29.05.1997

Nothing less than a federal republic

Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group (faction of the SWP) replies to the CPGB call for a Scottish parliament with full powers

When I wrote on this issue previously, I called for a republican boycott campaign in Scotland to be linked to the fight for a federal republic in England and Wales. This appears to have been rejected by the CPGB. Now we can see why. They didn’t like the slogan of a republican boycott, because it exposed the fact that they are adapting themselves to Militant’s programme. The back page headline of the Weekly Worker of May 15 proudly declares, “For a parliament with full powers”. The CPGB now needs to clarify what programmatic demands they are fighting for and whether they have a different programme for Scotland or not.

In terms of immediate practical politics, the British left is either Labourite or republican. The Socialist Workers Party, the Workers Power group and Socialist Organiser are Labourites. The CPGB and Revolutionary Democratic Group and the SLP are republican (or semi-republican). The old Militant Tendency was militant Labourite, not militant republican. Today Scottish Militant Labour, whilst trying to break from Labourism, are still stuck in their own non-republican tradition.

Of course SWP, WP and Socialist Organiser want full blooded socialism. There will be no place for the Windsor royals in a socialist society. We will obviously have a ‘socialist republic’. But on practical every day politics these organisations want a Labour government and the reformed constitution which Labour has promised.

Since SML is the dominant force in the Scottish Socialist Alliance, which includes the CPGB, it is here that we see their compromise with monarchism and Labourism in action. On day to day politics the SML is left monarchist. They are working hard to reform the constitutional monarchy in a ‘progressive’ direction. Since one of the main pressures for reform comes from Scotland, SML is fusing the project of reforming the constitutional monarchy with nationalism. They have adapted themselves to the nationalist agenda.

The bourgeois parties are the main support for the constitutional monarchist system, for which the Windsors are merely the titular head or symbolic representative. The Tories attitude is summed up by their demand for a new royal yacht. Labour want to bicycle in the style of the Swedish royals. But whatever form of transport is preferred, both Tory and Labour are committed to the monarchist system of democracy.

Labour’s devolution plans are part of the same reformist cycle. It is here that SML have positioned themselves. They are the most extreme leftwing of the bicycling fraternity. They have formulated this position around two demands:

1. a parliament with full powers
2. a multi-option referendum

The call for a parliament with full powers in a Scottish context means a reformed constitutional monarchy. It is just that Militant want more powers than Blair is offering. SML call it a “feeble Scottish parliament”. They say that Labour’s proposals are “watered down” (ie, a watered down version of SML’s proposals). SML wants Labour’s proposals to be beefed up. For Marxists, beefing up Labour’s programme is the latest outbreak of Mad Cow Disease.

The choice between SSA’s monarchist parliament with full powers and Blair’s offering ‘with less than full powers’ is no contest. People will take what is really on offer and hope for ‘more powers’ later. Between these slogans, pragmatism will win. A parliament with full powers is a slippery slope to one with less. SML themselves have come to that conclusion. They have followed the logic of their own monarchist reformism.

Nick Clarke (Weekly Worker May 15) reports that “comrades from SML and the Scottish Socialist Movement are united in their pessimism and surrender to Labour’s pathetic tinkering on the constitutional question”. The SML’s own pathetic tinkering with the constitution now seems less practical than Blair’s. They have effectively abandoned the fight for their own platform, and are lining up behind Blair with ‘yes, yes’ votes for the referendum.

A parliament with full powers is not a republican slogan. It is not a republican parliament. There is, as the Tories used to say, “clear blue water” between a republic and a reformed constitutional monarchy - with or without so-called “full powers”. The latter may be vague enough to allow illusions to be fostered in the minds of the most naive republicans. But as communists we call a spade a spade, and a republic must be called exactly that. We want clear and unambiguous slogans. A republican parliament is exactly what it means.

In addition to this, the SML demand for a multi-option referendum is a massive piece of illusion-mongering. It serves to create the illusion that the unionist system could provide self-determination if only the referendum contained more options. The history of Ireland going back to the 19th century shows up that lie. The unionist system is incapable of granting self-determination. It would be like asking the system to blow itself up. It won’t happen. We must tell the truth about why the system cannot provide self-determination, rather than sow illusions that this is possible. Illusion mongering is exactly what SML is doing.

Scotland needs to set its sights on a republic, if it is to secure self-determination. Nothing less will do. We are not demanding that the Tories and Labour give us a republic. We are explaining why they are incapable of it, and why in practice, they are fighting tooth and nail against a republic and self-determination. We make the additional point that if England and Scotland are to remain united in a single state, we must win immediately a federal republic, in which self-determination is constitutionally guaranteed.

There is now a political vacuum where SML, armed “with full powers”, once stood. It is into this vacuum that the CPGB seems to be marching boldly. They have abandoned in practical terms their republican politics. Their republicanism is now reserved for high days and holidays. Instead they are demanding that SML fights for its own left monarchist position. This will obviously embarrass SML. The CPGB will be able to show that they are better left monarchists than SML.

The Weekly Worker (May I5) explains the tactics of the CPGB: “Comrades from the CPGB argued that in the aftermath of the general election and with the Labour government pushing ahead its rigged referendum and sop parliament, the SSA should throw itself into fighting for the principled position it adopted at its founding conference - for a sovereign Scottish parliament with full powers.” There is of course nothing “principled” about the left monarchist demand for a “parliament with full powers”. SML are not principled working class republicans and never have been. Even so the CPGB now flatters SML about its “principled” ( sic) positions and seeks itself to become the ‘vanguard’ of a struggle for unprincipled demands.

The CPGB continues: “It was in this spirit [ie, the spirit of adopting the monarchist politics of SML] that we presented a resolution arguing that the SSA should ‘set up a steering committee, as a matter of urgency, to coordinate our campaign for a parliament with full powers and push for a multi-option referendum.’” The CPGB then went on to propose a series of activities whereby the SSA’s left monarchist message “is heard and taken into the working class communities of Scotland”.

The tactic of demanding that SML/ SSA fight for its own programme, from which it has now retreated, is ill conceived. It is undoubtedly an embarrassment for SML. Nick Clarke says that the unanimity of opposition to the CPGB demands was “to say the least, surprising”. Not as surprising as the fact that the CPGB in their desperate haste to ‘expose’ the SML have in fact exposed themselves.

We are faced with two possible options. First, the CPGB has split programmatically. The Scottish section is fighting for a parliament with full powers and the English section is fighting for a federal republic. Why is the Scottish section fighting for a different programme from the English? Surely it is only the pressure of the national question in Scotland that has brought about this programmatic revision.

Alternatively the CPGB is not fighting for its own programme anywhere. But it is only in Scotland that this truth has been exposed. It would mean that the CPGB have abandoned republicanism in practice, in favour of what was called “serious rapprochement” with the programme of SML. The task of the CPGB is surely to win SML to its programme, not adopt theirs. Despite all their leftist phrases about a ‘socialist republic’, groups like SML, SWP and WP in practice adopt politics of Labourism and reforming the constitutional monarchy. Their politics is sub-republicanism.

The RDG and the CPGB have a republican minimum programme. The minimum programme is just that: a minimum. Nothing less than a republic is acceptable. This very basic point does not seem to have been grasped. It is as if the CPGB are saying we have a minimum programme, but we also have a sub-minimum programme. First, a reformed monarchy, a parliament with full powers. Then later a federal republic.

Labour’s Scottish Assembly is not a republic. We oppose it. SML’s (and WP’s) “parliament with full powers” is not a republic. We oppose it. Every revolutionary must oppose it, totally and absolutely without any compromise whatsoever. SML’s slogan is worse than Blair’s, because it is so dishonest. It is trying to deceive the Scottish working class. It is left Blairism. It leads to critical support for Blairism. The monarchist parliament “with full powers” is therefore one of the most foul and rotten pieces of stinking reformism to issue from the lips of so-called Marxists in recent years. SML is the main enemy of republicanism in the Scottish working class movement. They must be totally opposed and exposed.

Workers in Scotland should not only boycott Blair’s rigged referendum, but they should also boycott the CPGB’s “rigged” boycott campaign. This campaign seems to have been rigged up with left monarchist politics, for no other purpose than that of embarrassing the SML. The CPGB have to stop playing games with SML, and take up the fight to unite the working class of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the struggle for a federal republic and a united Ireland. They should use the opportunity of the referendum to organise a republican boycott campaign on a united front basis. The central aim is to place the republicanism onto the agenda of working class politics. Anything less than that is doing what is possible rather than what is necessary.