05.06.2002

SSP counterblast

Over 200 people turned out at Glasgow Green for the republican, 'Citizens not subjects', garden party, organised by the Scottish Socialist Party as a counter-blast to the pomp of the official royal celebrations. In marked contrast to the economistic majority of the Socialist Alliance, the SSP does not dismiss the monarchy as "frippery" and worked hard to build the event. Gathered under a giant backdrop of Che Guevara, a reminder of the affection held for the 'Cuban road' among leading circles of the SSP, the crowd listened to speeches from Tommy Sheridan, writer James Kelman and Tom Leonard, a poet from Glasgow University. Comrade Kelman, winner of the Booker Prize in 1994, condemned the queen's jubilee tour of Scotland last week as "shameful". Comrade Sheridan remarked that the SSP was not campaigning against one individual: "It's the institution itself which we're standing up against." He pointed out correctly that the monarchy "symbolises that gross and obscene unequal division of wealth and power across the whole of our society". Even more important, though, is the fact that it is the lynchpin of the constitutional monarchy state itself - and of the system of capital in the United Kingdom. Indeed, as Gerry Cairns points out in the latest edition of the Scottish Socialist Voice, the monarchy plays a "key holding role for the British state and establishment" (May 31). The monarchy is at the apex of a constitution designed to frustrate the sovereignty of the people though a number of devices (the royal prerogative, privy council and an unelected House of Lords are just a few), so campaigning against it should be part of a challenge to the undemocratic way in which we are ruled. The SSP's republicanism is, unfortunately, filtered through a nationalist prism. Something that comrade Cairns confirms when he insists that the monarchy is an "embodiment of Britishness" - which, it goes without saying, is wholly reactionary. True, that applies to the official Britain headed by Elizabeth Windsor. But what about the other Britain - the unofficial, republican, Britain represented historically by the likes of the Chartists and the Diggers and, over the jubilee weekend, by those who attended republican events? This Britain is far from being reactionary. It is this Britain, armed with a programme of extreme democracy, that has the potential to sweep away the constitutional monarchy state . Mike Speed * Golden opportunity missed * Republican jubilee