Review
by Robert Laurie
Scotland A Nation Again? Glasgow, CPS, 2013 pp. 46. Copies available from Jean Muir, CPS/Alert Scotland, House
01, 112 Shawbridge Street, Glasgow G43 1LY price £2.00.
THE EMBLEM used
in this cover of this pamphlet accurately reflects the contents. It is a Saint
Andrew’s cross surrounded by vertically arranged words, some of which are
obliterated by the fluttering flag. On close examination these are the English words
of Eugène Pottier’s The Internationale,
but presented in such a way that they are reduced to gibberish: “For reason in
r...” and “strike the iron come rally” and so on. In short identity politics
override class politics. Surely a communist party should use the good old
hammer and sickle as an emblem, perhaps with an added thistle or a bottle of
whisky to symbolise Scotland?
This is the
third such pamphlet produced by the tireless Communist Party of Scotland in as
little as nine years. Radical Perspectives for an Independent Scotland came
out in 2004, in 2007 they issued the less radical Perspectives for Scottish Independence, and in February of this
year they published the present work, partly based on a seminar they held as
recently as November 2011.
The
pamphlet also marks the 21st anniversary of the CPS which was
founded in 1992 following the dissolution of the revisionist Communist Party of
Great Britain. Curiously instead of encouraging new members to rally to the
CPS, the back page appeals for recruits to a new organisation the “Scottish
Socialists for Independence”. Explicitly admitting to having a diminishing
membership which is too frail to attend meetings (page 43) might be honest but
not very inspiring. Neither organisation has set up one of these new-fangled
website things on the Interweb.
The religious
and nationalist symbol is appropriate because much of the pamphlet is devoted
to promoting the cult of Saint Alex Salmond and his blessed Scottish National
Party. Opponents are damned as heretics rather than offering any informed
criticism of their opinions. One particular example of this occurs on page 37
when Maggie Chetty attacks former Labour MP Maria Fyfe who dared to criticise
the SNP links with big business in a letter to the Morning Star.
Chetty also
berates Fyfe for ignoring Labour’s links with big capital but she does not take
the chance to deny the influence of big business on the SNP or take up the
other points in the original letter about the lack left-wing protest in the SNP
about their neoliberal to cut corporation tax in an independent Scotland.
The
pro-independence Green Party and the surviving rump of the Trotskyite Scottish
Socialist Party provide more robust left wing pro-independence critiques of the
SNP than is attempted here. There is little discussion of economic issues
beyond a moan about plans for high speed rail links from the dreaded London not
reaching Scotland. Is an independent
Scotland to be a member of the European Union or not as the SNP insists will be
the case? What view does the CPS have on an independent Scotland in or out of
the EU? Is the CPS support retaining the pound sterling, joining the Euro like
Italy, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus or restoring the bawbee? I think we should
be told.
Another
contributor deplores the Morning Star for
ignoring or attacking the SNP and actually accuses it of censorship (page 20).
How the paper can both attack and ignore the SNP at the same time is difficult
to comprehend. While the Star’s
editorial line does not support the
SNP it has given space to pro-independence views in both the features and
letters pages. Why should a left wing paper not criticise a neoliberal
political party?
Earlier he noted
that the SNP has won some working class seats from Labour at Westminster by-elections,
but carelessly forgets that all those they mentioned are now back in the hands
of Labour. It is an interesting paradox of Scottish politics that gains by the
SNP in working class (two words rarely used in the pamphlet) areas are partly
due to the more backward elements abandoning their traditional Orange
allegiance to the Tories in favour of the SNP in protest against Labour’s
successful policies on Northern Ireland.
Another hero
often mentioned here is Jimmy Reid who is frequently praised for joining the
SNP. This is absurd. Reid was the Communist firebrand deservedly famous for
playing a leading role in the struggle to save Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in the
early 1970s. But by the time he joined the nationalists he was a pitiful whisky
sodden shadow of his former self. After joining the Labour Party he made his
name by joining in Kinnock’s attacks on the left and betrayed the miners in a
disgusting article penned for the Tory Spectator
at the height of the 1984-5 strike. His career is warning rather than an
inspiration to the left.
Scottish
culture as a bonus, the pamphlet offers a competition. It is to provide
“stirring Scottish Music” for a new “Sang fir Scotland” entitled The braw blue an’ white Saltire Here is
a sample verse to inspire any musical reader:
Nae
flag o’ tryant or oppressor
Bit
yin o’ people’s liberty an’ pow’r
Fluttering
in the Scottish breeze
Oor
braw blue an’ white Saltire
If
this sort of sub-Andy Stewart doggerel is the sort of Scottish culture to be
expected in an independent Scotland then the high speed rail link will find
most of its passengers heading south of the border.
The
editing could have been better. Pages 23 and 26 have two references to one Ian
Trevitt before they are corrected to Levitt. On page 31 there is a mistaken
reference to our Gracious Queen’s “Golden Jubilee” last year, anyone who was
not on an interplanetary journey to Mars in 2012 will know it was the Diamond Jubilee.
The quote on page 36 describing London as “the Great Wen” is wrongly attributed
to Samuel Johnson; it was in fact William Cobbett.
Anyone
interested in the question of Scottish independence and the left would be
better off consulting the Scottish Left
Review. Available online at www.scottishleftreviw.org this six-times-a-year magazine offers a
platform for various shades of the Scottish left and actually includes some
real debate sadly lacking here.
