12.12.1996

Federal republic and class struggle

Mary Ward is the SSA candidate for Dundee West and a member of the CPGB. Lee-Anne Bates spoke to her about this weekend’s ‘civic event’ in Scotland and the future of the democratic struggle

What is the aim of the demonstration in Scotland this weekend?

Originally we thought it would follow on from the mass demonstration of December 1992, with basic demands around Scottish democracy. But what has actually materialised - under what is called the coalition for Scottish democracy, which includes the Scottish TUC, the ACTS section of the TGWU, the Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, Common Cause for Democracy in Scotland and Charter 88 - is a ‘Hands around the parliament’ civic event being organised for this Saturday. There will be a signing of a declaration renewing the demand for the Scottish people to have their own parliament and people will be asked to encircle the parliament building.

What we are seeing is the militancy, passion and anger that was involved in 1992 being hijacked by the Labour and trade union establishment and becoming a rather shallow press event.

How has that happened, do you think?

1992 was a very angry time after the re-election of a Tory government. Scotland United gave a focus for that anger, but has since faded away as an organisation. The Labour Party, the Liberal Party and the trade union movement have taken on the leading role of the so called Campaign for Scottish Democracy, which is revolving around the Scottish Constitutional Convention and the Labour Party’s demands for a parliament.

The fact that the establishment parties have taken over that movement from below indicates how strong the feeling is in Scotland and how the establishment knows it must channel it in a ‘safe’ direction.

At the moment they are sucking the militancy out of the demand by suggesting that what they have on offer will somehow meet the demand for Scottish democracy. Nothing on offer meets the very basic demand for the right of the Scottish people to self-determination.

The Scottish Constitutional Convention was set up after the last general election by the mainstream political parties, minus the Scottish Nationalist Party, plus church organisations, the Democratic Left, women’s groups, etc. They have drawn up a schema for a sop parliament which Labour has in the main adopted as its policy.

The parliament on offer seems little more than a glorified county council.

It has no real powers. On Saturday the organisers plan to produce a declaration which begins, “We sign a new declaration to renew our demand that Scotland should have its own parliament.”

I have no problem with that if you are saying that Scotland should have a body which decides its relationship with the rest of the UK. But the people who are punting this ignore the whole self-determination question. Although I would be against independence, it is never even an option in this schema. We cannot say you have the right to self-determination if you then say, ‘Ah, but you can’t decide to separate.’

The declaration also fosters illusions that this parliament would have some sort of real power:

“All aspects of our life from employment to education and health and housing would be transformed by a parliament which safeguards jobs, protects the NHS, gives all parts of Scotland a fair say, invests in education, gives women fair representation, gives citizens fair votes.”

What some of these things mean is completely beyond me.

The STUC has refused to engage people in the discussion about what the demonstration should be about and only publicised it six days before the event, with an advert in the papers. It has been a deliberate attempt to keep this demonstration low-key and in the hands of the Scottish Labour establishment.

It is billed as a ‘civic event’ which hardly sets the heather on fire or fills you with any passionate commitment to fight for democracy. I think it will turn out to be a platform for the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, who are backing them up. It is very cynical.

What has happened to the militancy that was predominant in 1992?

I think it will re-emerge under a Labour government. It is very much still there, but Scotland, like other parts of Britain, will vote Labour to end the Tory rule. The flames of discontent however are being fanned at local level, because of the cuts being imposed this year and the millions of pounds of cuts proposed for next year. Services are being decimated by Labour and SNP councils, but there is still an illusion that this will change under a Labour government. But there is a growing sense that there should be some fight, with illegal budgets set. Yet all that Labour is doing is capitulating. All Labour is interested in is being a party fit to govern capitalism and so will go along root and branch with the cuts.

Is there a belief that Labour’s parliament can improve conditions?

Because over the last 18 years the awareness of a democratic deficit in Scotland has been growing, there is a great deal of misplaced hope put in the difference a Scottish parliament could make, that it would be a ‘socialist’ parliament and that it could be a body that could lead the fightback.

I see nationalism growing every day. I want to defeat that nationalism, which is divisive and can take a negative, reactionary and chauvinist form. It can be defeated by the Scottish people themselves winning the democratic right of self-determination and winning it in a revolutionary way. Revolutionaries must lead the struggle for democracy for it to be realised in a full and positive way, for it to defeat the whole of the British state and take an internationalist form in the struggle for democracy and socialist revolution worldwide.

A sop parliament will neither improve the conditions of working people in Scotland nor defeat that nationalism.

Is support for the SNP growing?

Labour and SNP support is staying about the same at the moment because of the feeling that Labour can and will deliver a parliament. Nationalism is growing, but this is not translating into support for the SNP.

You warn about the dangers of nationalism, but how is the CPGB trying to organise the struggle to overturn the democratic deficit in Scotland?

When there is a struggle around the national question communists and socialists must be involved in that democratic fight. We must not walk away from it, just because of the dangers of nationalism.

That is what we are trying to do with the federal republic slogan - separate the democratic deficit from the nationalist sentiment and show the destructive nature of nationalism. The working class in Scotland, just as in England, Wales, Ireland, and throughout the world is looking for a better life and a better future. That future can only be won through socialism to communism.

What is the difference between the federal republic slogan and those of other left groups?

Some of these pander to the nationalist sentiment. The Scottish workers’ republic line, for example, claiming its roots to be John Maclean, fosters nationalism and sees it as being positive. They look to the Irish struggle, but we do not have a national liberation struggle in Scotland. We have a democratic fight on our hands.

Scottish Militant Labour calls for a strong Scottish parliament. Its internal documents call for a socialist federal republic in Britain, but that is rarely mentioned publicly. In the first issue of Socialist Voice it wasn’t mentioned at all. That is dangerous opportunism. If SML sees a strong Scottish parliament as a vehicle towards a socialist federation, it should say that. It should not be suggesting that a Scottish parliament is the solution.

The federal republic slogan firstly recognises the right to self-determination, but secondly it takes on the republican question and so challenges the whole structure of the British constitution. Thirdly it means that the question of self-determination is not only a question for the people that live in Scotland and Wales, but becomes a question of democracy for all of the people.

The struggle for unity of the class is one of our most important ones because it is easy to be taken along in the nationalist stream at the moment in Scotland. It has not been helped by the fact that the Socialist Labour Party refuses to be involved in the SSA, nor is it helped by comrades south of the border who think the Scottish question is nothing to do with them.

What is the most important work of communists now?

To ensure that the struggle for democracy is taken into the hands of the people themselves. That is what the federal republic slogan tries to do. And we have seen in Scotland that people are prepared to take militant action themselves, not just on the question of self-determination, but also against the cuts and in the past against the poll tax.

The more people are prepared to tell the Labour Party that they will not be bought off, the more likely we are to see people beginning to take control of their own lives.

It is the way we fight that will determine what is achieved. If we sit back we will get nothing.

The federal republic slogan however is not one that is being seized by workers in Scotland at the moment. When people talk of a multi-option referendum, they do not envisage it including anything to do with the federal republic. The choice as it is posed at the moment is a sop parliament, independence or the status quo.

That is the limited vision of the political movement in Scotland. Our battle is to get the federal republic idea onto the agenda of the working class throughout Britain. That is a difficult task, although obviously the opportunities are there, including the very fact that this event is happening this Saturday.

The general election will be another opportunity to raise that idea. I am standing as a Scottish Socialist Alliance candidate, and although the Alliance does not as yet take a position on a federal republic, Communist Party literature will need to advocate that road.

The SSA’s uniting call is a sovereign Scottish parliament which has the power to determine its relationship with the rest of Britain. But as yet it has not been given any more definite content. In the alliance there are those that want a separate Scotland and those for a Labour-type parliament.

There has been no debate as yet as to what the relationship between Scotland and the rest of Britain should be. The debate is constantly being put on the agenda, though there are those in the alliance that would rather not discuss the question. There is a conference at the beginning of March where this issue must be raised.

At the last national council meeting we put a resolution that will be taken to the liaison meeting of Alliances throughout Britain in January, which calls for them to put the demand for self-determination in Scotland as paramount for any candidate they stand in the general election. We were pleased to win that, because there is a tendency in the national council that thinks we should just get on with things by ourselves and those in England have no right to be involved. This makes a mockery of working class internationalism - we can be involved in any other country in the world, but not in the rest of Britain.

If the referendum happens, we need to say that it is a Mickey Mouse referendum. It is an insult to people fighting for Scottish democracy. The status quo and a tax or non-tax raising parliament - what a lot of rubbish.

What contribution can the SSA make to the formation of one revolutionary Party in Britain?

The SSA has organised revolutionaries and socialists in Scotland, which is a massively positive move, but it has done little to break through nationalism and to take forward the struggle for Party, the struggle to smash the British state lock, stock and barrel.

People look to separate parties doing it in separate volleys. The Alliance unfortunately at the moment is not challenging that idea and has even fuelled it. It is up to us as communists to take forward the positive move towards organisation, towards the need for Party, both in the SSA and in the SLP.

That has to be done through theory and in practice, through constant struggle.