04.09.1997

Contradictory positions

John Stone of the Liaison Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International opposes the CPGB’s boycott call

In the debate between the SSA majority and minority over the question of the referendum, we want to argue against participation in Scotland Forward and for an independent Scottish republic, but also for a ‘yes’ vote in Wales and Scotland and against a boycott.

Gordon Morgan, from the Scottish Socialist Alliance, defended the Scottish Militant Labour line of a “socialist charter” aimed at the new Scottish parliament: “The SSA would call on all socialists MPs, whether Labour or SNP, to back their programme” (What Next? no4). In other words, their strategy is to convince parliamentarians from the reformist and bourgeois nationalist parties to adopt a “socialist” charter that could transform the capitalist parliament into a vehicle for the destruction of the ruling system and class and the implementation of socialism. This is repeating the mistake proposed by the Chilean left who created a ‘Peoples Unity’ front with with ‘socialist’ section of the radical bourgeoisie in an attempt to achieve socialism through legal and parliamentarian means.

For Morgan,

“Socialists should support independence in a hypothetical referendum. We should point out the limitations of separate development but also the resources at our disposal - with equal exchange Scotland has immense natural and technical resources. We would point out that these resources could only be brought to fully benefit the working class by confronting capital and this would require a workers’ government to take power.”

This shows an adaptation to the SNP propaganda. Salmond claims that Scotland has oil and immense natural resources and should not continue subsidising England. It occupies one third of British territory but has only one tenth of its population. If Scotland enjoyed all the revenues from its own resources it would have one of the best per capita incomes in the world. While England is in decline and has living standards even lower than Ireland, Scotland could be like a wealthier Scandinavian country.

The SNP is proposing the unity of all Scottish classes in a split with the English. Marxists, on the contrary, want to split the Scottish workers from their Scottish bosses and to unite them with the rest of the workers of Britain and the world. Revolutionaries should never play in the nationalist game, which creates illusions that social problems could be solved if ‘our’ country stopped subsidising others and became independent.

Scotland has a lot of resources, but we can say the same about the rest of Britain and other countries. It is only through the unity of the international proletariat and the expropriation of big business that these huge resources could be exploited for the benefit of the majority.

If we want workers to take control of Scottish resources, why should we adapt to Scottish bourgeois separatism, instead of advocating an all-British and international class unity against the capitalists?

Instead of adapting to bourgeois separatism, Marxists must unmask it.

SML employs a bad method on the national question. Its method is based on relating in a populist way to the prejudices of the workers. In Britain and Northern Ireland it adapts to anti-republican protestant unionism, and north of the border to Scottish separatism.

Despite our critical support for a ‘yes’ vote we are against making any broader front with the local bourgeoisie. Scotland Forward is a counterrevolutionary popular front set up by the Scottish TUC and Labour. It has the support of Tories and tartan businessmen with the aim of uniting all the classes north of the border. The aim of class conscious workers has to be to divide the workers from their bosses, and forge the unity of the proletariat against the capitalists.

Scottish bosses want more autonomy for their country to preserve the imperialist monarchy, while workers want to use the new concessions the better to fight for their own class demands. Workers’ organisations should campaign for a ‘yes’ vote in a separate and opposite way from the SNP, PC and the bourgeoisie. Our critical ‘yes’ must be united with demands for full democracy and self-determination, and for better wages, jobs for all, the defence of the welfare state, the expropriation of big business under workers’ control and for a workers’ revolution and republic.

The SSA minority linked to the Weekly Worker is correct in opposing such an inter-class unholy alliance. The fact that Blair’s devolution is a very limited way of achieving self-determination does not lead us to propose a boycott. The CPGB wrongly applies to Britain a tactic that revolutionaries advocate in a revolutionary crisis when the masses are mobilising every day.

In Scotland or Wales there is not even a pre-revolutionary situation. The British workers suffered a series of defeats during the 1980s and have not yet recovered from these retreats. There is no mood amongst the workers or students for direct action to violently stop the referendum. On the contrary, there is a strong feeling for autonomy, especially in Scotland.

The CPGB has a contradictory position. They have two different lines in Scotland and Wales. On the one hand the Weekly Worker places the question of a boycott for Scotland at the centre of its propaganda. On the other hand, there is no policy for Wales. Why does the CPGB not advocate a boycott in Wales? Because in that country such a tactic would have even less resonance.

 The best way to intersect with the national grievances of Scottish and Welsh workers and project their struggle towards revolution is to combine a working class independent campaign for a ‘yes’ vote with demands for the abolition of the capitalist monarchy and the house of lords, for better wages, jobs for all and for a socialist federation of Britain.