Real Scots opinion

(Wednesday 23 January 2008)

Maria Fyfe is former Labour MP for Glasgow Maryhill.

 

MARIA FYFE argues that all the evidence suggests that Scotland doesn't want independence.

LAST week, John McAllion said that the time is nigh for Scottish independence. Let's examine why he says so.

"New Labour finds itself in opposition to a nationalist government and dragged onto the nationalist ground of what to do about further constitutional reform."

Nowhere does he mention that this nationalist government is a minority government which is ahead of Labour by only one seat. In fact, the majority of seats at Holyrood are held by parties that oppose nationalism.

 

John also asserted: "Scottish opinion polls also show support for independence at 40 per cent and on a rising curve." This is simply not true. There was such a poll last month, but it was out of line with others before and since. As recently as last May, every Scottish adult - not just a thousand or so in an opinion poll - had an opportunity to express a view. Eighty-five per cent chose not to vote for the SNP. Many of this number did not vote at all, but, if there really was a surge for independence in Scotland, then would you not expect people to vote for the party whose whole reason for existence is just that?

 

If John is right and "the age of Britain is over" - and I don't believe that it is - it is certainly not because the majority of Scots want anything of the kind. But you would never know it given the endless propaganda coming from nationalists both left and right.

When I wrote the article for Scottish daily newspaper The Herald with which John so deeply disagreed, he wrote without bothering to tell me. But I wrote that piece because I was fed up with the lack of an answer to the nationalist case in the media.

 

Yes, I do welcome the setting up of the Scottish constitutional commission by the three "unionist" parties at Holyrood, which is shorthand for Labour, the Lib Dems and Tories. I support it because it is a tool that can be used to examine what best meets the needs of our people. So, John is quite right about one thing - I did offer in my Herald article an alternative programme covering a new financial settlement, potential new powers for the Scottish Parliament, further devolution to local government and the possibility of some devolved powers being returned to Westminster. Only someone who is a convinced nationalist can possibly object to that, as indeed they did in impassioned letters to the paper following my article's publication.

 

But they and John have still to explain why Scottish independence necessarily means a better deal for our people, especially those suffering deprivation. It is an act of faith and, like most other acts of faith, it ignores evidence. John mentions the new challenges that are posed by globalisation. Indeed - and climate change and drying up of our oil supplies too.

If Britain was divided up into an array of separate smaller nations, I cannot see that as being anything other than deeply problematic for workers in terms of employment rights, pay, the social wage and a host of gains like the national minimum wage, as each separate government vies with one another for investment from big business.

 

The less tax big business pays, the more the rest of us pay - or see cuts imposed. And, while I agree that the national minimum wage is not high enough, I will never forget the night when Labour MPs in Westminster voted to create the wage, but Alex Salmond and all the other Scottish National Party representatives went home to their beds. Stand up for Scotland? They couldn't even stay awake. But then why would they, when they have the likes of multimillionaire Brian Soutar funding them?

 

John should really know me better than to imply that I want to keep the hereditary crown. I am a lifelong republican and have no wish to see the monarchy continue, but, first, people must realise that the Crown is not just something to be tolerated as a help to the tourist trade, but is the pinnacle of the class divisions in our society. Don't expect the SNP to pull Scotland out of the monarchy - the party that once made a fuss of whether Queen Elizabeth was I or II is fully committed to recognising the monarch as head of state. Meanwhile, other nations with devolved administrations are also republics and I hope one day that we will join them.

 

ohn is clear about what he does not want, but less forthcoming about how to achieve what he does want. I don't know if he is still a member of the Scottish Socialist Party - a party that has managed to lose all its Scottish Parliament seats and now holds not even one council seat. He really would be wiser not to mention scandals when former SSP convener Tommy Sheridan is facing the prospect of a perjury trial in which his conduct towards fellow socialists will come under examination.

 

Yes, Labour will have to clean up its act over cash for peerages and funding. It can do so without self-destructing, which is more than can be said for the SSP. So, in reality, John's hopes for an independent socialist Scotland rest with the SNP, unless he, like Arthur Scargill and others - who are no doubt sincere and honest people - try to set up yet another new party. But the history of such efforts is far from encouraging and I would suggest to him that, with all its faults, the British trade union and labour movement can manage to do more on a poor day than the whole host of tiny Trotskyist parties have ever done.

 

 

Age of Britain over

(Wednesday 16 January 2008)

John McAllion is former Labour MP and MSP for Dundee East.

 

JOHN McALLION argues that the time is nigh for Scottish independence.

MARIA Fyfe, the former Labour MP for Glasgow Maryhill, recently used the columns of one of Scotland's main broadsheets to issue a clarion call for unionists in Scotland to rally against Scottish nationalism and in defence of the 300-year union with Anglo-Britain. She welcomed in particular the alliance of the new Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat parties in the Holyrood parliament behind a proposal for a Scottish constitutional commission that would propose new powers to beef up what is now accepted on all sides as a flawed devolution settlement.

 

Fearful that Alex Salmond's Scottish government would use its years in power to entrench its popularity and then win an independence referendum in 2010, Fyfe argued for Scotland's unionists to pre-empt the nationalists by staging their own early referendum on the commission's strengthened devolution package. Such a referendum, she argued, would "demonstrate in a formal poll that most of us (Scots) do not want to break up Britain."

 

Fyfe's argument echoes an earlier memorable one-liner used by the late John Smith about devolution being "the settled will of the Scottish people." Smith, of course, had deployed this one-liner against a Tory government opposed to any constitutional reform.

Fyfe, on the other hand, speaks on behalf of an alliance that includes the Scottish Tories and is designed to limit constitutional reform to what is acceptable to Westminster.

In some respects, Maria's arguments reflect the extent to which nationalism has propsered under devolution. New Labour had originally argued that there was no appetite for constitutional navel-gazing in a devolved Scotland - the Scottish people wanted their political parties to get on with the business of making devolution work by providing Scottish solutions in health, education, local government etc.

 

Only the nationalists, new Labour argued, wanted to talk about further constitutional nit-picking. Nationalists were out of touch with ordinary Scots who, in every opinion poll, showed that they had other political priorities such as schools, crime, hospitals and jobs. The more that the nationalists obsessed on the constitution, the less relevant they would become to the real politics of 21st century Scotland.

Yet, less than a decade into devolution's new century, new Labour now finds itself in opposition to a nationalist government and dragged onto the nationalist ground of what to do about further constitutional reform.

 

Scottish opinion polls also show support for independence at 40 per cent and on a rising curve. Fyfe, one of their "eminences grises," openly warns of a decisive "confrontation between those who would break up the union and those who want to keep it."

She also sets out a forward programme for the constitutional commission that covers a new financial settlement, potential new powers for the parliament, further devolution to local government and the possibility of some devolved powers being returned to Westminster. What once had been dismissed as navel gazing has now become a struggle for the heart and the soul of the nation.

 

No-one should be surprised by this turn of events. Political parties must address themselves to the defining issues of their times and the continuing relevance of a 300-year-old political formation to the new challenges posed by globalisation was always going to be central to the politics of our new century.

The national conversation on the future of Scottish governance, which was launched by the Scottish government last year and originally shunned by the unionist parties, now dominates the political scene.

 

Let the conversation commence.

Scottish socialists should welcome this debate. There may be no parliamentary road to socialism, but parliaments remain a key political battleground where we can engage with issues of class power in modern state formations.

Challenging a union where political sovereignty still rests with the hereditary crown and a parliamentary majority elected on less than 22 per cent of the vote should come naturally to socialists.

We should be the first to challenge the credibility of British new Labour as a force for progressive change - a so-called party of the centre-left that is mired in scandals over cash for peerages and illegal donations from a rich and powerful elite.

Socialists should also be ready to challenge what has now become a warfare state basing its claim to "greatness" on aggressive military actions around the world in support of US imperialism and staking its claim for a seat of the UN security council through possession of its weapons of mass destruction.

 

Scottish workers and Scottish capitalists may have long benefited from being incorporated into a British empire that opened up unprecedented economic opportunities. The organised working class may also have benefited from a golden age of British Labour that made possible the National Health Service and the welfare state.

But the future cannot be built upon nostalgia for a golden age that has passed. Present-day Britain bears no resemblence to the welfare state that emerged from the second world war.

The present-day British Labour Party would not be recognised by Nye Bevan's generation as a vehicle for progress towards social democracy, never mind socialism. The age of Britain is over. The battle for its successor states has begun.