WeeklyWorker

16.01.1997

Sovereign Scottish assembly or federal republic?

Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group (faction of the SWP) comments on the welcome shift in the policy of Workers Power

I was pleased to see that the Workers Power group has changed its position on the national question in the United Kingdom.

The December issue of its paper says:

“Our position on the demand for a Scottish assembly was wrong. Instead of opposing the establishment of a Scottish assembly and demanding a referendum, we should call for the immediate election of a sovereign Scottish assembly with unrestricted powers” (Workers Power December 1996).

This is a definite move in the right direction. But unfortunately WP has not yet arrived at the right destination. Its change of line has parallels with the Socialist Worker Party. In 1979 the SWP opposed Labour’s Scottish assembly (devolution, as it was then called) on the grounds that a workers’ state was the only answer. This was a typical piece of SWP leftism. Instead of relating to the situation with (transitional) democratic demands, the SWP simply counterposed a workers’ state to the bourgeois state.

In 1984-5 the SWP recognised that it had been wrong. From now on it would support a Scottish assembly. Naturally, wanting to show it was more leftwing than Kinnock, its assembly would have full powers.

On many occasions WP has told us that the SWP is economistic, worships spontaneity and falls into tailism. One of the most important characteristics of economism is that it cannot get to grips with bourgeois democracy. This is very true of the SWP. The party tends to equate the class struggle with economic and trade union demands. Political issues, which raise questions of bourgeois democracy, are seen as diversionary or irrelevant to the class struggle (wrongly seen as the economic struggle).

Consequently the SWP either ignores bourgeois democracy and/or adapts to it. In the ultra-left form of economism, the SWP makes the crude counterposition of bourgeois and workers’ democracy. Then when reality forces it to take account of bourgeois democracy, it adopts liberal slogans. This was how it related to the national question between 1979 and 1985.

By 1984 opinion amongst the Scottish working class had moved even more clearly in favour of a Scottish assembly. The SWP, with its own base in Scotland, followed behind this spontaneous growth in popular consciousness. The SWP was now convinced, not by any Marxist theory, but because ‘public opinion’ had changed.

Today the SWP continues with the wrong line, because it has failed to make an independent assessment of bourgeois democracy from a Marxist perspective. The SWP will eventually be forced to change the current line again, when ‘public opinion’ makes a more radical shift.

In the same issue of Workers Power Colin Lloyd says: “The SWP steadfastly refuses to raise demands ‘too far ahead’ of the masses or make propaganda for parts of the revolutionary programme which the masses will not understand” (‘Cliff launches new mass turn’ Workers Power December 1996). Scotland provides us with a good example. The SWP will raise the demand for a Scottish assembly, but not for a federal republic. The people already accept the idea of a Scottish assembly. But the vast majority have not even heard of the demand for a federal republic. That is the winning argument for the SWP.

The majority of public opinion in Scotland is for home rule, devolution or a Scottish assembly. Whatever the latest name for it, we are discussing a Scottish parliament under the constitutional monarchy. This is a classic liberal reform, designed to prop up the fundamentals of the British constitution. It is the tradition of Gladstone, Lloyd George, Heath, Callaghan, Kinnock, and now Blair. These are the people who have created the ‘public opinion’ which the SWP follows behind.

Engels and Lenin had a different view. In State and revolution, Lenin analysed different forms of bourgeois democracy from a Marxist perspective. A republic is more advanced than a constitutional monarchy. The centralised democratic republic is more advanced than a federal republic. The federal republic may be a drag on development.

However, in special circumstances a federal republic would be a “step forward”. This could be the case where you have both a monarchy and the national question. Lenin cites Britain as an example of where a federal republic would be a step forward. Today, 100 years later, the federal republic is a progressive democratic transitional demand. Its origins are in the Marxist theory of the state, not in Gladstonian liberalism and so-called public opinion.

We can search public opinion high and low in Scotland for the demand for a federal republic. You will not find it. Not until Marxists consciously decide to introduce this demand “from the outside”: that is, from outside the sphere of bourgeois public opinion.

If your method is tailing public opinion you will never arrive at a federal republic - at least, not until Marxism has itself influenced working class opinion. But at present public opinion is shaped by bourgeois liberalism. Like the SWP, WP has fallen under the same spell.

Let us now examine the new position of WP. It consists of five main slogans:

First, the RDG agrees with the slogan of self-determination for the Scottish people. But self-determination does not exist within the British constitutional monarchy. Indeed the monarchy and popular sovereignty are opposed principles. Self-determination does not exist, except as a slogan in left newspapers. The real point is that we must win the right to self-determination by struggle which mobilises the people to win their rights.

The second demand is for a sovereign Scottish assembly. This means a parliament. It is a bourgeois democratic demand. So far we agree. But what does the word “sovereign” mean? Where does WP stand between those who want a Scottish assembly under the crown, and those who want a republican assembly?

Does a sovereign assembly mean an assembly under our sovereign, Her Majesty the Queen, or an assembly under the sovereignty of the Scottish people? What kind of sovereignty do the leaders of WP have in mind? Have they introduced the word “sovereign” in order to confuse people over the principled difference between a monarchist and a republican assembly?

The liberal ‘democratic’ slogan of a Scottish assembly is designed to avoid drawing attention to the constitutional monarchy. After all they are clinging to the monarchy because it represents their state. All WP’s talk of “full powers” for the assembly is bullshit, if they are prepared to accept that some powers should be reserved for the crown, rather than the Scottish people.

Another part of WP’s programme calls for the abolition of the monarchy. Good. But why is this separated from the call for a Scottish assembly? Will WP first demand a monarchist assembly to be followed by a second or later stage when it wants the monarchy abolished? Or is abolition of the monarchy is only an immediate demand in England and Wales, but not for Scotland?

The next WP slogan is no to separation. The RDG agrees with that. This is reflected in the federal republic demand, which is opposed to separation. But not absolutely. It cannot be absolute, since we support the right to self-determination.

In addition, suppose that Scotland established a republican assembly but Wales and England remained loyal to the crown. Wouldn’t separation be inevitable then? How could WP advocate a republican assembly for Scotland and not for Wales and England? Perhaps this is why it seems frightened to advocate a republican assembly for Scotland, knowing that logically its “no separation” policy means it would be forced to take a republican stance in England and Wales. It is fear of republican assemblies in England and Wales that has forced Workers Power to adapt their Scottish policy to liberal monarchism “with full powers” of course.

The fourth WP slogan is Scottish, Welsh and English workers, unite and fight. For better wages, of course. But for what political demands? We say unite and fight for a federal republic. All WP says is unite and fight for a Scottish assembly. Why would Welsh workers fight for that? Can you imagine street fighting and a general strike in Swansea around the slogan, ‘We demand a Scottish assembly, but we don’t want one in Wales’? If the Welsh workers were to fight for a Scottish assembly, might they not want an assembly of their own? And the same for England.

Finally WP calls for a socialist republic of Britain. We agree with that except that we would formulate it differently. We would call for a workers’ republic of England, Scotland and Wales. It seems that the content of the socialist and workers’ republic would be the same or similar. This is one republic but whether it would be federal or centralised does not need to be decided now. The point that needs to be made here is that it is an incorrect application of the transitional method to set the slogans of bourgeois democracy against that of the workers’ state. Those leftists who simply call for a Scottish workers’ republic against every bourgeois democratic demand are making a serious error. Neither ourselves nor WP are falling into that trap.

It has taken over 10 years for WP to catch up with the SWP. This is because the SWP had a base in Scotland and WP did not. However, there is no point in being stageist about this. Now that Workers Power is on the move, there is no reason why it should stop at the Scottish assembly stage. It should continue and leap right over the heads of the SWP central committee.

Comrades, don’t stop now. Make this revolution in your Scottish thinking permanent.