Nats whae hae?

 Nationalism is anathema to socialists. Wage and salary workers have no country.  We have more in common with people like ourselves in other countries than with  the privileged owning class of the country where we happen to live and work.

 The world-wide working class has a common interest, to end its exploitation and  solve its problems, to join together to establish a world without frontiers in which the resources of the planet will have become the heritage of all, so
that there can be production to meet needs and not for profit. One world,
one people, where cultural differences will still be celebrated, but where
 we’ll all be citizens of the world.

 It is clear, then, why socialists don’t take sides in the debate, aired in this
month’s elections to the Scottish Parliament, about whether it is better for
workers there to be ruled from Edinburgh (as the SNP says) or from London
 with a little help from Edinburgh (as say the British Nationalists of the Labour,
 Liberal and Tory parties).

 The SNP argues that the problems facing workers in Scotland are due to
“Westminster rule”. If only there was an independent Scotland, they say,
 separate from the rest of Britain, then there would be full employment,
higher wages, job security, better state benefits, a healthy health service
and all the other things politicians promise at election times. This view is
echoed by the so-called Scottish “Socialist” Party and Tommy Sheridan’s
Solidarity (with Sheridan) party. But it is patently absurd.

 This would be a purely political, not to say mere constitutional, change
which would leave the basic economic structure of society unchanged.
There would still be a privileged class owning and controlling the means
 of production with the rest having to work for them for a living.
Just as now. Maybe the pillar boxes would be painted tartan but that
would be about all.

 An independent Scottish government would still have to operate within
the constraints of the world capitalist system. It would still have to ensure
that goods produced in Scotland were competitive on world markets and
that capitalists investing in Scotland were allowed to make the same level
of profits as they could in other countries.

 In other words, it would still be subject to the same economic pressures as
the existing London-based government to promote profits and restrict wages
and benefits. And as the government of Ireland, which broke away from the
United Kingdom in 1922 and where things have never been any different.
Not even the national state capitalism proposed by the SSP and Sheridan would
 make any difference. As in Cuba, exports would still have to be competitive
and popular consumption restricted to achieve this.

 Since it is this class-divided, profit-motivated society that is the cause of the
problems workers face in Scotland, as in England and in the rest of the world,
so these problems will continue, regardless of whether Scotland separates from
 or remains part of the United Kingdom.

 The SNP is promising a referendum in 2010. What an irrelevant waste of time and  energy that would be, but it’s their alibi. If they get to form the regional
government of Scotland their excuse for not delivering (as capitalism won’t let
them) will be that their hands were tied and that their promises will only be able  to be honoured after separation.

 Our opposition to the SNP should not be interpreted as support for the Union or the Labour, Liberal or Tory parties that support it. We are just as opposed to them. A plague on both their houses is what we say.
To adapt a slogan, Neither London nor Edinburgh, but World Socialism.

Introducing The Socialist Party




The Socialist Party is like no other political party in Britain. It is made
up of people who have joined together because we want to get rid of
the profit system and establish real socialism. 

Our aim is to persuade others to become  socialist and act for themselves,
organising democratically and without leaders, to bring about the kind of
society that we are advocating in this journal. 
We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. 

We are not a reformist party with a programme of
policies to patch up capitalism.

We use every possible opportunity to make new socialists. 
We publish pamphlets and books, as well as CDs, DVDs and 
various other informative material.

We also give talks and take part in debates; attend rallies, meetings 
and demos; run educational conferences; host internet discussion forums,
make films presenting our ideas, and contest elections when practical. 
Socialist literature is available in Arabic, Bengali, Dutch, Esperanto,
French, German,Italian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish as well 
as English.

The more of you who join the Socialist Party the more we will be able
to get our ideas across, the more experiences we will be able to draw
on and greater will be the new ideas for building the movement which 
you will be able to bring us.

The Socialist Party is an organisation of equals. There is no leader and
there are no followers. So, if you are going to join we want you to be
sure that you agree fully with what we stand for and that we are satisfied
that you understand the case for socialism.

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