Democracy and Class Struggle in its analysis of the British General Election Circus recently analysed the Great British Lie and the United Kingdom Independence Party now we proceed to understand that new force north of the border The Scottish National Party.
We publish an extract from Allan Armstrong's article on Republicanism and Socialism recently made in Glasgow on the 11th April to set the scene on Scottish Nationalism and The Scottish National Party.
Today, the British ruling class is even more united in its opposition to the SNP government’s ‘Independence-Lite’ proposals. There is no room, under today’s conditions of economic and political crisis, for the SNP’s wannabe Scottish ruling class junior managerial buyout of the local branch of UK plc.
This despite their acceptance of the monarchy and hence the continued ability of the UK state to intervene in Scotland; of NATO and hence a continued Scottish commitment to US and British imperial wars; and of the City of London and hence continued imposed austerity.
So, how did the British ruling class use those Crown Powers in the recent referendum campaign? They achieved their first objective, under the Edinburgh Agreement signed between the Westminster and Holyrood government. Alex Salmond, himself a Privy Councillor, agreed to the referendum being conducted under Westminster rules.
This meant that the official’ Yes’ campaign had to be conducted under much greater official restrictions than the ‘No campaign’, which was able to draw upon those Crown Powers hidden from public scrutiny.
It will take thirty years before we know what methods were resorted to, beyond the obviously partisan use of senior civil servants and the BBC.
However, the Guardian exposed moves by the Ministry of Defence to have Faslane Trident base declared sovereign UK territory in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote (2).
If there had been a ‘Yes’ vote on September 18th, the SNP government did not recognise this as transferring sovereignty to the people of Scotland.
They accept the principle that their sovereignty comes from those powers devolved from Westminster to Holyrood.
Hence, they had already decided that their negotiating team with Westminster would include MSPs from the Labour, Conservative and Lib-Dem parties, and possibly even some of their Scottish MPs.
The already low level of Scottish self-determination, already accepted under the SNP government’s ‘Independence-Lite’ proposals, would have been further whittled away under Westminster sovereignty.
Democracy and Class Struggle says that it is delusional if the Scottish Left think that an Independent Scottish Republic can be legislated through the Scottish Parliament or any other bourgeois institution or won through the electoral circus of a British General Election.
The Scottish people will have to create new Scottish institutions of direct democracy like a Scottish Constituent Assembly to eliminate British Crown Powers and return sovereignty to its people.
We appeal to the Scottish Radical Independence movement to constitute a Scottish Socialist Republican Congress to lead the transition from a Monarchist Bourgeois Parliament to Socialist Republic via a Scottish Constituent Assembly and to make the Scottish People Sovereign in their own country and not the British Crown..
If we look at Norwegian or Irish Independence in the 20th century in Western Europe Scottish Socialists and Communists will need at minimum to create a Scottish Citizens Army to support the Scottish Republican Congress if they truely want to introduce independence and Socialism in Scotland and eliminate NATO and the Crown..
Socialism in Scotland will be opposed by the British State with all the perfidiousness it can muster which has been on display to the world for centuries and no one should be ignorant of it least of all socialists and communists.
John Maclean Scotland's great son and inspirer of the idea of an Independent Scottish Socialist Republic was a victim of that perfidy.
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