28.08.2002

Alternative nationalism

The Scottish Socialist Party national council met for the first time since the June special conference on Sunday July 25. The conference had agreed that the NC will take a bigger role in the decision-making process of the party. The main topic for discussion was the SSP election strategy for next year's Scottish parliamentary elections. Several amendments, mostly uncontentious, to Alan McCombes's document, 'The battle for Holyrood', had been received. All were accepted by comrade McCombes except for one, originating with the Socialist Worker platform, which was put forward by several branches. This called for the war on Iraq to be the central theme of our campaign. It was eventually withdrawn in favour of an executive alternative amendment which assured comrades that our opposition to any war against Iraq would be made clear in SSP election material. Clearly the executive would rather concentrate on the Scottish service tax and such like. As Alan McCombes put it, we should "go out and fight for what can be achieved in the Scottish parliament" - not very much then! Another interesting question concerned how we relate to left candidates outwith the SSP. The examples given were Denis Canavan, Margo MacDonald of the Scottish National Party and Dorothy Grace Elder, who left the SNP to stand as an independent. Comrade McCombes said that to stand against such people would be "cutting off our nose to spite our face". He dealt mainly with left independents, suggesting that we should ask them to commit themselves on certain key issues such as opposition to any war. If they agree, then we should not stand against them. Well, the method is there, but the political reasoning is not. Firstly such an approach should be aimed primarily at those working class people who vote for the Labour Party as a class-conscious act. If we are to break the working class from Labour, then we must have a theorised approach. We should be challenging leftwing Labour candidates to stand on key issues we put forward and if they agree support them. This would be a thorn in the side of the Blair government, because by making a swathe of Labour candidates our candidates a significant split could be provoked. This proposal is more a reflection of the political ground that the SSP leadership is trying to carve out for itself - a combination of SNP nationalism and something that is slightly left of old Labour. According to Allan Green, "We want to take votes from Labour and the SNP in equal numbers." Of course socialists should be trying to take working class votes from the SNP or any other nationalist organisation, but not on the basis of offering a different form of nationalism in the shape of an "independent socialist Scotland". We must fight to win the working class away from nationalism as an ideology altogether. The last point of interest over the election campaign is the executive's proposal to produce a four-page, full-colour broadsheet newspaper with articles about various aspects of party policy which can be delivered to a million households. Very ambitious and something that could certainly win us a lot of support. The only criticism of this came from rural branches who said they would not have the cadre to distribute the papers over large underpopulated areas. But, as Alan McCombes correctly pointed out, we would obviously concentrate on areas with a high density of population. Earlier the question of MSPs' wages had come up - the SSP has a policy that its representatives should only take the equivalent of the average wage of a skilled worker, but one branch had called for this to be quantified. Tommy Sheridan had therefore written to the Scottish parliament information centre, which provided figures for various groups - eg, "clerical and secretarial occupations" or "craft and related occupations" - but it did not have a figure for the average wage of a skilled worker as such. The executive proposed that a range of the categories be taken into account, which would produce £24,676. This was accepted by the NC. The whole debate started because apparently some comrades who had put themselves forward as candidates for the Scottish parliamentary poll suspected that if elected they would be taking a pay cut - which would cause problems for single parents, etc. But £24k is not an uncomfortable wage - especially, as comrades pointed out, when we are asking our full-timers to work for less than £500 a month. The SSP policy is aimed at being able to relate to the lifestyles of our working class constituency and also guards against our comrades who will be working for the party in a bourgeois environment being drawn into careerism and other such reactionary influences which they will encounter on a daily basis. If comrades do not believe they can live on the average wage of a skilled worker for whatever reason, then they should not stand for election. Following on from this came the financial report, which normally sees treasurer Allison Kane inform us that we do not have any money and everyone agrees that we need to do something about it. This time it involved a little bit more. When the Scottish comrades in the Socialist Workers Party joined the SSP last year, there was an agreement that the comrades in the SW platform would continue to pay their subs to the SWP centrally, and that these would then be passed on from London to Glasgow. The SWP agreed to pay a reduced figure of £500 a month, but this has not been paid for the last five months - leaving £2,500 that the SSP had budgeted for still owed by the SWP. Comrade Kane reported that she had been in touch with the SWP several times, but each time was fobbed off and on the last occasion was told that the discussion was now over. Understandably comrade Kane was perturbed. Comrades from the SW platform said they knew nothing about the situation and other members adopted a conciliatory attitude to what, if comrades were honest, is a very contentious issue. Comrade Sheridan asked SW comrades to put pressure on their organisation to pay off the agreed debt. Once this is done, a further approach to the SWP should be made with a view to arriving at a more appropriate amount. This was agreed by national council. There were various reports at the end of the meeting. There was a proposal that the SSP join the Scottish Democracy against the Euro campaign - an umbrella group which includes various anti-euro organisations: we were not told who, other than that the Tories and the far right would not be included. Those of us that argued at conference for an active boycott of the referendum as the only independent working class position were told that the SSP would be able to put forward its own distinctive arguments against the euro within the 'no' campaign. The fact that the NC voted overwhelmingly to join this group is rather an indication that our voice will be lost amidst those who do not base their opposition to the new currency on working class interests. Finally the national council reviewed plans for Socialism 2002, our forthcoming school. There are some interesting sessions proposed, such as 'The SSP and Socialist Alliance - different models of regroupment' , 'Labour and the unions' and 'Football - people's game or big business'. However, under the section entitled 'Events that shook the world' there are sessions on Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua and of course September 11, but noticeably missing is anything to do with Russia. Still, I am sure 'Why the Scots should rule Scotland' will make up for that. Sarah McDonald