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Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Six

7/30/2014

6. Keeping the faith

By 1987 the Labour party was deeply entrenched into every part of the Scottish political system. Labour had 50 of Scotland’s 72 MPs compared to the SNPs 3, 545 local council seats to the SNPs 59 and 223 regional council seats to the SNPs 36. In fact these figures do not do justice to the scale of the SNP defeat. Conservatives, Liberals and Independents all had more votes and elected representatives than the SNP. Labour presided over a country where it was the massively dominant force and its hated enemy the SNP was almost non-existent.

In the 1970s the Labour party had been bitter about relying on the SNP to stay in power in Westminster. Yet, the apparent destruction of the Nats in the 1980s did nothing to ease that bitterness. If anything hatred of the ‘Tartan Tories’ intensified; the narrative of social justice increasingly became secondary to a victim narrative which claimed that the nationalists had destroyed the last Labour government and helped Thatcher into power. It was a simplistic yet effective piece of propaganda. Labour had been badly bruised by its own divisions over home rule in the seventies and by its inability to protect traditional Scottish industries in the 1980s: hatred of the nationalist became a unifying salve.

Fear of losing power in Scotland brought with it an unforeseen consequence; Labour began to believe in its own absolute right to control Scotland, dissent was seen as dangerous and would not be tolerated within the party or within its working class heartlands. Labour controlled the local councils that employed working class people, many of whom also lived in council houses. Labour councillors used their influence over homes and wages to bolster support and threaten dissenting voices. Other tools to maintaining power included supporting sectarian divisions to maintain blocks of power throughout Scotland. With control maintained by any means, Labour members were free to use their influence to peddle deals over land and housing, and jet off to holiday junkets in warm climes – with little, if any, critical response from Scotland’s media. The joke in Glasgow was that if labour councillors returned from Hawaii wearing suntans and hoola hoola skirts, the glasgow press would praise them for the efforts they were taking to boost jobs, health and local government. Doubtless Moscovites made the same jokes about Pravda.

Convulsed by its own infighting and reduced to the role of Joker in the body politic of Scotland, the SNP still posed some very difficult questions for Labour. With so many MPs why was the labour party not doing more to defend the people of Scotland against Tory policies? How could Labour accept the legitimacy of Tory rule over Scotland when it had dismissed the democratic vote of Scotland in 1979? The SNP jibed that Labour MPs in Scotland were the ‘fifty fearties’. The jibe soon become more than an irritating insult. In the local council elections of 1988 the SNP doubled its number of seats, becoming the second party of local government, though still way behind Labour. Later in the same year, the Scottish Labour Party was struck a more substantial blow. Jim Sillars won the Govan by-election for the SNP. Scottish politics was once more about to get very interesting.

Now read Part Seven: Things begin to heat up

All these blogs can be read from beginning at: Social Justice & Scottish Independence

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Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Five.

7/30/2014

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5. Defending Red Scotland

Thatcher was not content with destroying Scottish industry and society. Scotland was to the store house for more nuclear weapons and nuclear waste. Exhausted as Scots were by the struggles against Tory rule, such arrogance and contempt carried the danger of reviving nationalist feeling. In May 1985 leading nationalist lawyer and anti-nuclear campaigner Willie McRea was found mortally wounded by gun shots. His death occurred ten months after the abduction and murder of the English anti-nuclear campaigner Hilda Murrell. Whether McRea’s death was suicide, murder or a Special Branch assassination is still open to question. Certainly the British State has never baulked at killing troublesome lawyers. No fatal accident inquiry was held. And despite requests from politicians and campaigners no public inquiry has ever been held.

In the latter half of 1985 I was still a SNP member and was involved in the battle to save the Gartcosh steel mill. I’m sure there must have been marches and drums and applause and sausage, onion and tomato sauce baps – that was part of the fun of campaigning in the early 1980s – but my memories of Gartcosh lack any colour or sense of defiance. It was savage cold that winter when I took my turn staying in the camp set outside the gates of the steel mill. The men and the women who lived in the surrounding houses always seemed to talk quietly. It felt like a funeral. Even when trade unionists and Labour and Nationalist activists stood together and discussed tactics there was little sense of hope.

I only stayed overnight at the camp on a couple of occasions, most of my work was leafleting and bucketing. But a curious thing happened on one of the nights I did stay in the camp. The older activists were away having a meeting so there was only a handful of young men and teenagers, including myself, huddled in a cold and leaky tent. Then an older man stepped into the tent. He spoke passionately about the steel mill and how its closure would destroy him and his family. He also told us he had some dynamite and wouldn’t it be great to blow up a nearby bridge. I was eighteen and it seemed like a great idea to me. Fortunately my companions were more copped on then I, and the man's offer was politely declined. He tried to bring the subject up a few more times and then left. With hindsight I still cannot say whether he was Special Branch or a local bam or just some guy so distraught with the threat to his community that anger was getting the better of him.

No bridge was blown up. Gartcosh closed in 1986. Scotland was a despondent place. Even Special Branch wound down its Tartan Terror frolics; Scotland was so despondent, it seemed a futile occupation. In 1987 the song ‘Letter from America’ rose to number three in the UK charts. It pretty much summed up the despair in Scotland at the time: ‘Bathgate no more, Linwood no more, Methil no more, Irvine no more’.

Now read Part Six: Keeping the faith

All these blogs can be read from beginning at: Social Justice & Scottish Independence

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Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Four

7/30/2014

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4. Teenage Kicks in the 1980s

For a teenager the early 1980s was the best thing ever. While the new Conservative government was intend on smashing civic society, Scotland remained a defiantly socialist country. Caledonia was filled with plucky soviet inspired pioneers boldly giving the finger to the running dogs of capitalism, whilst waiting for the great leap forward into a benevolent and all loving Marxist paradise – which would come about once the labour party won power in the UK. Thatcher however had other plans.

Much has already been written about the destruction of Scotland’s traditional manufacturing base in the 1980s and I need not go repeat that awful litany of closures here. Defiance without victory is a hard thing to sustain, yet long term things were achieved during the 1980s. Labour controlled Strathclyde region leased land outside Faslane Naval Base to anti-nuclear campaigners and Faslane Peace Camp remains a focus for world-wide resistance to Nuclear weapons. Many of the men and women who suffered under Thatcher’s axe remain defiant and active to this day, not least the men and women of the mining communities who I met during the Social Justice campaigns of the 1990s. But there is no denying that by the mid 1980s Red Scotland was becoming exhausted and increasingly bitter place.

Whether a Scottish parliament could have resisted or at least soften Tory attacks on Scotland is one of those great what ifs of history. Certainly in the aftermath of Thatcher’s stunning 1983 re-election some of the No campaigners of 1979 now came to support the idea of home rule, either as a measure for defending Scotland or protecting the Labour Party’s dominance. Among the converts was Robin Cook. However, this debate remained behind closed doors.

When I was 16 or 17 I went to a Labour party talk in Castlemilk, on the outskirts of Glasgow. The wee man from the party stood up and gave his spiel. Housing, poverty, health and other Social Jutice isues were not mentioned at all. Thatcher was only mentioned in the passing. Instead the audience was given a lecture about the evils and dangers of the SNP. It was the first time I heard this theory articulated, but not the last. To this day, it still does the rounds in various guises and it remains as shocking a thing to hear now as it was then. In summary, here are the facts as espoused by the wee man from the Labour Party. The SNP, he explained, says it’s all for worker’s rights and defying Thatcher. It says it is a Socialist Party. But it is also a Nationalist Party. Socialism and Nationalism. What happens when you put them together? It happened in Germany with Hitler. Do not let it happen here! So there it was explained to working class teenagers, the Scot Nats were actually Scot Nazis.

Luckily I was and remain a contrary wee shite. My childhood has a lot to do with this. Like many families in the West of Scotland, mine is a mixture of the Orange and Green, my heritage being a mix of the Irish who fled the hunger and dislocation of late 19th century Ireland and the Scottish Protestants who tried to shove them back on the boat again. There is pride in both sides of my family and much to celebrate but having brought mixed cultured children into the world my parents and their respective families were faced with a very real problem. Should the weans be brought up Catholic or Protestant. In the end I was baptised a Catholic. However, whilst I went to Chapel on Sunday, I went to Orange walks on the Saturday. As our American friends are wont to say ‘Go figure!’

One legacy of my upbringing is an appreciation that nothing is ever black or white (or orange and green). I like shades and tones and splashes of confusion and sheer bloody mayhem. Having listened to the crazy labour man’s harangue I did not sign on the line and become a member of the people’s party. Instead, within a week I joined the SNP. Admittedly I was more motived by umbrage than conviction, but at least I made a go of it. I did try to stay in the SNP, but I’m not a nationalist. It’s just not in my make-up. I do retain a lot of respect for the SNP activists as I do for many of the Labour activist who I have met over the years. But I guess it’s like my Orange and Green background. I have been influenced and inspired by the Labour and Nationalist parts of my Heritage, but I remain in politics as in faith, a firm Atheist.

Now read Part Five: Defending Red Scotland

All these blogs can be read from beginning at: Social Justice & Scottish Independence

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Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Three

7/30/2014

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3. 1979 and all that

Born in the late 1960s I grew up in a Labour household during the nationalist fervour of the 1970s. My memories of that time include heated debates over Scotland’s oil and the dangers of home rule, which apparently would make Scotland into another blood soaked Northern Ireland. Another argument in Labour homes and communities – and one which is still rolled out to this day – is the weird and racist belief that without a socialist Scotland, England would suddenly turn into a far right wing country.

The Labour Party in Scotland always had a difficult relationship with the idea of devolution for Scotland. There is a justified rationale behind this: the more united the UK is, so the argument goes, the better it can use its power and wealth to bring social justice to all. Devolution would dilute the UKs ability to create a progressive society. It is a sincere and valid argument, however belief in it has led to some very unpleasant and anti-democratic decisions being taken by Labour in Scotland.

In 1970s a powerful group of labour activists including George Robertson and Brian Wilson and Robin Cook campaigned for a no vote in the devolution campaign, allegedly with financial support from conservative backers. Despite the fear mongering and confusion sown by no campaigners 63.6 percent of the Scottish electorate came out to vote. The devolution vote was won by 51.6% to 48.4%. Yet this democratic and free vote was declared null and void. Due to a clause added to the devolution bill, a win could only be accepted if more than 40 per cent of the electorate voted yes. This clause had been added by the Scottish Labour MP George Cunningham, who represented Islington South and Finsbury in the House of Commons. In the bitter aftermath the Conservatives tabled a vote of no confidence in the labour government. SNP and Liberal MPs voted with the Tories and the Labour government fell.

In the following UK election the SNP vote collapsed and they were left with two MPs in Scotland. The nationalist threat had been broken. And just to make sure it stayed that way Special Branch ran its own little Tartan Terror campaign to further discredit and disillusion any remaining nationalist sentiment. In 1979 both Labour and Conservatives increased their seats and votes in Scotland; Labour returned 44 seats with 41.6 per cent of the Scottish vote and the conservatives returned 22 seats with 31.4 per cent of the vote. Though the Tories had less than 40 per cent of the vote in Scotland, no Labour MP questioned the legitimacy of their right to rule.

Now read Part Four: Teenage kicks in the 1980s

All these blogs can be read from beginning at: Social Justice & Scottish IndependenceFollow me on twitter

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There’s a wheen o Yes campaigns and campaigners out there on twitter. But you might want to check out these to start with

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Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Two

7/30/2014

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2. Where to begin?

No political party in Scotland is immune to viewing facts as malleable materiel to be used and bent and twisted as suits. In the hands of the Labour Party in Scotland, though, such propagandizing has been inflated to new and sublime levels that are only connected to reality by the thinnest of tattered and worn threads. Compared to the creativity of the Caledonian comrades, the spin and dissembling of Tony Blair and his colleagues seem oafish and pedestrian.

This is not a new phenomenon, sadly deceit and double speak have a long and venerable history in the Labour Party in Scotland. However Labour’s current creativity with facts contains two grave dangers for the party: not only will it end up completely divorced from how the world is seen and experienced by people in Scotland; but equally it will finally become completely detached from its origins as a party that believed in and struggled for social justice for the peoples of Scotland and the United Kingdom.

Some would argue that Labour became divorced from its past a long time ago, but this is an overly simplistic view – as well as an insult to those who remain loyal to labour, either as voters or grassroots party members. It is a trite and idiotic narrative which portrays labour and unionism as incontrovertibly bad and SNP and independence as self-evidently good. The truth is that the recent history of Scotland is as messy, dynamic and bewildering as life itself. No outcome was, is or will be inevitable.

One difficulty in trying to examine contemporary events in Scotland is deciding where to begin the story. Does it start with the current referendum campaign or with the reconvening of the Scottish parliament? Perhaps we should whizz all the way back to the mid ninth century when Kenneth Mac Alpin united the various peoples and cultures north of the Forth and Clyde rivers into a political entity known as Alba. There are of course other memorable dates, including 1915 Glasgow rent strikes organised and led by women activists in the Independent Labour Party, or the land agitation of the Highland Land League with its slogan Is treasa tuath na tighearna / The people are mightier than a lord .

These and many other dates and events are a crucial part of Scotland’s history. However, for an understanding of the debates and conflicting voices in the current referendum I would suggest it is important to examine the Decade of Dissent, the ten years of social justice agitation that preceded the first Scottish assembly election in 1999. However to understand what happened between 1989 and 1999 there is a need to examine the campaign and aftermath of the referendum which Scots mostly now try not to talk about. The devolution vote of 1979.

Now read Part Three: 1979 and all that

All these blogs can be read from beginning at: Social Justice & Scottish Independence

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There’s a wheen o Yes campaigns and campaigners out there on twitter. But you might want to check out these to start with

@NewsnetScotland @bellacaledonia @WeAreNational
@Radical_Indy

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Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part One

7/29/2014

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1. An Imminent Catastrophe

If the No campaign propaganda is to believed, independence will result in Scotland physically detaching itself from the north eastern Atlantic archipelago that it has been part of for a long, long time. The very bedrock of the Scottish borders, formed 440 million years ago from layers of sediment in ancient shallow seas, will crack like a roasted yuletide nut. The soft hills of the southern lowlands, evidence of the glacial scouring 3 million years ago, will tear apart like thread bare sheets.

Having defied geology and physics the newly independent nation will then drift far from the civilisation until, reaching the end of world, the nation, its legislators and citizens will find themselves teetering on the edge of a vast and apocalyptic maelstrom. Like the foolish prince in the legend of the Corryvreckan whirlpool, the Scottish government will no doubt order three great ropes be made; one from hemp, one from wool and one from the hair of golden maidens. But despite great and heroic effort, particularly on the part of the golden maidens, the new nation will fail to anchor itself to this world. Instead it will plummet down and down into the darkest abyss and be lost for ever.

On calm reflection this would seem to be an unlikely scenario, yet it is one in keeping with the warnings and cries of alarm by Scottish Labour and the No campaign. Gordon Brown's repeated fear mongering about organ transplants and blood transfusions echoes the babies on bayonets propoganda of the first world war. Yet No campaigners insist that proof of an apocalyptic maelstrom after independence is to be found just about everywhere, though only if, like a character from a Dan Brown novel, you know how to interpret the clues.

One recent ‘proof’ of a cataclysmic future for an independent Scotland was found by Labour Party in the recent remarks of the New European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, who on taking up his new position had said that the EU needed to take a break from enlargement. This was immediately reread by the No campaign as a warning that Scotland will not be allowed into the EU. Indeed No campaign leader Douglas Alexander went a step further and declared Junker’s statement a ‘hammer blow’ against independence

Except, as with just about every warning against independence, the interpretation had no connection with reality. Firstly, Junker’s spokeswomen specifically denied that the remark had anything to do with Scotland. With the No Campaign refusing to back down, Scotland on Sunday reported that senior EU officials were adamant the remark had nothing to do with Scotland. Unlike countries seeking to join the EU, Scotland has been a part of the EU for four decades and is a signatory to and compliant with core EU requirements. Moreover, according to the Scotland on Sunday: ‘European Union chiefs are also thought to be angered by the prospect of the UK voting on an EU exit in the referendum planned by David Cameron and view Scotland’s desire to be a member favourably.’

So how did Labour come to this? To become no better than some carnaptious barfly ranting: dinnae, cannae, wullnae dae that!

Now read Part Two: Where to begin?
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Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Six

Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Five.

Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Four

Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Three

Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part Two

Social Justice & Scottish Independence. Part One

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