RE: [A-List] Re: Scotland: SNP disintegration

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Donnie writes:

we wish to see socialism established
internationally and do not confine our internationalism to the borders of
the British ruling class. Why though should we work towards the break up of
the Imperialist British state to hand sovereignty and economic decision
making over to an even more unaccountable European Union?

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Somebody took the bait -- nice to have you aboard, Donnie.

Simple answer: because establishing socialism internationally will, of necessity, involve collaboration with the working class of other countries in struggles that transcend the traditional state boundaries that still frame much of our discussions in "Britain" and Europe more generally. It is not that we should work to hand over our sovereignty to the EU -- it is to recognise that the arena of struggle is much bigger, and that we are a part of a struggle between imperialisms as much as we are a part of a struggle against imperialism. And our internationalism should be informed, first and foremost, by the environment in which we find ourselves and the requirements of struggle appropriate to that environment. And that places us squarely on a European plane.

My basic view is that the biggest threat today to the existence of our species and planet is US imperialism. As Mark Jones put it, our enemy is exterminism, the highest level of imperialism, and the levers of control of this system reside primarily in the USA. Thus our task must be to weaken the USA and its satellites, of which the British state (or at least a significant part of the British state) is foremost. As Mark also repeatedly pointed out, the EU, for the foreseeable future, will never be in a position to pose a challenge sufficient to match that of the US -- militarily it is dwarfed, and assuming that we are successful in ridding the world of the British state the EU's military capacity will be even less. But the development of the EU is clearly an obstacle to untrammelled US imperialism and for that reason alone it should be viewed with much less suspicion and greater objectivity, with respect to the evolving inter-imperialist rivalry. So the false dichotomy of anti-imperialism (undifferentiated) or nothing is precisely that -- false. Advancing the cause of EU integration is coincidental to our project, but nevertheless necessary for the continuing success of our project *for the time being*.

I'm not sure exactly what SSP comrades envisage as the alternative scenario, but "socialism in one country" is unlikely to be a viable option economically or politically. The forces ranged against such a project, and the lack of a social base capable of supporting it, would suggest the need for a more imaginative but no less hard-headed response.

Sorry I must run just now, but I hope you stick around and we can work together (and with others) on this.

Michael