The Point
Last updated: 27 June 2022.

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No Easy Answers: Reflections on the Left and Scottish Politics in 2015

The paradox in modern Scottish politics might well turn out to be the curious fact that Scotland is a more left wing country than at any time in its recent history, yet in the same period, Scotland's radical left has failed to make any significant electoral breakthrough either at local or national level. Next year's Holyrood elections present a chance for Scotland' radicals to change that story. Are they up to the challenge? The decision in the recent election to field overtly socialist candidates who consistently polled around 0.5% of the vote, once again raises serious credibility problems regarding the Scottish left, and whilst these embarrassing results can be explained away by the SNP 'squeeze', we should not forget the fact that the radical left's share of the vote has been in freefall in Scotland for more than a decade. For those, like myself, who believe that radical politics in Scotland requires an electoral face, the radical left has less than one year to get its act together. The electoral clock is already ticking. I shall come to 2016 in a moment, but first a word on the election that has just past.

I didn't stay up for the result. Disappointed by the BBC's exit poll, which set the tone for the rest of the evening, I called it a night around 1am. I awoke the following morning and my wife said there was good news and bad news (the look on her face intimated that the bad news was worse than the good news); good news - SNP landslide in Scotland, bad news - the Tories back in power. The latter felt like a sucker punch in the stomach from Mike Tyson. 'Tories back in'. It was one of those moments where you temporarily hope that what you are hearing is not true, or somehow mistaken.

It's a hard world and with the Tories back in power it's about to get even harder. I genuinely wanted Ed Miliband to be the Prime Minister; his father Ralph Miliband helped formulate some of my early political understandings, and I do believe that Ed Miliband genuinely attempted to reclaim some, and I emphasise some, social democratic territory for the Labour Party. There is an old saying that there is 1 inch of a difference between Labour and the Tories, but it is within that inch that we live our lives. I also understand the severe limitations which are imposed upon the leader of the Labour Party in Britain – in fact, there were few theoreticians better than Miliband senior in outlining the structural nature of power within the modern capitalist state.

But we are where we are. The only positive story of the night was Scotland. Something significant is happening here and I quite like the fact that I don't always understand what it is. John Lennon once sang that the older he got the less he knew for sure. I can relate to that. When I was 20, the world appeared straight forward; right and wrong or should that be right and left; capitalism versus socialism, the workers versus the bosses; in short, the politics of binary opposites. Now that I am closer to 40 than 30, the world appears slightly more complicated, as it should. I still get upset by inequality, poverty, even capitalism, although the latter can sound abstract, but I'm conscious of the fact that today's left defines itself more by what it is against than what it stands for. In light of the experience of 'actually existing socialism' in the 20th century, this is understandable, but it also points to an intellectual uncertainty regarding the essence of socialism. Again, this is perhaps not a bad thing. Recently, a young activist I know argued passionately (and convincingly) that any future 'socialist' organisation ought not to have the word socialist in the title. When I was 20, the very thought of this suggestion would have been heretical for me, yet today, battle weary from organised politics and slightly cynical about certain sections of the left, I am open to considering any strategy which genuinely attempts to navigate a way out of the neo-liberal quagmire we currently find ourselves in.

We live in an age of uncertainties, an age where people crave security as much as they do freedom. Yet, as I argued at the start of this piece, Scotland is a more left wing country than it was even 10 years ago. And whilst comparisons with Greece are best avoided, five years of neo-liberal austerity have nudged Scotland leftwards. Are we witnessing the return of ideological politics?

The SNP won its historical landslide not by talking up another referendum, but by shifting the narrative onto the politics of austerity. This narrative successfully unites three important sections of Scottish society; the worried middle classes, many of whom work in the public sector and have seen their standard of living fall in recent years; the traditional working class who feel angry and betrayed by Labour, and the poor, many of whom were given a sense of hope via the yes campaign that politics can make a difference. In fact, this latter constituency, largely absent from electoral politics in recent years, has fundamentally changed political discourse in Scotland. The challenge the SNP face is keeping that alliance together.

The SNP under Nicola Sturgeon's leadership has pitched its tent firmly on left ground and with Sturgeon at the helm they have yet to put a foot wrong. Sturgeon was right to ignore calls for a yes alliance, which would have resulted in a big bang politics that could have spectacularly backfired. I suspect that many of the new SNP members intuitively understand what I am getting at; 'we are all gradualists now', as one SNP insider framed it. From this perspective, the SNP were right to rule out any calls for a second referendum, now or in the near future, and instead of any backlash from the membership, the genuine admiration for 'Nicola' grows in abundance.

In regards to the 56 MPs, what they do next will be interesting; no doubt there will be some grandstanding and a few emerging stars (Mhari Black?); yet from where I am sitting the highly centralised SNP machine ought to ensure that few of the new MPs deviate from the constitutional game. The constitutional game, perhaps the only credible game in town as far as independence is concerned, is to gradually win enough powers for Scotland until we reach a point where Scotland eventually 'feels' independent enough to vote for independence. In fact, there are some in the SNP ranks, who would probably settle for that constitutional half-way house otherwise known as federalism.

And now onto Scottish Labour. Every now and again I have to remind myself of the fact that Labour has been wiped off the face of the electoral map of Scotland. Perceived by the political classes as too left wing to win in England (this is problematic), it is also the case that Labour are regarded as too right wing to win in Scotland (again this is problematic), creating a perfect muddle with no obvious way out. The backlash against Scottish Labour has been brewing for some time. It goes back to Blair and Iraq and the thirteen wasted years in office, whilst their participation in a formal alliance with the Tories, via Better Together, now looks like a monumental strategic mistake. But there is also something more fundamental at play here. Scottish Labour is out of touch with modern Scotland. For further reading I recommend Gerry Hassan's excellent Strange Death of Labour Scotland; note that it's the death of Labour Scotland, not Scottish Labour. The decline of heavy industry brought with it a decline in the industrial clout of the unions; the fragmentation of the working class is a part of this story, as is the break-up of strong regional government, whilst the rise of home ownership and decline in council housing changed the political demographics considerably. The material conditions which made Scottish Labour such a formidable power in the land were gradually hollowed out. Today, Scottish Labour is an empty shell, heavy reliant on its councillor base and their families, who provide what constitutes Scottish Labour's activist base. The ageing Scottish Labour Party didn't quite get the yes campaign, dismissing it as nationalism, they clung to the politics of the past, and failing all the while to recognise the mass social movement which was bubbling away under the surface. In fact, Labour's obsessional hatred of the SNP, nurtured over decades, has now been brutally exposed as a strategy of serious electoral self-harm. To hear senior figures in Scottish Labour state that Scotland is now 'post-rational', reveals the fact that many still don't get it. Perhaps, it's time for a new opposition?

And finally, where now for Scotland's radicals? There are no easy answers. I am no longer 'active' as they say, something which can bring a sense of perspective. The far left or hard left, call it what you may, is an unusual beast. For example, left parties can score consistently less than 1% of the vote, yet their leaderships never resign. Some, like the TUSC group, do not even appear to have leaders, something which may be fashionable in certain circles, but always makes me think that behind the scenes, committees of vanguardist apparatchiks are running the show. In terms of elections, certain sections of the left are akin to a football team which loses 5-0 every week but keeps on playing the same tactics regardless. Failure, it seems never matters.

The Scottish Left Project is interesting and offers a glimmer of hope. Yet for me, it requires a lot more than bringing together all of the groupiscules under the one banner – besides, the left wing humpty dumpty won't be easily put back together again, and even if it was, it requires a leap of faith to assume that 'left unity' automatically guarantees an electoral breakthrough. Furthermore, and I am going to be blunt here, there are some left groups who are better avoided and who thrive only on what Freud once called the 'narcissism of the difference'.

The SNP shift to the left and the increasing credibility of the Greens makes the terrain even more difficult for those who want to create an overtly socialistic discourse in Scotland. How big the space is for socialist politics should also be a matter for discussion. There has always been a strong whiff of romanticism (and arrogance) in those arguments which posit the Scots as a socialistic people who are just waiting on the right vehicle to awaken their class consciousness. Moreover, modern Scotland, even after the crash and five years of austerity, is a more middle class country than many of today's radicals acknowledge. And yet, there is undoubtedly a space for a new type of radical politics in Scotland.

A decent and identifiable brand needs to be established (and who knows maybe it is time to pose the young activist's question, is it time to ditch the term socialism?); the message needs to be framed in an accessible language, something which more and more people are latching onto.

In addition to this, a new generation of presentable leaders who modern Scots can relate too need to be nurtured. Moreover, the new leaders need to reach out not only to the 'general public' but also to the many socialists who are not members of any party. Some are already there; and leaders do matter – for anyone who thinks otherwise, just ask yourself this – would the SNP be making the same impact if they were led by anyone in the party other than Nicola Sturgeon?

Avoiding the shouty politics of masculine confrontation and anger would also be a good start. For example, whilst class is important, other factors are equally at play in modern Scotland, notably, age, gender, and increasingly the politics of national identity. A new left, also requires a careful rethinking of how it relates to the SNP. Sectarianism and critical opposition are two very different things. Example; I attended a left wing meeting during the election where one left candidate described the SNP as 'anti-working class', a statement which no doubt appeared absurd to a party whose Trades Union Group so I am told is bigger than the Labour Party. Furthermore, hurling insults at the SNP runs the serious risk of offending not only the many progressives who have joined, but equally one half of Scotland's electorate. This of course does not mean that we suspend our critical faculties, only that we learn to frame our criticisms in a way which is constructive and seeks to build alliances across progressive opinion. For me, there are no longer any ideological certainties in these fundamentally uncertain times. But nonetheless we do require a way out of neo-liberalism and Scotland requires an opposition. The contradictions inherent within the SNP will eventually come to the fore creating the space for an opposition to emerge. Whether that opposition comes from the right or the left remains to be seen but if the latter is to be successful, then a fundamental rethink of how we do politics is required.

 

This article was first published on http://leftproject.scot/

External links:

Bella Caledonia

Bright Green

George Monbiot

Green Left

Greenpeace

The Jimmy Reid Foundation

Richard Dawkins

Scottish Left Review

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