[ALB]

Ozymandias wrote:

Yesterday I dithered between actually voting no (!) or spoiling my ballot. Realising a no vote was effectively a yes vote for Capitalism it felt good to attach my wee SPGB sticker onto my ballot paper. But beyond that drop in the ocean I actually felt major relief this morning that workers had rejected secession. I think it would have been a disaster.

That confirms what I suspected (and my own view) — that most socialists would have seen No as the lesser evil (or, as Steve Coleman might have put it, Yes as the evil of two lessers). Anyway, one good result is the demise of that unsufferable nationalist demagogue Salmond to be followed perhaps by the decline of the SNP.

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Todays New York climate change march is reported on our blog. http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/change-everything-time-for-fresh-greens.htmlThere are no demands, nor will there be any official speeches and some of the sponsors of it will be the fossil fuel industry and the banks. But Ozy is correct…the environmentalist activists are perhaps the few that are making any attempt to identify and tackle the culprit…capitalism. For sure, they have often been off-target but just how effective have we been in discussing the issues. As a party we do need a campaign strategy for getting our message across.

Forget about New York. There's a climate march too in Edinburgh on Sunday if youse are free:http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/events/peoples-climate-march-edinburghAlso in Glasgow and London.

[ALB]

Actually, Glasgow branch weren't really expected to distrubute our press statement on the referendum. This was done by the election committee which sent it to all the daily papers in Scotland. It got a mention here  (right at the end) if nowhere else.As to the referendum on the EU I can't see this generating enough interest to get over 90 percent of the population aged 16 or over to go and vote. In any case, it is not certain it will take place as it's a Tory election promise that would only be implemented in the unlikely event of the Tories getting an overall majority in next year's general election.

[ALB]

I don't think the accusation of bias against the BBC is fair. They struck me as being "too fair" from the point of view of the British ruling class who have an interest in Scotland not breaking away (as it will weaken them on the world stage) but I've just been listening to a local radio station in South West London on my way back from Clapham. The presenter said that if Scotland voted yes the first record he would play would be "The Road to Nowhere" and also remarked that the Union Jack looked ok without the blue Scottish part of it. (Of course it would still just be a rag on the end of a stick.) Talk about bias! But I don't think Radio Jackie can be heard in Scotland.

[ALB]

And they'd offer us reformism-max which we could reject with contempt.

[ALB]

ALB wrote:

The debate was recorded so should be available some time.

Here it is:http://www.mixcloud.com/davidallen3139/insight-with-adam-on-afrobeat-940-fm/Talking starts 5.58 minutes in.Incidentally the "Adam" is the interviewer not me.

[ALB]

Quote:

Quote:

If Scotland leaves the union, "Great Britain" will remain valid as a geographical term. The logical name for what remains will be the Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (KEWNI). Ukip could restyle itself KEWNIP.PROFESSOR MARTIN WEST, Oxford.

Anyone for SPKEWNI ?

Just remembered. There would be a precedent. The name of the party Rosa Luxemburg was associated with in Russian Poland was "Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania", or SDKPiL.

[ALB]

Yes, I had a debate on the Scottish referendum with them and a LibDem on a local radio station in East London last night and it was amusing to see the UKIP representative repeat all the arguments for Scotland not withdrawing from the UK (not big enough internal market, not strong enough to survive international competition on its own, etc) as are put against them for wanting the UK to withdraw from the EU. Also, she was so against Scotland being offered a disproportionate amount of money to vote No that she forgot that UKIP has an MEP from Scotland (be interesting to see what he does if there's a Yes vote). The debate was recorded so should be available some time.

[ALB]

Interesting letter in today's Times from an Oxford Professor:

Quote:

Sir, In pondering what the rest of the realm would be called in the event of Scotland's secession, let us be clear about the meaning of the term Great Britain. It was not first instituted, as recently claimed, by James VI of Scotland when he acquired the throne of England; nor does it embody a claim to greatness, as your columnist Alice Thomson (Sept 10) supposes. Gret Britanee was referred to in 1474 in the instrument for the proposed marriage of Edward IV's daughter Cecily to James III of Scotland, and more than three centuries earlier Geoffrey of Monmouth used the term Britannia maior for the island of Britain as opposed to Britannia minor, which was Brittany.If Scotland leaves the union, "Great Britain" will remain valid as a geographical term. The logical name for what remains will be the Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (KEWNI). Ukip could restyle itself KEWNIP.PROFESSOR MARTIN WEST, Oxford.

Anyone for SPKEWNI ? 

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I think YMS may well be leading us to a place we do not want to be…Class interests are class interests…not sections or part of the class…not individual material interests. Class interests must be viewed in global terms, not national or regional terms or occupational/industrial terms.

I don't know what you mean. Where don't we want to be?

[ALB]

The other interesting thing about the campaign from the socialist point of view is confirmation of our argument that if you want reforms a better way to get them than reformism is to demand revolution. The SNP demands "revolution", i.e. independence, and when it looks as if they might win the ruling class offers more reforms within the system, so-called devo-max, to try to buy off the movement. Maybe in fact that's even what Salmond wanted from the start.

[ALB]

Vin Maratty wrote:

I think we should be concerned about what is being said on our Facebook by members of the Partyhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/worldsocialism/10152727706882700/?notif_t=group_comment_reply

Not necessarily. At last a debate amongst members on some political issue instead of the procedural matters that have dominated conferences and ADMs in recent years (and must be at least partially responsible for falling attendences, though maybe the internet is the new forum for debates). But a bit late. Our branch tried to get a discussion going on the Scottish referendum at this year's Conference but without much success.It is true that one thing we couldn't have anticipated then was that there is going to be a big turn-out. Which can't be a bad thing as it shows that when there is something to vote about that workers, rightly or wrongly, feel concerned about they will turn out to vote and in fact there is a sense that it will be a "historic" vote in political terms as a "yes" vote will change history. So, we can be confident that when socialism is really on the agenda workers will turn out to vote and ignore the anarchists and other anti-parliamentarists (or "andy pandies" as Glasgow branch call them). A high turn could be the one positive outcome.

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Robert Fisk on the Irish/Scottish independence comparisons http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/scottish-independence-ireland-since-1919-is-a-lesson-for-scotland-in-what-a-yes-vote-means-9727596.html

What happened after Ireland got "independence" is indeed relevant to the debate in Scotland today but the subheading to the article is highly tendentious (though Fisk himself may not be responsible for it).

Quote:

Scottish Independence: Ireland since 1919 is a lesson for Scotland in what a Yes vote means.The last divorce from the United Kingdom was painful and acrimonious, but ended in harmony and prosperity.

What happened in Ireland after "independence" in 1922 is indeed a lesson for the debate in Scotland today, but the sub-heading is highly tentendious (though Fisk himself may not have been responsible for it).Things are ok today but it took working class conditions in Ireland some 50 years to catch up with those in the rest of British Isles. To start with, things got worse, as the Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Ireland, our companion party there noted in 1949:

Quote:

But so far as the working class were concerned all that was accomplished by the achieving of national independence and self-government for 26 of the 32 Irish counties was a change of masters. The boss-worker relationship remained, though the British left; and the first Irish (Free State) Government soon settled down to its job of administering capitalism in the interest of its masters, the property-owning class of that part of Ireland.The conditions of the working class during the first ten years of the "Irish Free State" became apparently no better — in fact, deteriorated.

See from page 7 on of the pamphlet here. It gets worseA case could even be made out for saying that the working class in Ireland would have been better off if the 26 counties hadn't broken away as this meant that they were excluded from the social reforms which the British State could afford but which the Irish State could'.t. In any event, it's a travesty to say that "independence" brought "prosperity " to Ireland.

[ALB]

I'm not sure about that. Haven't most people already seen through the effing Labour Party (as we can now call the parliamentary parties) including those who vote for it, i.e they vote for it without illusions. So no need for us to spell out that the Labour Party won't do anything for workers any more than any other party.

[ALB]

I see there's a Party member on our Facebook page arguing for a Yes vote:

Quote:

The problem is, world socialism is not on the agenda. The choice is between yes and no for Scotland. If you spoil the ballot paper, it's not voting. Which aids and abets the status quo. A status quo which isn't in the interests of the working class of Scotland. If Scotland votes Yes, it would unleash a political demon. The spectre that Marx envisaged.

Quote:

Cannot believe Scottish socialists (members of Socialist Party of Former Great Britain) think they are doing right by not voting Yes

It is true that a Yes vote, resulting in the breakup of Britain, would result is a political crisis, a constitutional crisis, a fiscal crisis and an economic crisis, but I would have thought that this was a reason for not wanting the Yes side to win. I don't think we need to care about the first three types of crisis but it's workers who are always the victims of an economic crisis, so why provoke one when there's no need for one? I doubt, too, that the effect of these crises would be favourable for the spread of socialist ideas. I would expect them to exacerbate nationalist prejudices and tensions in both Scotland and England.I still say that, from a reformist/trade union point of view (effect on workers standard of living within capitalism) there is no case for Yes. It definitely won't make things better. The SNP's promises of free this and free that, better this and better that are just the usual politicians empty vote-catching promises. At best it will make no difference but I think the evidence is that it would risk making things worse and probably would. Actually, workers in Scotland seem to realise this as, according to the same opinion poll Alan mentions:

Quote:

Almost half of Scots, 48 per cent, now think that an independent country would be worse off overall … Similarly 45 per cent think that an independent Scotland would make them personally financially worse off.

I agreewith Matt  that the No campaign has made a big mistake to bus up English politicians to fake a "passionate" British nationalism. They should have left it to business leaders to announce their contingency plans in the event of a Yes vote. That would have done the trick for them better.Anyway, we are socialists and have adopted the only possible socialist policy of not taking sides and casting a write-in vote for world socialism.  I say only possible but when we first discussed this I did float the idea of voting No and writing World Socialism across the ballot paper to show our rejection of Scottish nationalism as well as support for World Socialism but there were no takers apart from a comrade from Wales who had done this in the referendum a few years ago on whether or not to set ip a Welsh Assembly..

[Author]

Posts