Assumptions We Make About No Voters

There are assumptions that some people in the pro-independence movement are making which I think will stall the movement’s progress unless they are more closely examined.  People are projecting onto those who voted No their own motivations, but clearly No voters didn’t share all the motivations of Yes voters, or they’d have voted Yes.

If the pro-independence movement gets the motivations of No voters wrong, and keeps trying to push buttons that actually don’t work, then the achievements of the referendum will never be improved upon.

The assumptions 

First, pro-independence people assume that many No voters would have voted Yes had they only known that the No camp weren’t to be trusted on more devo powers.  Second, it is assumed that No voters are kicking themselves now that they see the NHS, for example, was not Better Together. 

How do we know? These are assumptions stemming from a pro-independence mind-set.

The Vow

I was recently speaking to some friends who had voted No, and they were quite clear that they knew the last minute devolution promises weren’t to be trusted.  That Vow played no part in their decision to vote No; they were going to vote No anyway.  For them, more devo was neither here nor there: they wanted the UK to stay united. 

Until there is better research done on people’s reasons for voting No, we can’t know how many of them are simply Unionists who want Britain to stay whole.  Why assume they were in fact duped potential independence supporters?  Why not face up to the possibility that many – perhaps all – of the 55% who voted No were simply Unionists?

The answer of course is that pro-independence supporters don’t want to believe that. It’s easier to believe that at least a proportion of that 55% were hoodwinked into casting their No votes – perhaps even enough to have given Yes a majority.

There has, after all, been a majority against independence for as long as polls have been taken on the issue, going back decades.  

Austerity, the NHS, the Welfare State

The second assumption is a little harder to unpack.  It is allied to the first in the minds of pro-independence supporters, but what about in the minds of No voters?  Does it follow that if people had been even mildly convinced that the NHS was safer with independence they’d have voted Yes?  I had assumed so, but I underestimated the weight given by many to identity because for me there is no identity reason at stake. My identity is not dependent on where a government sits. But I have talked to people who said my reasons for voting Yes were flippant and facile reasons for breaking a 300-year Union.  For me, that’s nonsense – the instrumental trumps such emotional, irrational nationalism every day.  The chance to get rid of Trident vastly outweighs attachment to the idea of government sitting in one city and not another, notions of Britishness that necessitate rule by a particular parliament, and 300 years of things having been done that way. 

And yes, that would work the other way too.  Were Scotland independent, I wouldn’t hesitate to dump that independence if I believed it meant getting rid of Trident and saving the NHS. In order to truly understand the No vote, pro-independence people need to pose themselves that thought experiment – would that apply to you, too?  Would you vote to relinquish Scottish independence if you thought there’d be instrumental benefits?  Because if you answer No to that, then perhaps you have just understood the No vote on September 18^th.   How strong do the reasons for ditching your identity need to be?

Not convinced

No voters just weren’t convinced that voting Yes was best for the economy, for the NHS, or as a way to tackle austerity.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean they thought staying in the UK was bulwark against austerity.  Nor does it follow that they were just Tories and were voting for austerity.  Perhaps they hate austerity and don’t believe Westminster’s course can be altered, but neither did they think independence was a viable alternative; perhaps for them it was an additional risk, one that would be added to the problems of austerity rather than mitigating them, and therefore not a risk worth taking.  And maybe many were just Unionists anyway, and had an emotional attachment to Britain staying whole which outweighed hypothetical instrumental benefits, benefits they were neither disposed to believe, nor thought warranted breaking up the Union.  And despite the slow death of the NHS in England, most No voters are still not convinced independence would have helped.

Change You Won't Notice

I think one of the problems we had was the SNP’s strategy of change without change.  The question that that obviously begs is: if there will be no real change, why bother?

Perhaps the best example of that is the currency issue.  For most of the campaign the SNP tied itself in knots over that, and those of us outside the SNP had the difficulty of explaining a policy we didn’t support.  For me it seems obvious that to make a difference, an independent Scotland needs an independent currency and its own central bank, albeit one without interest rate setting powers – that function must be retained by government. We wanted to make a difference, didn’t we?

Tipping Point

We were asking people to overcome an emotional attachment to Britain for something that we were saying wouldn’t change that much; change you won’t notice. Despite that strong attachment to the UK - which we underestimated - there is still going to be a tipping point where that emotional attachment is outweighed by compelling instrumental reasons to break away.  In the event, it seems that many decided what was on offer wasn’t worth the trouble.  Ironically, seeking to portray the change as minimal was in fact a high risk strategy.  It ran the risk of people not seeing the point, and in the event, not enough did.

Here's what Yes achieves; where does No get us?

It can be infuriating as well as exhilarating  to be part of this debate we're having.  But I'm never in any doubt what side I have to be on - just a look at who backs and funds the No campaign reaffirms that.

I've written elsewhere in this blog about what I think a Yes vote immediately achieves, or leads to us achieving. Useful things, too: defending the Welfare state, defending the NHS, getting rid of Trident, renationalising the mail service. And it delivers a shock to the status quo, both here and in the rest of the UK, providing working class people with the chance to upset the neoliberal consensus.

(See these posts for a fuller discussion:

- "Will it actually make any difference to us if Scotland becomes independent?"

- "We can defend the Welfare state: we can vote Yes". ).

That's what it achieves.  What it does not achieve is a fair society and a restructuring of democracy. We do not automatically get equal access to resources, participation and decision-making for all in our society.  On the 19th September, those inequalities will still be there.  On independence day, 24th March 2016, those inequalities will still be there. Food banks will still be needed, services will still be unequal, local democracy will still be distant and unresponsive, and so on and so on.

Some Yes campaigners talk as if voting Yes solves all that in itself. It doesn't.  Yes is not a panacea; it's an opportunity to start building a better Scotland.  It starts a process.

That doesn't make it not worth doing.  It's very much worth doing.  It's a great opportunity to break the neoliberal logjam; perhaps the only such opportunity we'll have in our lifetimes.  Certainly the only such opportunity available to us now.

You might think that's obvious, so why even bring it up? Well, some people have said to me that because a Yes vote doesn't automatically bring us a fair and equal society, it isn't worth bothering with, that it's therefore a distraction.  This is a purist position I can't agree with.  We have to take what's in front of us and see what we can do with it.

To those people I say: look at what we can do immediately, and look at what we have to chance to build towards. Does voting No achieve that?  Voting No doesn't even start a process.  If No wins, then we keep WMD, we continue down the road to losing the welfare state and the NHS, the Royal Mail stays in private hands, the neoliberal project marches on uninterrupted, and we keep the institutional rightward bias of Westminster. I say it in person when I meet them, and I try to reach them through social media, to open a dialogue with them.  I don't expect one tweet to change anyone's mind, but just tweeting to the converted definitely won't.

So, I'll continue to say it: these immediate gains are worth having, so let's take them. Then let us push further and take the rest. That's what Yes achieves. Where does No get us?

10 Questions for the Pro-Union Parties on the Pledge of "More Powers".

So, the Tories, Lib-Dems and Labour have got together to make a joint-pledge on “more powers” for Holyrood if we vote No.

Tories, Labour and Lib Dem leaders pledging "more powers".

We have some questions for you:

1.       Pledges are always good, aren’t they? We can remember previous Lib-Dem Pledges.  Like this one:

Lib Dem MP, Danny Alexander, signing a Pledge he and his party spectacularly broke

Why should we take this Lib-Dem Pledge seriously?

2.       You had an opportunity to get Devo Max onto the referendum ballot paper, but all three of you declined to back proposals.  What has concentrated your minds now?

3.       Never mind, you have got together now.  So, what stopped you getting your joint proposals into the Queen’s Speech? The Queen's Speech sets out the government’s agenda for the coming session, outlining proposed policies and legislation; two of you – the Tories and the Lib-Dems – are in the government.  Why were your proposed “extra powers” not in the Queen’s Speech?

4.       Could it be that you weren’t quite so worried then about losing the referendum?  That’s understandable. Oh, but, hold on, once we’ve voted No, you won’t be worried any more, will you?  How can we be sure you won’t forget your sudden joint enthusiasm?  (Don’t say “Pledge” again.  Remember, we’ve seen your Pledges before).

5.       And if you are so keen now on “extra powers”, isn’t that an admission that the UK doesn’t work very well as it stands?

6.       Even if we believe that you will deliver on this Pledge, will any of the “extra powers” get rid of nuclear weapons for us?

7.       Will any of the “extra powers” enable us to defend the Welfare State by giving Scotland power over all welfare, benefits and pensions?

8.       Will any of the “extra powers” enable us to renationalise the Royal Mail?

9.       Will any of the “extra powers” keep Scotland out of illegal wars?

10.   If “extra powers” are so great, why don’t we just go the whole hog and claim them all, rather than wait to see what we are given, if and when Westminster decides to grant them?

The fact is, we don’t really know what we’re being offered; we’d be voting for a pig in a poke.  And we don’t trust you to deliver anyway.  The only way we can be sure of getting powers that will make a difference to things we care about is to vote Yes on September 18^th.  

The Fringe Minority Who Damage Us All

Let me say upfront, the vast majority of debate in the referendum campaign – whether online or offline - has been good natured. Sometimes it has been heart-felt, sometimes robust, and sometimes tough questions are asked. But it has been, in the overwhelming majority, respectful and has maintained a remarkable level of decorum. It is possible to be passionate without rancour, and this debate and campaign has predominantly been just that.

Criticism does not equal abuse

Let me also say this: some people will always try to paint any criticism, critique, or questioning of their position, however respectfully addressed, as “abuse”. It’s a pity, but if you can review your argument with pride, there’s nothing to worry about.

However, there is a small minority on both sides of the debate who cross the line from passion into personal abuse. And there is an undeniable culture of misogyny in some of that abuse. This is not confined to the referendum campaign, nor is it confined to cyberspace, but it is something that women in public discourse are subjected to.

Twitter is the public sphere

And let us not be under any illusions: your postings on Twitter are public discourse. They are not a private chat with your mates in someone’s kitchen. They are public utterances, and they can and will be used to try and paint the campaign you espouse in a certain light. You need to remember that you represent a campaign; your conduct affects us all.

Misogyny 

So what am I talking about? Some people – a very few, but they exist – seem to think it’s OK to respond to women with whom they disagree by calling them a “bitch”, a “whore”, a “slut” or even a “cunt”. It is not OK. Not even a bit. It doesn’t matter that you call your male friends those things. It isn’t just “part of the knock-about nature of debate”. It denigrates women. It is unacceptable abuse. And it negates any valid point you may have had.

I have also seen comments about women’s appearance. Again on both sides – “she’s ugly”, “she’s fat”, and so on. It’s unacceptable, whoever it’s aimed at.

By using these terms, these themes, you are damaging all of us. You are letting down your side, whichever side that might be. So don’t do it.

If you are in any doubt as to whether your tweet might be construed as misogynist, don’t send it.

Nazi smears

Nor is it just misogyny. We don’t like it when people in the No camp liken the Yes campaign to Nazis. And this, incidentally, isn’t just at the fringes, but often comes from people right at the top of the No campaign. I saw tweets from Blair McDougall advertising James MacMillan’s ludicrous article which smeared Yes artists as like Nazis as a “must read”. We have heard the audio of Alistair Darling agreeing with a journalist’s description of the Yes side as “blood and soil” nationalists. He had the opportunity to disagree, but didn’t; he said that’s what they were “at heart”.

But how can we complain if some among us respond in like? If some among us use Nazi era terms like “Quisling”, or liken people to Goebbels, or deploy any hyperbole that allows them to paint us all as intolerant and extreme?

It doesn’t matter who started it. Which tweet do you think the press will pounce on?

Agent provocateurs 

And that brings us to another matter. How easy would it be for me to open a new Twitter account, badge-up with a Better Together Twibbon, and set out to discredit the No campaign? Extremely easy. Don’t you think the state has thought of that? We know that special branch and MI5 agents go under cover and infiltrate political movements. Look at the Mark Kennedy/Stone scandal. We know it happened during the miners’ strike, during the anti-poll tax movement. It would be remarkable if, during this time that the British state itself is under threat, they weren’t doing it now.

And the social media makes it much easier for agents to go under cover, and engage in agent provocateur activity.

No, not all of the fringe idiots flinging misogynist abuse are agent provocateurs, but let us be quite clear: the effect is the same. If you do it, you damage the whole movement, and you might as well be working for MI5.

Keep it positive 

The confines of 140 characters make it hard to make your point concisely; the ability to click and send without thinking, and the anonymity of the net makes it easier to issue abuse you wouldn’t use face to face. But that should be our rule – if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it. I’m not talking about being squeaky clean prudes who never utter a word in anger. If you’d say “up yours” to George Osborne’s face on budget day when provoked by attacks on working class people, then of course you can say it on Twitter. I did. Just don’t stand by when others are besmirching the movement with their misogynist tirades.

Like the vast majority of us do, keep it positive, keep focussed on the issues, and remember that they’re going to use all the dirty tricks they can. Don’t fall into their traps.

“Will it actually make any difference to us if Scotland becomes independent?”

It’s a fair question, and one that I’d hope everyone asks before deciding how to cast their vote in the referendum:

“Will it actually make any difference to us if Scotland becomes independent?”

Well, will it?

My top reasons for voting Yes are here:

#indyreasons To defend the Welfare State. To rid our lochs of WMDs. To renationalise mail service. To rid ourselves of austerity ideology.
— Trevor Chaplin (@TrevorChaplin) March 24, 2014

Let’s take those one at a time. First, defending the Welfare State. Can’t that be done through Westminster?

Not really. Westminster under the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition is dismantling the Welfare State, and rather than try to stop them, Labour is joining in. On Wednesday March 26th, Labour, the Party of Atlee and Bevan, voted in favour of the Tory Welfare Cap. Save the Children warned that the welfare cap will push 345,000 children into poverty over the next four years, but Labour voted in favour anyway.

Never forget Labour voted with the Tories on welfare cap. Save the Children warned cap will push 345,000 children into poverty. Shameful.
— Trevor Chaplin (@TrevorChaplin) May 17, 2014

What about the NHS? Hasn’t the NHS in Scotland always been separate? Isn’t it one of the current devolved powers?

Although the NHS in Scotland is devolved, there is a direct link between Westminster health spending and what’s available to Holyrood to spend on NHS Scotland.

As Westminster freezes or reduces public funding for the NHS in England, as less of the funding comes from the public purse, this would have a knock-on effect on Scotland's grant from Westminster, which the Barnett formula calculates as a percentage of public spending south of the Border.

Listen to Philippa Whitford, an NHS surgeon, explain why she is worried about the outcome of a No vote on the Scottish NHS:

“In five years England will not have an NHS as you understand it, and if we vote No, in ten years neither will we.”

See NHS for Yes: http://www.nhsforyes.org/

The Welfare State is an achievement to be cherished, but it is being undone. The Westminster arithmetic means that the parties chase a few swing constituencies, pulling the consensus rightward. (I discuss this more fully here: link) We have a chance to do things differently. We can build a social democratic consensus and defend the Welfare State.

What about nuclear weapons?

One of the actual Forces of Darkness, which we can get rid of by voting Yes: pic.twitter.com/oYVUc0TVbX

— Trevor Chaplin (@TrevorChaplin) April 8, 2014

Scottish CND are backing a Yes vote.

They are quite clear that a Yes vote is the best way to get rid of Trident.

Scottish CND has registered as a Yes campaigner with @ElectoralCommUK http://t.co/OyVgQqvsh2 #indyref pic.twitter.com/mqJiOMpQPw

— Scottish CND (@ScottishCND) May 20, 2014

The vast majority of Scots oppose Trident. And look at the opposition to replacing Trident: 80% of people are opposed – including 87% of people planning to vote Yes in the independence referendum, and 75% of No voters.

Think of the things we could spend that money on if we were to vote against nuclear weapons!

See Scottish CND’s own site here: Link

We can renationalise the Royal Mail. pic.twitter.com/yOsY568rTD

— Trevor Chaplin (@TrevorChaplin) May 26, 2014

If the SNP were to be the elected the first government in an independent Scotland, they have pledged to renationalise the Royal Mail. See this link

It’s likely, given the opposition to mail privatisation, that other parties would follow suit.

Never forget, austerity is an ideology, not a necessity. It is a choice that governments make, and it's the wrong choice. Miliband and Balls are committed to keeping the Tory austerity plans if they are elected to government in 2015.

Labour say they'll keep Tory austerity & Trident. Whoever wins at Westminster, a No vote is a vote for austerity, privatisation & WMD.

— Trevor Chaplin (@TrevorChaplin) May 10, 2014

If Scotland votes No, that will deliver a huge boost to the Tories. Labour are far from certain to win. But even if they do, they’ll keep austerity! Voting Yes gives us our best chance to rid ourselves of austerity.

The No campaign has been built on scare stories: telling us what we can’t do, what we shouldn’t do, and what we won’t be allowed to do. Perhaps you’ve seen the recent newspaper ads by the "Vote No Borders" campaign? (It's an organisation owned by Tory-supporting millionaires).

I’m not the most enthusiastic fan of the Wings Over Scotland site, but this is an excellent article taking each of those ads and examining the claims they make (where there are claims at all). Well worth a read. And a good summation of what we should be thinking about when we vote in September.

http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-head-and-the-heart/

And let’s not forget the effect that I hope and believe independence would have for the rest of the UK.

I think it'd give Westminster a big shock to the system. It'd be weakened, and that's an ideal time for the working class to make demands. The Welfare State was won at a time when the state recognised that the demands of the people had to be acceded to. If the people of the rUK seize the moment, I think a similar realignment of the consensus is possible. Especially if looking north, the rUK sees WMD going, the mail service being renationalised, the NHS being defended from cuts, and so on.

http://hourscotland.org/

Stop abusing the plebs and start to listen.

Those of you roundly abusing those who didn’t vote in the European elections as idiots and stooges with no right to complain, stop and think about this: they outnumber you vastly. You belong to a small minority who voted; two thirds of the electorate did not. They have sent the loudest message that representative democracy allows them to send, and still you are not listening.

Two thirds; think about that. If your preferred option in the independence referendum scored two thirds against the other side’s one third, would you accept that as a clear result? Of course you would. So why are you not listening to this clear result?

Before we go into what that loud message might be saying, think about this, too: what makes you so sure that had there been a full turnout they would have voted the way you wanted? If forced to chose, by compulsory voting legislation, they may have fallen into the same proportions we saw last night. It was a bigger sample than any professional poll, after all. What makes you think merely ensuring people turn out to vote would guarantee that people vote “correctly”?

Howard Zinn (an atheist, incidentally) once said sardonically: “If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates”. What did he mean?

Well, speak to people who don’t vote and ask them why not. They’ll tell you that they have a pretty low opinion of politicians, that they’re “all in it for themselves”, that it makes very little difference to their lives who wins. As the Who song says, “Welcome the new boss, same as the old boss”.

You don’t think so, because you are a political anorak. You are convinced that your tribe of politicians will be better than all those other tribes. The public aren’t so convinced. They have experienced politicians wearing different rosettes, and they haven’t been persuaded that any of them are representing their interests. They certainly aren’t convinced enough to make a trip to a polling station, not for a European election.

What can we legitimately say about reasons for low turnout at European elections? Well, let’s try. That people see the European parliament as remote? That people don’t really know what its role is or powers are; where it sits with what the European Commission does or what the Council of Ministers does? That they suspect that none of these distant bodies listens very much to what they have to say? (After all, you can even send BNP MEPs over there and what difference does it make?) That it’s just another bunch of people in offices somewhere making decisions about us without actually involving us? That they’re going to do what they do anyway, and it won’t be our interests they serve when they do it?

The turnout in the local elections south of the border was around the same as the European turnout. That suggests to me that people feel just as disconnected from local government; it feels just as distant as Strasbourg and Brussels. At the last council elections in Scotland, the turnout was similarly low - 39.1%. It was lower in Glasgow at 31.7% over the city, but even lower in some wards.

You are probably still shouting “well get out and vote to make a difference!” despite this huge majority telling you that they don’t think it does make a difference. Not even if they try to shock the political system by voting UKIP or BNP.

Some people try, it’s true. But it’s worth noting that even when returning UKIP top of the poll for the European parliament, people south of the border put them in fourth place for local government. “Look”, they seem to be saying, “We’re not stupid. We want to send you a message, but we don’t necessarily want these people running local services”.

“But”, you counter, “A protest vote is dangerous; it legitimises the party you lend your vote to, and makes them think all their views have some level of support”.

“Exactly”, the majority who didn’t vote might say. “We don’t want to legitimise any of them; a plague on all their houses”. They’re saying the opposite to what you said at the top of the page; they’re saying “If you voted, you’ve only got yourself to blame; you have no right to complain”.

You’re an adherent of one of those houses, though, so you’re unwilling to accept that. The idea that your tribe of politicians might be seen by the majority as in any way equivalent to these other tribes shocks you so much you can’t accept it. You’d rather see the non-voting majority as lazy, stupid, and racist-by-extension. And you think that attitude will win them over? Really? How’s that going for you?

Does telling people that they're stupid and that they just don't get it (but that you do) ever win them over?

Try listening for a change. Try and find out what people are saying. I think they’re saying “We feel powerless”. Is there anything you can do to change that? What can you do to contribute to their empowerment? Because more of the same isn’t an option.

The Inferiorisation of a Scottish Currency: the BBC and belittling the Pound Scots.

For time to time an article appears that shouts its subtext louder than its ostensible contents. Just such an article appeared today on the BBC News website.

It’s a piece about Prof. Gavin McCrone’s evidence to Holyrood today, giving his view that an independent Scotland should opt for a separate currency, pegged to Sterling, rather than Currency Union, as the Scottish Government prefers. So far so good, and I actually agree with McCrone on this. However, now look at the article. [Link].

The version I’m looking at is date and time stamped 7 May 2014 at 07:23.

The title of the piece is “How many unicorns do you earn?”, and below that is a large fantasy fiction style picture of the mythical beast.

After asking “How many unicorns would it take to do your weekly shopping?”, the piece begins: “This sounds like the start of a bad joke”.

The Unicorn was a gold coin used in Scotland for only 41 years, until 1525, and named for the Scottish heraldic symbol used on its obverse face. When Scotland joined the Union in 1707, the coin had been out of use for the best part of two centuries. Gavin McCrone has not suggested the Unicorn be re-introduced. Nobody has. So why bring it up? Why name an article on a modern Scots currency “How many unicorns do you earn?”, and why illustrate the piece with a large picture of the beast? (Why, if mentioning it at all, not depict the coin?)

The article was trailed on Twitter with the words: “Unicorn, groat, penny and merk. Could Scots currency make a come-back?” And again the mythical beast was pictured.

Unicorn, groat, penny and merk. Could Scots currency make a come-back? #indyref http://t.co/1OBghYO99U pic.twitter.com/BdQhu6CHNS
— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) May 7, 2014

I have covered before on this blog the practise of calling a Scots currency “Groats”. Scotland’s currency was never “Groats”. When last used in Scotland, Groats were in fact a Sterling coin. Last minted in the UK in 1856, Groats were worth four pence. They were used until withdrawn in the 1880s. They were never the name of the currency north or south of the Border. Why would Scotland call its currency “the fourpence”?

Prior to Union there was also Scots coin called the Groat, and there were variations of the name in coinage throughout Europe - The Dutch Groot, the Tyrol Groschen etc. It was a term for a thick coin, derived from the Latin adjective meaning thick or heavy, grosso. It is an antiquated coin type, once common across Europe.

People pretend they think a Scots currency would be called the Groat to belittle and ridicule the idea, and make the notion of a Scottish economy seem antiquated and obsolete. It's just a cheap shot by people who want to suggest an independent Scotland would be backwards, and a Scottish currency crude and naive.

The Unicorn was introduced to the story not by McCrone, but by BBC reporter Jamie Ross. The imagery is clear enough: the idea of having our own currency is a fantasy, and – as the opening remark tells us – “a bad joke”. This is all very familiar to those who have read Frantz Fanon; Jamie Ross is telling us that once left to our own devices by our Westminster saviours, Scotland “would at once fall back into barbarism, degradation and bestiality” (p169, Fanon, 1967, "The Wretched of the Earth"). Is he doing it on purpose? Possibly, but more likely he just knew what sort of thing would go down well: a jokey, fatuous, and patronising piece. The sort of thing no BBC reporter would ever turn in on Sterling.

Groat, Angel, Double Leopard, and Mark are all old English (and/or British) coins, of varying vintages. No BBC piece on modern Sterling would ever use up space discussing those, or illustrating the piece with pictures of angels from mythology (rather than the coin). Such an article would never get anywhere near the BBC website. But for Scottish stories, that sort of thing is exactly what is wanted. The patronising and cringe-inducing defence policy animation is another case in point.

McCrone has long advised a separate currency for an independent Scotland. He does so in his recent book “Scottish Independence: Weighing Up the Economics” (2013). It’s well worth a read. And he was quoted by the Scotsman as having favoured “the restoration of the pre-1707 pound Scots, or indeed the Merk, and it could be pegged against Sterling initially on a one-to-one basis as Ireland’s currency was.”

Why mention Merks? A merk was a Scottish silver coin, worth ⅔ of a Pound Scots. It wasn’t the name of the currency (that was Pound Scots). Perhaps McCrone was searching for a good Scots word to name the new currency, and it’s the same name the Germans used for their currency until joining the euro, after all. However he needn’t have bothered; there’s already a guid Scots word for Pound: Pund. McCrone’s slight linguistic diversion, though, is as nothing compared to the patronising flight of fancy that the BBC News website goes on. And not for the first time.

25 Questions for the BBC on its CBI Membership

So, in a joint statement the BBC has announced it is to “suspend” its membership of the CBI due to the CBI’s status as an official “No” campaign. There are still many questions that the BBC needs to answer. I have 25 that I think urgently need to be answered. Perhaps you can think of more.

1. Why did it take so long for the BBC to act, given that it had been reporting for a week on other organisations leaving the CBI to maintain neutrality?

2. When did the BBC first become aware of the CBI’s stance as being opposed to independence?

3. During the time the BBC was aware of the CBI’s stance, how many times did it quote the CBI on the issue of independence?

4. Why did the BBC never declare its interest while reporting the CBI’s views on independence?

5. What are the terms of the “suspension” from the CBI?

6. Why is the BBC an unsuspended member until the 30th May?

7. How can it report impartially on the referendum while still an unsuspended member?

8. What does the BBC pay the CBI for membership per year? How are those payments split?

9. Was the BBC aware that it was funding partisan campaigning by making those payments?

10. Is the BBC aware of the anti-independence materials the CBI has already prepared and publicised, for example their current website materials?

11. Are these appropriate materials for the BBC to fund with our licence fees?

12. How long has the BBC been a member of CBI?

13. Why is the BBC a member of the CBI?

14. Was the BBC a member of the CBI while it reported on issues the CBI has campaigned or lobbied on?

15. Was the BBC a member of the CBI when the BBC has reported on issue of occupational pensions? Or when the CBI has been quoted by the BBC on the issue of occupational pensions?

16. Was the BBC a member of the CBI when the BBC has reported on or the CBI has been quoted by the BBC on taxation? On executive pay? On public services? On immigration policy? On employment law? On the economy? On any of the issues that the CBI campaigns or lobbies on?

17. Was the BBC a member of the CBI during any industrial dispute in which it has sought quotes from CBI figures?

18. Was the BBC a member of the CBI during the miners’ strike?

19. Was the BBC a member of the CBI on 18th June 1984, when the BBC was editing and compiling footage for a report on the events at Orgreave?

20. Where does the BBC publish and publicise its membership of the CBI?

21. Is that information given due prominence?

22. How long has that information been made public?

23. Did the BBC reporters seeking answers from the CBI about membership figures know where to find information about the BBC’s membership?

24. When the BBC resumes membership of the CBI on September 19th, how can it be sure its impartiality on the post referendum landscape will not be tainted by membership of an organisation which will have views on that landscape, whatever it is?

25. How will the BBC rebuild trust in its integrity?



If the BBC is not promptly and comprehensively open about these issues, then it will become mired in doubt and confusion, and will itself continue to be the story.

ARE SCOTS “NATURALLY” LEFT WING, (AND THE ENGLISH NOT)?

It’s sometimes said that Scots are more naturally “left wing” than voters in England. It’s widely believed, but it is nevertheless a myth. However, exploring the reasons the myth arose is a good way of understanding why it is that the Westminster system is dysfunctional, and why the Union is broken.

First let’s put to bed the idea that Scots are “naturally” left wing. If that were the case, why did a majority of Scots (50.1%) vote Tory in 1955 (returning 36 Conservative and Scottish Unionist Party MPs to Labour’s 34)? That is an outright majority of the popular vote, not just the largest party.

The party of Scotland

It’s true that in that same year the Conservatives won an outright majority of the popular vote in England, but in that same year in Wales an outright majority voted for Labour (57.6%), something that has never happened in Scotland. That’s right: Labour has never had an outright majority of the popular vote in Scotland. It wasn’t until 1964 that Labour began to overtake the Conservative and Unionists in Scotland in terms of share of the vote. In that year, though, the Conservatives still managed 40.6% of the Scottish vote, compared with 44% in England.

So what happened? Why the apparent divergence between Scotland and England that we see today?

Well, first of all it is worth remembering that just as Labour has never had an outright majority of the popular vote in Scotland, so the Tories never had an outright majority of the popular vote in England after that 1955 general election. Thatcher never once had a majority of the popular vote in England. In each of her general elections, a majority of English voters voted against her party.

True, the Tory percentages in England during the Thatcher era were in the 40s, while in Scotland they began at 31.4% in 1979, and began to slip into the 20s. But even in 1992, more than a quarter of Scots were still voting Tory. (By 2010, it was only 16.7%).

The Tories have never had a majority in England in more than 50 years

However, hold onto one salient point here: in more than half a century, the Tories have never managed more than half of the votes cast either in the UK as a whole or in England alone.

First Past the Post

The reason that they have had government majorities (that is, a majority of seats in Westminster, as opposed to a majority of votes) is the first past the post electoral system (FPTP). It’s seats that count, not votes. There are a huge number of seats in Westminster that are safe seats. It’s around 400, give or take, depending on various factors. They tend not to change hands. And even then, some don’t “matter” as their MP will not form part of a government majority (eg SNP seats). In 2010 there were 650 constituencies, but only upwards of 150 seats – 23% of seats or so – were “marginal”. The average Westminster seat has not changed hands since the 1960s; fewer than one-in-ten seats has changed hands in 12 of the last 17 general elections since 1950. Furthermore, marginal seats are not evenly spread. I don’t want to get into the complicated algorithms, but there are more marginal seats in the South of England than there are total seats in Scotland. It is in the handful of marginal seats that Westminster elections are really fought.

It is thought that there will be around 190 marginal seats in the 2015 general election; 29% of constituencies. Nor are all of these as hotly contested, with only a tiny proportion seeing the highest campaign spending, usually in three-way marginals.

Nor is that the end of the matter. Within each constituency in that handful, only a small margin separates the first placed party from the second placed. And it is influencing those margins that Westminster politics tailors itself towards.

Keeping the centre-right orthodoxy

The majority of seats can be relied upon, so the policies are tailored towards placating those swing voters in that handful of marginal seats. Traditional Westminster wisdom holds that these represent “Middle England”, and all three Westminster parties calibrate their policies towards not offending them. The media, especially press, but also broadcast, plays its part in perpetuating this traditional, individualist, centre-right “common sense” orthodoxy. The New Labour phenomenon was built on that. As is Miliband’s promise to ape Tory austerity ideology.

However, although no party will step out of line for fear of losing those swing voters, the funding of big business, or being called “loony” by the press, the majority British public - including the majority of Conservative voters – hold very different views to those of the parties. The vast majority of the British public, including English voters, wants the NHS to stay in public ownership. They also support re-nationalising the energy and rail companies, and they opposed the sale of Royal Mail. However, there is no party with a chance of winning offering those policies that English voters can vote for. There is a democratic deficit in England as well.

People of England not out of Step with Scots

The people of England are not so out of step with the people of Scotland. It is the Westminster political classes that are out of step with the people. There is a perfect storm of inter-party ideological homogeny, business funding, media manufacture of consent, and neoliberal consensus in the ruling classes. The UK public has no choice at elections but neoliberal a, b or c. The parties are all vehicles of the neoliberal project.

This is an important point for two reasons: first it exonerates the British public: whichever party they vote for is “right wing”; secondly, it begs the question of how accurately we can describe Scottish votes as being for “left wing” parties. In the 2005 Westminster general election, for example, 39.5% of Scottish votes cast were cast for Labour.

How left wing is Labour anyway?

However, by what measure was Tony Blair’s Labour government “left wing”? It was a government that had two years previously led us into an illegal war in Iraq, along with the US. Blair had an easy alliance not just with George W Bush, but also with Berlusconi and Aznar. Blair preached across Europe about selling off public services. The Blair government accelerated the demonization of the disabled, the poor, and the unemployed, not least with the rhetoric around welfare-to-work. Labour in government spent 13 years consolidating Toryism. So that 39.5% was not cast for a left wing party. Nor were the 22.6% of votes that Scottish voters cast for the Liberal Democrats. Already that is more than 62% of votes cast for non left wing parties, and we haven’t yet added the Scottish Tory vote, or dissected the policies of the SNP.

So, this idea that Scots were voting for left wing parties is looking a bit shaky. However, the same mitigation applies: what were the choices on offer?

That the choices in a parliamentary democracy are limited ought not to surprise us. As one of America’s Founding Fathers, John Jay – head of the Constitutional Convention and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court - used to say, “The people who own the country ought to govern it” (quoted in Chomsky, Understanding Power, 2002, p315). The purpose of government is not therefore to represent the interests of the working class, but of the owning class. That is why choice in elections is limited to a narrow band of “acceptable” opinion in the US, as it is in Westminster.

No wonder, then, that Howard Zinn said of voting that it was “a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens”.

So why bother?

Why, then, should we hope for better in an independent Scotland? Well, first of all, the 19th of September is not the end of a process, but the beginning of one. It must be the beginning of a process where we seek out and understand the self-activity of the people, and articulate it in ways which contribute to community empowerment. We will also be dealing with a government of a much smaller state, with the levers of power therefore closer to the people. And it will provide us with the opportunity to force our political leaders to listen to us, to respect the social democratic consensus that is bringing them to government, and understand that a new consensus is being demanded. (I have talked about this at greater length in another blog post). We have, in short, a rare opportunity to break that Westminster neoliberal log jam, not just for ourselves, but for our English neighbours. If we pass up this opportunity, then we condemn both Scottish and English working people to continue in the same faux democracy, with the illusion of choice, and the interests of the owning class thrust upon us by the Westminster charade.

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/11/04/nationalise-energy-and-rail-companies-say-public/

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp2003/rp03-059.pdf

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/images/dynamicImages/file/ERS_Penny%20for%20your%20vote_Final.pdf

Labour Turns its Back on the Welfare State

When Tony Benn died, along with him died the unheeded conscience of the Labour Party. Yesterday the Party of Atlee and Bevan turned its back on the Welfare State and forfeited for once and for all the right to be considered the inheritors of the legacy of the post-war government.

Save the Children has warned that the welfare cap will push 345,000 children into poverty over the next four years. And for what? This policy won’t do anything to address the problem. It isn’t trying to.

The problem is that ordinary decent people are in low paid jobs with wages that don’t meet the spiralling costs of living, meaning they have to rely on tax credits and housing benefits. Do you receive tax credits? They are subject to the cap.

The problem is that many of those in work have zero hour contracts, are in unstable self-employment, or having their hours slashed. The problem is that people are facing the choice between heat and food.

This is a policy decided in reaction to Daily Mail headlines and by trying to out-Farage UKIP.

The people that will be harmed are not “scroungers” but ordinary decent families in need. And that is the point. We have a Labour Party – a Labour Party! – that is demonising the poor. On the back of a few sensationalised accounts in rightwing newspapers and some lurid television programmes, a picture has been painted of an “undeserving poor” that the “deserving poor” are meant to vilify. And that is the justification for this attack on all those in need. The attack on disabled people, on retired people, on people in unstable employment, on people out of work, the vast majority of whom desperately want work.

This policy will push people into debt, into further poverty, into food banks, and into homelessness. This is a policy that blames and punishes those in need for the economic crisis. Never mind corporations that avoid tax, let’s attack the poor. The bankers cause a crash? Bail them out, but savagely attack the poor. Energy companies racking up heating bills? Means test pensioners for winter fuel allowance.

“We’re all in it together”. It’s a sick joke that Osborne repeated in his budget speech. And all of this is backed by Labour. Balls and Miliband have said they will stick to the austerity ideology of the Tories. They have said they will not reverse any of the Tory welfare cuts.

When I first reached voting age, in 1983, it seemed only natural for me to vote Labour. There was never even any question in my mind that I should vote any other way. Now, where should people turn for decency and humanity? Labour is morally bankrupt. It no longer represents the people it was founded to represent. It has turned its back on us.

This is the party that wants us to vote No in the independence referendum. It wants us to vote No in the hope that Labour will win the next Westminster election. It is far from certain that Labour would win, but even if it did, what difference would it make? They’ve already told us they’ll do the same as the Tories anyway! After Labour’s shameful performance yesterday, I expect more and more people to see that Labour has abandoned them. I expect more and more people to turn away from the morally bankrupt politics of Westminster. And I expect more and more people to come round to the idea of voting Yes on 18th September.

Culture, Identity and the Non-nationalist Case for Independence

At the weekend, I was speaking to a friend at a party. She raised the independence referendum (as is now normal at social gatherings, chance meetings, barbers shops and bus stops), and expressed concern as an undecided voter that there were anti-English bigots who supported Yes.

I pointed out that there were anti-English bigots supporting No, too. That, sadly, bigotry will exist whether Yes wins or No wins. But she was unconvinced.

She also said that although she was worried that a Yes vote would unleash further anti-English bigotry, she was a “proud Scot”. I asked her what she meant by “proud Scot”. For me, that’s an alien concept. I find it very odd that you can have pride in something that isn’t an achievement.

What is it to be a Scot? Surely some combination of the following: you were born in Scotland; you live in Scotland and wish to self-identify as a Scot (whether or not you were born there); or you come from a Scottish background, although you live elsewhere.

So what is Scotland?

Well, it is not one homogenous culture. Few nations if any have but one homogenous culture. Nor does culture, in Scotland or almost anywhere else I can think of, coincide exactly with national boundaries.

Nations generally house many cultures, some of which overlap each other. Cultures also overlap national boundaries. I was brought up in Highland Perthshire by a mother from the Borders and a father from the Lanarkshire coal fields. I didn’t speak Doric or eat skirlie, like folk from Aberdeenshire. I didn’t speak Shetlandic or eat reested mutton. Born in the mid 60s, the music I liked in my teens set me apart from my parents. The music I listen to now is probably alien to most teens today.

Both sides of my family came to Scotland from Ireland in the 19th Century. Maybe yours did too; or from Italy, or the Asian Subcontinent, or from England. These ingredients and more shape our personal cultural experiences.

Culture is part of what it is to be human. Indeed, the rudiments of culture have been found in other social animals. We humans cannot exist outside of culture. It is nonsense therefore to feel proud to belong to a particular culture – if you didn’t belong to one culture, you’d belong to another. If you are proud of your culture, what are you saying? That you’re glad you don’t belong to another? I can’t follow you down that road, I’m afraid.

That’s not to say culture is not important; of course it is. It enriches our lives and binds our communities. What it does not do is neatly coincide with national boundaries.

That’s because national boundaries are arbitrary; they are administrative boundaries, they demark polities. They are bureaucratic divisions.

If you live in Stirling would it make any difference to your own culture if the Scottish border was redrawn 50 yards south of where it lies now? 2 miles? 10? 47? Or north by those degrees? All that would happen is that others, with their communities and cultures, would be added to or subtracted from the nation. You would continue to speak Scots or not. Understand Gaelic or not. Eat black bun or not.

Furthermore, Scotland remains a polity within the British Isles. It is a geographic fact, and it is a cultural fact. I will continue to watch Coronation Street. I will buy the next Fall album (and continue to call it an LP, unlike my children). I will visit the inlaws in England on holidays and high days, several times a year. None of this would change because of independence. My support for Scottish independence is not based on any notion of cultural identity. Nor have I met anyone for whom that is the main motivation. The demand for independence is not about identity.

The reasons people generally give for voting Yes are political, democratic, instrumental; tactical even. They want rid of Trident. They want rid of austerity ideology. They want to give neoliberalism the boot. They want the government they voted for, not another imposed upon them. They want to build a new social democratic consensus. Those are the sorts of reasons people give me when they tell me they are voting Yes, rather than to do with identity. By contrast, many of those who say they will vote No tell me it is because they “feel” British, rather than for any political or instrumental reason. A vote for the Union is, in my experience, more often for reasons of identity.

I concede that this is anecdotal. However, I can’t find polling evidence for a link between national identity and reasons for voting choice. Opinion polls have looked into national identity and voting intentions. But they have only sought to compare identity with voting intention, not with their reasons for voting the way they intend to vote.

I believe that by recognising that culture and nation are not synonyms we can build an inclusive Scotland where all our cultures are valued. It is only by trying to equate culture and nation that we would exclude.

Furthermore, we must not fall into the trap of thinking that freedom for “the nation” is the same as freedom for the individuals within the nation’s boundaries. Just as culture is not homogenous, neither are the interests within “the nation” homogenous. The interests of the corporation are not the same as interests of the individual. There is no identity of interest between CEOs and working people merely because they live in the same country. Nations are polities. It is the people within them who need to be free.

This case does not need to be made within the pro-independence movement. Irish Scots are Scots. Asian Scots are Scots. Anglo Scots are Scots. This last case might still need to be made, though, to undecided voters, and to those unsure of where the demand for independence comes from. That, and that we would continue to value our cultural interaction with others in these islands.

If the people of Scotland vote Yes on 18th September, that is not the end of the matter. It is but the beginning of the road to self management. But it is a road that people of all the various and overlapping cultures in Scotland can take together. There are still people to be convinced of this.

The Selective Reading of Jose Manuel Barroso by the Media and the No Camp

Like a lot of people, I didn’t see Jose Manuel Barroso live on the Andrew Marr Show on 16th February, so I initially had to go on media reports of what he had said. It therefore came as something of a surprise to me that most of what he had to say wasn’t about Scottish independence at all. It was quite a long way from just being an “intervention on the independence referendum”. He had a lot to say about the current UK government’s plans, too.

It's interesting, therefore, that the only part of what Barroso had to say that was picked up by the media was on an independent Scotland. If his opinion carries such weight, why are we not hearing about all the things that would be “difficult” or “impossible” for Cameron, too?

For example, he said it would be “difficult” and “not possible” for Cameron to renegotiate free movement of peoples, or change rules on welfare spending on migrants.

He said that "deeper fiscal union" of Bank of England with the euro was “unavoidable”.

He said Cameron’s EU referendum is “extremely difficult” and requires the unanimity of 27 countries.

He said Cameron seeking to put a cap on the number of EU citizens who can come into Britain is "complete contradiction" of the single market.

These matters that Barosso has pronounced upon have implications for Cameron now, as well as for all Unionists if there is a No vote. Why is the media not pursuing the No side on what Barroso has to say about the future of the UK?

In short, if Barroso's word is to be taken so seriously on independence, why is it not taken seriously on all these things (and more), too? And, what's more, where is all the media coverage telling us the Tories' plans on all these things are in tatters? To use BBC Radio Scotland Morning Call’s phrase, is it not a “game changer” for those matters, too?

There has been a very selective reading of Barroso, by both the media and the No camp. If he is to be taken seriously on one thing, then why not on the rest?

Here's the transcript of the full interview on the Andrew Marr Show. See for yourself: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/1602141.pdf

The BBC headlines and the Currency Shenanigans

The BBC is getting it all wrong again. To the extent of misrepresentation. The headline they have is:

Independence vote: 'Yes' means no Scottish pound, says Osborne
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-26166794

No it doesn't.

1. First of all, an independent Scottish currency could be called the Pound, after all that's what it was called before 1707. Several countries call their currency the Pound. Ireland did from 1928 until they joined the Euro, changing over to Euro coins and notes in 2002. (Irish pound in English, Punt Éireannach in Irish).

Were Scotland to opt for a separate currency it would probably be called the Scottish Pound (in English), or Pund Scots (in Scots). So if Osborne gets his way, that means there would be a Scottish pound. (It's only if he doesn't that there wouldn't).

2. Even if the headline means Pound Sterling, it is still wrong. Scotland could use Sterling without formal currency union, all that would mean is that the Bank of England would not be the lender of last resort, and there would be no financial or fiscal regulation by the central bank.

3. What Osborne is actually saying is that he will veto formal currency union, effectively he will not let Scotland use the Bank of England as a lender of last resort.

4. Several commentators (including former Scottish Labour leader Henry McLeish) don't believe him anyway: there are good reasons he would reverse that post Yes. The SNP certainly says it thinks he will change his mind if there is a Yes vote.

From that BBC link:

Labour's former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish criticised the intervention by the three pro-union parties, and said Scots "shouldn't be fooled" by the suggestion that a currency union could not be worked out.

He told BBC Scotland: "This is entirely political and of course consistent with the unionist campaign. This is negative, it is about spreading fears and scare stories.

"What we require from the unionist parties is a bit of statesmanship and quite frankly their behaviour so far falls well short of that."

Iain Macwhirter, in the Herald, says that the Bank of England "doesn't want a separate currency in Scotland undermining the UK balance of payments". The Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, made it quite clear he would make currency union work if that's what both parties wanted.


So, BBC, please aim for more accuracy in your headlines and reporting.

UPDATE: the headline has now been changed to the more accurate "Yes vote 'means no money union'". Good. Missed the morning rush, though.

Cameron's Stay Speech: Ted and Dougal, or cynical Eurosong boss?

By now, you’ll have seen David Cameron’s Please Stay, Scotland, speech.

It seems so obviously counterproductive to many people that I've heard at least twice independently since Friday the theory that Cameron's actual intention was to drive people into the Yes camp. The theory goes that the Tories want to increase their chances of a majority at Westminster but have to be seen to be trying to save the Union.

It's like the Father Ted episode, "A Song for Europe". Cameron's speech is the equivalent of My Lovely Horse, original non-plagiarised version.

Surely, Cameron knew how it would play? Or did he?

So the speech might be My Lovely Horse, but the thing we need to know is this: do we have David Cameron in the role of the cynical Irish Eurosong boss, Charles Hedges, who is trying to throw the competition so that Ireland doesn’t have the expense of hosting the competition, or is he the self-unaware Ted and Dougal, caught up in Eurosong fever, who actually think they can win?

Which would you rather the prime minister was?



Tories, nil points.
Tories, nada.
Tories, keine Punkte.
Tories, nurda proken.
Tories, nil punten.
Tories, nurda purda.
Tories, niet puntalete.

We Can Defend the Welfare State: We Can Vote “Yes”.

I have no great faith in politicians. They seldom live up to the hopes of the electorate, but instead spend their time and effort in protecting privilege and thwarting democracy.

When progress is made, it is usually made despite politicians, as a result of an unstoppable tide of demands they can no longer stem, at moments in which the state realises that compromise is necessary.

The Welfare State is a case in point. It was won through pressure from ordinary working people who returned from war seeking a new settlement, determined that post-war Britain would be different, and that as a result of fighting and beating fascism, they had also won the right to protection from “Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness”.

The state had no option but to acquiesce to this compromise between labour and capital; the decades of struggle by ordinary working people had laid the groundwork, but the moment that those concessions were won was when the state realised that the determination of people emerging from war, whether abroad or on the Home Front, was not something they could resist.

The Welfare State is indeed an achievement to be cherished. But it is coming undone. The recent assault on it by the Coalition government, starting with Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review in 2010 – but which he has promised to deepen and extend – is but the latest round of attacks on that hard-won post-war settlement.

The attacks began in the 1970s, deepened under Margaret Thatcher, and were continued by Blair and Brown.

However, while both Blair and Brown showed that they could not be trusted to defend the post-war settlement, the current Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition has shocked with the ferocity with which it has privatised and cut. The Royal Mail was sold off at a bargain basement price; the NHS in England is being sold off bit by bit to companies that many government ministers have stakes in, and the protections that the post-war generation won for us are being dismantled.

The firestorm rages on. And yet election after election and poll after poll amply demonstrates that public opinion in Scotland does not support any of this.

Let me back up here for a moment. I’m talking about “the people of Scotland”, so what do I mean by that? I simply mean people who live in Scotland, wherever they may have been born.

But what can people who live in Scotland do to stop these attacks on the post-war settlement? For three decades and more every Westminster government – Tory, Labour, or Tories aided by Lib-Dems – has continued the assault.

However, we do have an opportunity in front of us. The independence referendum provides us with a tool that could be used to defend the welfare state in Scotland.

I am not naive enough to think that Scottish politicians area different breed. But I do think that a Yes vote will be another of those moments when politicians will be faced with the determination of the people. They will see that a Yes vote is as much a reaction against the culture of privatisation as it is anything else. They will see that the major driver behind the desire for independence is a rejection of the rightward drift of British politics. No incoming government of an independent Scotland will be able to turn back that tide.

What of those who might say that we who live in Scotland are abandoning those who live in England; that we may be defending ourselves, but what of our friends in England? Well, that is a counsel of despair; a race to the bottom. It does none of us any good to lie down together to resign ourselves all to decades more of continued state withdrawal from social welfare provision, privatisation and ever rightward drift. We can and should call a halt here. We have only ourselves to blame if we do not take this opportunity.

A Yes vote is, then, a major step in defence of ordinary working people in Scotland. But it is also something else: it is a beacon of hope for people in England, who will see that it is possible to resist the rightward advance of British politics; that the determined will of the people can win concessions; and that the post-war settlement can be defended. It is therefore not only to ourselves here in Scotland that we owe the responsibility to take this stance; to vote “Yes” and defend the welfare state. We must do it for all in these islands.

Reviewed: Jim Sillars' In Place of Fear II

By choosing the title In Place of Fear II, Sillars is deliberately positioning himself on the Bevanite left, which will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Sillars’ history. In the book he specifically says that his programme is designed to be to the left of anything the Labour Party has done in government. He says this to place distance between himself and those former Bevanites who later led Labour Governments.

As a personal statement it may make sense, but as a public statement it’s puzzling as to why Sillars has chosen this language. I doubt that many people still read In Place of Fear, and yet many of the terms Sillars uses depend upon the reader being familiar with the 1952 original.

Sillars writes that his intention is to “replace the weakness and latent insecurity of labour by controlling capital in the interests of the general community” (p21). To that end, he proposes a mixed economy with nationalisation where strategically necessary (for example, in the unlikely event that whisky manufacturers were to walk away), or where necessary as a tool for redistribution, but resurrects Bevan’s notion of state control of the “commanding heights” of the economy rather than a full-scale policy of nationalisation. He acknowledges that the economy today differs from that of Bevan’s day, but suggests that there are still “important heights” to be conquered in the “workers’ interests”. In a Bevanite turn of phrase, he says “[...] audacity in the face of orthodoxy can make a difference in the power equation between capital and labour.”(p23).

As an example of this control of the commanding heights, arguing that the oil take needs to be greater than what comes from taxes alone, Sillars proposes a Scottish National Oil Corporation, with the right to a stake of 10% in the production and profit from each company operating under licences “up to and including the 27th Round. Thereafter, in any future Round, the stake will be 25%”. (p58). He says that the “idea that when challenged via taxation or regulatory policies or laws to protect workers, all global companies will up stakes and depart for elsewhere, is infantile.” (pp18/19).

Sillars’ language is rooted in the era of Bevan. He doesn’t talk about neoliberalism, but refers always to capitalism. He writes: “When workers withdraw their labour, there is a great stramash with warnings of the economic cost to the national GDP. A ‘strike’ of capital is hardly remarked upon”. (p20). For Sillars, the lesson of the October 2013 INEOS ‘closure’ at Grangemouth is that “the socialist ethic of public good above all must again be embraced”.

His goal is to analyse where power lies, and how in an independent Scotland workers can take power into their own hands. In this, like Bevin, he aims to be “realistic” and to make sure that his proposals are “achievable”. The answers he comes to are not always the ones I’d come to. But his stanch condemnation of global capitalism is refreshing to read. He remains that rare bread, a conviction politician. Time and again he refers to the moral purpose of socialism, and to the principles of redistribution of both wealth and control.

As well as the Bevanite programme, Sillars believes that Salmond’s policy of a Sterling Zone currency union is an own goal. He points out that businesses in Scotland will trade via Sterling if they want to, currency union or not. He argues for Scottish membership of EFTA rather than the EU (he has revised his “Independence in Europe” view, which he says fitted conditions in the 80s but not now). He argues for renationalisation of the railways, endorsing Kevin Lindsay in the Red Paper on Scotland 2014: “simply wait until the TOC franchise runs out, and take it into public ownership at no cost” (p80).

He does not, however, argue for all public utilities to be taken back into public control, not, it seems, because he is averse to the principle, but because “these companies obtained their positions legitimately in law” and that there is no “prospect on cost grounds alone for wholesale nationalisation”. Instead there will be “commanding heights” stakes of 15% in electricity and gas companies and a new Act to change company law. This is a taste of the measures Sillars suggests. I won’t enumerate them all here.

This little book is a manifesto, but it is a manifesto with a difference: there is no party proposing it as a programme. It differs a great deal from the SNP white paper, although Sillars remains an SNP member. And yet here is the intriguing part: the book mentions Sillars’ old SLP several times, and he thanks former SLP comrades, although not his old SLP side-kick, Alex Neil, now very much part of the Salmond project. Sillars specifically says that a Yes vote is not necessarily an endorsement of the SNP and a vote for “change but no change”.

Sillars is putting forward an old school democratic socialist programme, the type of programme that many once looked to the Labour Party to implement (and which, as Sillars points out, they always failed in power to achieve). But who is he hoping will carry it into being? I think he is staking out the ground for a split in the SNP post “Yes”. His mention of old SLP comrades is telling: he is saying to the socialists of the SNP: “ditch the Salmond project once a Yes vote has been delivered. Here is a direction we can take instead”.

Reading:

Jim Sillars, (2014), IN PLACE OF FEAR II, Glasgow: Vagabond Voices.

Drucker, H. M.,(1978), Breakaway: The Scottish Labour Party, Edinburgh: EUSPB.

Dieudonne, the French comedian banned from the UK

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all”.

- Noam Chomsky

Why should we care that a man we are told is an anti-Semitic holocaust denier has been banned from the UK? Surely such a man is indeed "detrimental to the interests of peace and security"?

Well, the Home Office, as far as I can see, is not telling us the reasons Dieudonne has been banned, but only hints that there are "public policy or public security reasons". That’s not good enough. Are we going to surrender our civil liberties on such vague and flimsy pretext? - “The Home Office has decided this person can’t enter the UK. It’s for your own good”. That’s a dangerous precedent.

What if it’s not Dieudonne, but someone else? We don’t know the criteria used; all we know is that the Home Office has decided. All those cheering this decision are basing their glee on the fact that the banned person is someone we disagree with, someone with despicable views. But who gets to decide what counts as detrimental? How are these "public policy or public security reasons" arrived at?

I am not at all comfortable with handing over to the state the right, without accountability, without discussion, to debar whoever they like from the country.

What if the Home Office were to say Norman Finkelstein was subject to an exclusion order? He has, after all, also been called an anti-Semite, as have many who oppose the actions of the Israeli state, such as Noam Chomsky, quoted above. Far-fetched? That, in my view, is far too trusting a stance to take.

Remember that Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet, supporter of Allende, and Spanish Civil War activist was refused entry to the UK. The singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson was also denied entry to the UK in 1950 for a peace conference. (The US also revoked Robeson’s passport for many years).

We cannot trust the state only to exclude the people we disagree with. Are we really saying that Theresa May gets to decide what counts as acceptable opinions?

The idea of freedom for expression only for those with acceptable views is nonsense. It is no kind of freedom at all.

What are the foreseeable possible consequences for left-wingers, radicals, anarchists, environmentalists and so on of giving blind support to a policy of denying “extremists” entry to the country?

Furthermore, banning Dieudonne is counterproductive.

Dieudonne is not someone I had heard of until very recently. I have no intention here of going into the controversy over his trademark gesture, the "quenelle". I have read the reports that he is anti-Semitic and a holocaust denier. He does seem to be an unpleasant bigot. But if we ban someone who says “the Jews control everything” from entering the UK, all we are doing is giving anti-Semites the ammunition to say “see, he was right, they do”. They will say, “See, there is a conspiracy to silence ‘the truth’”. You want to fuel those ideas and give them legitimacy? Go ahead, back the ban.

If someone tells lies about the holocaust, challenge their facts. If someone says something you don’t like, disagree with them. Tell them where they’re wrong. Explain why you’re right.

This is not a defence of Dieudonne, it’s a defence of us all, because once we allow the principle of freedom for expression only for those with acceptable views, then mission creep sets in, and finally we find, too late, we were sleep walking into a situation where our own freedoms were eroded.

“Scotland's Smoking Gun” BBC2

I had the misfortune of watching a programme last night called “Scotland's Smoking Gun”. It was billed as a “documentary series focused on the upcoming Scottish referendum. This first programme looks at some of the worldwide events that have contributed to the need for a referendum”.

The first thing that jarred about it was the title; it didn’t make sense. It was like they knew “Road to Referendum” had already been taken, but after several boozy lunches had reached their deadline without thinking of anything better.

A smoking gun is something which provides conclusive evidence, usually of a crime. And yet that was not the sense in which the programme makers were using the phrase. Rather, they seemed to think it meant something like a catalyst or impetus. Perhaps the phrase they had in mind was “starting pistol”?

However, that doesn’t quite work, either. “Scotland’s starting pistol”? Wouldn’t that be about the beginnings of Scotland – Gaels, Picts, Angles and Brythonic Celts, and all that? This, though, was a programme about the independence referendum, and what set it in motion. So shouldn’t it have been the “Referendum Starting Pistol”?

The next thing that jarred was that having chosen this bizarre phrase as a title, it had to be crow-barred into the script from time to time. Was Elvis “Scotland’s Smoking Gun”, we were asked? Well, no, he wasn’t, because that doesn’t even make sense.

We are by now quite used to the format of being shown newsreels while pop music of the day plays in the background. It was pioneered by the BBC in their “Rock ‘n’ Roll Years” series, and it’s a good way of creating a nostalgic sense of the era. So, yes, play us some Elvis, but don’t ask us to imagine that Elvis was part of the motivation for the referendum. He wasn’t. Nor was he “Scotland’s Smoking Gun”, whatever that might mean.

This crow-barring of the weird phrase into the script was taken to its most crass extreme when we were asked to ponder whether 9/11 was “Scotland’s Smoking Gun”.

The next jarring element was the very odd decision occasionally to pluck a phrase one of the talking heads had uttered and have it floating as text next to their heads. “This phrase”, the programme makers seemed to be saying, “is something you might want to consider more fully. We’ll put it on display for you, so that you can remember it while our interviewee is uttering the next sentence”. Except, the phrases thus illustrated were generally insignificant and banal, and seemingly chosen completely at random. It was surreal, and often very funny. Had something of Vic and Bob’s sitcom seeped from the next slot into this?

The overall effect was of being patronised by a confused child.

I wasn’t expecting anything of any great depth. And we did get to hear Clare Grogan narrate, which is always a good thing. (Though she must have asked many times, “Are you sure you really want me to say this?”). And I’m quite happy with newsreel and rock music programmes, but this came across as something quickly and badly cobbled together.