Scotland’s referendum on independence
The direct interference of Britain’s Tory prime
minister, David Cameron, into plans for an independence referendum in
Scotland, sparked anger and outrage. It was seen as an arrogant attempt
to dictate policy – and rekindled painful memories of the savage
anti-working class policies of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. The
tactic immediately backfired, however, with polls showing increased
support for independence or enhanced devolution. PHILIP STOTT assesses
the situation.
ONE THING IS clear following the blundering,
bullying intervention of David Cameron into the Scottish independence
referendum debate: support for independence and the Scottish National
Party (SNP) has increased markedly. The other certainty is that, despite
the Con-Dem’s earlier demands for a referendum "sooner rather than
later", the vote will take place in the autumn of 2014. For the first
time since the partition of Ireland and the formation of the southern
Irish ‘Free State’ in 1921, the British establishment is facing the
possibility of the secession of a nation from the UK.
Cameron’s attempts to control the timing, wording
and running of the referendum have created a huge backlash in Scotland.
It also earned him the displeasure of the majority of the capitalist
press who fear for the future of the union. The Daily Mail displayed
"deep reservations about Mr Cameron’s threat to impose conditions on the
format and timing of an independence referendum" (10 January). "The more
Mr Cameron tells the Scots what they can do, the easier it is for [SNP
leader] Mr Salmond to make the case for independence", warned Philip
Stephens in the Financial Times (11 January).
Apart from Cameron’s colonial-type arrogance, the
major resurgence of the national question in Scotland is due to a number
of factors. A severe economic crisis, savage cuts in public spending,
huge alienation by the mass of the people from the political elite,
allied to the semi-radical populism of the SNP, have all led to this
unprecedented conjuncture for the British ruling class.
The possibility of a majority vote for Scottish
independence is a nightmare scenario for British capitalism. It would
represent a major blow to the international prestige of a power with
pretensions of still being a world player. But it would also inflame the
national question in Wales, deepen sectarian division in Northern
Ireland and, potentially, strengthen English nationalism. For these and
wider economic reasons it will campaign ferociously for a defeat of the
independence referendum. Cameron’s attempt to force an early vote was
driven by the calculation that it would maximise the chances of
defeating the SNP, rather than allowing a long drawn out campaign until
late 2014.
The increasing centrifugal forces tending towards
pulling apart the United Kingdom are rooted in the inability of a
crisis-ridden capitalism to offer any viable alternative for the
majority of the working class. This is an international phenomenon, with
the national question sharpening in Spain, Belgium and Italy among
others in the last period.
Public support in Scotland for independence is still
a minority, albeit a bigger minority than it was before Cameron’s crass
intervention. A plethora of polling evidence shows that backing for an
independent Scotland has risen to around 40%, with one or two showing
support for independence as a majority.
Analysis of these polls also indicates a marked
differentiation in support for independence based on class and age.
Ipsos/Mori for example, on 30 January, found that support for
independence was 39% in Scotland as a whole. However, among 18- to
24-year-olds this rose to 45%. Among those from ‘deprived backgrounds’,
58% backed independence, as opposed to 27% for those from ‘affluent
backgrounds’. This underlines the Socialist Party’s understanding that,
for a significant section of the working class, independence is linked
to the searching for a way out of poverty, mass unemployment and savage
cuts.
The SNP’s rise
THE ACCUSATION BY SNP leader, Alex Salmond, that
Cameron was ‘Thatcheresque’ and ‘dictatorial’ in the way he has
attempted to control the referendum resonated with many in Scotland –
indicated by the 10% rise in support for independence within a week. The
SNP is polling around 50% in voting intentions, with Salmond miles ahead
of the other party leaders in terms of public standing. His public
‘satisfaction’ ratings at 58% are significant. Moreover, he is the only
party leader with a positive score when ‘dissatisfied’ is subtracted
from ‘satisfied’ (+22%). In contrast, Cameron languishes at -28%. So
many people failed to recognise the Scottish leaders of Labour, the Lib
Dems and the Tories that they were excluded from a recent poll.
Salmond, a skilful populist, is widely perceived as
the outstanding capitalist politician in the UK: "a shark swimming in a
sea of minnows", according to the Financial Times. The important caveat
is the array of nonentities he is up against – as the 15th
century philosopher Desiderius Erasmus put it: "in the land of the blind
the one-eyed man is king". Nevertheless, given the semi-collapse of
Labour and the outright hostility to the Tories, which boasts fewer MPs
in Scotland than there are Giant Pandas in Edinburgh zoo (there are two
of those), the British bourgeois face significant difficulties in
finding suitable authoritative candidates to lead an anti-independence
campaign in the run-up to 2014.
The outcome of the 2011 Scottish elections saw the
SNP win an unprecedented overall majority, supposedly impossible given
the mixed-member electoral system introduced for the Scottish
parliament. Labour, traditionally the largest party in Scotland since
the 1950s, was humiliated in its traditional working-class heartlands,
polling less than a third of the Scottish vote. The SNP won a majority
of the seats in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and across the central belt of
Scotland. Since then, support for Labour has haemorrhaged and currently
stands at 23%. The May council elections are likely to see the SNP
capture the Labour citadel of Glasgow. It is increasingly unlikely now
that Labour can recover its position in Scotland.
Setting out to disprove the saying that ‘two Eds are
better than one’, Balls and Miliband made the catastrophic announcement
that Labour would not promise to reverse any of the Con-Dem cuts if it
returns to power. No less a calamity for Labour in Scotland was the
pledge of its new leader, Johann Lamont, to share a platform with
Cameron as part of the anti-independence campaign.
The rise of the SNP is in part due to the fact that
it has partially filled the space to the left of the main establishment
parties. There is a vacuum that needs to be filled by a genuine mass
party of the working class with a fighting anti-capitalist and socialist
programme.
Two sides of the SNP
BETWEEN 2007 AND 2011 the SNP carried through some
relatively progressive policies. The abolition of tuition fees in
Scotland was popular - now partially reversed by allowing the charging
of massive fees for students studying in Scotland from the rest of the
UK. As was the scrapping of prescription charges and the reversal of the
previous Labour/Lib-Dem coalition plans to shut A&E units in a number of
hospitals.
The SNP has shunned the market-driven madness of the
Con-Dems in relation to the health service and education. It has come
out against the savage Welfare Reform Bill, using these attacks to
justify independence.
However, the SNP leadership has implemented, to the
penny, the public-spending cuts passed on from Westminster – all £3.3
billion of them. This has included pension contributions increases for
civil servants, teachers, fire-fighters and NHS workers in Scotland. SNP
ministers, including John Swinney, SNP finance secretary, and Salmond,
made a point of crossing the PCS picket lines on 30 November. Swinney
claimed it was his "duty as a government minister" to break the strike.
The SNP regularly displays two faces. On the one
hand, a radical populism aimed at the working class. On the other, a
determination to make cuts and prove itself as a safe pair of hands for
capitalist interests. Its economic models for a capitalist independent
Scotland were Ireland and Iceland, which have collapsed. Now there is
more emphasis on the ‘Scandinavian model’ of Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
However, mass privatisation and deep social cuts are being implemented
in Sweden and Denmark.
The absence of a mass workers’ party in Scotland has
contributed to the SNP getting a ‘free run’ for its mainly phoney
radicalism.
A multi-option referendum?
THE SNP GOVERNMENT has, as of the end of January,
published its proposals for an independence referendum in 2014. It has
also made clear its preference for an option of ‘devolution max’, or
enhanced devolution, to be included on the referendum ballot. And it has
asked the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), and other organisations
dubbed ‘civic Scotland’, to formulate a third option during the
consultation period that runs until the middle of May.
A multi-option referendum would suit the SNP
leadership. It believes that, even if independence was defeated, the
current majority public support for ‘devo-max’, involving a major
extension of powers over tax, benefits, the minimum wage, etc, would see
it in a win-win situation.
Devolution max is a safety net for the SNP, which it
would claim as another step towards independence at a future stage.
Ironically, despite Cameron, Miliband and their Scottish equivalents’
insistence on a single question – for or against independence – a
multi-option referendum could also be beneficial for the British ruling
class under certain circumstances. If the run-up to 2014 saw a
significant rise in support for independence the ruling class could be
forced to back a third option to act as a lightning conductor, in an
effort to avoid a majority for independence.
The Socialist Party Scotland fully supports a
multi-option referendum and will oppose any attempts by Cameron and
company to undemocratically block a devo-max option being put forward.
We will campaign for an independent socialist Scotland and for a
parliament with full powers that could be used in the interests of the
working class.
The SNP leadership, pro-capitalist to the core, has
long accepted a ‘gradualist’ path to independence. It would happily
settle for an accommodation with the British capitalists for a form of
extreme autonomy, within a newly designed federal UK state. In many
ways, the SNP proposals for independence are a form of maximum
devolution in themselves.
A safe haven for big business
"WE WILL SHARE a currency, we will share a monarch,
we will have a social union", Salmond said on 22 January, making it
clear that an independent Scotland would maintain the queen as head of
state, and sterling as the Scottish currency, with monetary policy run
by the Bank of England.
The previous SNP policy, to hold a referendum on
joining the crisis-ridden euro, has been blown out of the water by the
European crisis. "I can’t foresee a set of circumstances that will see
the economic conditions being correct for the euro for some considerable
time", said Swinney. (8 February)
Fiscal independence, with all tax and spending
decisions taken by the Scottish government, including over welfare
benefits, pensions, etc, is the aim of the SNP. But the SNP’s vision of
an independent Scotland would also be as a safe haven for big business.
Salmond wants to use powers over corporation tax to reduce the ‘burden’
on big business and encourage a low-tax enclave for inward investment.
It would be one where the interests of the rich and powerful would
predominate over those of low-paid workers, the unemployed and
pensioners.
As Swinney commented in a recent interview: "Whoever
you are – Greece, Germany or an independent Scotland – you must have
fiscal discipline". In other words, cuts and austerity would continue to
be dictated by the banks, bondholders, and the policies of the Bank of
England and EU institutions. Swinney has said that Scotland would have
to demonstrate its creditworthiness to prove its AAA status to the
rating agencies – which would demand savage cuts to public spending as a
result of any downgrade.
Whose Scotland?
AGAINST THE BACKDROP of an unprecedented economic
crisis, which is likely to last for many years, it is clear that the SNP
would carry out the dictates of the market. In the firing line would not
be the bankers, oil companies and big business, but the wages, pensions,
jobs and public services of the working class.
The SNP referendum document was dubbed ‘Our
Scotland’, and yet the nationalists cannot have it both ways. They
either stand up for the interests of the majority of the people, made up
overwhelmingly of the working class alongside the increasingly insecure
middle class, or they back the interests of a system intent on making us
pay for a crisis created by the bankers and billionaires.
There is a gaping chasm that separates ex-sir Fred
Goodwin, Sir Tom Farmer, Sir Tom Hunter and the rest of the Scottish
elite, and the lives of working-class families across Scotland.
Unfortunately, Salmond has shown whom he prefers by cosying up to
Goodwin, Rupert Murdoch and their ilk, while imposing wage freezes and
attacks on the pensions of public-sector workers.
"We will provide a secure, stable and inclusive
society. And by doing so we will encourage talent and ambition. Doing
this has required some difficult decisions – such as major efficiency
savings and a freeze in public-sector pay. But those are easier to
implement if your policies clearly have fairness at their heart". (SNP
statement, www.snp.org)
What is fair about cutting the wages of low-paid
workers while wining and dining the bankers who precipitated the crisis
in the first place? How do you "encourage talent and ambition" by axing
thousands of college places for young people and carrying out billions
of pounds of Con-Dem cuts as the SNP government has done?
Shifts in consciousness
THE SOCIALIST PARTY (previously Militant) has
consistently defended the right of the people of Scotland to decide
their own relationship with the rest of Britain, up to and including the
right to form an independent state. During the 1979 devolution
referendum, Militant campaigned for a ‘yes’ vote. It was clear that
significant layers of the working class supported devolution as a
democratic advance. This in turn was bound up with an outlook that more
devolved power for Scotland could assist in the struggle to change the
lives of working-class people.
The genuine method of Marxism has always been to
defend the right of nations to self-determination – which does not mean
advocating separation in every circumstance. In 1979, support for
Scottish independence was no more than 7% – it would have been wrong for
Marxists to have advocated independence. We linked the struggle for the
democratic rights of the Scottish people to the need for socialism. In
1979, this was summed up in our slogan: For a socialist Britain with
autonomy for Scotland.
The 1997 devolution referendum took place in the
wake of the experience of Thatcherism: the poll tax and mass
de-industrialisation in Scotland. As a result, there had been a
qualitative strengthening of Scottish national consciousness. The slogan
of a socialist Britain with autonomy for Scotland had long been
insufficient to take account of the changing outlook of the majority of
the working class. Therefore, the demand for a socialist Scotland as
part of a voluntary socialist federation with England, Wales and Ireland
was necessary to reach workers and young people at that stage.
We did not simply call for a ‘yes’ vote for
devolution. We also explained the limits of the powers of the
parliament. We stood for a parliament with real powers over the economy,
the powers to nationalise big business and implement socialist measures
in the interests of the working class. Linked to this was the need to
fight for a socialist majority inside the parliament and to build mass
opposition to capitalist policies in society as a whole.
By the late 1990s, independence for Scotland had the
support of around 30-40% - in late 1998, one poll showed 50%. In
particular, a majority of the youth and a significant section of the
working class supported independence. For many, this was intimately
linked to finding a solution to poverty and the inequalities under
capitalism. In other words, it was a class outlook wrapped up in a
national consciousness. To turn our backs on this mood would have led to
the danger of cutting ourselves off from key sections of the working
class who could be won to socialist ideas.
To take account of this change in consciousness, in
1998, Scottish Militant Labour, the then Scottish section of the CWI,
updated our programme on the national question. With the support of the
CWI internationally we put forward the slogan of an independent
socialist Scotland as part of a voluntary and democratic socialist
confederation with England, Wales and Ireland. This change was a
reflection of a hardening of the mood and an anticipation of future
developments.
In the first period after the setting up of the
Scottish parliament in 1999 there was a falling back in support for
independence as wider class issues came to the fore. The initial
electoral success of the Scottish Socialist Party between 1999 and 2003
was a reflection of this and the SNP were pushed back.
The 2014 referendum
AS WE APPROACH the 2014 referendum what should the
approach of socialists be? The political establishment, with the backing
of the overwhelming majority of the capitalist class, will ferociously
oppose the breakup of the UK. This campaign can have an effect on layers
of the working class fearful that an independent Scotland would be in an
even worse economic position outside of the UK. For example, in the
initial phase of the banking crisis in 2008/09, support for independence
fell in Scotland as major Scottish banks had to be nationalised by the
then New Labour government. The instinctive opposition among many
workers to the dangers of deepening national divisions emerging among
the working class can also be a factor in cutting across support for
independence.
By 2014, the economic and social crisis will have
deteriorated even further. Years of cuts, recession and mass
unemployment can lead many to draw the conclusion that independence can
offer a route out of the prison of austerity. The SNP will lose no
opportunity in arguing that only with the powers of independence can the
cuts agenda be at least slowed down.
It is still most likely at this stage that, if a
multi-option referendum were held, the devo-max option would command
majority support, perhaps with a significant minority vote for
independence. In approaching workers and young people, socialists will
need to take account of the different outlooks among the working class.
What is clear is that the mood for a significant strengthening of powers
for Scotland, either devo-max or outright independence, form the
overwhelming majority opinion in Scotland.
If the referendum were a straight yes or no to the
SNP’s independence proposal, it would be correct for the Socialist Party
Scotland to advocate a ‘yes’ vote for independence. However, while being
sympathetic to workers and young people who support independence, we
will campaign to expose the SNP’s pro-big business agenda. An
independent Scotland locked into a nightmare of cuts and austerity,
inevitable on the basis of capitalism, would not be ‘secure’, ‘stable’
or ‘inclusive’. An independent socialist Scotland linked to the struggle
for socialism internationally would be the only long-term viable future.
Even in a multi-option referendum, depending on the
proposals on offer, we could support both maximum devolution and
independence as legitimate expressions of the desire for a parliament
with real powers to tackle austerity and the cuts agenda.
We would demand that the powers of devo max or
independence were used for the interests of the majority. For a start,
bringing the oil resources of the North Sea into democratic public
ownership. This would create a real ‘oil fund’ by releasing hundreds of
billions in resources to invest in an emergency programme of job
creation, as well as increasing the minimum wage, improving schools and
public services.
The SNP’s timid proposals for independence would
leave multi-national oil companies with over 70% of the revenue from the
North Sea, salted away for private profit. The SNP leadership would
scream the house down if even a penny of tax increases were threatened
on the oil companies’ profits.
Socialist demands
SOCIALISTS STAND FOR all major industry, including
large-scale renewable energy projects, and finance to be publicly owned
under the democratic control of the working class and society as a
whole. The ruinous policies of privatisation, which drain millions from
public services, should also be ended.
We campaign for the minimum wage to be a living
wage, not a guarantee of being locked into poverty pay. All anti-union
legislation should be abolished. It is being increasingly used against
workers taking action to defend themselves against the onslaught on
their pensions, jobs and working conditions. We would ensure free
education and a living grant for young people and all those studying at
college or university - not a life of debt. Everyone should have a
living income to end the scandal of poverty and welfare cuts. In short,
we stand for a socialist Scotland as the only sustainable answer to the
nightmare of cuts and austerity.
In the debate over the future of Scotland, we will
fight for the interests of the working class, young people and the
elderly to be heard centre-stage. We call on the trade union movement to
help build a campaign, independent of the establishment parties, to
fight for the necessary powers for the Scottish parliament, up to and
including independence, and for those to be used in the interests of the
working class.
However, with the SNP and the rest of the political
establishment committed to defending the interests of capitalism, we
also need to build a new mass party of the working class to fight for a
socialist majority in the parliament.
Central to this is the need to stand implacably for
the maximum unity of the working class across Scotland, England, Wales
and Ireland. We oppose any attempts to divide the workers’ movement on
national lines. A socialist Scotland as part of a genuine, voluntary and
democratic socialist federation with England Wales and Ireland – and as
a step towards a socialist Europe – is the only way to end the nightmare
of austerity, cuts and capitalism once and for all.
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