It tells you something about the nature of mainstream politics in England that the last few days of domestic political news and comment have been dominated by the launch of UKIP's euro-election campaign. In England UKIP threaten the Tories from the right. But UKIP is a joke in Scotland. In fact the Scots have already dealt with the Tories for this generation. The Tories have been rolled back to fringe party status in Scotland - but from the left. Next September the Scots will take another step. They will decide whether or not to divide the British State. They are rather more interested in that. And so we all should be.
Naturally, debate about Scottish independence has favoured those considerations best designed to put both sides in the most practical and positive light possible. Although the debate in Scotland over independence is at a much higher level than those that surface in politics in England (witness the grotesque debates between Farage and Clegg over the EU compared with the recent Mitchell Library debate in Glasgow over independence - see UTube) the 'day to day' tends to triumph over the theoretical and bread and butter over grand ideas. All this is very much in the tradition of British, not to say Scottish political philosophy.
Another approach is rooted in a different tradition which argues that practical reality; the capacity to intervene in and to change the 'real', can only be accurately developed by coming to grips with the most profound abstractions. From this perspective summing up the political totality within which the question of Scottish independence lies, is an essential step towards the most effective 'concrete analysis of the concrete situation.'
Scotland is not a colonised nation. Self determination for oppressed nations, at its most general, implies the tasks of creation of independent political institutions, the removal of the grip of the Empire which dominates and in that violent breach with the Imperialist centres and system, the inevitable challenge to the capitalist system itself. This might be a long or a short road. History has decided that we cannot even predetermine the order of the emergence of these tasks, only that they all lie at some stage and in particular combinations in the path of every determined struggle for national self determination. Scotland on the other hand shares the legacy of Empire with the rest of Britain. All might agree that it is woefully politically unrepresented in Britain's political structures. But so is Northern England, and indeed the whole of the working class of Britain. And even the most traditional supporters of Scottish independence do not promote reactionary claims to common cultures and languages. What then is the nature of Scotland's claim to independence, and what are the tasks that flow out from this claim?
Scotland is not an oppressed nation in the traditional, early 20th century sense. But it is a self realised, and a self-defined national community, partly in opposition to Westminster's political dominance. Most significantly, it has the ability to express itself as a distinct political entity in a context where a monopoly of political power in Britain over two long periods and now including the worst crisis in the system since the 1930s, has been completely at odds with its own outlook.12 years of Thatcher, the Iraq and Afghan wars the economic crisis and then the Coalition, have delivered a grand consensus across the entire mainstream of British politics. There are many in Britain, perhaps a majority, who are exclude, betrayed, despoiled and stunned to silence by this monument to privilege and tradition. But it is the Scots who have created a clear exit sign from this baroque decay of politics in Britain. The fight is on to use it.
A definitive break from Westminster has to imply the break up of the British state. If you need to decide your own tax policy, your own foreign policy, your own welfare policy then you need your own state apparatus to implement those policies. Breaking the British state will be the most radical act in Britain since the creation of the Welfare State.
Where does this lead? If a new political formation, at both the level of the government and at the level of the state is required to break the Westminster consensus on austerity, war and welfare then we have a political revolution, peacefully implemented and installed but nevertheless a significant and serious overturning of the dominant sectors of the British ruling class in favour of a more radical faction whose intention is to make alliances and common cause with what it sees as the more progressive elements in European capital. Political revolution is relatively common currency in many European countries, eg., France with the fall of De Gaul, Spain and Portugal with the collapse of dictatorship and colonial empire, and it rolls on today through the ruling elite's faction wars across parts of eastern Europe. Some of these political revolutions witnessed mass mobilisations and popular uprisings. But whatever form these developments took dramatic changes in economics and in politics ensued. These moments became beginnings not ends.
The Scottish exit sign from Westminster dominance is not an exit sign from the social system that created and which still needs Westminster. The City of London needs Westminster. The City is 20% of the British economy. Westminster owns 83% of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Major political leaders in England have made clear their intention to seek vengeance against Scottish voters if they dare to vote for independence. The question becomes what will be needed to carry through an independent policy on war, on welfare, on tax? Scottish people fighting for independence will not be able to simply vote away the weight of the City on their part of Britain's economy, or the weight of NATO on foreign policy, or the weight of the Capital strike on welfare. They will need to fashion a new contract with Capital, new types of banks, new international alliances.
People in England and Wales will not sit around. They will take sides in this new struggle. They will look to see where they might find their own exit signs.
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