09.05.2007

Nationalism sinks left

Last week's Holyrood election results were a disaster for what passes for the left in Scotland. Both the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity failed dramatically. Jim Moody reports

Back in 2003, the united Scottish Socialist Party received a total of 128,026 votes on the regional lists, representing 7.68% of the votes cast across Scotland, and gained six members of the Scottish parliament (MSPs). Rosie Kane and Tommy Sheridan were elected as two of the seven 'additional members' for the Glasgow region, as were Frances Curran (West of Scotland), Carolyn Leckie (Central Scotland), Colin Fox (Lothians) and Rosemary Byrne (South of Scotland).

At the Holyrood elections this time, the same political forces were split between the rump of the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity, which was led out of the SSP by Tommy Sheridan following his defamation victory against the News of the World - readers will no doubt recall that the split resulted from bitterly opposed attitudes to the handling of the court case, not from any programmatic disagreement.

Unsurprisingly, the effect on the electoral performance of the two has been disastrous. In total, last week the SSP received 12,831 votes across Scotland, representing 0.66% of those voting. Solidarity did comparatively better, receiving 31,066 votes (1.62%). But combining the two parties' results shows that only 43,737 voters (2.28%) supported them this time, a two-thirds drop since 2003. All the MSPs who had been elected in 2003 under the SSP banner lost their seats.

The shock of defeat seems to have frozen the SSP's website: earlier this week it was still proudly listing its four MSPs (Caroline Leckie, Rosie Kane, Colin Fox and Frances Curran). The most recent elections covered were those of the European Union in 2004.

A cult of the personality persists in Solidarity. Apart from the South of Scotland region, where Rosemary Byrne as a sitting MSP was also important, Tommy Sheridan's name appeared on the ballot next to that of Solidarity. Alan McCombes objects, but this was exactly the practice in the SSP too. Sheridan's name was bracketed alongside the party's on the ballot paper. Certainly the continuation of this personality cult must have been a big factor in Solidarity's better showing than the SSP.

Ironically, Arthur Scargill's own vanity project, the Socialist Labour Party, managed to rack up more votes than the SSP in all but two of the Scottish regions. The SLP is to all intents and purposes without members in Scotland, yet it managed to get 13,445 votes.

The SSP stressed the question of independence. However, on that basis, not surprisingly voters decided to vote for the real thing, the nationalists of the Scottish National Party. If the key to progress in Scotland is independence, then it is perfectly logical to vote for the party that is most likely to deliver it.

Both the SSP and Solidarity tried to be more nationalist than the SNP nationalists in this election. For example, Sheridan insisted that Solidarity would hold a referendum on independence almost immediately, whereas Alex Salmond committed his party to a referendum at the end of the SNP first term.

Revolutionaries and socialists in the rest of the UK have watched the developments in Scotland with markedly differing reactions. Some have insisted - until the split -  that the SSP was the template to follow. But, despite its relatively healthy internal regime, the rottenness of the SSP's politics has come home to roost. Nationalism leads the left nowhere except disaster.

Speaking to this paper, Solidarity spokesperson Hugh Kerr could not deny the poor result. But, surely kidding himself, he insisted that "It was not the split that did the damage." Instead, he clutches at the 150,000 votes "lost because of this stupid ballot paper". Apparently the government brought it in "to maximise the Labour vote". Nevertheless, comrade Kerr admits that Solidarity, like the Greens, was "squeezed by the big parties", since generally the election was "seen as a battle between the SNP and Labour". He argues that the left "would have suffered even with a united party".

There is a silver lining. Kerr stresses that Solidarity is "the biggest party of the left in Scotland" and he was "sure that Tommy will get back" before long. He indicated that there was very little chance that Solidarity would be working with the SSP in the near future, however.

But Solidarity is extraordinarily fragile, based as it is on three incompatible elements. Sheridan's Bonapartism, the Committee for a Workers' International and the Socialist Workers Party. The more success the SWP has with Respect in England, the more it will press for Solidarity to follow the same popular frontist agenda in Scotland. Sooner or later there will be splits.

Alan McCombes also manages to find reasons to be cheerful amidst the wreckage. Labour's "monolithic stranglehold" has been ended and the SNP has emerged as the "biggest party in Scotland". For McCombes this is "likely to open up a new, turbulent phase in Scottish politics, a time of strife, which could accelerate the ultimate break-up of the United Kingdom and pave the way for the resurgence of socialism" (post-election statement). As if Balkanisation and national strife offers anything positive for the working class.

McCombes is right on one thing though. He pours scorn on Solidarity for the claim that Sheridan lost his seat because of the 150,000 spoilt ballot papers. While it is true that they represent 4% of the votes, it hardly follows that this benefited or disadvantaged any particular party. Why would Solidarity have been any worse affected than Labour, the Lib Dems or SNP? Only with a detailed analysis of the ballot will it be possible to accurately say - and that is a demand we support.

Left nationalism, whether or not an independent socialist Scotland is demanded, is retrograde and reactionary. It is without doubt a call to split the working class and thus weaken our potential. The UK state and the system of capital it defends must face a united working class.

If Salmond forms a minority government in Holyrood, that can only increase the pressure on McCombes and co to go the whole hog and not only advocate a vote for the SNP, but forsake the SSP and opt for a ruling party which promises to usher in national turbulence, strife and "accelerate the ultimate break-up of the United Kingdom". And Salmond, if he becomes first minister, will have all manner of inducements, perks and patronage within his power.

Some comrades in Scotland have made the call for "open and honest discussions of what went wrong and caused the split". Laudable and necessary though this is, they need to go further, and organise a serious movement of opposition against the thoroughly rotten and anti-working class ideas of left nationalism that have polluted Scottish politics for too long.