Thursday 1 June 2017

Resisting The Right-wing Putsch


“I feared we would never see this. I feared a wide gap between Corbyn’s rhetoric as soon as May fired the starting gun – clear, principled, uncompromising attacks on the rich and the corporations, anger about rising social inequality, about decaying public services, about grotesque greed at the top mirrored by rising poverty and despair at the base – I feared this would not be matched by a concrete programme for change. I was wrong.”
Neil Faulkner from Left Unity sums up the surprise and delight of much of the radical left in England and Wales at the Labour manifesto.  He and others have characterized it as the “rebirth of reformism”.

 The Left must Support Corbyn in England and Wales

 Quite correctly most far left groups outside Scotland have thrown their support behind the Corbyn campaign and there is no doubt that in England and Wales, Labour are doing far better in the polls than most mainstream and left commentators anticipated. Corbyn has for the first time in a generation fundamentally challenged the consensus narrative of privatization, free markets, austerity and “humanitarian” war. It is of course a reflection of the success of the neoliberal counter revolution since Thatcher that Labour’s manifesto is seen as radical at all. The proposed reforms hardly stand comparison with those of the Atlee government and they bear the hallmark of compromise and accommodation with the Blairite rightwing of the party. The manifesto has not broken with Gordon Brown’s “fiscal rectitude”. There is no repudiation of “odious debt” incurred in the 2007 banking bailout; no wholesale nationalization of the banks or threats of capital control. All necessary components of a genuine alternative economic strategy capable of facing down the inevitable ruling class offensive were Labour to come to power.  A lesson for any radical left government as the tragedy of Syriza so clearly demonstrates. 

Nevertheless policies like renationalization of rail, energy, and the post; abolition of student tuition fees; council-house building; hefty increases in funding for the NHS, education, and social care; repeal of the bedroom tax, reversal of cuts in disability benefits, and ending of the punitive sanctions regime; and a national investment bank to channel public funds into major infrastructure projects have all struck a chord with an electorate suffering the rigours of austerity and falling living standards.  So has the plan to pay for reforms largely out of taxes on the rich and on corporations.
Corbyn is currently polling higher than Milliband in 2015; a tribute to his campaign and an indication that the anger at the base of society does not inevitably have to fall prey to reactionary populism.  Even academic pollster John Curtice, whilst urging caution over Corbyn's ratings, concedes that recent poll evidence: "certainly means that, so far at least it (the Labour Party) has fought a much more effective campaign than it did the last time it was led by someone on the left of the party" (Curtice 2017)
Jeremy Corbyn may not win but he has reinvigorated the movement for a radical alternative south of the border.  If he achieves a popular vote on the scale predicted by recent polls he will be able to see off any post-election leadership challenge from the right.  His success would provide a potential platform on which to build a serious radical left movement capable of winning mass support in the battles to come.  

 A vote for Scottish Labour is not a vote for Corbyn


 Socialists in Scotland should welcome Corbyn’s success and support his anti-austerity programme. Unfortunately, as Bob Fotheringham of the Scottish SWP recently put it: “A vote for Labour in Scotland would not be a vote for Corbyn”. (Scottish Left Review, May/June 2017). 

Since the 2014 referendum most sections of the Scottish radical left and a large proportion of working class voters see independence as the only viable alternative to further austerity politics. Popular support was ebbing away from Labour in Scotland even before 2014 after years of Blair / Brown attacks on public services, privatization and illegal war. Careerism and deference to Westminster came increasingly to symbolize Scottish Labour at both Holyrood and local government level.  The Better Together campaign finally convinced Labour supporters to defect on mass to the SNP. During the recent local elections Labour lost control of all its main councils including its flagship Glasgow City council.  Latest polling puts its General Election support almost 10 percentage points behind the traditionally loathed Scottish Tories. 

Events since the local elections only confirm its political degeneration.  Labour councilors have done local deals with the Tories in places like Aberdeen and North Lanarkshire to keep out the SNP. Its only remaining Scottish MP Ian Murray has called on Labour supporters to vote tactically for the Tories where necessary; prioritizing defense of the Union over opposition to May’s ultra-rightwing Brexit plans.   (scotgoespop, Learmouth 2017).  Labour’s Election manifesto rejects a second referendum even more implacably than Ruth Davidson’s Tories.  This may reflect Corbyn’s need to compromise with the Scottish party’s Blairite leadership and activist base.  Or it may reflect that deeper tradition of British Nationalism embedded in the Labour Party (Miliband 1972). Whatever the cause, Corbyn has demonstrably failed to fully grasp the national question and seems to have abandoned his earlier “relaxed” approach to a second referendum.
A vote for Scottish Labour therefore would be a reactionary move on almost every count. It would only strengthen the Tory “surge” in Scotland discussed below. It would undermine the prospects for a second independence referendum and consequently the possibilities for a radical alternative to neoliberalism in Scotland. But on top of that it would actually strengthen Labour’s right-wing and help destabilize Corbyn’s Leadership.  It is hard to disagree with Rise’s Cat Boyd when she writes that a vote for Scottish Labour would mean: “using my vote for a narrow minded careerist who will use every opportunity to plot against Corbyn regardless of the country’s or the Labour Party’s democratic wishes”.

 No Ordinary General Election


 Unlike the English Left, the radical left in Scotland has made little direct intervention in this Election.  But before examining why this is so, it is worth briefly setting the General Election in its wider political and economic context as a warning against complacency on the Left.
 May has not gone to the polls simply to take advantage of disarray in the Labour Party.  Nor does she seriously believe that a new mandate will put pressure on the Brexit negotiations.  Much less is she trying to establish her control over the madder wing of her Brexiteers so she can orchestrate a “soft Brexit”, as some liberal commentators hopefully speculate. May has in fact thrown in her lot with the hard right of the Tory party and their media and corporate backers as part of a long term project to transform British politics and the whole structure of British democracy in the post Brexit era. We are facing no ordinary election.
 More than three decades of neoliberalism has produced massive “structural reform” in Britain and throughout western capitalism. Privatization, anti-union laws, the enforcement of precarious employment practices, de-regulation of finance and the dismantling of key aspects of the welfare state have transformed lives, destroyed communities and depressed living standards for large sections of working and middle class people. At the same time neoliberal reforms have accelerated processes of fragmentation and isolation within working class communities and hollowed out democratic control over civil society.  In turn this has alienated workers from forms of collective solidarity and resistance adding to an overall disjuncture with the political process. The end result has been to massively widen inequality of income and wealth in most western societies but especially the US and UK.  Yet neoliberal policy has failed to restore profit rates sufficiently to raise economic growth much above the historically low levels to which they sank following the long post-war boom, contributing to increasingly severe financial bubbles culminating in the Bank crisis of 2007-08. Since then the economies of Western Europe and US have been stuck in what economist Michael Roberts has called a “long depression”.  All this has created anger at the base of society, which when coupled with alienation from the political processes and the degeneration of traditional forms of working-class solidarity, has furnished fertile ground for rightwing populist ideas to take hold.  Brexit and Trump are both products of this shift to the right.  As is the collapse of social democracy across much of Western Europe and the growing support for extreme right-wing parties. (Piketty 2014, Roberts 2016, Faulkner 2017, Giroux 2017)
 May and the hard Tory right are the political representatives of a highly class conscious elite whose preferred solution to the failure of neoliberalism is a redoubled effort to drive down living standards and the social wage in order to cheapen production costs and raise profitability. Anyone who believes that May means it when she utters platitudes about representing the interests of working class people, should just look at her actions since coming to power, and her Election Manifesto commitments. Cuts in Corporation Tax, relaxing bank regulations and restarting quantitative easing all benefit the wealthy at the expense of working class living standards.  As does the new Trade Union Act by further restricting industrial action and eroding pay and conditions. In a gesture of total contempt for those “left behind”, selective grammar schools in England will be expanded while funds for existing state schools are cut. Pushing ahead with planned benefit cuts and austerity measures along with cuts to child tax credit, the odious rape clause and dementia taxes contrast with inheritance tax cuts for the wealthiest and clearly signal a continued neoliberal onslaught on working class people.  Further austerity measures like these are essential to the Tory and UKIP ultra-right vision of Brexit.  May means it when she says that no deal is better than a bad deal.  Yet British capitalism can only compete effectively following a hard Brexit by further driving down costs of production, particularly labour costs. Investment in productivity enhancing technology is precluded by low profitability within the UK economy.
This will of course deepen social discontent which must be controlled both ideologically and physically over the coming years. Already we can detect a darkening authoritarianism in British politics.  Not just the reactionary British nationalism and anti-migrant xenophobia of the referendum campaign.  Nor just the sinister emphasis on strong and stable leadership.  But more dangerously May proposes to radically overhaul civil and human rights legislation and calls for whistle-blowers to be prosecuted.  Following the Manchester bombing, rightwing Tories wasted no time in calling for new laws to control “extremism”.  It is early days, but when we combine this with a tendency to redefine democratic forms of opposition as “sabotage” a worrying trend emerges.  Removing large sections of law making from democratic scrutiny under the promised Great Repeal Act is another early warning sign of centralizing authoritarianism. Set against an international context of rising support for far right and reactionary nationalist politics across Europe and in the states, May’s rightwing “power grab”  is suggestive of the early stages of what  Neil Faulkner and others have characterized as “creeping fascism”. (Faulkner 2017, Giroux 2017)

The SNP, the General Election and the Radical Left in Scotland.


If this is the case, then the Scottish radical left must be incredibly serious about its approach to these elections and their aftermath. During the campaign, left groups in Scotland have generally contented themselves with little more than abstract propaganda.  For instance some groups are calling for a vote for the most progressive candidate likely to keep the Tories out (Solidarity and the Scottish Socialist Party).  In similar vein the SWP argue the radical left should back all “those candidates willing to mount an effective opposition to cuts, austerity, oppose racism and the scapegoating of immigrants and refugees”. But they caution against blanket support for the SNP (Fotheringham op cit).  Some on the extreme end of the Lexit spectrum in Scotland like Jim Sillars urge abstention because of SNP support for the EU.
To some extent confusion on the Scottish radical left is understandable. A vote for Scottish Labour would strengthen the unionist vote and undermine independence. But the SNP is not a socialist party and its general politics and more specifically its election campaign pose serious difficulties for the Left.

The Politics of the SNP and the “Tory Surge”


Rhetorically Nicola Sturgeon’s party has taken a firm stand against austerity and there is no doubt that it has introduced or maintained progressive social policies over its years in government.  It has made significant attempts to mitigate the effect of Westminster imposed benefit cuts such as off-setting the impact of the bedroom tax. It has, to its credit, stood out against racism, xenophobia and the politics of scapegoating.  However the SNP has failed to lead a serious campaign against austerity, preferring the “dented shield” excuse of other devolved administrations like the Welsh Assembly. At both national and local authority level the Scottish government has implemented cuts. The Unite union in Scotland estimates that in the last year £600m has been cut from local authority budgets (6.5% of local authority spending). 40,000 council jobs have gone since 2009 and another 15,000 redundancies are in the pipeline. Its pro-business economic policies mean that it has not seriously challenged privatization, outsourcing or used its enhanced tax powers to tax the rich.
The SNP General Election strategy has been timid to say the least.  Despite passing a Holyrood motion calling for a second referendum and polls showing substantial (62%) support even among No voters for holding one, the SNP have not challenged May’s refusal to do so. It’s recently launched manifesto attacks Tory Brexit plans and continues to urge a special deal for Scotland in the negotiations and an SNP seat at the table. But May has persistently ignored such demands and rejected a second referendum. The manifesto is silent on how the SNP will confront this anti-democratic intransigence, and barely mentions independence.  Nicola Sturgeon’s party even opposes the “All under One Banner” march in Glasgow on June 3.  It sees independence supporters on the streets during a General election as a distraction. This ultra-caution has allowed the unionist parties to structure the election debate as a fight to save the Union (Gerry Hassan 2017).  And it is starting to pay off for the Scottish Tories. 
Ruth Davidson’s vote “surge” is much overhyped by the unionist media.  Most of her local elections gains resulted from the collapse in Labour support outlined earlier, not her much eulogized “charismatic” leadership. (Guardian Editorial 20.05.17). However they are no less real for all that. The most recent Scottish poll puts support for the SNP down to 39% from nearly 50% in 2015 and the Tories around 29% up from their low of the mid-teens. Under first past the post such figures would probably not translate into the 15 seat gain some Tories currently claim but even with a gain of 5 or 6, the Tory political and media spin machine will go into overdrive. (Scotgoespop 2017)

Why the Left must lend its votes to the SNP in this election

May’s insistence on defending “our precious union” is not empty rhetoric.  Nor is it just about grabbing fishing and agriculture as bargaining chips in EU negotiations as some nationalists argue. It is a central part of the Tory right’s authoritarian restructuring of the British state outlined above. An independent or more devolved Scotland, pursuing even mildly social democratic economic and social policies, supportive of free movement, with a different EU relationship and hostile to militarism and nuclear weapons cannot be tolerated.  It would undermine the Tory right’s vision of Brexit Britain as the freebooting Singapore of Europe.  It would be a massive blow to right-wing British nationalism which is so closely entwined with the UK’s ability to project its military power on the world stage and act as an international agent of US foreign policy. (Davidson 2014)
 Following the General Election a reinvigorated Tory party with even modest Scottish gains will not just harden its stance against another referendum, it is likely to go on the offensive against the whole devolution settlement itself. (Michael Fry 1). There are already signs of this. In her Scottish Conservative Party conference speech May suggested that Brexit rendered the 1998 devolution settlement redundant.  It needed to be reviewed to “ensure that the right powers sit at the right level” to “avoid any unintended consequences for the integrity” of a post-Brexit UK.   A “review” that would be facilitated by the recent “Sewel Convention” decision, which effectively gives Westminster legislative powers in devolved areas regardless of Holyrood consent.
Clearly allowing the Tories to regain a significant foothold in Scotland will have profound consequences. It will boost May’s authoritarian putsch and be a major setback not just to the SNP but to the wider independence movement and the possibility of rebuilding a radical left campaign for independence. The pro-independence Scottish left cannot ignore this.  Bluster and fudge is inadequate. The SNP has 56 of the 59 Westminster seats. Vague propaganda slogans urging a vote for the most radical candidate will almost always take votes from the SNP to the benefit of the Tories in current political circumstances.  The left must bite the bullet and urge a vote for the SNP in this election.

 Scotland needs a unified Radical Campaigning Movement for Independence

 If the foregoing analysis is correct, after the election the stakes will be very high indeed.  There will be an urgent need to build a radical non-nationalist independence campaign.
Building such a movement is likely to be much harder than in the years before 2014.  The Lexit argument has divided the radical left across the UK and those who advocated it are continuing to argue for a “people’s Brexit” or some variant of it. Making that central to any new radical independence movement would be a major mistake. A people’s Brexit was never on offer and it is now abundantly clear that May and the ultra-right are shaping Brexit. The immediate task is how to stop them, not to sow illusions in how the process can be transformed in favour of working class people.  Objectively that would mean accommodating to the most reactionary form of British nationalism. (Phil Hearse 2017). 
In Scotland such accommodation would be particularly disastrous. 62% of the Scottish electorate voted to remain. Every local authority area including some of the most deprived working class communities in Scotland recorded “remain” majorities. This is what has triggered the Scottish Government’s decision to hold indyref2. Whether the left likes it or not Scotland’s undemocratic ejection from the EU will figure large in any future independence campaign. The Scottish economy is more dependent on EU trade than most UK regions.  EU exit will thus have a disproportionate impact on jobs, living standards and public service provision north of the border. (Michael Fry, The National 2). Some on the left may like to dismiss this as “pro-business” europhilia, but the immediate impact of Brexit will be devastating for many working class people in Scotland.  No serious left-wing case for independence can ignore this.
Of course no one on the radical left would argue for making EU membership central to a second referendum campaign.  Brexit has barely altered support for independence since last year’s referendum. There is no evidence that simply making a “business case” for Scotland remaining would win over wavering “No” voters (Craig Dalzeil 2017).  On any conceivable timescale for independence it is likely that Scotland will be outside the EU for a period. (McAlpine 2017). There is therefore adequate time and political space to forge a united radical left approach to a second independence campaign. 
It must be a campaign capable of challenging May’s creeping authoritarianism, resisting austerity and leading a fight-back against racism and anti-migrant scapegoating.  A campaign that can challenge the SNP to confront May’s rejection of a second referendum and stop compromising with her Brexit timetable. And most importantly of all, a campaign that can articulate a more radical vision for an independent Scotland and keep alive the idea that:
 “For us independence is not an end in itself rather the route out of low pay, zero hour contracts and precarious employment, fuel poverty and the growing wealth gap that results from policies that pamper the rich. And it is the only escape route we have to avoid Tory Governments we did not vote for.” (Colin Fox, 2017)


 

References and links


Neil Faulkner (2017): Creeping Fascism: Brexit, Trump and the Rise of the Far Right, Public Reading Rooms 2017.
Ralph Miliband: Parliamentary Socialism (second edition), 1972 Merlin Press
Cat Boyd:  The National 23/05/2017.
Bob Fotheringham:  Not a terrible Troika: general election, Brexit and Scottish independence, Scottish Left Review, Issue 99, May / June 2017
Thomas Piketty:  Capital in the 21st Century, 2014, Harvard University Press
Henry Giroux: The New Authoritarianism, Znet: posted in Class, Economy, Politics/Gov, Repression/US
Phil Hearse: Right wing putsch, escalating racism, depening austerity: the real meaning of Brexit, Transform journal issue 1, May 2017, Public Reading Rooms
 Scotgoespop blog:  http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/
 Michael Fry 1, The National , Jan 26, 2017
 Michael Fry 2, The National, May 30, 2017
Andrew Learmouth:  The National, April 21, 2017


Robin McAlpine 2017: https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/10240/robin-mcalpine-why-joining-efta-instead-eu-could-be-answer-scotland
 Colin Fox 2017:  SSP statement on General Election May 2017 - https://www.scottishsocialistparty.org





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