Can Labour win?

[page 3]

Can Labour win?

The guiding principle of Labour's leadership has been 'NUNGE', (Nothing Until after the Next General Election). Indeed it has at times been their only 'principle'! Any attempt to go outside the prescribed narrow parliamentary boundaries has evoked the wrath of Labour's front bench.

In the looming battle on the poll tax Thatcher does not need to take time out to denounce the idea of mass non-payment. Neil Kinnock, Donald Dewar and John Cunningham are doing the job for them. But the puerile attempt of the labour and trade union leadership to 'out-Thatcher' Thatcher has had exactly the opposite effect to that expected by Labour's right.

Nejl Kinnock's assault on the left, beginning with the public attack on the heroic Liverpool City councillors in September 1985, did not resulted in the enormous electoral bonus which his group of 'advisors' confidently predicted would accrue to Labour. Labour has lagged behind the Tories in opinion polls, when it should have been well ahead. Labour's narrow lead in recent polls entirely reflects the growing anti-Tory mood.

Kinnock's personal popularity is lower than at any time since he was elected leader in 1983. His lamentable performance both in the House of Commons and his general stewardship of the Labour Party has provoked dark mutterings about the possibility of his removal from the leadership of the party itself.

Pessimism

Given the changes in the constitutional mechanism of elections for the leadership, Kinnock himself would have to 'voluntarily' vacate the scene rather than be 'forcibly' removed through an election. However, further disastrous election results in the forthcoming County Council elections and the June Euro-elections could increase the pressure on him both from the PLP and also from the right-wing trade union leaders to go.

The speculation, however, as to Neil Kinnock's state of mind or the prospects of his remaining leader of the Labour Party are • entirely secondary to the perspectives for the labour movement and the working class.

Indeed, his preferred replacement (that is by the right-wing dominated Parliamentary Labour Party and rightwing trade union barons) is John Smith. The King is dead, long live the King! Smith, by his own admission, has been entirely at one with Kinnock in his 4

By Peter Taaffe

assault on the left and in the proposals to swing Labour's policy and internal organisation sharply to the right.

Nor have any of the other candidates who have been floated - from Robin Cook to Gordon Brown - either clearly worked out policies, perspectives or leadership qualities which could represent a decisive advance on Kinnock.

Nevertheless the speculation on this issue does concern the ranks of the labour and trade union movement. The question of Kinnock's leadership is intimately bound up with Labour's standing in the opinion polls which in turn is linked to the question: can Labour win the next general election? The strategists of capital, in the main, have already written off Labour for 1992.

This is mirrored by the almost corrosive pessimism bordering on despair which grips the summits of the labour and trade union movement as to Labour's electoral prospects. In December the Sunday Times revealed in a survey of one third of the Parliamentary Labour Party that one in four does not believe that Labour can win an overall majority in the next election.

A full canvass of the PLP would probably reveal that a majority now rule out a Labour victory in 1992. Moreover, one in two, according to this survey, believe that the Labour Party should drop its longstanding opposition to proportional representation and one in five would support an electoral pact with the Social and Liberal Democrats.

According to the Mail on Sunday of 19th February, "one in four of Labour MPs are willing to allow David Owen to rejoin the Party." There is little, if any. chance of this happening but it indicates the swing to the right within the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Indeed the lemming-like rush towards proportional representation has left Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley, together with Bryan Gould ,, as a minority within the Shadow Cabinet on this issie!

Their closest allies have seemingly undergone a Pauline conversion. Robin Cook and 'Plutonium Jack' Cunningham, along with the Kinnockite and former left wing Labour Coordinating Committee, have become recent converts. John Evans, MP for St Helens, has even drawn up a list of 60 seats from Bath and Hereford to Basildon and Battersea where a deal with the 'centre' parties would guarantee the victory of

'anti-Tory' candidate.

"There is no gratitude in politics'. Kinnock has gone to great lengths to save Evans' political skin from the irate members of his St Helen's constituency party by suspending it for over two years. The raison d'etre for Evans' panicky proposals is the analysis of Hugo Young in The Guardian that: 'The determining fact of current politics is that the Conservatives believe they will be in power until 1995 and probably until 2000", • Evans and his growing band of supporters in the Parliamentary Labour Party have swallowed this hook, line and sinker and are proposing that Labour should rush to embrace such 'anti-Tories' as Owen and Ashdown!

Leon Trotsky said that a party is the "memory of the working class". A reformist party, he said, was a party of short memories. But even he could not have anticipated the political amnesia, not to say political short-sightedness, of those like John Evans. Owen, the hammer of the miners, of the Liverpool councillors, an advocate of the "social market' (read capitalism) as an anti- Tory' ally of Labour.

PR

Proportional representation was canvassed by the strategists of capital in the 1970s. With the spectre of Chile before them - the Allende government had come to power as a minority government but had been pushed by mass pressure into taking over 40 per cent of industry - they were terrified at the resurgence of the left within the labour movement and the possibility of the election ot a minority left Labour government. They therefore wished to alter the rules of the parliamentary game which had suited them perfectly in the past.

So long as Tory or 'safe' Labour governments were elected, the electoral system in Britain was 'the best in the world'! Indeed the British bourgeois never hesitated to deride their French and Italian counterparts whose electoral systems resulted in ramshackle and very short lived coalition governments. The British system ensured stability, they argued.

The alleged 'unfairness' of governments elected on minority votes were dismissed out of hand. Indeed Churchill's famous declaration that a majority of one was enough to govern was often quoted. It was the inherent 'stability' of the British system for them which was pre-eminent.

[page 4]

The Labour leadership's TV campaign failed in 1987. Now they remain pessimistic about victory next time. altain Vill win But given the profound social upheavals of the 1970s and their effect on the trade unions and the Labour Party, of capital pondered switching over to proportional representation. Thatcher, safely ensconced in power for 10 years, now confidently expects to be in the saddle until the next century! Moreover, by their political posture, the leaders of the labour movement incredibly seem to share her view of the future. It is now they who trumpet the idea of proportional representation as the panacea for Labour's ills.

Underpinning this campaign is the idea that Labour cannot possibly win an overall majority in 1992. Jeff Rooker, exther. He has resigned, a front further. He has resigned bench Labour spokesman in order to campaign openly in favour of PR. Armed with the latest computer print-out, he seeks to prove that even if Labour wins the 1992 general election. the changes in the electoral boundaries in 1993 will mean that Labour will lose 20 of the seats it presently holds. To such brave souls the climbing of Mount Everest without ropes or the aid of Sherpas is an easier task than storming Thatcher's electoral citadel, particularly in the South and the West Midlands. To secure victory for Labour at the next general election would require an eight per cent swing from the Tories to Labour and the capturing of 100 plus seats. The political earthquake which Govan undoubtedly represented certainly makes a Labour victory in 1992 even more difficult. That by-election, as another article in this issue of the MIR illustrates, was a crushing indictment of the philosophy, the tactics and the organisation of the Kinnockite-dominated Parliamentary Labour Party.

The discontent of the Scottish working class at the Labour leadership's stand on the poll tax has now resulted in the situation where Labour is only four per cent ahead of the Scottish National Party in the opinion polls. Labour currently has 36 per cent, the SNP 32 per cent.

Scotland It is not possible at this stage to forecast accurately the alignment of support or seats in Scotland in the next general election. Events on the economic field together with class polarisation could prevent a massive stampede of Labour voters into the camp of the SNP. Not the least of the factors which could preveat a growth of the SNP is the development of a powerful Marxist tendency around Militant which is developing in the labour and trade union movement in Scotland.

It is only the policies of Marxism which in the long run can prevent the Scottish working class from being infected by the poison of bourgeois nationalism. (See article by Eddie Donaghy in this issue).

However, the 49 seats which Labour now holds in Scotland are crucial for securing an overall Labour majority. Even if the SNP takes a few seats from Labour, which appears to be the minimum damage which Labour will suffer in Scotland, this will affect Labour's national position in a general election. Hence the idea of proportional representation as a step towards what some have called 'a popular electoral front. Shades of the Stalinist concept of the popular front'.

Indeed, it is Marxism Today, organ of one wing of the 'Communist Party, which has coined the phrase. In the past the Communist Party furnished the ideas of the reformist left within the unions and the Labour Party. Bert Ramelson, their Industrial Organiser in the 1960s, once boasted that "what the Communist Party says today, the Labadopts tomorrow."

Now, in an incredible historical volteface, from advisors to the 'reformist' one wing of this now shattered party fulfilis exactly the same function, only this time to the extreme right of the labour movement.

Peter Riddell. political correspondent of the Financial Times, pinpointed the secret of the success of Marxism Today, (at least in capitalist circles) when he wrote in that magazine in November 1988: "The very irrelevance politically of the Communist Party in Britain is one of the reasons why the Marxism Today writers have such influence." Influence with whom? Certainly not with the socialist rank and file of the labour and trade union movement. But 5

[page 5]

MIR Spring 1989: Britain

this journal and its writers are perfectly suited, covered as they are falsely with the name 'Marxism', to act as a conduit for the ideas of the bourgeois into the labour movement.

Riddell praises "writers like Andrew Gamble and Stuart Hall (who) have been able to use their freedom of manoeuvre to express thoughts still heretical within the Labour left" . We would say that their thoughts are heretical to the whole labour movement. Long before the tops of the labour movement embraced proportional representation or 'electoral pacts' the idea is set out in a brutal fashion in the pages of Marxism Today.

Eric Hobsbawm considers that Thather presides not so much over a government but over a 'regime'. Thatcher uses "the language of an authoritarian one-party government which is systematically setting about creating the condiions for staying that way." Moreover this government is "an experimental model for post-democratic bourgeois society in the 1980s, as fascism (which was a very different species of political animal) was the model for bourgeois regimes in the 1930s which felt they could no longer afford democracy."

Heartlands

Andrew Gamble in the November issue of the same journal has gone a lot further. Like other shallow observers, he has spoken about "the dominant party system" . He blithely writes off any prospect of Labour success in 1992: "There is remarkable agreement amongst specialists (amongst whom he includes himself - PT) on voting behaviour that Labour cannot win the next election. There are two main reasons. The social groups from which Labour voters have been most heavily recruited in the past, and the regions where Labour voting and the Labour culture is most strongly established are both shrinking."

He goes on: "Labour and Conservative support has become concentrated in their own heartlands, but whereas the Conservative heartland is larger and growing, the Labour heartland is smaller and shrinking. Labour has a very marginal presence now throughout much of the Conservative heartland, while its own heartland is not enough to bring it a parliamentary majority in Westminister." In other words, support for the Tories, if not set in concrete, is 'larger and growing'. Labour, unless it links up with the Democrats, is forever condemned to a marginal existence and incapable of preventing the progress of the Thatcher juggernaut.

This is the 'optimistic' perspective set out by these 'theoreticians'. They seek to underpin their arguments by the 6

mobilisation of a galaxy of writers who attempt to vindicate their analysis that deep-going social changes have shattered Labour's 'constituency'

John Lloyd, former writer on the Financial Times and failed editor of the New Statesman, has sought to prove that "the unions are on the decline: numerically, socially, industrially, in most advanced countries." Moreover the transformation in the industrial landscape, from what Marxism Today calls 'Fordism', that is the era of large scale manufacturing production, to 'post-Fordism', means that the prospects for the unions are dismal

These observations are entirely superficial. This purely surface view of events - in the language of Marxism, "impressionism' - is the hallmark of this new breed of 'Marxists'

It is true that because of the massive de-industrialisation of the British economy, now barely 23 per cent of the labour force is employed directly in manufacturing industry. Together with those employed in extractive industry, transport etc, manual workers are now probably about 45 per cent of the workforce.

Nevertheless their 'specific weight' within the working class is still decisive. Their immanent power is still decisive. They have the capacity both to immobilise industry, to paralyse capitalism, and to draw behind them other sections of the working class and the middle class.

Precisely such a development, at least in embryo, developed during the miners strike. Undoubtedly in the wake of the miners strike the industrial proletariat has adopted a cautious attitude towards struggle. This is due to two factors: the economic boomlet from 1982 which has still not exhausted itself, and the absence of leadership from the top of the unions.

The boomlet has allowed the capitalists, particularly in the last two years, to give concessions to employed workers. The rate of wage increases has sometimes been in excess of the official rate

'the specif

of manual within the class is sti decisive'

of inflation. The working class does not go on strike for the sake of it but only when all other avenues have been closed off for defending and increasing living standards.

The other side of this process has been the increased pauperisation of the unemployed, the disabled, those on social security etc. At the same time the main reason for the decline in union membership is not because of some alleged 'unpopularity' but is undoubtedly rooted in the drop in manufacturing, the field in which the unions were more firmly entrenched.

At the same time, new layers of the proletariat, formerly standing outside the unions, have been drawn in. Witness the colossal movement of the health workers in the earlier part of last year. Nurses were probably in the main hostile or at best neutral as far as the unions were concerned a couple of decades ago. The bitterness which was engendered in the health service dispute which has continued in a savage battle over 'regrading' has left an indelible mark on the outlook of nurses and health workers in general.

The same process has unfolded amongst local government workers and civil servants. Those in education who are presently feeling the hammer of Baker's onslaught will be radicalised both in union terms and politically.

Discontent

The movement of the students in the latter part of last year is a symptom of the as yet subterranean revolt of the working class in Britain. It was not for nothing that Trotsky described the students as "the light cavalry of the revolution"

We are not faced with a revolution or even a pre-revolutionary situation in Britain at the present time. However, the accumulated discontent which 10 years of Thatcherism has engendered will burst out in a savage explosion of the class struggle at a certain stage.

It is impossible to predict the timing of the character of such a movement. The very factors which the writers in Marxism Today argue weaken :he unions and thereby Labour in the !.. will have the opposite effer: i: is undoubtedly true, as John ..'- argues. that the capitalists are s*Tating

to create a 'core' of professionals, managers with the latest word:

their elbow and pa::

wages.

Services provide:

permanent labou: ::.

out' often to :--:

time and prei:on much :.:- This

rained -icians que at : high

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[page 6]

trade unions in some fields.

At the same time personnel managers

are being discarded. They are now seen

as a relic of the previous discredited

'consensus' approach to industrial rela-

tions. Now vicious industrial relations

managers, usually on the line, are emp-

loyed who look on human labour as

"another resource on a par with the

energy source, raw and semi-finished

materials, capital and so on."

But is it not a fact that precisely these

measures have hardened and steeled

the proletariat for battles which could

break out a lot sooner than the soothing

words of Marxism Today indicate? The

enormous intensification of labour on

the production line and the slave wages

of part-time workers is a guarantee of

an outburst of the class struggle at a

certain stage.

John Lloyd argues that the 'new' phil-

osophy of the employers has a 'hard'

side, which is true, but it has a 'soft' side

also. Their dream is that industrial rel-

ations can be transformed into a "co-

operative, commitment inducing process." Tell that to the line workers in

Fords or Jaguar! They could acquaint the writers of Marxism Today with the brutal and hellish realities of 'industrial relations' as management are attempting to screw the last ounce of profit out of the labour of the proletariat. Where the employers are forced to give concessions it is either because they are faced with strike action or the fear of strike action.

At the present time, with profits increased in the last quarter of 1988 by 17 per cent compared to the equivalent quarter of a year earlier, some of the employers can give concessions. Hence the 15 per cent wage rise for Nissan workers, although this still leaves them below the rates and conditions in other car factories. At the same time the Jaguar employers were refusing to give more than six per cent wage increases. At the time of writing this could result in strike action.

On the other hand the leadership of the National Union of Seamen accepted a measly six percent increase with the rate of inflation at least double that. This in turn was only possible given the disenchantment and lack of confidence that the union leadership would lead a proper struggle on wages in the light of their stand on the P&O strike.

The carefully constructed scheme of John Lloyd, together with other Marxism Today writers, of a hopelessly divided working class - both economically and geographically - falls to the ground on closer examination.

Their perceptions of the past are equally rose-coloured. The working class is of course the most homogeneous class in society. But it is divided between

Thatcher's belief that she will rule to the end of the century will be rudely shattered

different layers, manual workers, white collar workers, male and female, black and white, skilled and unskilled etc. Its heterogeneity is overcome in a pre-revolutionary or revolutionary period and then can only be sustained by a farsighted leadership and mass party.

These "Marxists' conveniently forget that in the 1950s and 1960s there were many 'demarcation' disputes between different sections of skilled and unskilled workers.

Moreover the British bourgeois. and their echoes within the labour movement, never expected that they would see the day when white-collar workers would flood into unions. Indeed they jeered at their French counterparts when teachers and civil servants went on strike in the inter-war period. In the post-war_period they have precisely seen a 'Francofication' of the British working-class, in the sense of a growing union consciousness of these sections of white collar workers.

White-collar

What is to stop workers employed in high technology industries, part-time workers, and women workers filling out the unions? All that is required is precisely the incapacity of capitalism to satisfy their demands, and confidence that the leadership of the unions were prepared to lead a struggle.

This has already begun to happen with recruitment amongst women workers, in particular, beginning to halt the decline of key unions like NALGO and the CPSA. Moreover, between 1959 and 1987, support for the Tories among non-manual workers fell by 12.5%, while it increased among manual, pre-

dominantly skilled workers. The crude equation that manual equals Labour and non-manual Tory is a completely mechanical method of analysis.

Viewed from the heights of Marxism Today, Labour is condemned almost to a permanent minority status by the seemingly impregnable position of Thatcherism in the south. Incredibly, Andrew Gamble argues in the November 1988 issue: "To become a majority party again Labour needs to rebuild itself in the south of England. But there are not the institutions or social networks in place that would promote Labour voting on the scale needed to bring success." From the lofty academic vantage points of this worthy, the denizens of the south are high-earning, high-living 'individuals' without consciousness of class.

Yet the very superficial successes of Thatcherism in this area are ploughing the ground for a colossal swing against the Tories which will be greater in the south than in any other area of the country. It is perhaps the area of the greatest class contradictions, with obscene displays of wealth, mocking the homeless occupants of cardboard boxes in Waterioo and other parts ot London.

The concentration of more and more of the population into the south-east means a nightmare in terms of travel to work on the tube or the roads. The average speed of a car in London is now eight miles per hour. The average car owner wastes 111 hours a year at a cost of £1.4bn in wasted fuel and time sitting in traffic jams.

The inhabitants of 'Roseland', the leafy suburbs of London, begin to see their comfortable existence undermined by massive increases in rail travel, col-

7

[page 7]

MIR Spring 1989: Britain

ossal increase in demand for houses, not to say the spiralling cost of buying a house.

Twenty per cent of the labour force in the London area is involved in banking. This is one sector, given the trickle of recent redundancies, which, with a serious downturn in the market, could become a flood, in which battles by bank workers could break out on a par with anything in which their Spanish and French counterparts have engaged in the past.

The poll tax, the Housing Act and the general transformation in the overall economic situation will in turn dramatically alter the outlook of millions of workers in the south-east.

Indeed the most striking feature of the present situation in Britain is the profound unease, the insecurity, of millions who have benefited by the boomlet.

Trotsky pointed out that the religion of capitalist progress was perhaps stronger in Britain in the past than in any other advanced capitalist country. The contraction of its world domination and loss of Empire has undermined this. Yes, the world economic upswing of 1950-75 engendered enormous illusions in the ability of capitalism to deliver the goods. This was the material foundation for the 13 years of Tory governments between 1951-64 and the consolidation of right-wing reformism within the labour and trade union movement.

Unpopular

The present boomlet in no way can be compared to this. Its background is mass unemployment, despite the fiddling of the figures since 1979 and mass pauperisation.

The population of the south-east is not composed of predominantly homeowning, middle-class inhabitants of leafy suburbs. The mass of the population is proletarian, whether in council estates or forced to own their own houses - which are increasingly out of reach of millions of workers in Thatcher's 'property-owning democracy'.

Marxism Today and following them, the Labour leadership, have been mesmerised by the present conjuncture. They have failed to recognise the profound and stoked opposition which exists to Thatcherism just below the surface.

On practically every major issue the goverhment is unpopular in opinion poll after opinion poll. One recent poll pointed out that government policies are "unpopular, including the heartland issués of its economic strategy". Seventy-two per cent oppose privatisation of water and electricity; 66 per cent are against the poll tax; 77 per cent want 8

to spend more on the NHS; 65 per cent oppose the abolition of top tax rates. Moreover more than half believed that the benefits for the unemployed are too low and cause hardship.

Christopher Huhne in The Guardian comments: "if part of the problem is a lack of intellectual self-confidence, a more fundamental part is opposition MPs' own inability to believe they can win the next election" • The absolute catastrophe which Thatcher's policies have meant for the British economy is hardly commented on by the spokesmen of Marxism Today.

To his credit, Gordon Brown, who deputised for John Smith in debates in the House of Commons while the latter was ill, gave a searing indictment of the collapse of British capitalism under the stewardship of Thatcher and Lawson. A total of £120bn resulting from North Sea oil, the alteration in pensions calculations and privatisation has filled out the coffers of the government. This treasure has not been used to refurbish British industry but to pay the unemployed. It has led to massive investments. mostly in property or abroad by the short-sighted British capitalists.

Thatcher has claimed an economic miracle for Britain, underlined by increased investment, productivity etc. And yet Brown pointed out that Portugal and Taiwan now invest a higher proportion of their economy than Britain. The much vaunted economic miracle, when compared to the growth of other economies since 1982. pales by comparison.

Human thought is in general very conservative. Consciousness. particularly in relation to economic processes, in general lags behind the objective development of events. However the decisive feature of the epoch is the collapse of British capitalism revealed in the staggering f14bn deficit on the balance of payments which is approximately three per cent of the gross national product. the same as the deficit of US imperialism.

practica every major the govern

popular

inion

inion

nod uoluido

opinion poll'

An economic downswing, still not ruled out despite the temporary upward gyrations on the stock exchange this year, or even a slowdown in the rate of growth of the world economy, will have calamitous effects for British capitalism.

Last year the economy grew at four and a half per cent but even the more favourable predictions of the capitalist experts themselves envisage that the economy will grow at a mere two per cent this year. Hence the gloom of the CBI and the industrial capitalists as opposed to finance capital.

The higher cost of borrowing, as a result of the rise of interest rates to 13 per cent, the contraction of retail trade, as well as the drop in the housing market all point to an economic slowdown, at least of the British economy, in the next period

In the thousands of words and dozens of pages of Marxism Today throughout 1988. one would look in vain for a glimmer of understanding of the real processes at work in Britsh society. Incredibly it is only in an interview with former Tory leader Edward Heath that some light is shed on the real situation.

Heath, now in 'internal exile' from Thatcherism, is a shrewd strategist of capitalism. In answer to the proposition that Thatcher has achieved an 'economic miracle', he condemns Thatcher's dogmatism "which allowed the pound to rise up to $2.22. We lost 20 per cent of our industry that is not coming back. Not at all. That's a permanent loss. It happened in my own constit uency".

Miracle?

He goes on: "when I say to an American 'are you aware that we are going to have a current account deficit of £13bn by the end of this year' (he was writing in November 1988 - PT), he says "no 1 did not know that, nobody's told me that'. I say to him 'are you aware that the percentage unemployment is still in double figures?', he says: 'nobody tells me that'. And these are the basic factors that matter. The same applies to interest rates. Why are our interest rates now almost four times those of Japan, the highest of any European country, and much higher than the US? How can you say that this is a strong economy with these facts? It is rather like saying a man is strong if you put him in iron stakes and put a chain round him then declare 'now he is a strong man'."

In an annihilating passage Heath completely explodes the myth, stubbornly defended as we have seen by the authors of Marxism Today, that Thatcherism is impregnable. In answer to the question: has Thatcher slayed the

[page 8]

The daily nightmare for commuters on socialist dragon?, Heath bluntly replies: "No, and what you are really saying is, do I believe there is only going to be one party in this country for the rest of time to come"

He goes on: "what will happen in this country is there will be a rebound...the point will come when people will just revolt...They are not interested in having 20 per cent taxation if they cannot get their lives looked after. Here the fallacies are innumerable. You can't have private medicine for 53 million people" • He moreover answers the recent attempts of Clarke to dismantle the NHS: "what they (the government) are doing is to try, by every means. to deny it resources and force people to go into private health. That's what they are trying to do"

Heath is partly motivated by personal hostility to Thatcher. But his prime concern is the inevitable recoil of the working class and the labour movement to Thatcherism at a certain stage. In answer to the question "do you see Thatcherism as an aberration in the history of the Conservative Party?", he simply answers: "yes". . In answer to the question: "but if Thatcherism is an aberration, it has certainly got a lot of people who follow it and believe it will be the orthodoxy of the Tory party, at least into the next century" ', he says: "I think they are mistaken. The trouble is the more this becomes emphasised the bigger the reaction there is going to be against this"

At the same time Heath indicts the labour leadership for their "incomp-

the overloaded and underfunded London etence and powerlessness...over this decade...they have never been able to make anything out of the unemployment factor. When we were elected in 1970...unemployment mounted to over a million and of course immediately the House of Commons rioted. When I say riot, it literally rioted. An Irish woman MP, Bernadette McAliskey, (Bernadette Devlin at the time - PT) came over and tried to hit Reggie Maudling over the head"

During an economic debate in October Lawson jeered in the direction of Kinnock that he had 18 opportunities in the previous 12 months for a debate and a vote of no confidence on the government's handling of the economy and yet had refused every opportunity!

Tory victory?

If the present boomlet was to continue for a further four years with a rising curve of living standards for those who at least have jobs, combined with a further period of pusillanimity on the part of Labour's leadership, then it is possible to envisage another Tory victory.

Even then Marxists would see this as purely ephemeral based on the temporary economic and social conjuncture which was bound to break down at a certain stage. There is nothing 'messianic' in such an analysis. It is grounded in experience and a sober assessment of the workings out of the laws of capitalism and its effect on the relationship between the classes.

VICTORIA

However, all the signs point to the government and the economy heading for the rocks. Moreover, while some employers will attempt to buy off their workers out of their present largesse, the strategists of capital in the Financial Times and the Economist, and not least the government, are urging them to hold the line against "wage inflation"

The Financial Times recently condemned large wage increases as "wage geld" (this was a comparison with the Danegeld which was the tribute paid by the English to Danish kings 900 years ago). Thus the cost of 'industrial peace' is big increases to a section of the working class.

But the rise in mortgage rates, massive increases in rail, gas, electricity and now projected increases in water following privatisation is a guarantee of hefty wage claims in the wage round for the end of this year. It would take just one section to breach the dam and the whole elaborate structure of Thatcherism could come tumbling down.

It is not excluded that such a process could begin in the course of 1989. On top of this is the battle on the poll tax, the Housing Act, and the ferocious resistance to the Tories' measures to bury once and for all the NHS.

For the mass of the workers it is not propaganda or 'ideology' which changes their outlook. It is their experience, it is big events, which loom in Britain, which will shatter the illusions which millions have in capitalism and its political expression, Thatcherism, as well as in the

9

[page 9]

centre parties. This in turn mass resurgence of support unions and for Labour.

John Lloyd has urged the unions to become "semi-detached" from Labour because their alleged 'unpopularity' is tarnishing the image of Labour. This nonsense is being regurgitated by Bryan Gould, the Labour Coordinating Committee, and is shared by the tops of the Labour party.

Those who advocate these ideas are in reality themselves intellectually "semi-detached'. They have one foot in the camp of the labour movement and one in capitalist circles.

It is an historical irony that while the bourgeois and the Labour leadership themselves believe that Labour doomed to inhabit an historical and pol- ¡tical cul-de-sac, it is the Marxists who perceive a massive shitt towards Labour at a certain stage. And yet it is we who are being expelled and hounded by the right-wing misleaders of the labour and trade union movement.

Like a First World War general, Kinnock has blamed his troops - "dis-un-

, lack of support for the leadership, etc, - rather than the generals for Labour's defeats.

The movement of millions on the industrial plane which Thatcherism will guarantee will transform the labour movement from top to bottom. Millions will move from support of Thatcherism not just to the socialist but a revolutionary position.

will mean a both for the

Labour win

The more serious strategists of capital are terrified of the long term consequences of Thatcherism. It is not at all accidental that the Financial Times correspondent Michael Rutherford, ruminated on the comparisons between Thatcherism and the De Gaulle 'regime'

For a decade the so-called 'strong state' of De Gaulle rode roughshod over the rights and conditions of the French proletariat. The stoked up anger of the French masses burst out into the streets in the immortal May-June days of 1968 in the greatest general strike in history.

That was the beginning of the end of Gaullism as the dominant capitalist force in French society. The downfall of De Gaulle has left in its wake the breakup and splintering of the bourgeois parties.

Thatcherism has resulted in the virtual extinction of the Tories in Scotland. Wales and the north of England have become virtual "Tory free-zones' . A massive swing to Labour can take place in the West Midlands and in the south as already described. The Tory party,

10

Stop

Poll Tax

AKE THE POLL TA%

If Labour mobilised people on the key issues like the poll tax, they could win the majority.

from being a very successful 'national' party, will be reduced to a rump concentrated mostly in the south-east.

The violent swings of opinion resulting from economic crisis and consequentual social upheaval is a concept entirely foreign to the empiricists and sceptics of Marxism Today and their co-thinkers in the labour movement.

British capitalism is no longer cushioned by its empire and Thatcher has stripped industry to the bone. Labour can even win the next general clection, but on condition that the lessons of the past are absorbed by the ranks of the labour and trade union movement.

The securing of a majority in Parliament is not an end in itself. It is a step to transforming the lives of the working class by realising in action the goals of Labour of a socialist society. This in turn is not determined by a brief election campaign fought primarily on television and aided by a battery of computers. It is only by the labour move-

'It is only by labour movement mobilising the wo king class outside parliament as wel as within that victory for Labou be prepared'

ment mobilising the working class outside parliament as well as within that victory for Labour can be prepared.

The purveyors of pessimism, the architects of the defeats of 1983 and 1987, if allowed to go unchallenged, will once more dash the hopes of millions of working people. It is not by proportional representation, not by courting the 'centre' parties, that success for Labour will be secured.

Action

A bold clear-sighted socialist programme, linking up all the day-to-day issues which face working people with the idea of a democratic socialist plan of production, could mobilise not just the working class but the middle layers of society behind Labour's banner.

The task is not to form a bloc with 'Dr Death' Owen or Paddy Backdown' but to convince in action those workers who support these parties to come behind the banner of Labour. This is the way the Labour Party itself was built.

It was a combination of changed economic circumstances, the break of the monopoly of British imperialism in the late 19th century and the active fighting pioneering work of the founders of the unions and the Labour party which tore millions of workers out of the grasp of the Liberals and brought them under Labour's influence.

A similar combination of factors not only can, but will result in Labour achieving victory in the stormy period that is opening up. The Marxists will play a decisive part in this process.

[page 10]

In the aftermath of the the Govan by-election, with the continued growth in support for the SNP, EDDIE DONAGHY, a leading Scottish Militant supporter, examines the prospects now for Scottish nationalism.

A nationalist revival?

SCOTTISH

ASSEMBLY

NOW

At 12.30am on Friday 11 November Jim Sillars emerged trom a school in

Govan where the result of the Govan

by-election had just been declared, and addressed a crowd of jubilant Scottish National Party (SNP) supporters with the following words:

"There is no question that the Scottish people will now start marching towards our destiny which is as an independent country. The long period when Scotland has been treated as a second class nation and humiliated at the hands of an English Tory government is coming to an end." Glasgow Herald, November 11, 1988.

Jim Sillars had just secured a dramatic victory for the SNP, turning a seemingly impregnable Labour majority of 19,509 into a 3,554 majority for the SNP, a swing of 30.4 per cent in a working class constituency in the heart of Glasgow.

The rejection of the Labour Party only 17 months after a general election which saw Labour dominate Scottish politics with 50 MPs, was a humiliating defeat. The fact that the Tories and Democrats were reduced to the role ot bystanders

underlined

Labour's failure.

But the nationalism of Jim Sillars in 1988 was of a different hue to that of Margo Macdonald in 1973, when she overturned a Labour majority of 7,000 to win the seat for the SNP. Temporari-

ly put into cold storage was the image of a 'Tartan Tory' party.

Instead Sillars was fitted out in the garb of a radical socialist with demagogic calls for a 'Workers' Parliament in a Workers' Scotland'. Pointing to the as yet unrealised treasure of North Sea oil, the SNP in 1973 fostered the illusion that Scotland could go it alone with the slogan 'Its Scotland's oil'.

In the changed conditions of Scotland - and particularly in predominantly working class Govan - such a call would have had no appeal. The nationalists could only win by a class appeal tinged with nationalist rhetoric. Indeed an exit poll showed that of those who voted for the SNP a majority did so because of the poll tax and because Labour was ineffective in opposing Thatcher.

Govan

Sillars developed three main themes in his campaign. 'We cannot wait until 1992', 'the feeble fifty Labour MPs are incapable of standing up to Thatcher' and 'we are not paying the poll tax.' These messages struck a chord with Govan workers, particularly the youth who have suffered under nine years of Thatcherism, made worse by the failure of the Scottish Labour leaders to lead a fightback, most significantly on the hated poll tax.

In reality, the Govan by-election

a referendum on the poll tax and the effectiveness of the 50 Scottish Labour MPs in combating Thatcherism. The result was a clear vote of no confidence in the Labour Party which also underlined a growing national consciousness amongst Scottish workers.

The Labour Party's campaign contrasted sharply with that of the nationalists. Whilst Sillars called for non-payment of the poll tax, Labour's campaign controlled by the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Donald Dewar and Brian Wilson, chairman of the 'Stop It' campaign, told people that they had to pay the poll tax. Dewar's only advice on what to do about the poll tax was to wait until the next general election three years away and elect a Labour government.

The slogan of Labour's candidate Bob Gillespie, who untortunately allowed the campaign to be hijacked and controlled by Labour's right wing Scot-

leaders, was the meaningless "We're on your side". This was intended to be deliberately vague as it didn't tie down the candidate to fighting for specific policies - most notably on the poll tax. In fact it was the same slogan as that used by the Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis in his failed campaign for the American presidency.

This was more than just a coincidence. The Labour Party campaign was part of Labour's new slick, glossy cam-

11

[page 11]

MIR Spring 1989: Scotland

paigning image not dissimilar to those in American elections. Govan was a test bed for 'the filofax Labour Party', as described in the Militant's analysis of the Govan result:

"The headquarters had more computers than the Starship Enterprise. An army of full time organisers were drafted in to operate them, run the campaign and ensure victory. The new moderate image secured the blessing of the Daily Record and The Evening Times. So everything seemed set fair. Except that no computer or newspaper editor knocked on a door. Kinnock cannot secure victory without enthusiastic activists working for the party at grass roots."

Labour's campaign had no enthusiastic activists. The crisis of morale in Labour's ranks was a critical factor in the defeat. The move to the right, new realism, dictat from the top and expulsions had their reply in Govan where night after night Labour's depleted ranks were swamped by hundreds of crusading SNP supporters.

Only a fighting socialist campaign could have cut across the rise of the SNP in Govan. Only a Labour Party committed to socialism could have stopped the SNP bandwagon.

Act of union

The SNP gained a major victory and their success has not stopped at Govan. A Systems Three opinion poll in January carried in the Glasgow Herald showed support for the SNP at 32 per cent, their highest since 1974. Labour was only 4 per cent ahead of the SNP at 36 per cent, significantly at a lower percentage of the poll than Labour nationally!

The SNP have said that Govan is a watershed in Scottish politics. With 85 per cent in Scotland supporting an assembly and 35 per cent in tavour of independence, double the support expressed in the mid 1970s, does this mean a major shift towards nationalism and independence in Scotland? This is the question which must be addressed by Marxists in the British labour movement, particularly in Scotland

• Nationalism, and specifically its Scottish variant, is rooted in history. The mighty development of British capitalism - with the forcible incorporation of Scotland into Britain - opened up broad opportunities, particularly in the development of the 'Empire', for the most energetic Scots.

In this situation the consciousness of Scotland as a separate nation tended to be pushed into the background. although never completely disappearing. The labour movement even up to the inter-war period was forced to take account of this with its support for

12

NO

POLL TAX

NO

EXPULSIONS

ECIE

DONT PAY Scotland says no.

Home Rule for Scotland.

But for the embers of Scottish nationalism to be fanned into life, two factors were required: the collapse of British capitalism and the failure of the right wing reformist leaders of the labour movement.

Marxists stand for the unity of all workers in the struggle against capitalism. We are opposed to the nationalism of the bourgeoisie which attempts to divide workers from one another, lowers their consciousness by attempting to make them feel different from other workers and masks their common international identity of interests.

However, Marxism draws a distinction between the national aspirations of the working class and middle class and the nationalism of the capitalist class. The growth of nationalism amongst Scottish workers is a reflection of their class feelings — in particular their desire to fight the Tories and rid themselves of Thatcherism. As Trotsky pointed out, the nationalism of workers is the "outer shell of an immature Bolshevism'

Scotland existed as an independent nation until the act of union with England was signed in 1707. There was considerable resistance to this political integration with England, based largely on the feudal interests of the clan chiefs of Scotland.

It was not until the 19th Century when land enclosures and highland clearances provided the base for commercial agriculture and the accumulation of capital from agriculture, and thereby the development of industry, that a genuine economic integration of Scotland into the British nation began.

With the signing of the act of union

Scotland's emerging capitalist class were prepared to sacrifice Scotland's

political independence for a share of the

cake from their stronger English count-

erparts. With the increased develop-

ment of British capitalism came the

development of the British empire.

This helped to cement the union, opening up a lucrative gravy train for Scotland's capitalist class. as well as providing a whole tier of jobs for Scotland's middle classes, and in some cases upper layers of the working class. as civil servants, commissioners, the imperial police, doctors, engineers, scientists etc. With the collapse of the empire this road to 'improvement' and 'betterment' was now closed. Returning home to a country of limited opportunities was a major factor in the development of nationalism amongst Scotland's middle classes.

However, the historic development of a thriving capitalism, once it unified the British nation, tended to neutralise the development of nationalism. Since capitalist production developed through the battle between the two great classes, broadly speaking Scotland's political allegiances were drawn along these lines. Hence the strength of the labour movement in Scotland. Nevertheless there does exist in Scotland a strong feeling of national consciousness, a national identity of belonging to a Scottish nation.

Devolution

With the unprecedented boom in capitalism that took place after the war the first major stirrings of nationalism did not take place until 1967 when the SNP won the Hamilton by-election with a 46 per cent swing from Labour. This byelection was won against the background of the experience of the first Labour government after 13 years of Tory rule.

The 1964 Labour government had come to power on the promise of reforms but had failed to deliver. This failure of reformism produced the social and political conditions which engendered the rise of nationalism during the late 1960s and early 1970s. During this period the outlook of the middle classes had altered to one of disillusionment with the opportunities in Scotland, revealed in the emigration patterns at that time.

Scotland has always had a history of voluntary emigration. However, forced emigration because of inferior social and economic conditions was a factor in the 1960s. In one decade 300,000 left, a yearly average of 30,000. Between 1960 and 1970 Scotland lost 6 per cent of its population.

The support for nationalism and independence was initially amongst a disillusioned and bitter layer of the middle class. But the discovery of North Sea oil in 1970 broadened the appeal of nationalism in Scotland. For many Scottish workers the discovery of North Sea oil

[page 12]

Scottish Labour MPs Dewar and Smith (right).

brought the hope that the revenue

would be used to improve their social

conditions.

The SNP's slogan of Its Scotland's

oil' struck a chord with many workers

and especially the middle class who saw

the door of opportunity opening for

them. An independent Scotland, awash

with oil wealth, would. they believed,

employ a professional middle class layer

drawn from Scotland itself.

The general elections that took place

in February and October 1974 saw a rise

in support for the SNP. The SNP vote

increased to 22 per cent in February and

to 30 per cent in October. The October

election saw them gaining seven seats.

four from the Tories and two from Lab-

our to take their total to 11.

Though the question of "Scotland's

oil' was a crucial factor for this increase

in SNP support, the prevarication of the Labour leaders on the question of devolution for Scotland and the Scottish assembly played into the hands of the nationalists in allowing them to appear as the real champions of Scotland.

Following their success in the 1974 general election the spectre of nationalism hung over the Labour government. Over a period of time however nationalism was undercut particularly following the measures taken by the Labour government on devolution and the development of class battles that took place between 1978 and 1979. Labour's devolution bill was passed through parliament in 1978 and a referendum on devolution and a Scottish assembly took place in 1979. The result was 51 per cent voting in favour of a Scottish assembly. But a clause in the devolution bill meant that there had to be a minimum poll of 40 per cent before any decision on granting on assembly could take place. With the poll only 32.7 per cent the assembly was not introduced.

Significantly, support for the assembly was strongest in the industrial central belt of Scotland. If a referendum took

place today there would be a far higher

poll and an overwhelming majority vot-

ing for an assembly.

The subsequent clection of the Tories

in 1979 and again in 1983 concentrated

the minds of workers in Scotland on the

need for a Labour government and for

the Labour movement to organise itself

in defending workers from Tory at-

tacks. The titanic struggle of the British

miners in 1984/85 brought class issues

and the need for unity to the surface as

never before. This diminished the polit-

ics of nationalism, at that stage, to

seeming irrelevence.

Employment

However, ten years of brutal Tory

rule and the fact that Thatcher has ruled

out concessions in the form of an assembly or devolved power, have created conditions in which it is possible for nationalism to be seen as a realistic alternative and therefore become a political force to be reckoned with.

The danger to the labour movement lies in nationalism finding a breeding ground in the poverty conditions created in Scotland under the Tories. Between 1975 and 1985 those people classified as 'living in hardship' rose in Scotland by more than 50 per cent. A survey by the pressure group Shelter shows a staggering 77 per cent increase in homelessness in Scotland in the last four years.

A recent report on Strathclyde, with 46 per cent of Scotland's population. revealed the horrific levels of poverty that exist: "Nearly 30 per cent - 645,500 - are living on or below the poverty line...165.000 pensioners live below the poverty line...one third of houses are designated as 'low income' ...45 per cent of the working population are designated as low paid'. • Glasgow Herald, 30 November 1988 These statistics hide the terrible existence and struggle to survive that is now common in the soon to become

'city of culture' capital of Europe. Even

amongst the middle layers of Scottish

society a feeling of lack of opportunity

exists.

The number of graduates employed

in Scotland has fallen by more than

14,000 since 1983 whilst the number of

graduates working in Britain as a whole

increased by 283.000. A survey of grad-

uates at Strathclyde University, which

has the highest number of Scottish stud-

ents of all Scotland's universities, show-

ed that one third of graduates there sec-

ured their first job outside Scotland.

Large regions particularly in the nor-

th of England have suffered similarly at

the hands of the Tories. The essential

difference, however, is that the most downtrodden workers in these regions are most likely to interpret their dep-

rivations as the result of class oppression, however vaguely that is recognised.

However, there undoubtedly exists a feeling in Scotland that the boomlet in the economy that has taken place and the effects, most notably in the south east of England, of improving living standards, has passed Scotland by. This has fuelled the feelings of Scots that they are treated as a second class nation by the Tories, increasing the national sentiments of workers.

At bottom these are class feelings but have taken on a nationalist form because of a number of factors. It is clear hat a national consciousness exists imongst Scottish workers. A majority if Scottish workers see themselves as icottish and belonging to a Scottish nation despite the fact that they are also part of Britain.

It is true that the recent boom in the economy has not had the same effect compared to other regions of the country. The latest government estimate showed a net increase of 2,000 jobs in Scotland over the past year. But most of these jobs were part-time and low paid jobs.

A Fraser of Allander Institute survey

[page 13]

MIR Spring 1989: Scotland conducted recently showed that the number of full time jobs in Scotland actually fell by 3,000 in the year up to June 1988. Even on the government's figures the rate of job creation Scotland was just 0.1 per cent compared to 1.3 per cent in the UK do Unemployment in Scotland remains at 4.4 per cent above the UK average. One Royal Bank of Scotland economist stated in the Financial Times, October 12, 1988, that "the Scottish economy is a recovery not a boom."

The woefully inadequate role of the Labour movement leaders in in leading a fightback against the Tories has resulted in widespread disillusionment amongst sections of workers towards the Labour leaders. Of course the lack of leadership and subsequent disillusionment is not unique to Scotland, revealed in the high level of abstentions - and protest votes for the Liberals and the SDP - in by-elections and council elections in England and Wales. In Scotland however there exists in the form of the SNP an alternative for workers to turn to. The use of socialist rhetoric, an appeal to workers for them to control their interests in a workers' parliament - as put forward by Sillars at Govan - makes this alternative all the more attractive to Scottish workers. These feelings are being skillfully exploited by the SNP in their criticisms of Labour's failure to represent Scottish workers. The question must be posed however - what do the SNP represent and what is their programme to deal with Scotland's problems?

Poll tax Despite the socialist rhetoric of Jim Sillars in Govan the SNP has no history of fighting for socialism in Scotland as a political party.

sensing their When, impending rout, four prominent Scottish Tories resigned in the months prior to the general election, they chose the SNP as the new vehicle for their political ambitions. One prominent former Tory, Ian Lawson, is now one of the SNP's vice chairmen.

In its Manifesto for the 1987 general election entitled Playing the Scottish Card the SNP's economic policies are all worked out to promote a capitalist Scotland. There is no mention of socialist policies to solve the problems of Scottish workers.

This official party policy document also differs somewhat, in relation to the constitution for Scotland, to the positinn put forward by Jim Sillars in Whilst Sillars called for 'a Govan.

Workers' Parliament' the SNP Manifesto states that: "An independent Scotland will be governed by a democratic parliament...The head of state (will) remain the Queen in a limited constitutional monarchy."

In reality the SNP's policies have never threatened the existence ot capitalism in Scotland. Following the discovery of North Sea oil and subsequent rise in support the SNP attracted an array of millionaire industrialists Industrialists like Sir Hugh Fraser and merchant banker Ronald McNeil were some of the dignatories who graced SNP conferences licking their lips at the thought of the profits they would make in an independent Scotland awash It was during this period that saw the SNP parliamentary party reflecting the bankers by lining up alongside the Tories against the 1974-79 Labour government. The 11 SNP MPs voted in favvour of anti-trade union laws, against and, most infamously, Nationalisation Shipbuilding Bill which, had they succeded with the Tories in defeating it, would have meant the death then of shipbuilding on the Clyde.

Clearly the SNP support a capitalist Scotland. They do however have a socialist wing that showed itself in Govan. In real terms there are two SNPs: one for the industrial central belt of Scotland where it dresses its nationalism in socialist clothing and one for the north east of Scotland with its right wing, pro-capitalist values.

In the industrial belt the SNP have advocated a form of non-payment in fighting the poll tax. This is in contrast to their actions in the northern parts of On Grampian regional council, for example, the SNP voted along with the Tories and Liberals to directly deduct the poll tax from DHSS benefits thus cutting claimants' benefit and denying them their right to participate in a The campaign of mass non-payment. SNP, seconded by the Tories, moved to 'Clearly the SNP support a capitalist Scotland. They do however have a socialist wing that showed itself in Govan.'

invite tenders from firms of sheriff officers for the right to collect poll tax arrears and civil penalties. On Tayside regional council the SNP moved that those paying their poll tax in a lump sum should get a 5 per cent discount. This would have led to directly reducing the tax for the rich who could pay at once and take advantage of the discount, while increasing the tax on the poor as the overall tax would rise to ensure the same amount of money was collected. When challenged SNP councillor George Allan retorted that the SNP were 'here to represent the rich as Even in the industrial belt the SNP's campaign of non-payment differs significantly from those of the Strathclyde and Lothian Federations of Anti-Poll Tax Unions. Whilst the Federations' campaigns are for mass non-payment of the poll tax in the housing schemes and drawing support from the workplaces, involving hundreds of thousands as the only effective way to stop the poll tax, the SNP limit their campaign to 100,000 Their pamphlet, Non-Payment - The only way to defeat the Poll Tax, states: •The campaign is designed for those who 'can pay but won't pay. Although many people are bitterly opposed to the tax because of the personal effect it will have on them. those who are on benefit, pensions or on low wages might find taking part in the campaign an additional strain on their already weakened resources. They are therefore strongly advised not to participate unless they can afford to do so. But any person on average earnings or above can take part in the non-payment campaign without undue hardship."

Independence It appears that the advice from the SNP to the poorest sections of society is to pay the poll tax. The only effective way of stopping the poll tax is mass non-payment, linking up with the power of the organised labour movement, Involving precisely those who will be worst hit by the poll tax, which is workers on low wages or benefit. The reality is that many of this group will not pay the poll tax because they cannot afford to pay it.

Their pamphlet goes on to state that non-payment will be a "direct moral challenge to Mrs Thatcher". But the only challenge that Mrs Thatcher and the Tories will recognise is an organised campaign of mass non-payment in the housing schemes, linking up with the trade unions and embracing the streng-. th of the labour movement, not just in Scotland but spreading the campaign to England and Wales.

[page 14]

There have already been splits within

the SNP on the question of the poll tax,

most notably in Grampian. The contra-

diction within its ranks is between the

iwo opposing ideologies which will lead

to the possibility of further splits within

the SNP in the short and long term

future.

The SNP will be taken to task on the

question of the poll tax. It is noticeable,

however, that the central plank of the

SNP propaganda in Scotland since the

Govan by-election has shifted away

from the poll tax to the issue of in-

dependence in Europe.

The idea that Scotland's economic

and social problems can be solved by

the creation of an independent state in

Europe is entirely false. In today's

modern capitalist economy 500 comp

anies control 90 per cent of world trade.

The largest multi-nationals have annual

turnovers greater than the budgets of

even major countries.

A mere 25 companies account for 35

per cent of total industrial production

worldwide. On a capitalist basis, with

industry still privately owned by the big

monopolies, 'independence' to answer

the economic and social problems of

Scotland is an illusion.

At the present time, nearly 40 per cent of the top 100 companies in Scotland are foreign owned-a figure which will grow with the control of companies increasingly in the hands of multi-nationals based in Scotland.

This has been the case with the Irish republic which gained independence in 1921 and where to this day the economy is still dominated by British, US and other foreign companies.

Marxists supported the struggle of Irish workers against British imperialism and today stand for the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland and the unity of the workers North and South in the struggle for a 32 county socialist republic. But with its weak economy dominated by foreign capital, capitalist 'independence' has been no solution to Ireland's terrible poverty, unemployment and poor hous-

Unemployment is at 19.2 per cent the second highest rate in Europe. One-third of the population live below the poverty line (Irish Economic and Social Research Institute). The Irish Congress of Trade Unions reported that the average living standards of members fell by 20 per cent between 1980 and 1987. Over the next five years it is estimated that 50 per cent of 15-29 year-olds will emigrate to escape this grinding poverty.

The SNP's belief in independence in Europe presupposes that Scottish capitalists will serve the interests of Scottish workers. This argument was hinted at

by Jim Sillars on a Scottish TV prog-

ramme Left, Right and Centre when he

stated that Scotland could survive in-

dependence within Europe because of

the quality of Scottish businessmen

around.

The reality is that Scottish business-

men will always serve the interest of

profit before that of Scottish workers.

This was the case during the recent

take-over bid by the giant Australian

company Elders for Scottish and New-

castle Breweries which will result in job

losses. One of Scotland's top compan-

ies, the Royal Bank of Scotland was

prepared to finance the deal.

The SNP believes that a capitalist

Scotland would be strong enough to

compete and hold its own with its more

powerful European rivals. However,

the present state of the Scottish

economy shows otherwise.

Since 1970 the fortunes of Scotland's

economy relative to the UK has turned

to a large extent on the build up in oil

related developments. Oil related emp-

loyment accounts for between 90-

100,000 jobs, equal to 5-6 per cent of

total employment in Scotland. It would

only take a price war to have drastic

effects on this sector of employment.

An assembly?

Even at the present time much of the development of the oil industry is in the east of Scotland and has generally not touched Strathclyde which has over 56 per cent of Scotland's unemployed.

A Scottish Information Office publication entitled The economy of Scotland states that "the outlook for the Scottish economy depends on the recovery and growth in the UK and the industrialised countries generally." The onset of a worldwide economic recession or even just a slowdown in the world economy would have major consequences for Scotland.

Manufactured exports in Scotland account for nearly 100,000 jobs, with the USA being the main market. An economic recession would squeeze this market, particularly in America, with disastrous consequences on Scotland's economy.

Whilst the SNP maintain that Scotland could hold its own as an independent capitalist nation in Europe, a recent study by the Labour Party revealed that "the creation of a single European market in 1992 initially will destroy more than 14,000 jobs in the Scottish economy and cut output by f237 million." The study was based on figures produced by the European Commission in the Cecchini report last year.

The only way forward for Scottish workers is to link up with their English and Welsh counterparts. Their interests

NOL

OLLTA

and their enemies are the same. Wheth-

er Scottish workers are exploited by

foreign or native capitalists is not the

issue. Nationalism divides workers,

lowers their consciousness by making

them feel separate from other workers

and masks their common international

identity of interests.

The SNP manifesto declares that

"The North-South divide is really a

Scotland-England divide" and that "as

poverty in England is reduced, Scotland's becomes graver". This is a classic case of splitting the unity of working people.

Scotland has suffered terribly under Thatcher - but Merseyside, Tyneside and South Wales have suffered just as badly, as the league tables of unemployment, poverty and deprivation reveal. Just as in Scotland, in these areas the support for the Tories has crumbled, refuting the nationalist myth that Scotland is unique in opposing Thatcher.

Militant fully supports the right of nations to self-determination and would fight any moves to stand in the way of the democratic right even to separation should a majority so decide. Marxists in Scotland have consistently supported the demand for a Scottish assembly with full political and economic powers, including tax raising.

This is a democratic right of Scottish workers and must be fought for by the labour movement, given the enormous support for an assembly that exists in Scotland

An assembly would mean greater accountability over Scottish affairs. It would also be a vehicle for mobilising Scottish workers in the defence of their interests against the Tories attacks. An assembly could be used as a platform for socialist policies within Scotland including, for example, the nationalisation of all companies threatening redun-

15

[page 15]

MIR Spring 1989: Scotland

dancies such as the Caterpillar factory in Uddingston, which was closed despite the struggle of the workers.

Significantly, whilst Marxists in the Scottish and British labour movement have consistently fought for a Scottish assembly, Scottish Labour MPs like Brian Wilson and Robin Cook were in the past venomous opponents of devolution and an assembly. They have now done a complete U-turn on this question.

Also, in a particularly rich irony, Alex Wood, ex-leader of Edinburgh district council, has become the captain of a phantom army in the form of his newly created Scottish Socialist Party. Alex Wood ended his association with Militant because he felt that Militant was making too many concessions to nationalism!

In 1974 he was a confirmed anti-devolutionist and argued vehemently against Militant's programme of support for devolution and a Scottish assembly. Now, in a complete somersault, Wood has opportunistically jumped from his ultra-left dismissal of the relevance of the national question in Scotland to a zealous advocacy of a socialist independent Scotland.

Scottish convention

Socialists have no interest in coercing or subjugating any national minority. The slogan of the right to self-determination means the right of nations to form separate states if a majority should so wish.

But supporting the right for a nation to separate is not the same as to campaign for separation. It is entirely consistent to advocate that married couples should have the right to divorce if they wish without insisting that all married couples should do so!

Debate has increased recently on the call for a Constitutional Convention involving all Scotland's political parties as a solution to tackle the problems facing Scotland. The Convention is presently composed of representatives from the different party executives, with the exception of the Tories who refused to take part and now the SNP who have withdrawn.

If the Convention remains an unelected gathering from party executives such an unaccountable body will be incapable of organising any real effective action which would force the Tories into granting concessions on an assembly for Scotland. The Convention could therefore be seen as a mere talking shop which, given the desire for action from Scottish workers, could play into the hands of the SNP.

To be an effective body the Convention must be elected with representat-

16

ives not just from political parties but from trade unions, tennants associations and community groups in order to genuinely represent and fight for the interests of the Scottish workers.

The lesson of the last nine years of Tory government is that they will not be forced to grant concessions on the basis of public opinion. The Convention must develop a programme of action, most notably against the poll tax, and link this to the demand for a Scottish assembly.

It would be a fatal mistake to underestimate the potential for an increase in nationalist support, particularly among the youth. In Govan the SNP had a 28 per cent lead over Labour's vote among young people. Opinion polls have shown that 50 per cent of 18-24 year olds in Scotland support a socialist independent Scotland. Young people, looking for a fight against the Tories, will only have their disillusionment with Labour re-inforced by the witch-hunting antics of Labour's right wing.

Whether nationalism will grow depends most significantly on whether Labour has the ability to combat it with socialist policies. An outbreak of major class battles could also have the effect of uniting workers throughout Britain and pushing nationalism into the background - as the miners strike did in 1984-5.

And as the boomlet of the last six years comes to an end, this will shatter many illusions in the south of England that the Tories can successfully run the economy. Then. despite rather than because of the Labour leaders, Labour's support could rise significantly. The likelihood of a Labour victory would be a powerful magnet of attraction for Scottish workers.

But if the recession is delaved further, and the Labour leaders fail to offer an alternative to the Tories. this could sustain Tory support. Then a significant section of Scottish workers could be pushed towards the nation-

alists in the hope of escaping a fourth term of Thatcherism - although given

the deap seated traditions of Labour it

seems unlikely that support for nation-

alism would lead to a majority of

Scottish MPs being SNP at this

stage.

The poll tax remains the most impor-

tant factor in Scottish politics. It is the

most brutal and callous measure for 100

years. In the struggle against this tax

neither Labour nor the SNP can escape

from being put to the test.

The SNP will have to decide which

side of the fence they will sit on. Will

they go down the path of the Grampian

regional council or Jim Sillars in

Govan? How long will the up to now

dominant rural wing of the SNP tolerate

moves to the left within the possibility of split in thei inherent in this dilemma.

For Marxists the fight against the poll tax and the building of a united socialist labour movement remains the priority. If achieved it will cut across nationalism. The impatience of Scottish workers to beat the Tories is understandable.

Even the great Clydeside Marxist and workers leader, John MacLean, drawing on the tumultuous events in 1919- 20, concluded that "the socialist revolution was possible sooner in Scotland than in England" and raised the slogan of a 'Scottish workers republic'. In 1923 he argued that there would be a new world war before the English working class would be ready to struggle.

This prediction was confounded by events. Within three years British capitalism was shaken to its roots by the general strike of 1926, involving workers in all parts of Britain and Northern Ireland. If he had lived longer, MacLean would probably have altered his position in the light of that experience.

Workers'

SNP? The r ranks is

Of course, John MacLean did not argue against the unity of the Welsh, English and Scottish workers. In contrast leading SNP figures like Kenny McCaskill and Jim Sillars are opposed to unifying British workers and actually blame English workers for landing Scotland with a Tory government.

John MacLean in fact spent considerable time in England touring different cities and towns speaking at workers' rallies on the need for a socialist labour movement and for the international struggle of workers for the socialist transformation of society. A testimony to his internationalism was his appointment by Lenin as the official consul in Glasgow of the young Russian workers' state.

The continued onslaught of Thatcherism demonstrates the need for workers unity. The attacks on the NHS, housing, mortgage increases and wage levels are the issues that can unite workers against the Tories. The workers of Merseyside, Manchester, the Midlands, Tyneside, South Wales and London will then stand together with Scottish workers in battles that will change the course of British history

Strathclyde NO

ANTI-POLL TAX POLLTAX

- HERE Order from Tommy Sheridan, 265 Linthaugh Road, Pollok, Glasgow G53 5YE (01 - 882 9381). 50p plus 25p post for orders up to 20. 10p each for 20 and over.

Federation

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Building our journal Labour Roy Hattersley's 'market socialism' was examined in our last edition. What other debates in the labour movement could be dealt with in Business Manager's Report the MIR?

1989 will be an important year in the development of the Militant International Review.

While - at the time of writing there is still some way to go before sales of the last edition reach the record sales of number 37, the underlying trend is still encourag- A number of regions have shown what can be done if a consistent campaign is conducted. Thus, the average sales for recent editions in Manchester and the West Midlands have increased by 60 per cent compared to 1987.

In the East Midlands they have increased by 40 per cent. And for every one regular reader we had in Merseyside during 1985 there are now two and a half!

However, there can be no room for complacency. Every area must give the MIR its due importance as a vital supplement to the Militant. Only then will the financial base be secured for the improvements we plan to make to the journal during 1989.

This will only be realised by the increased participation of all our Investina readers, both financially - through selling the MIR - and politically aiding the Editors to constantly appraise the contents of the journal and the response it receives in the labour movement.

In the last issue we went to the heart of the Labour Party's Policy Review documents, answering the arguments about the alleged superiority of the market over conscious socialist planning. What response dia this receive from Labour Party members and trade unionists?

In this edition we deal with the question on the minds of every labour movement activist: can Labour win? But what other debates in the labour movement - on perspectives, programme, strategy or tactics - could be dealt with in the MIR?

To win a regular readership amongst the youth we need to know: which articles have provoked the most interest in the YS branches? What has been missing from the MIR that our youth and student readers would like to see?

The task we face in 1989 is to make our magazine an indispensible aid to labour movement activists and youth and students in struggle. In this way a consistent readership can be built - and our target for a more frequent MIR achieved.

The History of Bolshevism With the article in MIR number 38, 1905: The October Strike to the December Insurrection, Alan Woods' series on the history of Bolshevism has come to an end. It is intended that the articles printed since the serles began in 1985, revised and continued beyond the 1905 revolution, will be published in due course by Fortress Books.

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