04.09.1997

Confusion and disarray

Around the left

At long last the sun-tanned revolutionary left has returned from its annual summer recess. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with the sand still in their feet, the left is confronted by the imminent Welsh and Scottish referendums. This has forced most left groups to tackle the thorny national question and go into print.

There is great confusion about this issue amongst the left. Unfortunately developing a Leninist understanding of the national question seems beyond them. There again, we should be grateful they have not suspended political campaigning as a “mark of respect” for Diana Windsor, as the bourgeois parties are claiming to do.

Comrade Philip Stott of Scottish Militant Labour at least has the merit of being consistent - well, relatively - in his nationalism. Discussing Blair’s sop Scottish parliament in Socialism Today (the publication of SML’s sister organisation, the Socialist Party), he cheerfully states: “There will be no limit to the parliament’s freedom to evolve towards independence if the majority want it” (September). Is a mass move “towards independence” a good thing, comrade?

Apparently, yes. With a distinctly ‘Braveheartian’ pulse, the comrade continues: “In reality, a double ‘yes’ vote would usher in an entirely new situation for Scotland. After 300 years of centralised Westminister rule, the establishment of a Scottish parliament would have a powerful psychological impact.” Comrade Stott stresses how keen SML is to “secure the maximum ‘yes’ vote” - just like Tony Blair and Donald Dewar in fact. SML really has become Blair’s left nationalist foot soldiers.

At the same time, naturally, comrade Stott sows reformist illusions as vigorously as he sows nationalist ones. Peering into his rose-tinted crystal ball, he excitedly informs us that the white paper

“leaves open the possibility of far-reaching powers being wrested from Westminister in the future ... Inevitably these devolution proposals will in the long term spark movements for more decisive control to be exercised by a sovereign Scottish parliament” (my emphasis).

The schema outlined by the comrade is all part and parcel of its national socialist vision. The Scottish road to socialism is possible, even if the British one is not. Hence, “What is really needed is a Scottish parliament to have the powers to control all revenues raised in Scotland, including income tax, VAT, corporation tax and North Sea oil revenues from Scottish waters.”

Ironically, comrade Stott looks forward to seeing an “aroused and expectant working class” in Scotland, with Blair’s sop parliament acting as the catalyst. By playing into Blair’s hands, SML has hardly helped to ferment this (hypothetical) militancy.

As ever, for pure - if not pristine - confusion and vacillation read Workers Power - which ends up being tied up in knots by its own dogma. It boldly affirms: “While Workers Power campaigns for a double ‘yes’ vote in the referendum we also fight for a complete rejection of the white paper and for an assembly with sovereign powers.” Hang on, WP comrades. You want to vote for Blair’s sop parliament and you want a “complete rejection of the white paper” (September). Talk about having your cake and eating it.

Workers Power goes on to demand: “Revolutionaries support the right to self-determination in Scotland up to and including separation. At present the Scottish people do not want separation; they want an assembly. It is up to the Scottish people themselves to decide what powers their parliament should have, not Blair in Westminister” - so vote ‘yes, yes’ on September 11, says WP.

Bizarrely, WP goes on to sum up succintly why not to vote for the WP-backed Scottish parliament: “A shackled Scottish parliament which proves powerless ... will play into the hands of the nationalists.” It might even be “just as likely that a new Labour-dominated Scottish parliament will indeed take the sting out of the democracy question in Scotland”.

With an impatient, dilettante air though, WP waves aside its own arguments, and casually declares that “the real battle begins after the referendum”. So that makes it OK to abandon the “democracy question in Scotland”, then - the referendum does not really matter much anyway. As we know, for WP the “key” task is to “build effective opposition” to councils cuts.

Funnily enough, when it comes to Wales, WP collapses into rank economism: “Workers Power has been arguing against a Welsh assembly. It is clearly a diversion from the real problems facing working people here. These are the same problems that face workers in England and Scotland.” If Scottish workers face the “same problems” as Welsh workers, then why does WP advocate a ‘yes’ vote in Scotland but not in Wales?

Answer: because WP believes in politics by opinion poll. “Unlike Scotland the only clear expression of Welsh opinion, 1979, voted overwhelmingly against”, is the only answer it can come out with.

For straightforward leftist stupidity, try International Worker, paper of the Socialist Equality Party. The SEP “calls on all workers and young people to oppose the Labour government’s plans for devolution in Scotland and Wales and vote ‘no’ in the referendums on September 11 and 18” (August 16). Why should “workers and young people” vote for the status quo and the current constitutional monarchical arrangement? Because, SEP informs us, “the working class must advance its own socialist solution to resolve the social crisis facing working people throughout Britain”.

Oddly, it goes on to say that this so-called socialist solution “can only be fought for in opposition to the reactionary programmes of both the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ factions within the ruling class” - and don’t forget to vote ‘no’ on September 11, by the way.

Amusingly, International Worker complains how the “official ‘no’ campaign is led by the Tory party and multi-millionaires such as Julian Hodge”. The SEP is part of the unofficial ‘no’ campaign, it seems. But whatever the exact doctrinal excuse is, on September 11 there is no getting round the fact that the SEP will be forming a de facto ‘united front’ with Julian Hodge, Tam Dalyell and William Hague.

Pathetically, almost sadly, the SEP actually believes that a ‘no’ vote will “give voice to the opposition of advanced workers and youth to nationalism and all measures aimed at dividing them against one another”. In reality, of course, it does quite the opposite. The SEP’s leftism is gift to the forces of nationalism and separatism.

Still, we should not be surprised by the SEP’s support for the unionist status quo. It believes that the “national question in Britain was resolved long ago” and argues, like any good imperialist economist, that the “the demand for ‘self-determination’ in an imperialist nation such as Britain never had a progressive content. Even if there were a legitimate national question, moreover, the entire perspective today has been robbed of any historical viability by the development of globalised production.” The dogma of productivism replaces the science of Marxism.

It is worth noting that the SEP has to retreat into fantasy land to back up its leftist opportunism. Wedded to its textbooks, it can see “no evidence of mass support for either devolution or national separation”.

Interestingly, this is a view shared by the Socialist Workers Party. Socialist Worker states: “The Scottish referendum on devolution now looks unlikely to be the walkover it was once predicted to be”; it “could be a close result in the referendums on devolution in Scotland and Wales” (August 30).

Ifthe SWP really believes that the vote on September 11 is going to be “close” it just shows how disconnected it is from reality. More likely, this what the SWP hopes will be the case. Like the SEP, it has always preferred its feel-good, economistic abstractions to the harsh, unyielding complexities of real-life politics.

Don Preston