotland, Wales and England, has to be raised now as part of our drive to remove the democratic deficit and to win people from nationalism to socialism.