WeeklyWorker

12.06.1997

For an active boycott! For genuine self-determination!

Scottish Socialist Alliance faces key test – for self-determination or Blair’s sop referendum?

At the SSA conference in Glasgow on June 14, CPGB comrades will be fighting for a return to principle by the organisation. As well as an anti-imperialist position on Ireland (see ‘Amendment to the resolution on Ireland’ and Anne Murphy report below), we will be putting forward a resolution for self-determination deploring the SSA national council’s sellout to Scotland Forward. Also, an amendment to the Scottish self-government resolution will seek to replace the call - backed by SML - for a double ‘yes’ vote with a vociferous campaign “for an active boycott of the referendum ... This should incorporate a campaign for a sovereign Scottish parliament.”

The SSA was founded on a principled position on the national question in Scotland. Its founding statement calls for a sovereign Scottish parliament with full powers to determine its relationship to the rest of Britain and Europe. It is in the spirit of that founding statement that we raise the slogan for an active boycott of Labour’s referendum. By supporting a double ‘yes’ and signing up to Scotland Forward, SML and others are handing the SSA to the Labour government on a plate. 

Scotland Forward smacks of jingoistic popular frontism. It is an unholy alliance of the Labour government, big business, the Liberal Democrats, churches, and trade union bureaucrats. At their rally in Edinburgh the biggest cheer was reserved for Tories, who were warmly welcomed on board. To support this campaign is to line up with very large sections of the Scottish establishment. The SSA should have nothing to do with it.

The Campaign for Genuine Self-Determination fights for a parliament with real powers, on the following slogans:

It is open to all socialists and progressives who oppose Labour’s attempts to buy off the Scottish people. The aim is not to impose a blueprint onto the campaign. The struggle is for real self-determination - the people of Scotland must decide.

Self-determination - nothing less.

Resolution for self-determination

This conference deplores the majority decision of the SSA national council to advocate a ‘yes, yes’ vote in Blair’s referendum and participation in the jingoistic, cross-class collaboration of Scotland Forward. This represents a sellout of the SSA’s principled founding aim and object - for a parliament with full powers to establish Scotland’s relationship with England and Wales.

Blair’s proposals do not represent a partial achievement of this minimum demand: they are an alternative to it, designed to buy off the democratic aspirations of the Scottish people.

This conference reaffirms that the SSA will fight for self-determination for Scotland, nothing less. Any attempt by the Westminster government to buy off this demand with a rigged referendum should be met with an active boycott.

Amendment to the resolution on Ireland

After “As with Scotland, the Alliance supports the right of the people of Ireland to national self-determination”, delete all and insert the following:

Ireland is Britain’s oldest colony. In 1921 the Irish nation was divided. A sectarian Six County statelet was created in order to permanently divide the Irish working class and perpetuate British imperialist domination over the whole island of Ireland.

The people of Britain have paid dearly for this - the methods used to crush and terrorise Irish republicans have come home in the form of censorship, the Prevention of Terrorism Act and paramilitary police units. As well as supporting Ireland’s right to self-determination and reunification, socialists should support those fighting to win that right.

The SSA demands: