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

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

Donnie writes:


Hi Michael and thanks for your welcome. My problem with the EU is that it
offers nothing to the working class of Scotland, or indeed the rest of
Europe. Privatisation, deregulation and loss of any resemblance of economic
accountability. Now while under capitalism any semblance of economic
accountability may well be largely an illusion the fact that welfare
systems/ public ownership/ pensions are under attack across Europe, under
the guidelines of the ECB, is no illusion for the working class across
Europe. As such i stand opposed to it. My enemies potential enemy is not my
friend, especially when it is the one causing so much hardship with its
reactionary social policies and 'economic restructuring' across the
continent.

-----

Our enemy is capitalism. The question is, how to advance the struggle? The
EU, as it is presently constituted, is in no fit shape to offer much of
anything positive to the working class of Europe. But to ignore it, or to
imagine that one day we will simply leave it behind, is as good as ignoring
the US, or even the British state. To accomplish what you intend will
involve almighty struggle, and don't believe for a minute that it will be
cleanly fought and depend only on the ballot box. Consider what is at stake:
the British state's dependence upon disproportionate numbers of Scots for
military recruitment; the use of Scottish territory for US/British military
installations, including nuclear weaponry; the very stability of a crucial
pillar of the global imperialist apparatus. With stakes this high there is
no question that the SSP, should it gain ground and present a serious
challenge to the status quo, will be the subject of the dirtiest tricks
imaginable. For that reason alone the international context in which the
Scottish socialist struggle is conducted must be taken into account. And it
just so happens that taking matters in a European direction helps us in our
primary struggle against the British state. It also offers a vital support
in what is really a part of a much wider, international struggle. Rejecting
"Europe" because of the ECB is based on a false dichotomy, the other side of
which is that there is some feasible way in which an independent Scotland
could create its own currency and thereafter set monetary policy to suit its
own economic needs. An independent Scotland would still, of course, have
control over fiscal policy but would nevertheless be subject to the threat
and doubtless actuality of a capital strike and the subsequent upheaval that
would cause. Are the social conditions in Scotland such that an SSP
government would be capable of surviving this, in addition to all the other
problems that will inevitably be thrown its way?

No, my argument re the eurozone presupposes that it is as a part of
"Britain" that we enter it, thereby diminishing the importance of a key
instrument of oppression, the Bank of England, plus weakening the role of
the City of London. Meanwhile, although your points regarding the attacks on
social welfare provision across Europe are correct, most of the rest of
Europe begins from a much higher level of such provision than do we, having
been subject to such attacks since 1976, thanks to the imposition of IMF
guidelines courtesy of the USA and its lackeys (witting and otherwise) in
London. Europe, and Germany in particular, still has an organised working
class in a way that can only be remembered by the British. And it is by
joining in struggle with our European comrades on the plane of struggle that
will largely determine what kind of future Scots, English and Welsh can
expect that we can hope to strike a meaningful, significant blow as part of
the longer, ongoing struggle.

You'll correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to believe that it is simply a
case of Scotland becoming independent and setting about creating its own
version of socialism free from outside interference. Even if that were the
case, the upheaval attendant in the massive redistribution and reallocation
of resources resulting from the enactment of SSP policies will most
certainly provoke a violent reaction, especially because a significant
number of people are going to discover that their material living standards
will fall. And this will especially be the case with the dwindling oil
stocks, squandered by successive British governments -- assuming, of course,
that an independent Scotland would be allowed to have access to these
anyway.

You continue:

I don't think that arguing against the EU means limiting your outlook to
'socialism in one country', (if I had a penny for every time I'd heard
that.....) it is just a realisation that the EU is run by, and in the
interests of, European capitalism as it tries to present itself as a global
force to challenge US economic domination.

-----

Well I am aware of the Trotskyist background of many in the SSP and the
irony of its apparent "socialism in one country" stance is not lost on me --
and presumably, on others. Of course the EU is run in the interests of
European capitalism. But that is so riven with contradiction and the
opportunities for struggle in that arena are far more promising in terms of
the balance of class forces that to locate the Scottish struggle at that
level simply seems a more promising avenue to me. Of course if the SSP does
achieve independence from Britain and secures withdrawal from the EU then
the circumstances will have changed irrevocably and therefore we would have
to consider an entirely different set of options. But I think it is more
likely that Britain enters the eurozone before an independent Scotland is
led by the SSP. And on that basis, in addition to more fundamental
evaluation of the nature and role of the British state, I think it is in our
interests to do all that we can to weaken the British state as it stands.
That is not simply to be accomplished by eurozone membership (there is also
Northern Ireland and devolution to consider) but it does also strike a blow
at US hegemony as that is exercised over all the peoples of Britain, and, by
extension, further limits the ability of the British state to pursue its
sub-imperialist goals within the framework of US imperialism.

Michael