Learning Lessons and Moving Forwards

Differentiating the case for independence from the SNP’s manifesto, and what did the general election tell us anyway?

When will the referendum be?  It’s not off the table and if I am reading the statement delivered yesterday correctly, Nicola Sturgeon has signalled that it’ll be in this Scottish parliamentary term.  So that’s some point before May 2021.  It’s unlikely to be May 2021, because that’s when the Holyrood elections are, so I’m guessing any time up to Autumn 2020.

That’s good.  It gives us time.

What we need to do first is learn some lessons. 

I’m going to get to the SNP and their role shortly, but first I want to look at the general election of June 2017, not for the SNP’s role, but for that of the Tories.

Was there a pro-Unionist vote or not?

We have been told that the rise in the Scottish Tory fortunes (and to some degree those of the smaller parties, Scottish Labour and Scottish Lib Dems) was because of a vote for the Union.  But was it?  Are we sure about that?

Look at the actual message.  The Tories sold two simple messages – 1. no to a “divisive second referendum on independence”, and 2. They’re the Ruth Davidson party.

Let’s take them one at a time.  The first message is not them making a case for the Union.  Nor is it simply a case against independence.  It’s a case against another referendum.

Voter fatigue

Why?  Why did they go for that angle?  My guess is that they’d done voter research and discovered that there was considerable voter fatigue. People in Scotland had had an independence referendum in 2014, a UK general election in 2015, Scottish Parliament elections in 2016, an EU referendum in 2016, local council elections in May 2017 and now a UK general election in June 2017.  I think the message the researchers were getting back was that many people had had enough.

What the Scottish Tories then had to do was hang their argument on that peg.  And they did it with single-mindedness and skill.  (I think it was a strategy they had in place long before May called the June general election, because they used it in the May local elections, too.  Which no doubt helped them continue to drive the message home in June).

Look at the wording on the leaflets:

“Another divisive referendum campaign”

“Rather than listen to people who don’t want her referendum…”

“An unwanted, divisive second referendum”.

“The only way to bring the SNP back down to size and say no to their referendum is by voting Scottish Conservative”.

This message clearly struck home for many people, some of them former SNP voters.  But let’s be precise about what the message was: it was a message opposing another referendum.

Jim Sillars has been saying this for a while now, and often getting no thanks for his pains.  I don’t agree with Jim about everything, but I do think he’s right about this.  However, it’s worth pointing out that I’m only making an educated guess, just as Sillars is.  (Robin McAlpine made some useful points about voter research here: CommonSpace. He also has something to say about the inadvisability of trying to sell the idea of a referendum per se: don’t).   But we can find out if it’s a good educated guess fairly easily.

Most people are not anoraks

Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think referendums are “divisive”, nor do I think debate is “divisive”.  I enjoyed the 2014 indyref.  I found it an exciting and positive time.  But I’m a political anorak (and let’s face it, if you’re reading this far down the page on my blog, so are you); most people are not.  For many people, four election campaigns, two referendum campaigns, and a handful of different electoral systems all within a three-year period is more than enough.  The thought of another is probably pretty off-putting.  And the Tories skillfully tapped into that.

The second Tory message I’m less interested in.  It seems that they found that a certain target group tends to like Ruth Davidson.  I don’t personally get what it is they’re responding to, but I’m not interested in getting into a discussion of her personality.  I do think it’s inadvisable for any organisation to hook their wagon to a star in the longer term, though.  But that’s an issue for them

.

Differentiating between the movement and its largest party

Now the SNP.  During the last indyref, we had the somewhat mixed blessing of the White Paper.  For understandable reasons, it was a prospectus not so much for independence, but for the programme of an SNP government post-independence.  This is because they were being asked those questions.  But there’s actually a difference between independence and the manifesto of the SNP post-independence.  The independence movement needs to put the former, and the SNP can put the latter.  We need people to be able to distinguish the two things.  If the electorate judge the merits of the case for independence on whether or not they approve of the SNP, then we will lose the referendum again.  Remember, by Autumn 2020, the SNP will have been in government for 13 years.

What the pro indy movement needs to do is set out why independence is a good thing.  It needs to be able to make that case whether or not the SNP is the first government.  Remember, people were asked to vote for Brexit regardless of which parties would form post-Brexit UK governments.  This does not stop the SNP from setting out its stall.  But if people start to think that the only reason to have independence is to let the SNP (or any other party) implement its policies, then we’re in trouble.  The SNP needs to be a party, and the pro indy movement needs to be a movement.  The SNP will, of course, be a major part of that, but we do need the electorate to be able to differentiate between the SNP and the indy movement.  And some SNP loyalists will need to learn to realise that not everyone in the indy movement agrees with the SNP on everything, and that this is OK.

Being clear about the task for the movement

I think Robin McAlpine is right that the White Paper was too sprawling, but more importantly that much of it “barely related to the actual process of independence” (1).  He says that “Restricting ourselves only to the institutions and infrastructure required of a new country but which is not currently in place in Scotland, we should build a coherent, thought-through plan” (2). 

Correct.  That’s where we are now, and that’s what needs to be done.  Individual parties can do their own thing, but the indy movement as a whole needs to be able to make a clear case for why independence is desirable, and to be able to present a coherent plan for the process of becoming independent.

(1) McAlpine, R, (2016) Determination: how Scotland can become independent by 2021, Glasgow: CommonPrint (p27)

(2) ibid

Article 50 and Identity: what can we learn?

How European do you feel?  How does that feeling manifest itself?  Does that feeling really require to be validated by membership of supra-national institutions?

One of the things that struck me reading a lot of the response to the triggering of article 50 was how much of it was about identity.  People who had voted Remain felt personally bereft.  I found that remarkable for a number of reasons.

Although I personally feel European – that somehow Europeanness is part of my cultural background – I don’t feel the need for that to coincide with governmental structures.  I don’t feel less European today, nor do I expect to feel any less European in 2 years’ time when and if the UK finally leaves the EU.

Culture and government

Indeed, I don’t feel any facet of my cultural identity needs to coincide with governmental structures.  Quite the reverse: I am deeply suspicious of the idea that government maps onto a culture in any way.  Not only do I think that quite impossible, since cultures both overlap geographic boundaries and vary greatly within them, I also think it a dangerous idea for a state to adhere to.

Nor do I assume any unity of interests with governments or with state structures. Instead I work from the assumption that a government is something with which I will be in conflict when I fight to represent my interests and values.

Neither Leave nor Remain seemed worthy of my energy

I did not feel engaged with the EU referendum. Neither side seemed worthy of my energy. When I voted Remain, it was with no enthusiasm, and it was a last-minute decision.  In the end, it was a reaction against the tenor of the Leave campaign.  I was no heart-and-soul Remainer: I cannot bring myself to feel any love for the institutions of the EU.

The EU is a neoliberal project. The Lisbon Treaty of 2007, which we were led into by Gordon Brown, is a codification of neoliberal principles.  Far from being about protecting workers’ rights, it is about protecting the interests of the business elites. It is a prospectus for privatisation and deregulation, for eroding public health services and free education, and for decimating pension provision.

If Scotland becomes independent after a second independence referendum, I’d want it to follow policies that took a very different direction: that is exactly why I support it.  Not through some kind of misplaced civic pride, but because I want there to be change.  I’d want to see utilities, transport, and the mail service nationalised.  I’d certainly hope the EU’s illogical and wasteful agricultural and fisheries management could be avoided. And I’d strongly argue that a separate Scottish currency would be a necessity in order to avoid constraining the economic levers open to government.  All of this would be far easier within EFTA than within the EU; I fail to understand why a headlong dash back into the EU is seen by so many as a given.

If I can’t work up any enthusiasm for the institutions of the EU, nor can I give any backing to the Tory Brexit team.  They do not represent me or my interests.  I fear the outcome of David Davis’s “great repeal bill”, the effects of the sweeping powers we’re told it’ll bring.  I predict those powers will be used to benefit the already powerful, not the working class.  I do not trust Theresa May to represent me in any negotiations.  I do not expect the Tories to represent any interests other than those of capital.

That Letter’s No Mine

The Twitter hashtag that took off yesterday and which features on the front page of today’s National was quite correct: that letter’s no mine.  I will never unite behind a Tory agenda.

But on the other hand, as I read through the contributions to the hashtag, I had the uncomfortable feeling that the hashtag wasn’t mine either.  It was full of an identity politics that made me uneasy.  Too many contributions seemed too uncritical of the intuitions of the EU.  Too much went unexamined.

I know: it was an in-the-moment reaction.  But it seemed one based far more on identity and emotion than on either analysis or practical concerns.  When the independence referendum campaign is finally launched, I hope that the Yes side does not operate from the assumption that EU membership is a given.  And I sincerely hope that arguments in favour of membership would not be predicated on identity.  We are European no matter how governments choose to do business with each other, no matter what treaties are struck, no matter what grouping an independent Scotland joins.

However, there is something we can learn from the outpouring of emotion: identity does matter to people.  And if Yes wins, there will be identity Unionists who might feel just as bereft as the identity Remainers did yesterday.  We need to show people that the arguments are about practicalities and policy, and that they can still feel a sense of belonging to these islands, this archipelago, even if the polities within its geography change.  If we don’t do that, we risk an unhappy minority – perhaps a very large one.  That would be the payback for giving validity to identity politics in our campaign.

Remembrance of times past: Chilcot, Iraq, and having hindsight before the event

Like many people, the Chilcot findings got me thinking about the big anti-war demos on February 15th 2003.  Along with tens of thousands of others, I was at the one in Glasgow, with my partner and children.  Blair, speaking that day at his party's conference at the SECC, heard us outside and decided to ignore our concerns.

Blair has said in response to Chilcot that the post-invasion problems in Iraq could not have been foreseen, but they were - by millions.  We shouted our warnings at him and his cabinet.  We weren't magicians or mind readers, but we knew then what Chilcot has confirmed.

In remembrance of that day in February 2003, I reproduce here a report of the demo I wrote at the time.  My favourite bit is the words on my then 7-year-old daughter's homemade banner.  Her innocence then in some ways was also ours.  On 20th March that year, just over a month after that demo, I watched the reports of the first attacks on Iraq.  It was then that many learned for certain what they'd wanted to believe wasn't true: that a Labour prime minister could be just as jingoistic as a Tory one.  The innocence had been extinguished.

GLASGOW ANTI WAR PROTEST- 15th February 2003

My partner, two daughters and I arrived at Glasgow Green maybe 10.30, along with my mate Pete and his bagpipes, crossing the footbridge from Ballater Street. I texted our arrival to a few mates.

We set off to the People's Palace to try to find one of the friends I'd texted, but he must have got there earlier and joined the demo further up the queue. But some other mates were at the Obelisk, and we went over to track them down.

"Stop this War. Why do you want it anyway? Don't you know you might get killd?"

My eldest daughter had made her own banner, it read "Stop this War. Why do you want it anyway? Don't you know you might get killd?" We milled about and found some of our friends by a Marxism.org stall.

While we tried to track down some other friends, my partner got out the face paints and decorated a few of our party.

When we joined the queue waiting to move off, an anarchist girl gave my eldest daughter a small banner with a section of Picasso's Guernica on one side and No War But The Class War on the other.

She immediately abandoned her own banner to her little sister, proud to be holding a 'real' banner.

90 000

We finally got moving and the atmosphere was amazing! Some cops near us had told some stewards that the estimates were around 90 000 (so why did your bosses divide that by 3 when they spoke to the BBC, boys?).

The streets were totally full, and pubs and shops and flats had messages of support in the windows. Random cheers went up for reasons we couldn't see, but we joined in anyway, and people behind us followed us.

Fuck knows what was happening, but everyone was really happy about whatever it was! There was a drumming group behind us, and Pete was playing his bagpipes next to us. I knew my friend, Margo,  was somewhere with her band Samba Ya Bamba, but I think they were way ahead.

Samba bands, drummers, whistle players, pipers, stilt walkers, a giant anarchist dove, some banner-waving Quakers, people of many shades of opinion, some with totally unconnected banners.

A huge guy with a banner bearing the text of Burns' poem A Man's a Man For A That, a girl had one that read "Make Tea Not War". One said "Bomb Iraq? Blair, you must be on crack!" Another just said "Whatever".

The Saltmarket, Glasgow Cross, and the High Street were lined with folks waving and cheering, and when we finally passed St George Square onto St Vincent Street another huge cheer went up as we saw the whole street ahead full of people right up the hill to Blythswood.

When we got to the top of the hill, the whole of St Vincent Street all the way back was full of people, and friends still in Glasgow Green were texting asking where we'd got to. Meanwhile the front of the march had been at the SECC for hours.

The "Jericho Rumpus"

The SECC car parks were jam packed, and people had already started filtering away, but still the area was covered with people. We passed the Rotunda, but even though there was nowhere to go, people kept swarming in behind us.

We couldn't see the speakers, or hear them. But suddenly a huge noise went up. It was 2pm. This must be the "Jericho Rumpus". We all joined in, whistling, drumming, shouting, playing bagpipes. It was huge.

We tried to look for a friend's banner, but there was just no way we were going anywhere, so we slipped down a tarpaulin covered banking into a less populous area, where a striking fire crew were, and some stalls, a guy set fire to a Union Jack. The people cheering all had SNP badges.

We texted lost friends, but then decided to head off. We wound back to Sarti's in Wellington Street, and had some coffee; other marchers had had the same idea, but it wasn't as crowed as places we'd passed. Nobody blinked at our face paint. Then we set off home.



Reports on that day in the media:

On this day in Glasgow’s History: 2003, thousands protest against war in Iraq

Prime Minister Tony Blair was speaking at his party’s spring conference at the Armadillo, but as he took to the stage, thousands were gathering outside to demonstrate against the coming war. (STV).

Organisers hail anti-war protest

Organisers said they were "thrilled" as tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Glasgow to declare their opposition to war against Iraq.  (BBC)

UK's 'biggest peace rally'

Thousands of anti-war protesters also took to the streets of Glasgow, marching through the city centre towards the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, where the Labour party's spring conference is being held. (Guardian).

Racist incidents - how have you responded?

Bureaucratic responses will be counterproductive.  Only solidarity and mutual aid will be effective.


If you’ve been shocked by the reports of a rise in racist incidents in response to the Brexit referendum, you’re probably wondering what you can do.  The answer is remarkably simple.
According to the reports, racists are not restricting their intolerance to people who have come from other EU countries exercising freedom of movement, but also non EU immigrants and even UK-born people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.

There has been an ugly undercurrent stirred up, and it is erupting to the surface.

You may have read of the Amnesty campaign to “Tell Your Local Council To Stand Against Hate”.
 
“Violence. Vandalism. Hate speech. Racist slogans on t-shirts. In the last few days, reports of hate crimes in the UK have increased. Fuelled by years of hostile rhetoric, coupled with divisive campaigns, we are now seeing racism and xenophobia on the rise on our streets and in our communities.

Local leaders must condemn these actions immediately and do everything in their power to make people safe and welcome. Tell your council to speak out against racism, xenophobia and hate crimes now.” - Amnesty UK.

You may have responded to it.  I did.  But other than letting your local councillors know there are anti-racists in their ward, it’s unlikely to do much good.  Indeed, its results may even be counter-productive.

Confirming the bias

The people expressing racism are, like many of us, angry at bureaucratic institutions, including local government.  Like many of us, they feel local authorities are not listening to them.  But those lending a sympathetic ear to racist ideas probably believe councils are favouring the “out groups” ahead of them.  A lecture on racism from a well-meaning council motion is only liable to confirm those views.  “See, it’s always ‘them’ before us.  It’s always us in the wrong”.

We are social animals.  We learn our sense not just of social norms but actually our sense of self from those around us.  The strongest learning tool is the disapproval of our peers and the people we respect.  And after that, the positive example of our peers and people we respect.  We need to do both of those things in our own communities and workplaces.  We need to rebuild communities that uphold values of solidarity and mutual aid.  We need to show that these values are practical values; that they work; that they are not just about “being nice”, but can get things done which improve things not just for others, but also for ourselves.  And that in rebuilding these values we can rebuild self-respect.

What can I do?

So what practical things can you do?  Well, have you made contact with local groups in your community? In my area there is a Polish group, a Chinese group, an Indian women’s group, a Pakistani welfare group, a Russian group.  We know that these people may have experienced the kind of “contact” racists want to make.  Have you offered the kind of support anti-racists can offer?

A group of like-minded friends could get in touch with the groups in your area and say “Is there anything we can do to help?”  What’s the worst that can happen? They might say “no thanks, we’re fine”.  But at least they’ll know there’s people who want to support them in a practical way, rather than just with a few posts on social media.

If there are on-going things you can do, you might want to form a group in your local community to target racism.  This should aim to do practical things, not just pass resolutions.  It should demonstrate solidarity, not just espouse it.  It should directly involve people from your local community in solving the problems together.

What should it do specifically?  I don’t know what’s going on it your community, or how your community is able to respond.  Only you do.  But whatever it is, make it something practical.
But the first step is contact: “Hello, we’ve heard what’s been happening.  We want to help”.

A Review of Where We Stand

What sort of future will emerge from the post-Brexit result dust cloud?

The post-Brexit referendum UK is looking shell-shocked.  Or rather, the Westminster political class is.  The Leave camp turned out to have no post-win plan , and the Remain camp to have no contingency.  The Tories – the party nominally in the driving seat - don’t know whether they’ll be led into the Brexit negotiations by a Remainer (the vast majority of their parliamentary number) or a Leaver, and Boris Johnson, the Tory Leave camp’s biggest star, looks like he’s back-peddling with all his might against the tide that swept his campaign to victory.  The Labour opposition, rather than step into the vacuum, has decided to self-combust. 

Only in Scotland does the political class have any sense of direction, although here too there is a tide that they have to ride.  Having set in motion a plan to keep Scotland in the EU, Sturgeon has raised expectations amongst her party faithful and the wider pro-independence movement that indyref2 is immanent.  The faithful may be jumping the gun.  

Scotland in the EU and the UK

A closer reading of Sturgeon’s statement in the wake of the referendum result suggests that her immediate goal is Scotland as an EU member region of a Brexit UK.  Even Alex Salmond, no longer at the helm but widely respected in his party and thought to be less inclined to caution about indyref2, on the special edition of Question Time on Sunday talked not about calling indyref2 but about Holyrood having the right to call it if it saw fit.  

The fine distinction was promptly missed by opponents and supporters alike.  Salmond has said that the Brexit vote has made Scottish independence inevitable.  He may be right, but the timescale is still far from settled.  And voices cautioning that Remain votes do not in any case necessarily translate to Yes votes need to be heeded.  The Survation poll in today’s Daily Record is one poll, in the immediate wake of the Brexit result, and though that poll gives a majority for independence it does not give a majority for calling indyref2.  The case still needs to be made, as Nicola Sturgeon, in her Bute House address, demonstrated she was fully aware.

How will capital react?

The reaction of capital is less readable.  George Osborne emerged from his bunker this morning to try to show there’s a steady hand at the tiller, trying to perform the same manoeuvre as Sturgeon: to reassure business that change will be minimal.  Except that he can only deliver a very short period of no change, since he was forced to admit that adjustment in the UK economy needs to await the new prime minister.  So even if business nerves were in any way mitigated, business is still being left to take its own longer view.  

Those of a Lexit persuasion still hope that this shock to the system will allow for a realignment in the relationship between labour and the capitalist class.  Capital is of course a relationship rather than a fixed entity or immutable object, and we are all part of that relationship.  That relationship was hitherto defined in the UK by the neoliberal-inspired rules of the EU, but with those rules all but gone and before new ones have a chance to be written by the managerial class – our politicians – the working class has its opportunity to make its presence felt and redefine the relationship.  That is the theory.  

Listening to the messages

In essence it is correct, but the challenge is that the far right is making its bid to be seen as speaking for the English working class.  The result, it is saying, is a vote of confidence in their message, and vindication that their concerns are the concerns of the majority.  This needs to be challenged.  But it will not be effectively challenged by painting all Leave voters as racists and bigots.  On the Leave side of the panel of Sunday’s Question Time, the most coherent voice was that of Giles Fraser. We deprecate the message from voices like his at our peril.

Shaping the future

Furthermore, in Scotland we need to ensure that we do not simply look to a managerial solution to the vacuum.  If we allow business to dictate the terms of Scotland’s new shape, or allow our political class to interpret business’s terms as synonymous with “stability”, then we will have missed an opportunity. Remember that despite the strong majority for Remain in Scotland, that should not be interpreted as uncritical enthusiasm for the institutions of the EU.  Like in the rest of the UK, lots of different motives lay behind the way people voted.  The simple question asked on the ballot paper was not the nuanced questions of their own making that the electorate chose to answer.

Now is not the time to simplify our demands.  Independence for Scotland is not a goal in itself, just as Brexit for England and Wales is in itself is no sort of vision of the future.  It is up to us in all parts of the UK to put colour into those futures and to give them shape.  

What are Nicola Sturgeon's immediate goals?

Is the press still misreading the first minister's intentions?

Common Space published the following opinion piece on Friday afternoon:

Why we should pay attention to Sturgeon's "common cause" with London remark

If we agree that this analysis of Nicola Sturgeon’s statement is correct, and at this blog we do, perhaps we should be reading the actual words in the first minister's address in more detail; in a way that the media and politicians from other parties either aren’t doing, or are pretending not to, especially given her latest gambit: "Nicola Sturgeon says MSPs at Holyrood could veto Brexit".

Here's her statement from Friday morning in full.

"As things stand, Scotland faces the prospect of being taken out of the EU against our will."

Key words: "taken out" – Translation: we're still in.  We want to stay that way.

"I regard that as democratically unacceptable"

Translation: we're using the large majority within the area of a devolved polity as our justification for that polity to stay in the EU.

"Starting this afternoon Ministers will be engaged in discussions with key stakeholders - particularly the business community"

Translation: This is aimed at you: pay attention. We're keen to retain access to the single market for you. Interested?

"emphasise that as of now we are still firmly in the EU. Trade and business should continue as normal and we are determined that Scotland will continue now and in the future to be an attractive and a stable place to do business."

Translation: Stable place. Still in EU. Do you read, business community?

"Secondly, I want to make it absolutely clear that I intend to take all possible steps and explore all options to give effect to how people in Scotland voted - in other words, to secure our continuing place in the EU and in the single market in particular."

Translation: for the slow to latch on, I’ll repeat this bit. And pay attention, I’m saying all options. So not just Indy, do you follow me?

"I will also be communicating over this weekend with each EU member state to make clear that Scotland has voted to stay in the EU - and that I intend to discuss all options for doing so."

Translation: all options. Not just Indy.

"I should say that I have also spoken this morning with Mayor Sadiq Khan and he is clear that he shares this objective for London - so there is clear common cause between us."

Translation: Just in case you still don't get this, I'm addressing these hints to the UK-wide business community, not just Scottish business. I'm saying 'how about if Scotland tries to stay in the UK and in the EU? You'd still have access to the single market.'.

On indyref 2 she says:

"It would not be right to rush to judgment ahead of discussions on how Scotland’s result will be responded to by the EU."

Translation: I've got this card but I'm not playing it yet, and maybe I don't need to.

"And we said clearly that we do not want to leave the European Union.

I am determined that we will do what it takes to make sure that these aspirations are realised."

Translation: My priority here is to stay in the EU, not necessarily independence, though I do have that option if necessary.

So she's said lots of times. "All options", indyref2 "on the table" (along with other options), and that it may be "highly likely", but if we move quickly enough maybe it's not inevitable.

She's planning an EU member region of the U.K. That's her first preference. If it has to be a stop gap, fair enough, but it doesn't have to be. That's her message, and she's sending it to UK business and European leaders, not the press.

This is intended as a message of stability to European leaders, because it potentially keeps UK business in the EU and avoids the breakup of a neighbouring state. Because the immanent alternative is UK business outside of the EU and the breakup of the UK.  Which would be more attractive to European leaders?

Remember, Denmark has two home nations outside of the EU - the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Is this slightly different? Of course. But we're not in a hypothetical situation, this is real. Here’s the idea. What do you say guys? That's her message.

To the business community in the UK, she's saying: we can keep open your access to the single market.  This is the continuity and period of calm you require.

Her biggest issue is whether the party faithful will buy the idea of Scotland as an EU member region of the UK.  But the notion that an indyref2 would automatically be won is a risky basket to put all your eggs in.  Can we be certain enough No voters were EU enthusiasts? And can we be certain that enough Yes voters will stay Yes voters in a scenario that will have a lot of challenges not relevant last time?

My best guess is that her position will eventually transpire to be that we need to steady the ship first and foremost.  That once we set up this EU-member region of the UK we can decide whether the time is right for indyref2.  We don’t yet know what effect Brexit will have on the EU.  So let’s take this a step at a time.  Will the party faithful remain gung ho for indyref2?  That’s the balancing act she needs to perform, and is perhaps partly what she had in mind when she talked about the difficulties of leadership in her statement.

Listen to the voice of the English working class

Rather than paint the 52% who voted Leave as xenophobes, bigots and far right sympathisers, we need to listen to what they’re trying to tell us.

England hasn't had an indyref in which to debate its positive hopes for the kind of future it would like to see, and it didn't have the option to voice the same kind of protest Scotland did in the 2015 general election (they had mainly a choice of neoliberal parties who haven't listened to the working class for decades). This was their chance to kick the establishment and they took it. Nobody can blame them for that.

It's regrettable that the win for Leave can now be spun as a vote of confidence in the UKIPpy right.

Now that Cameron has gone, we can expect the Tories to turn right, thinking that's the message they've received. But is it? Isn't it possible that forgotten working class England just felt powerless, excluded, unheeded and angry? Farage will say it's about immigration. Do we simply take his word for that?

The plan for the left in England should be: listen to the voice of the English working class and amplify that.

If, however, middle class liberals in the media and the establishment hear what's been said and say "you're all racists", then they show only that they're still not listening.

I'm not in England. The dynamic here is somewhat different. But the working class in England has spoken with a louder voice than it has for a long time. If it is left to the xenophobic right to act as interpreter, then the blame is squarely at the feet of those who didn't listen for decades and are still not listening now: the cozy establishment consensus.

The EU referendum: is there an anti neoliberal way to vote?

The EU referendum is on Thursday, and I’m still undecided as to what I’ll do.

This campaign has been in stark contrast to the independence referendum campaign.  It has been un-engaging, unedifying, and I’ve felt no connection to it whatever.  The public reaction has seemed to me completely different from my experience of the independence referendum, too: this time nobody has talked to me about it at parties, in the pub, in the barber’s shop, in the street.  There is no excitement, no spontaneity, no feeling of mass participation in a debate about what kind of future we’d like to see. The level of “debate” on social media has been lacklustre, the official debate from our political class has been uninformative, and the coverage in the mainstream media has seemed to me to belong to a different planet to the one I inhabit.

We’re being asked by some to vote in favour of remaining in the EU on the basis of a description of the EU that really doesn’t match the reality.  It is not the great protector of migrants, it is not the champion of the workers, nor is it even a bulwark against the far right, as just a glance at the far right in EU countries will show you. For me to vote to remain in the EU would require a level of cognitive dissonance I don’t think I could maintain.

I think it's worth saying that the project that some people think they signed up to - a Europe of cooperation, of solidarity, of mutual aid, of democratic institutions we can all be part of, etc - is a good and worthwhile project.   It's just that the EU has demonstrated that it isn't it.

I've always favoured a closely linked Europe of solidarity between peoples.

The EU has shown, in its treatment of Greece, that it is not the institution to deliver that. It is instead a bankers', bureaucrats' and technocrats' tyranny that can overturn the democratically expressed wishes of any member state it feels deserves to be humiliated for daring to question the austerity consensus.   In or out we get austerity, and “remain” austerity has demonstrated it’s no friendly affair.

The EU has shown, in its treatment of migrants, that it is not the welcoming place it paints itself.  The razor wire, the grubby deals to deport Syrian refugees from Greece, the German and Danish border controls, the Calais “jungle”.  That is all happening within the EU.

The EU is a neoliberal project. The Lisbon Treaty of 2007, which we were led into by Gordon Brown, is a codification of neoliberal principles.  Far from being about protecting workers’ rights, it is about protecting the interests of the business elites. It is a prospectus for privatisation and deregulation, for eroding public health services and free education, and for decimating pension provision.

None of that looks like evidence of solidarity between peoples to me.

I’ve been amazed to see on social media people who were pro-Yes suggesting that voting Leave necessarily makes you a xenophobic bigot; have they got such short memories?  Voting Yes did not necessarily make you an anti-English bigot – that was part of a smear campaign.  And frankly it made me more determined to vote Yes.  Why on earth would recipients of that smear tactic think it will have a different effect on me this time?

It’s true that there has been almost no space at all given to a left case for exit.  The mainstream media has been dominated by volleys between the Cameron-led neoliberal camp and the Johnson-led neoliberal camp.  I have no horse in that race.  The fact that this version of the race is pretty much all there is to be seen in mainstream media coverage probably accounts for the blanket disengagement from the process I have experienced out here in the real world of bus stops and barbers.

People on social media say that a vote for Leave will give succour to Farage and Johnson.  Does a vote for Remain not by the same logic give succour to Cameron and the CBI?  I don’t want to give succour to either pairing.  But is that the best argument for voting either way?  That you don’t like some of the people who are also voting that way?  I’m tempted to say “a plague on both of your houses”, although I’m aware that this seems little better than wishing a plague on one house more than the other.

My choice seems to be to abstain.  I may still be undecided by this time on Thursday.


Update: Undecided until the evening of Thursday, in the end I voted Remain through fear that a Leave win might be seen as a vote of confidence in the UKIPpy right.   Now that a Leave win has come to pass, I hope it will not give legitimacy to a xenophobic lurch to the right.

Constructive Self-Activity and Community Self-Empowerment

“Those who own and manage the society want a disciplined, apathetic and submissive public that will not challenge their privilege and the orderly world in which it thrives. The ordinary citizen need not grant them this gift.” – Noam Chomsky, “Turning the Tide”.

One of the most inspiring things about the Yes campaign in the Scottish independence referendum was how self-motivated, self-starting, and self-managed it was.  There isn’t a group campaigning on an issue that matters to us?  Let’s start one.  This constructive self-activity was a demonstration that the power we have is derived from us, from our communities, from the social impulse inherent in our species.  That power isn’t someone else’s to give: it is ours to use now.  We don’t need anyone’s permission to use it.

The structures of ossified power and ownership in society hate that type of engagement: it’s a direct threat to them because the power we possess as a population greatly outweighs the power they possess.  Their power over us depends upon us being passive.  That’s why society’s structures depend upon us using the “correct channels”.  It saps our power by putting in place the expectation that our options consist in asking other people to do things for us, and waiting to see if requests are fulfilled.

You may have signed online petitions to Westminster, and have seen the petition reach a critical mass.  The issue may even have been discussed in Parliament.  But how many of those have effected actual change?  Most likely there will be some bland response, and no useful action taken.  Expecting others to act on our behalf is an act of self-disempowerment.  When we allow our self-will to be turned into a request we don’t just dilute its power, we hand that power to someone else.

And as Noam Chomsky writes, in “Turning the Tide”, within “the constraints of existing state institutions, policies will be determined by people representing centres of concentrated power in the private economy, people who, in their institutional roles, will not be swayed by moral appeals but by the costs consequent upon the decisions they make - not because they are 'bad people,' but because that is what the institutional roles demand."

Instead of waiting for change to come through existing institutions, we need to use the constructive self-activity we are all capable of to create for ourselves socialist alternatives in our communities and workplaces.  We can make our own changes by ourselves in the places we live and work.  We can build up from the bottom, rather than awaiting reform to be handed down to us from the top.

This might be as simple a thing as instead of waiting for the council to make a footpath in your area feel safer to use by cutting back overgrown vegetation, that you get together as a community group and do it yourselves.  Community self-empowerment and self-management can begin wherever you want it to. Maybe your community wants to run its own breakfast club for your local schoolchildren.  Or a fresh fruit and veg co-op.  Whatever it is that sparks your community’s own imagination.

The bureaucracies around you will hate it, because it’s unpredictable, and because they won’t be the ones managing the activity, you will.  But that’s its very power.  And from your experiences your community will start to repair its natural solidarity; the practical sense of community, of mutual aid, that has been eroded by decades of neoliberal attrition.  And that renewed solidarity will lead on to other things.

In radical literature you may have come across the term Self-valorisation.  It’s a horrible term, but a useful concept.  It’s about activity rooted in practical, everyday life.  It’s about what can make practical everyday life in itself a powerful political act.

Negri and Hardt are the people you’d normally turn to for an explanation. But they write incredibly turgidly, so I wouldn’t recommend them for an easy, transparent bedtime read. Their small book Declaration (2012) is valued by many, and is far less to wade through than Empire (2000), but I’m not going to recommend either. Luckily, Harry Cleaver is there to help us out.

“When Italian autonomist Marxists, especially Toni Negri, appropriated the term “self-valorization” they changed its meaning from the expanded reproduction of capital to the autonomous, self-determination or self-development of the working class. The new use of the term was designed to denote working class self-activity that went beyond being merely reactive to capital, e.g., fighting back against exploitation, to denote working class self-activity that carried within it the basic positive, creative and imaginative re-invention of the world that characterized the “living labor” that capital-the-vampire has fed on but which is always an autonomous power that has frequently ruptured capital’s controls and limitations and that will ultimately, hopefully, be powerful enough to break free completely and craft new worlds beyond capitalism.”

- Harry Cleaver, “On Self-valorization in Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s ‘Women and the Subversion of the Community’”, (2011).

To put it more simply: The answer to the question “What, then, should social activists do?” is easy.  They should…

"Seek out and understand the desires and self-activity of the people, and then to articulate them in ways which contribute both to their circulation and to their empowerment”.

- Harry Cleaver, “Kropotkin, Self-valorization and the Crisis of Marxism”, (1993).

If this whets your appetite for the literature, Cleaver’s “Reading Capital Politically”, is a short (though not easy) and practical book, but you do really need to be familiar with Marx’s Capital for it to be any use to you.  It’s online here: https://libcom.org/files/cleaver-reading_capital_politically.pdf

But you don’t need to be well-read in radical literature in order to use the potential that already exists in your own community.  You just need the will.

Related to self-valorization is Mario Tronti’s “strategy of refusal”. Tronti points out that since the worker is the provider of capital, the existence of the capitalist class itself depends on the labour power of the worker.

“This is the historical paradox which marks the birth of capitalist Society, and the abiding condition which will always be attendant upon the "eternal rebirth" of capitalist development. The worker cannot be labour other than in relation to the capitalist. The capitalist cannot be capital other than in relation to the worker.”

“We might ask a question: what happens when the form of working class organisation takes on a content which is wholly alternative; when it refuses to function as an articulation of capitalist society; when it refuses to carry capital's needs via the demands of the working class? The answer is that, at that moment and from that moment, the systems whole mechanism of development is blocked. This is the new concept of the crisis of capitalism that we must start to circulate: no longer the economic crisis, the catastrophic collapse […]. Rather, a political crisis imposed by the subjective movements of the organised workers, via the provocation of a chain of critical conjunctures, -within the sole strategy of the working class refusal to resolve the contradictions of capitalism”.

- Mario Tronti, “The Strategy of Refusal”, (1965).


Again, useful idea though it is, the essay is over long for the concepts it is attempting to transmit, and written very, very turgidly. Also, much of his work remains untranslated from Italian. But if you are interested, for a partial translation of Mario Tronti’s Workers and Capital go here: http://operaismoinenglish.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/workers-and-capital.pdf 

Don’t feel you need to read this stuff, though: the best distillation of this very simple and useful set of ideas is to be found in the quote from Chomsky which heads this article:

“Those who own and manage the society want a disciplined, apathetic and submissive public that will not challenge their privilege and the orderly world in which it thrives. The ordinary citizen need not grant them this gift.”

Those of us who don’t want to grant them that gift need only to remember that the solution is in our own hands.  There are many of us: I see us on Twitter every day.  And though I am an avid Twitter user, and can see its immense potential for communication, for sharing radical ideas and information, if all we do with that is pass pithy memes amongst ourselves, then the establishment will not quake.  We will have been lulled into thinking our own passivity is activism.  Similarly, if we wait for a centralised organisation to decide what to do, we might wait a fruitless century, as the communities did who put their faith in the Labour Party to deliver socialism. Self management is something that nobody else can do for me. The only driver of social change is constructive self-activity.  Why should I wait for others to do what I can start to do for myself today?

On Being Turned Off By Party Tribalism

As someone who has long had a healthy distrust for politicians of each and any stripe, I found myself in the unusual position for me - around the time of last year’s Westminster general election - of having a great deal of goodwill towards the SNP.

We’d come out of the independence referendum with a feeling that, with a newly-invigorated communal political awareness, anything might be possible.  I found the referendum campaign a very positive experience.  I enjoyed the fact that political ideas were being discussed in public at a level that just hadn’t been the case in my experience for many years.  Having been active during the anti-Poll Tax campaign and, even further back, the miners’ strike, I would even say the level of engagement more generally outstripped those.

For me politics is not synonymous with party politics.  I’m a firm believer that real politics is when we realise we have the power to do things ourselves, rather than when we relinquish our power to others in the hope that things will be done for us (the definition of disempowerment).  And amongst “others” I include politicians.  So it came as a surprise to me that I found myself with a bit of a political crush on people like Mhairi Black.  They seemed different; they were more like normal people; they appeared to have a decency and sincerity not often visible in other politicians.  I knew I had differences with their party on a number of issues, but I thought “good luck to them: they seem like a breath of fresh air”.  As an independence supporter, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

What people who are party loyalists seem to forget is that most of the rest of us are not party loyalists.  For many of us there is no party that adequately represents our views with their policy platform.  It’d perhaps be unusual if there was: that would require as many parties as electors.  Most people when voting just want a way to best reflect their own views, not necessarily with a great deal of precision.  Maybe your views can best represented by something that's not actually on offer. Voting is usually therefore about finding the “least-worst” option.

It should not be assumed that any vote says “I agree with everything you say”.  It might just be a matter of “well, I like you better than the others”.  Indeed, a lot of people can’t even bring themselves to say that.  I have myself not always voted.  Before last May, it had been decades since I’d previously voted in a Westminster election:  the choice in real terms always seemed to be between a kick in the teeth or a punch in the teeth, and I didn’t see why I should give legitimacy to either.  If they were going to do it anyway, they’d have to do so without me saying “yes please” to one or the other.

But then the post-referendum feeling and the clean sweep at the May election made me think “some of these people actually seem OK”.

So looking at some of the more loyal SNP support in recent months has been depressing.  They seem to demand absolute loyalty for the party from everyone: they seem to think that anyone who campaigned for a Yes vote is now supposed to pledge unquestioning support to everything the SNP does.  Well, I didn’t sign up for that kind of “democratic centralism”.  I never would.  I’m a big fan of the sentiment expressed by Mikhail Bakunin’s aphorism “When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called ‘the People's Stick’”.

The uber-loyalism of the hard-line enthusiasts is a huge turn off.  (And I must stress that the insular dogmatism is from a section of SNP supporters, not all of them). The damage they are doing to the good will that many people, myself included, had towards the SNP is something they really need to think about, especially if they want support for independence to grow.  And grow it must if we want to win next time round.

I’ve never known anyone to be won over by roundly abusing them with one breath and demanding unquestioning adherence with the next.  We need to remember that 55% voted No.  Denouncing them all as dupes and “Yoons” will not win the swing we need. We need to encourage them across, not harden their position where they are. (I hate the term “Yoon”: responding in kind to the derogatory term “Nat” is strategically stupid, as well as depressingly tribal.  If you force people into rigid tribes, why do it when our tribe is smaller?  Would you prefer ideological purity or winning?)

I miss the referendum campaign.  It was hopeful and positive.  It was inclusive.  There seemed to be a general understanding that Yes was not a mono-thought bloc, but that diversity was to be welcomed.  That makes the descent into narrow, intolerant, party loyalty all the more dismal.

Why Hillsborough is relevant to the independence movement

“Hillsborough has nothing to do with independence.” That’s what an apologist for Stuart Campbell said to me. Well, I disagree. It has everything to do with it. 

 What should have been clear to anyone following news of the inquiry is that the Hillsborough tragedy was compounded by the police not coming clean for their mistakes that day. Not only did they not come clean, they spent 27 years blaming the fans, traducing the memory of the victims, and lying about what had happened. Sections of the media joined in. And instead of protecting wronged citizens, the political establishment followed suit. The victims, their families, the Liverpool fans, the city of Liverpool were vilified, ridiculed and dismissed by the establishment. Liverpool became a running gag about a work-shy underclass in perms and shell suits. See my short piece yesterday. See Suzanne Moore’s more expansive piece in the Guardian today.

That was naked class war by the haves on the have nots, in order to protect the powers-that-be. They closed ranks. Not just on one day, but for nearly three decades. And not just for Hillsborough, but on so many occasions that we've heard about, as well, no doubt, as many we haven’t. The whole edifice is rotten. 

My support for independence was exactly because of that. It was because I hoped we could start with a clean sheet and do things differently. Not because of where we happen to live, but because people, communities, the over-ruled masses, would be behind that new moment, and we could build something new exactly because we, the people not the elite, would be saying: “We don’t want to do things the same way. This is not just going to be more of the same, but based in Edinburgh”. My participation in the referendum was based on that hope. It’s a hope I still harbour. 

But then I see Stuart Campbell, someone who is influential in the pro-independence movement, reacting to the news that the Hillsborough inquiry jury found that the behaviour of the fans played no part in causing or contributing to “the dangerous situation at the Leppings Lane turnstiles” by saying, for example: 

“did the police CAUSE anyone's death? No. They just failed to save them from Liverpool fans.” 

And “Tell me, who squeezed the air out of their lungs? The police? The Sun? Margaret Thatcher?” 

And “My solution is for people not to push each other until they die.” 

That’s just a selection. Check his Twitter feed. 

My reaction to that is to wonder if an independent Scotland would end up being dominated by people with those sorts of views, those sort of reactions. Because if so, I want no part of it. That’s not just more of the same, because actually the establishment has finally backed down in the face of the truth and appears at long last to be offering up to some sort of justice the police who made those terrible mistakes then covered them up with such an horrific campaign of victim-blaming. No, Campbell is going further: he’s still arguing the toss. He could have said, "actually, I got things wrong", or even simply kept quiet. But no, he’s backing the 27 years of vilification. He’s excusing the Sun, saying they've apologised enough. He’s – graphically and with crass insensitivity – saying the police didn't squeeze the air out of victims’ lungs. 

An independent Scotland where the establishment who perpetrated the 27 years of misery for the relatives of the Hillsborough victims, where the establishment who responded to tragedy with naked class vilification is still the dominant force is not something I'm going to campaign for. 

Campbell writes a popular blog. Many people have found his analysis useful. But he has no accountability. Don’t get me wrong: he can say what he wants, and can go on saying it. But the problem is that he has done more than just undermine his own credibility here: he has sullied a positive movement. Unless that movement distances itself from his corrosive influence, then it’s in serious danger of more people asking what on earth it is it stands for.

Hillsborough, justice, and vilification of the working class

Justice has finally come for the Hillsborough relatives; late, and after too much unnecessary pain being heaped on them, too many obstacles put in their way, too much opposition from establishment organisations – the police, the media, political spin doctors - putting their own weasely backsides before the truth.  But finally the truth is being told.  

There is so much detail to look at, but there are few passages that better sum up the horror of what the establishment did to citizens it had disdain for than this:


"While the tabloid screamed that "the truth" was fans pickpocketing victims and urinating on cops, the real truth was the police probing victims' criminal records and taking blood samples from dead children in the hope of establishing drunkenness."


Take a while to let that sink in.  

It’s not my purpose here to go through the details, for that there are better places to look, such as the excellent work done by Eleanor Barlow, here outlining the way the myths were busted by the inquiry: “The Hillsborough myths exposed by the inquests as a tissue of lies”.  Please take the time to read it. 

As we take in what has been uncovered here, what people are more and more coming to terms with is the fact that time after time, the police and the media have been involved in cover-up and lies. Someone dies, so the reaction of the police is to lie about the victim.  

Take Jean Charles de Menezes.    Instead of owning up to their failings, the police lied about what had happened and lied about the character of the victim.  The inquest jury in December 2008 rejected the official account of events, but was told it did not have the option to return a verdict of unlawful killing.  

Take Ian Tomlison, where the police followed that same pattern of cover-up and assassinating the character of the victim. (http://www.iantomlinsonfamilycampaign.org.uk).

Take Orgreave, where the BBC and the police colluded in telling lies about striking miners.  (http://otjc.org.uk)  - The BBC, it much later turned out, was then, and is still, a member of the CBI.  During every industrial dispute it covered, and in which it broadcast quotes from the CBI, it never once declared an interest.

The list could go on.  But what we get a picture of is of the resources at the disposal of the elite, the state, weighed against ordinary people.

For the relatives of the 96 Hillsborough victims, this has been a tough 27 years.  They have borne it with dignity, dedication and tenacity, while they, their loved ones, their fellow football fans, their city, has been heaped with vilification and ridicule.  The open class prejudice with which the media has portrayed Liverpudlians has been overwhelming.  Comedians play the stereotypes for cheap laughs.  Politicians, such as Boris Johnson, join in.  But it’s not funny: what is at the bottom of this is cover-up and smear, and the disdain that the establishment has for working class people.

Remember that lesson when you read media reports of strikes, when you read about the supposed character of someone who has died at the hands of the police, or about the character of people who are on low wages or out of work.  

The Hillsborough Justice Campaign 

Brief thoughts on the Daily Record

The Daily Record has a shameful record as a reactionary rag. During the Clause 28 debate it actively campaigned, with whipped-up homophobic zeal, to try to create support for the homophobic Clause 28 which just didn't exist.

The disgraceful role of the Record in the Keep the Clause campaign (which sought to have the legislation banning councils from "promoting" homosexuality retained) cannot be ignored. There was no grassroots campaign to "Keep the Clause", just the homophobic paranoia of a rich man and his allies at the Daily Record and the Daily Mail. Oh yes, and the hypocritical self-loathing of Cardinal Winning.

The Record was trying to sway the opinion of its readers and the population as a whole, not follow it. With that background, the Record's support for equal marriage in Scotland, which it announced in 2013, seemed opportunistic and less-than-sincere.

 But that's not all: in 2001 it not only put its racism on show, but also seemed to condone, or at least excuse, the murder in Glasgow, of Kurdish refugee Firsat Dag. "Stabbed Turk Firsat Conned his Way in as Asylum Seeker" raged the disgraceful front page banner. The Record took its information uncritically from the Turkish government, from whose anti-Kurd oppression Dag was fleeing, but that did not deter the Record from describing Dag, in the wake of his murder, as a "con man who came to this country to make a fast buck". That is hate-peddling pure and simple. There can be no justification for this type of journalism. It cannot even be called unconscious racism: it is open, vile and unacceptable.

 That level of vileness cannot simply be written off as a mistake. It will take a lot to convince me that there has been a change in culture at that vile rag.

We Can Care About More Than One Tragedy At A Time

One of the strangest responses we see time and again when an atrocity occurs is from those people who seem to say that mourning one tragedy means feeling nothing about another.  “What about x, y, or z?” they will say, seeming to imply that we can only care about one tragedy at a time.  Worse, it is sometimes implied that because you mourn the victims of a tragedy that you therefore support any reprisals carried out using that tragedy as an excuse.

On Friday, Paris was hit by terrorist attacks killing 129 innocent people going about their lives.  On Sunday, the French government launched airstrikes against Raqqa in Syria.  We know such strikes can kill innocent people as well as the Daesh positions they claim were ‘precisely targeted’. 

Yes, the former has had far more coverage than the latter.  But paying our respects to the victims of the Paris attacks does not imply that we support the airstrikes carried out by the French state.

Many of us have friends or relatives in France.  We may have been there on holiday.  It is natural that we have empathy for the people there, sympathy for the relatives of the victims, an interest in what is unfolding across the channel.

My daughter lives in France, so it’s only natural that I take an interest in events there.  We exchanged messages over the weekend, and although she wasn’t in Paris at the time she does live near where several arrests were made.  But just because her workplace observed a minute’s silence today does not mean she or her workmates support the airstrikes.

Social media of course limits the nuances of feeling and argument to bare headlines, and tends to polarise debate in ways that might not be intended.  But we owe it to ourselves and to the future to take some time to think a bit more deeply about a topic than is allowed in 140 characters.

Kenan Malik wrote for Al Jazeera in the wake of the Paris attacks an article that I recommend we pay heed to.  He warns against assuming a simple causal relationship between French foreign policy and the attacks:

“The terrorists did not target symbols of the French state, or of French militarism. They did not even target tourist spots. They targeted, rather, the areas and the places where mainly young, anti-racist, multiethnic Parisians hang out.

The cafes, restaurants, bars and music venue that were attacked - Le Carillon, La Belle Equipe, Le Petit Cambodge, and the Jewish-owned Bataclan - are in the 10th and 11th arrondissements, areas that, though increasingly gentrified, remain ethnically and culturally mixed and still with a working-class presence.

The other venue attacked was the Stade de France, the national football stadium. France and Germany were playing a game there on Friday night, and French President Francois Hollande was in attendance.

But the Stade de France, like France's national football team, also has great cultural resonance. "Les Bleus" - as the team is known - are seen by many as an embodiment of multicultural France, a team consisting of "noir, blanc, beur" (black, white, Arab) players. It was in the Stade de France that Les Bleus, led by Zinedine Zidane, a Frenchman of Algerian descent, famously won the World Cup in 1998.

What the terrorists despised, what they tried to eliminate, were ordinary people drinking, eating, laughing, and mixing. That is what they hated - not so much the French state as the values of diversity and pluralism.”

I want to reiterate that message: what was deliberately targeted was ethnically and culturally mixed areas with a working-class presence.  Places where mainly young, anti-racist, multiethnic Parisians hang out.

It is often said that the refugees are also fleeing Daesh, and that’s true.  It’s often said that Daesh kill more Muslims than anyone else.  It’s often said that Daesh kill more in the Middle East than anywhere else.  All that is true.  But remember also that those places targeted by the terrorists in Paris are places where French people of North African descent hang out, live, relax, and mix with people of other ethnic backgrounds.  It is specifically the shared multi-ethnic lived experience that the terrorists despise.

The victims included people of North African descent, people born in Morocco, people born in Congo.  And that was deliberate. That was the reason those locations were chosen.  So imagining that paying respects to the victims of those attacks in some way means you necessarily support some sort of monolithic Frenchness is very wide of the mark.

I was in a bar in France a few weeks ago, and saw this sign hung on the wall by the owner opposing racism and saying it wasn’t welcome in her bar:

"Racism prohibited here!"

She has doubtless expressed her mourning for the Paris victims today and in the past few days.  Should we interpret that mourning as a unity of identity with the French state and its foreign policy?  I’d suggest we have no basis on which we could do so.

Of course it doesn’t help that many of those wishing to express solidarity with
Parisians have chosen to put French flags on their Facebook and Twitter pages.  While those people may simply have picked an easily identifiable symbol for France, it has for others muddied the waters and caused them to assume that all solidarity with Parisians is also support for the foreign policies of the French state.  It’s for reasons like that that I have been careful not to use the Tricolore in that way.  Indeed, I am suspicious of flags in general.

I’d also ask people to consider that while someone may Tweet a picture of a candle-lit vigil for the victims of the Paris attacks in one moment, they may in the past have posted about the Middle East, about Gaza, about their opposition to Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, about their opposition to the arms trade. I have posted about all these things, yet bizarrely found myself defending a tweet about the minute’s silence for the victims of the Paris attacks. Don’t just assume people have only one interest.  Do you have only one interest? 

For example, I exchanged messages with my daughter in France over the weekend, but just this morning exchanged emails with an old friend in the Middle East.  So while I have family connections in France, that doesn’t exclude me from having connections elsewhere in the world.

So don't assume that observing a vigil for victims of one tragedy means I didn't observe a vigil for victims of another.  As a matter of fact I have observed vigils for victims of other tragedies, including those killed in Gaza.  As a matter of fact, I have done concrete things to offer mutual aid and solidarity to refugees.  And no, that doesn't mean I've neglected local foodbanks.  But why should we have to justify ourselves to those who see the world as polarities, either on or off. Those binary arguments are as myopic as they are fallacious.  

That is the thing about humanity – we can’t be pigeon-holed into hermetically sealed monolithic cultures.  We cross cultures, we share various interests, we share this world.  And that is exactly what Daesh hate.  Don’t do their job for them by trying to limit us and to separate us out.

My experience of being in the Question Time Audience

It has to be remembered that Question Time is a television programme, and although it is edited a little before it airs, the show has to have at least a degree of polish.  For that reason, there is a degree of briefing that the audience face.  Whether intentional or not, this will have the effect of choreographing the audience to a certain extent.

What happens is that you turn up early, you are given tea/coffee and sandwiches in a holding area, and you are greeted by Dimbleby and production team. Dimbleby then leaves, and the team talks you through the procedure, and primes you on etiquette. You are then given an A4 briefing sheet each, with 6-8 headlines each with a paragraph of explanation on the “stories of the week”. This is "to help you decide on your questions". Then you are issued with slips on which you can compose questions to be submitted.

The question slips are then collected, and the ones that will be called are selected. You are told that the questions selected will fairly represent the questions submitted. If your name is read out, you are taken away for a further briefing. I don't know what this entails, as I wasn't chosen, perhaps because I didn't stick to the topics on the briefing sheet. All the questions that were pre chosen when I attended matched the briefing sheet.  I suspect because more questions that match the briefing sheets are written on the slips than are rogue outliers, and so of course those selected did match the topics we’d been prompted on.

You are then ushered into the studio, and take a seat. A warm-up person does a run through, asking for hands up and questions you are likely to ask. This goes on for quite a while. It was interesting that two separate eccentric people with bees in their bonnet asked questions, and were never once picked by Dimbleby during the recording. It seems to me that this is one useful reason for the run through. He will have been told "Wild eyed lady in green on second row. Nutter." So, if you are outside the mainstream, keep it under wraps until the recording light comes on.

I assume that the panel are given similar briefing sheets - probably a little more detailed than the audience one - so that they are able to answer the questions.  The rationale will that it doesn’t make good TV if panel members say they haven’t heard a particular story or have no opinion on it. They may not know the wording of the questions they face, but they'll know what stories they're going to be asked about, and, if politicians,  will probably have had time to message their PR team for advice on the answers.

To stand a chance of asking a rogue question you need therefore to be called when hands are raised during filming.  However, these are meant as supplementary to the discussion already on-going, and Dimbleby of course steers the panel as chair.

The show is pre-recorded and shown later the same evening.

A brief word on Tommy Sheridan

My problem with Sheridan is summed up well by Scott MacDonald here: http://scottmac.org/2015/04/objection-to-robin-mcalpine-speaking-with-sheridan/

Other people will do as they see fit, and if they see fit to give credence to Sheridan, that’s a matter for them. 

Some say “hasn’t he paid for what he did? Don’t you believe in rehabilitation?”  The trouble with that is that he’s still not said sorry for dragging comrades and sexual partners through the courts in a vain attempt to salvage his own ego, and he’s still not admitted he was in the wrong.  He still talks about clearing his name, which means that he’s still calling his former comrades and partners liars  - people who were dragged into court at his behest, not through their own doing, even though he’s the convicted perjurer.

That doesn’t seem very rehabilitated to me.  Nor does it seem very comradely.

Yes, he speaks well.  But if that’s your only criterion for decency, then you’re in trouble.

So, go to his rallies if you want to.  But count me out.

Coburn, Racism and Race.

You’ll be aware by now that David Coburn, the UKIP MEP elected last May, is at the centre of yet another controversy caused by his foolish comments.  I hadn’t wanted to dignify his idiocy by giving either the remark or the man too much attention, but that ship has well and truly sailed, and the incident is now widely being used as a hook upon which to hang a debate about racism.

In the remote possibility that you were unaware, he is quoted as referring to the Scottish Government minister Humza Yousaf in these words: "Humza Yousaf, or as I call him, Abu Hamza".

Humza Yousaf was understandably outraged by the comparison, calling the remark racist and Islamophobic, and many have concurred, calling on Coburn to apologize, but some people have responded by saying it was a stupid remark in poor taste, but not racist.

So, what is racism?  Well, let’s start off with what it isn’t: it isn’t scientifically correct.  Race is not a biological or genetic reality.  Scientifically speaking, there are no races; there's only one human race.

The genetic differences between people from ostensibly different "races" are no greater than the differences between individuals from the same "race"; human "races" are not biologically meaningful entities. Whatever your "race", neither you reading this, nor I, differ by more than 7 or 8% of our genes from anyone else.

There is therefore no point in appealing to science to say “that can’t be racism; Muslim’s aren’t a race” (or the Irish, or West Indians, or whatever category is being contested). There are no biological or genetic races within humanity, because ‘race’ isn’t a valid scientific category.  Rather, it’s a social and political construct. 

So how do we define where the boundaries of these social constructs lie?  That vagueness is part of the inherent danger in the notion of race.

Take as an example, forms we have to fill in from time to time - diversity surveys attached to job applications, perhaps, or the National Census.

Forms hope to fudge the difference between a race, a culture, a nation, a population by talking of "ethnicity", but the truth is that there is little agreement on where any of those terms overlap and coincide. Many of my traceable ancestors were Irish, so is my culture Irish? Not really, since I have never lived there, nor did my parents or grandparents. Am I ethnic Irish? The problem is that ethnicity, like race, is difficult to define, and there are no objective rules for deciding what constitutes a race, or for deciding to what race a person belongs. The 2011 Census asked me to choose between being (amongst other things) White Scottish, Other White British, White Irish, Other White, and Any Mixed Background. The truth is that we can all tick that last one, but that none of them really formed any conscious part of my identity, of how I see myself.  If someone asked me to describe myself, at no point would I consider using the phrase “White Scottish”, although I suppose that is what the Census wanted me to tick.

Despite never having lived in Ireland and not possessing an Irish passport or accent, I have nevertheless been called Irish, and abused as having stereotyped supposed Irish traits, because I belong to the population group in Scotland that is descended from Irish Catholics.  It seems incredible now, but a teacher at my school used to regularly call me Irish, despite my attempts to correct her. She would attribute various negative traits to that Irishness – untidiness, laziness, explosive temper, and a disproportionate fondness for the colour green (she was an art teacher). 

It is my contention that this was indeed racist abuse.  It was abuse based on prejudices held by that teacher, and related to what she conceived of as congenital, genetic or inherent traits she claimed she saw in me that she believed were typical of “Irishness” (none of which I recognised in myself, including the supposed fondness for green!).  Sometimes she wouldn’t add any slur on the Irish character, but simply say I was Irish.  But that was more than just inaccurate, because I knew the attitude and implications that went with it.  Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t feel scarred or traumatised by these events.  I simply recount them as an illustration of my point: the race here was in the eye of the beholder; I did not feel Irish, nor did I consider myself Irish, nor did I consider my family culture to have been Irish.  But the fact of my ancestry was used by my teacher to make discriminatory remarks. It was racism.

So did David Coburn do something similar?  On the face of it his “joke” was that part of Humza Yousaf’s name is a bit like part of Abu Hamza’s name.  But there is more to it than that.  Wordplay, in order to be worth repeating, has to carry some sort of meaning.  Coburn wasn’t just repeating nonsense syllables, he was playing on a perception that has currency about Muslims and terrorism.

Nor was it equivalent, as a letter in today’s Scotsman suggested, to calling George Bush a terrorist.

George Bush is called a terrorist by some because of his actions, not because his funny foreign name sounds a bit like another man who is a terrorist, nor because there’s a perception that people from Bush’s cultural background are inclined towards terrorism.  There is no such stereotype. 

Humza Yousaf has no history of initiating or supporting foreign wars, as Bush has.  The “joke” Coburn made was based purely on the name and the cultural background of both men.

It’s quite clear cut as far as I’m concerned – Coburn’s remarks can be categorised as a racist slur.  It was anti-Muslim racism.  (I discuss the term Islamophobia elsewhere in this blog). 

Some have suggested that Coburn should be arrested for hate speech.  I think that would be foolish and counter-productive.  He’s a boor and a buffoon, and the best response is to tell him so, not to criminalise his actions.  UKIP repeatedly show themselves to be a party of pub bores, the type of person who you can imagine spouting half-baked theories and petty prejudices in a golf club clubhouse in 1970.  They should be challenged on their nonsense, not arrested.

Useful links: 

http://www.kenanmalik.com/lectures/multiculturalism_if.html

https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/category/politics/multiculturalism/