27.03.1997

SML and the opportunist art of the possible

Debate in the Scottish Socialist Alliance on what attitude to take on Blair’s ‘rigged referendum’ has exposed SML’s dangerous opportunist method

Scottish Militant Labour is now openly committed to a ‘break-up of Britain’ programme. The turn to nationalist socialism was first announced in an important article by Phil Stott in Scottish Socialist Voice (February 7 1997). We have already subjected his reactionary views to a lengthy analysis (see Weekly Worker February 27 1997). My intention here is to focus on SML’s opportunist method whereby, in the name of the art of the possible, principles are traded for short-term gains.

The Scottish Socialist Alliance was not established to fight for an independent Scotland nor a sop parliament. Its founding and defining aims are “the right of the people of Scotland to self-determination” and a “sovereign Scottish parliament which has the right to decide which powers to retain in Scotland and to determine its position with Britain and the rest of the world”.

When it comes to Scotland Tony Blair, prime minister in waiting, found himself caught as between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one side the need to win conservative votes - so-called ‘Middle England’. On the other side the democratic demands of the combative Scottish masses - those who sunk Thatcher’s poll tax flagship and who have to be maintained for New Labour.

Blair’s solution for his two-sided dilemma was typically twofaced. A toothless Edinburgh parliament - a sop which he hopes will satisfy Scottish aspirations and not scare conservative opinion. And again so as to reassure conservative opinion, a dual referendum on the parliament and its tax-raising powers (already limited by Blair to 3p in the pound).

Confronted with the prospect of even a toothless Scottish parliament SML salivates. Though the latest edition of Scottish Socialist Voice proclaims Glasgow to be a “city in revolt”, SML wants the SSA to meekly vote ‘yes, yes’ in what it rightly calls Blair’s “rigged referendum”. Once a Scottish parliament is established, or so SML believes, a combination of manoeuvre above and mass pressure below can win full powers. Being committed to a reformist road to national socialism, Tommy Sheridan, Alan McCombes, Phil Stott and co no doubt dream of themselves voting on some wet Wednesday in this Scottish parliament to introduce the socialist order.

It goes without saying that, whatever SML’s putative Scottish MPs imagine, no parliament can legislate in socialism. Socialism is the self-Liberation of the working class. Self-Liberation by definition cannot come through a socialist majority in a bourgeois parliament, no matter how many industries are nationalised, no matter how many individual capitalists expropriated. The capital-labour relationship remains intact. Dead labour would continue to dominate and feed off living labour.

SML is willing to sacrifice the SSA’s founding principles in order to gain the momentary advantage of a toothless parliament.

Those, above all the Scottish Committee of the CPGB, who denounce this opportunism and say, ‘Self-determination, nothing less - boycott Blair’s rigged referendum’, are inevitably criticised for their supposed commitment to an abstraction and failure to understand practical politics.

However, to fend off the CPGB and boycott campaign SML has quickly moved to say that it will work for a multi-option referendum, including the SSA’s founding aim. It is a feint. SML is busily trying to tie the SSA to a ‘lesser of evils’ approach, whereby it will be committed to a “first preference vote” for independence and a “second preference vote for devolution”.

These hypothetical preferences serve a definite purpose. Of course, they exist only in the heads of SML comrades, but they do let SML off the hook. Blair’s referendum is very concrete. New Labour is fighting the general election around the promise of a sop parliament. A Scottish parliament introduced under his government will be no more than a glorified county council. It will not be able to decide on any constitutional matters.

Given this denial of elementary democracy, any working class organisation worthy of the name is obliged to oppose Blair’s ‘rigged referendum’ and continue to stand by the principle of self-determination. This SML will not do. However, by conjuring up a sliding scale of hypothetical preferences, SML sneakily lays the ground for a ‘yes, yes’ vote, if, as is expected, Blair’s two questions are the only ones appearing on the ballot paper.

If SML gets its way in the SSA, it will paradoxically help to ensure that Blair gives more concessions to so-called ‘Middle England’ and less concessions to the Scottish masses.

By signalling well in advance that it will vote ‘yes, yes’, SML tells Blair that he can afford to ignore any of their half-hearted demands for a multi-option referendum. SML waves the white flag of surrender. Blair will get the message loud and clear. Hence SML’s opportunist method loses both ways. Not only is the principle of self-determination sacrificed for a toothless sop, but that toothless sop is itself endangered and made even more powerless by SML’s opportunist method.

As Rosa Luxemburg insisted, the “assumption that one can achieve the greatest number of successes by making concessions rests on a complete error” (R Luxemburg Selected political writings London 1972, p74). Tommy Sheridan might be a canny politician, but he is leading SML up a very dangerous path, whereby one principle is sacrificed after another. First it was unity with Peter Taaffe’s Socialist Party and the principle of ‘one state, one party’. Now it is the SSA’s principle of self-determination. What is next, Tommy?

For communists it is our intransigent defence of principle wherein lies the source of our strength. It is intransigence that earns the fear of the state and the trust and support of the people. Ironically in his intransigent leadership against the poll tax Tommy Sheridan splendidly proved this. Precisely by not yielding one inch from our principled position, we force governments and bourgeois parties to give concessions.

But if we trade principles in the name of practicality we soon find ourselves in the sorry position of the hunter who has not only failed to kill the man-killing tiger, but has also lost their gun in the process.

Jack Conrad