The impact on Europe of the Scottish independence referendum
Chris Marsden and Robert Stevens. wsws.org
[T]he Scottish referendum vote on independence is a historic turning point for Britain and the whole of Europe. With the result of the September 18 ballot too close to call, a recent poll for the first time showing the Yes camp holding a majority triggered a crisis in ruling circles across the continent. Numerous political leaders and influential figures lined up to oppose Scottish independence and warn of its disastrous implications.This response is motivated, in the first instance, by the fear that Scotland’s separation would deepen the economic crisis not only of the UK, but drag the whole of Europe down with it. Amid predictions that a Yes vote could lead to a fall in the value of the pound of up to 15 percent, nearly £17 billion of UK shares, bonds and other financial assets have been sold by investors over the past month.
The Times commented that fear of a Yes vote had led to “the biggest sell-off of British investments since the collapse of the Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers.”
It was the collapse of Lehman that triggered the global financial crisis of 2008 and the breakdown of the capitalist system internationally. A collapse of the UK economy could be just as devastating, especially given the precarious position already facing Europe.
Only this month, the European Central Bank agreed a purchase of private-sector bonds worth an initial €100 billion while cutting interest rates to 0.05 percent in a last desperate attempt to kick-start the continent’s economy and avoid a plunge into deflation. France is already experiencing zero growth, and the economies of Germany and Italy shrank amid warnings of a “triple dip” recession.
No less worrying for the ruling elites in Europe is the impact of a breakup of the United Kingdom, dating back 307 years to the Act of Union, on the stability of their own states. If Britain can break apart, then a similar development can happen in many other parts of Europe.
Events in Scotland are being followed avidly by separatist movements in Italy, Belgium, Spain and elsewhere. Last Thursday saw a demonstration of hundreds of thousands in Barcelona demanding independence for Catalonia. Many carried the Scottish Saltire flag, citing Scotland’s legally binding referendum to demand recognition by Spain of an unofficial November 9 referendum on Catalan independence.
Elsewhere, the absence of a separatist movement similar to that in Scotland is cold comfort for Europe’s ruling elites. The advances made by the Scottish National Party (SNP) and its various hangers-on are largely the result of their successfully exploiting the immense hostility towards all of the older establishment parties, due to their imposition of austerity measures and their warmongering.
This is not confined solely to the ruling Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in the UK. The Labour Party has been unable to pose as an alternative to these parties, let alone offer a reason for Scotland to stay within the UK, because it is widely hated for its support for the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its avid promotion of free-market nostrums, its 2008 bailout of the banks, and the vicious austerity measures it began to impose before being forced out of office in 2010.
No other European party is in a better situation. They will all be looking with trepidation at the scale of discontent and opposition, however inchoate, to the existing set-up.
The immense tensions generated by the Scottish referendum point to an unprecedented crisis of rule, whatever the outcome of Thursday’s ballot. Polls taken in the last few days have shown a majority against independence, reflecting fears regarding the economic impact of separation. However, whereas a Yes vote would clearly signal an unparalleled political crisis, a narrow No vote would not close the Pandora’s Box that has been opened.
None of this lends the separatist agenda of the SNP or similar movements elsewhere a progressive character. Rather, their emergence is entirely regressive.
Scottish nationalism articulates the interests of a faction of the bourgeoisie, represented by the SNP, and a host of middle-class hangers-on, intoxicated at the prospect of grabbing a greater share of Scotland’s assets, including tens of billions of pounds in oil and tax revenues, and securing relations with the major corporations by offering low business taxes and stepped-up exploitation of the working class.
The same rapacious elements are in control of the separatist Northern League in Italy, Vlaams Belang in Belgium, the Catalan and Basque nationalists in Spain, and similar formations throughout the continent.
The real class interests underlying the separatist project are incompatible with the manifold promises made by the SNP to implement progressive social policies, and many workers know it. Under these circumstances, a key role in championing nationalism is played by the pseudo-left cheerleaders for independence, including the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), the Radical Independence Campaign, and former SSP leader Tommy Sheridan.
They have been described as a “vital factor” in winning support for the Yes campaign by no less than the Financial Times because they work to channel social and political discontent among working people behind the SNP by claiming that, despite the SNP itself, independence will mean a break with the right-wing policies imposed by Westminster.
But separatism is reactionary not simply because the SNP will be the ruling party after independence, but because of the class that will rule . For the working class of Scotland, and of Europe, an embrace of separatism would spell disaster. It leads only to the Balkanisation of the entire continent, with workers pitted against each other in every country and in the tiniest regions in a fratricidal race to the bottom. It brings with it the eruption of national antagonisms that poison relations between working people and line them up behind rival sections of the capitalist class.
The fake-left is promoting separatism under conditions where there is a stark uniformity in the attacks facing workers in every part of Europe, and throughout the world, at the hands of the international banks and transnational corporations and the governments they control, and where the globalization of economic life has created an unprecedented basis, and necessity, for the unification of the struggles of workers across all national borders on the basis of an internationalist and socialist perspective.
The nationalists of the pseudo-left are doing the dirty work of the capitalists. Their lies about the progressive potential of an independent Scotland are offered up in opposition to a struggle for socialism, which they privately fear and oppose and publicly dismiss as an impossibility.
In fact, the most unrealistic perspective of all is the notion that the creation of a multitude of smaller and even less viable states offers workers a way forward.
The Socialist Equality Party in Britain is calling for an unambiguous “no” vote in the Scottish referendum. Scottish, English and Welsh workers must not allow themselves to be divided against one another, but must wage a unified struggle against the common class enemy, whatever flag they wave.
The answer to the dictatorship of the financial oligarchy and its parties in the UK is not the creation of a new Scottish state that will be dominated by the very same social forces, but the struggle for a workers’ government and a socialist Britain. Together with our European and international comrades, we stand for an end to capitalist rule throughout the continent through the establishment of the United Socialist States of Europe.
Chris Marsden and Robert Stevens are senior commentators for the SEP (So ail Equality Party), publisher of wsws.org.
Thousands of Scottish nationalists protesting the biased coverage of the BBC against Scottish independence on Sunday, September 14th. In addition, in recent months, large protests have also come out against the BBC’s biased coverage of the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza as well as their lack of coverage of a large protest against anti-working class austerity carried out by the British government. CLICK TO ENLARGE
While having no revolutionary program for the transformation of Scotland, the SNP promises their program of “independence” will transform Scotland through Scottish control of oil revenues. Meanwhile, the North Sea oil supply this program relies on has already reached peak oil and is on decline. In addition, unlike the social spending of oil socialists Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Scottish oil is in private hands and the SNP has no intention of nationalizing it.
Yet, despite these facts, public opinion polls show a recent surge among Scottish voters with the “yes” campaign pulling into the lead with 56% support. This surge, especially among working class voters, can be explained in part by the increased backing the “yes” campaign has been given by the nominally Trotskyist Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party. Meanwhile, the Labour Party’s “no” campaign has been faltering due to the fact that the Labour Party has thoroughly betrayed the working class while the SNP actually stands to the left of Labour. In the Scottish parliament, successful SNP legislation include tuition free university education, free personal care for the elderly, free prescriptions, and a freeze on taxes for municipal services. The so-called Labour Party, on other hand, backs austerity and has no intention of reversing the social spending freezes of the Tories.
Scotland and the Scottish working class have traditionally stood to the left of much of the UK. In addition to social gains made by the nationalists in Scotland, there is also hope that an independent Scotland will preserve the National Health Service (NHS), Britain’s highly advanced socialist healthcare system which is currently on the chopping block of the British national government. The “no” campaign claims that an independent Scotland will not be able to fund the NHS. The “yes” campaign points out the fact that the British national government is presently destroying the NHS through cuts and privatization. They argue that independence may be the only way to preserve the NHS for Scotland.
In reality, the NHS could be preserved or destroyed whatever the outcome of Thursday’s vote. The class struggle, including general strikes, could be used to force the British national government to end its attacks on the NHS. Yet, it is precisely the lack of strong class struggle leadership that has caused much of the Scottish working class to turn to nationalism to remedy at least some of their problems. In attempting win the Scottish working class over to a class struggle perspective, it would be wrong to intervene and tell Scottish workers that they must continue to accept living under the austerity of the British national government.
Arguments that an independent capitalist Scotland will not be able to pay for the NHS can be countered by the argument that with the decline of capitalism, the NHS is in trouble with or without independence in any nation that remains capitalist, whether that be Scotland or the UK. If there is any truth to claims of a projected shortfall of revenue in an independent capitalist Scotland, socialist measures like the nationalization of oil production without compensation would produce the needed revenue for preserving the NHS. Even without oil, the much poorer nation of Cuba, despite (or actually because of) breaking from its wealthy imperialist masters in the United States, has been able to provide good quality socialized health care due to the implementation of a socialist economy.
No matter the future borders, the class struggle and not just independence will play a large role in determining the future of the NHS. Still, claims of a capitalist Scotland not having the needed revenue for the NHS should also be taken with a grain of salt as those claims play into typical stereotypes projected by the English ruling class against the Scottish working class, portraying them as being a drain on British coffers. It is from such claims that Scottish nationalists have made their own projections of their ability to fund social programs, in part through the taxation of oil revenue.
After losing popular support for unity in Scotland, the conservative British government of David Cameron is now trying to buy the votes of the largely economically devastated Scottish working class by promising more social spending in Scotland if the “no” vote wins on Thursday. I must admit, there is something satisfying about hearing a slash and exploit Tory, when Scots have him by the balls, cry out “More social spending!”, but will that be enough to buy Scottish votes? Or will the people see through such a stunt by a paid liar of the upper classes and recognize that he is likely to forget his promises the day after the election passes?
The role of British chauvinism and disdain directed at the Scottish working class should not be underestimated as an important force in the drive for Scottish independence. Likewise, much of the Scottish working class is presently inundated with a self-hate of their own separate Scots language (Scots Leid) which is still spoken regularly by a sizable minority of the population. In addition, a 2010 poll conducted by the Scottish government found 85% of Scots speak Scots Leid to some degree. Instead of taking pride or even neutrality in what is easily defined as a different language, the Scottish working class have been taught to see what they speak as a grammatically incorrect form of English. Sometimes Scots Leid will be permitted in school, but the teaching of it is not taken as seriously as English lessons are. For instance, students will be asked to write a poem in Scots Leid and told not to worry about spelling, whereas similar instructions in an English class would be unheard of. In the media, the use of Scots Leid is generally accepted in less serious genres such as comedy or representations of days gone by, but not used to present anything supposed to command respect or authority like a news story.
A third Scottish language besides Scots Leid and the Scottish dialect of English (which incorporates words from Scots Leid) is Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig). This language is only spoken by a small minority of the population, a little over one percent, but is undergoing some revival.
It is a large measure of oppression that a nationality no longer considers their own language as legitimate. This is largely a result of the Scottish upper classes adopting for hundreds of years English as being the respectable language of Scotland and seeking to purge Scotts Leid from their own personal vocabularies as well as from the national culture. Yet, at the same time, Scotland has not faced the same type of brutal colonial control, discrimination, violence, and exploitation suffered by the Irish Catholic communities under British rule. In fact, Scotland has itself participated in carrying out the oppression of the Irish people, including Scottish troops that carried out the 1914 Bachelors Walk Massacre in Dublin. Scottish troops were also notorious elsewhere in Ireland around that time for giving no quarter to IRA prisoners of war and continued to carry out vicious atrocities and repression in the northern counties during the so-called “Troubles” from 1968 to 1998.
Scotland is itself a minor imperialist country and the SNP has no intention of breaking from that. While the SNP would get rid of Britain’s Trident nuclear missiles which are stationed in Scotland and aimed at Russia, it has no intention of leaving the anti-Russian NATO pact. As part of that pact the SNP intends to allow nuclear armed NATO vessels to port in Scotland. Currently, as junior partners of U.S. imperialism, the UK and EU have signed onto the U.S. policy, laid out by U.S. foreign policy advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, of isolating Russia, regime change in Russia, and breaking Russia up into three pieces more manageable for U.S. imperialist control.
Today the Brzezinski doctrine has been playing out with the U.S. sponsored fascist coup in Ukraine in February combined with false allegations made of supposed Russian aggression in Ukraine. These false allegations have been used to excuse U.S. and EU economic sanctions against Russia. Those false allegations have also been used as an excuse for U.S. military advisors and weaponry being used by the Ukrainian government to carry out massive ethnic cleansing of the oppressed Russian nationality in South Eastern Ukraine, killing thousands people and driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. It is only due to the heroic armed resistance of rebels against the U.S. sponsored coup, with the fighters in Donetsk and Lugansk beginning to win the war combined with the economic troubles for the Ukrainian nation brought on by war, capitalism, and IMF austerity, that the Ukrainian government has now been forced to end its ethnic cleansing and an 11 day ceasefire continues to hold.
Supposed Russian aggression is also being used as an excuse for the expansion of NATO operations in Europe. Statements of government leaders at the latest NATO summit in Wales made clear that it is the intention of member countries to maintain NATO as an anti-Russian military alliance. The SNP’s intention to remain in NATO shows no real break from British and U.S. imperialist aggression aimed at the people of Ukraine, Russia, Novorossiya, Georgia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, and Belarus.
Likewise, as a member of the European Union, Scotland will be part of vicious EU economic sanctions aimed against the sovereignty of Russia and Belarus. In addition, the EU serves as a vehicle for powerful European nations to carry out brutal austerity and privatization within its weaker member nations. It due to the refusal of Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to give in to the EU’s demands of austerity, privatization, and isolation from Russia that he was overthrown in a U.S. sponsored coup that included large numbers of U.S. paid and trained Nazi and far-right protesters in the streets. These imperialist sponsored fascists eventually overthrew the elected Ukrainian government after they used their snipers to open fire on their own men and then blame it on the elected Ukrainian government in February. EU austerity is also devastating a number of EU member countries including Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy.
True Scottish independence would include a full break from the EU, NATO, the British monetary system, and the British Monarchy. It would include the overthrow of capitalism in Scotland to establish a planned socialist economy and establish an internationalist program that calls for the defeat of British, EU, and U.S. imperialism across the globe. The current vote will likely have little impact on whether or not such a program comes into fruition. For these needed changes a proletarian socialist revolution carried out across the Common Isles will be necessary. Ultimately, whether or not the Scottish working class in a future revolutionary uprising desires full independence, full integration into a common country, or federalization as part of a Federation of Socialist Republics of the Common Isles is a fluid decision that is not necessarily decided in advance.
Leninist-Trotskyists have a long tradition of often supporting the right of nations to self-determination. The notion of “self-determination”, however, is often misunderstood. Our support for the right of the Scottish people to determine their own future doesn’t automatically mean we call for a “yes” vote. Self-determination includes the potential decision for the people of Scotland to remain fully part of the UK by voting “no”. The limited potential gains to be achieved through independence cause this author to lean towards supporting a “yes” vote, but what is more important is respecting the decision made by the Scottish people on Thursday and demanding that the British government respect that decision as well.
Any disunity British actions against independence cause within the working class will potentially be made worse by socialist and Labour groupings that side with the British government against Scottish self-determination. To this end, the revolutionary party must champion the rights of the most exploited in society, including the language and independence rights of oppressed nationalities.
Lenin saw many advantages to maintaining unity despite national differences. It was in fact from this desire for unity that he proposed the right of nations to national self-determination including up to the right of nations separate that had been part of Tsarist Empire. While this may seem counter-intuitive, it is often from respect for the right to national self-determination and other national rights that we can begin to build the internationalist unity needed to put the questions of national hatreds to the side to deal with the deeper solutions of abolishing class exploitation and ending the rapid destruction of the planet that the capitalists are currently carrying out for profit.
-Steven Argue for the Revolutionary Tendency
