A second referendum for Scottish independence is looming. It could start in a practical shape on Thursday 6 May. The May elections in Scotland will determine whether or not the SNP wins a majority in the Scottish Parliament. The SNP's leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has insisted that she would set up a new referendum for Scottish Independence immediately should the SNP succeed in achieving a majority.
This blog, and previous activists across the whole UK, that went on to associate with this blog, have argued for the right of independence for Scotland since the Thatcher years onwards. At the most basic UK level, Scottish independence would mean the start of the break-up of the UK. It would finally dump 'Great Britain's' historical, imperial-based ambitions and instead create the opening of new set of radical countries close to Scandinavia. It would deliver a gift, led by Scotland's working class and its youth, into a new direction for these currently benighted islands at the edge of Europe.
The complexities, including Boris's' intentions if the SNP do win their majority in May, are serious and manifold. But before that stage starts, two serious obstacles are already emerging rapidly over the horizon. The first, and by far the most immediate danger for the May elections, is the role that Alex Salmond has chosen.
Salmond, as all know, was the SNP's leader before Sturgeon who broke the lock of the Scottish Labour Party over the West of Scotland and won the main part of Scotland's working class voters. Salmond resigned when the first Scottish independence referendum produced a majority against independence in 2014. He was subsequently acquitted from rape and other related charges after a trial in 2020.
The Scottish government eventually admitted it had botched its own investigation and after the trial it had to pay Salmond's legal fees of £520,000 when it admitted it had acted unlawfully. Earlier, before the trial, Salmond had complained that Sturgeon asked for new government policies on sexual harassment to be put in place in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Salmond believed the policy was aimed at him. Salmond and his supporters also claimed that Sturgeon has misled parliament over the government inquiry into the allegations. They have accused officials close to her of conspiring against Salmond. The government inquiry, majority SNP, is now generally described as a farce.
The most recent poll, undertaken by Savanta ComRes by the newspaper 'The Scotsman', interviewed 1,002 adults aged 16 or over online between February 4 and 9. Support for independence has dropped below 50 per cent when 'don’t knows' are included for the first time since December, with 47 per cent of Scots intending to vote Yes, 42 per cent voting No, and 10 per cent undecided. This is the first serious shift against the vote for independence for months.
Salmond and his coteries have put their factional campaign against Sturgeon above the momentous fight to come, the requirement to win an SNP majority in May; a sign, if nothing else, that the Scots want to go for a second referendum. The SNP is by no means a radical left party. It will, in due course fall away or be defeated in the context of a serious change in society, economy and politics. But in the next few months it is the one and only mass platform for working class people, the youth and their allies to take the first step towards radical change. Salmond supporters suggest that Salmond is tougher than Surgeon. But we can only see who really does what - if and only if - there is a May SNP majority. Salmon, with his £ half a million, is only poison in the here and now.
Much less immediately disturbing, but a longer-term mistake, printed on the 1st of February, is an article written in the 'The Nation', a new and fascinating newspaper supporting independence in Scotland. A columnist, George Kerevan, writes an article with the title 'Here is a primary reason we need independence - and need is now.'
The article starts with the question 'Is Scotland a colony?' Tom Arthur, an SNP MSP took exception to protesters that dubbed a Scottish Office called Queen Elizabeth's House a colonial outpost. He argued that Scotland was not a colony. Social media called him a 'quisling.' Kerevan objected to the term but turned to the 'vexed issue of whether or not Scotland is a colony.'
He starts with the 1707 union with England and adds that the union was 'only at the behest of its ruling aristocratic elite and not the general populace..' Kerevan knows that the formation of nations in general was a process in that period associated with the rise of mercantile capitalism and that it was inevitably and entirely in the hands of the ruling classes - everywhere where it happened. Nobody in the world created a new nation at that time which arose via 'the populace.' 1707 was not a colonial trick; it was the mutual rise of capitalism.
Kerevan shares the colonial activity by the English and Scots. But he goes on to say that there were 'elements' of Scottish colonial experiences under the English such as the 'ethnic cleansing' of the Scottish Highlands; the fake history of Scotland based on the English 'civilising mission', the colonial minded approach in Scottish universities etc. He sums up 'Can one really maintain that the power relationship between Scotland and England is one of equals?'
After some to-ing and fro-ing Kerevan decides 'colonialism is about economic exploitation.' He states that during the industrial period in Scotland 'Scottish capitalists did their own exploiting.' But after that, from the 1950s money flooded south and Thatcher de-industrialised Scotland, to the extent that Thatcher carried out 'ethnically cleans(ing) a non compliant Scottish working class.'
But virtually all of the drastic, savage and violent thoughts and actions, led by the ruling classes, that Kerevan mentions can be mirrored across many parts of Britain at different stages after 1707. From the enclosures across England to Wellington's comments about his 'savage and criminal' working class army, to Waterloo, to indentures, to Thatcher's destruction of Miners and the North of England, Kerevan's comments about Scotland are not describing colonialism but rather they share the extremity of class war across many parts of Britain.
But again Kerevan swings back. 'That is not to say that Scotland is suffering under the yolk of the genuine colonialism...We are still an exploiter nation.' But wait, Kerevan has another 'however...'. 'However, two developments are clear in modern Scotland. First the relentless opposition of London to Scottish self-determination has reached the stage where we can be considered an oppressed nation.' ...'Secondly, there is no doubt that domestic control of the Scottish economy has declined precipitously over the past two or three decades of globalisation. Whatever you want to call that process - colonialism or no - it has to be reversed.'
But most socialists across the world would not call that Kerevan's description as colonialism. And neither would Scotland be called an 'oppressed nation' by any people who were actually battling to overthrow colonial domination. The failure of globalisation applies in every square-inch of the vast majority of England and Wales and in large parts of the West including the US, Italy, etc etc. (Northern Ireland is a different issue. See below.) Globalisation and its effects was the main mechanism for international Capital.
And turning to the definition of oppressed nations, initially formulated by Lenin, they are fighting to overthrow their specific under-development, economically, politically and in their societies. (Northern Ireland is different because it is, genuinely, a part of a real 'oppressed nation' in that British colonialism ran Ireland and then split Ireland still preventing the political and economic national formation of a single country.)
The point of all this is not to make comments about Kerevan's confusions. The point of criticising Kerevan's article is to prevent a serious error about Scotland's independence.
Scotland is completely right to decide what sort of country and society it should be. But of course, there will be very different versions of such independence and that needs to be clear. So far the momentum for Scottish independence is (as 'The National' newspaper and Kerevan hope will be) the means of creating a more social society with much more democratic politics and shared wealth, and which is open to all. That is why Scots need to be independent. These ambitions are the opposite to 'separation' as such. Scottish independence would fail should the goal of independence become mainly 'my flag and my country above all.' Such ideas have been emerging in many parts of the West. And this is where the definitions of 'colonial domination' and of 'oppressed nations' comes in. Scotland does not need independence in order to overthrow English colonialism. Scotland is not as such an oppressed nation, despite all of its difficulties. Scotland needs to be independent to be able, in the current conditions, to overthrow the politics and economics that are failing Scottish people and their future.
No comments:
Post a Comment