Cat Boyd and James Foley are activists in the International Socialist Group and have played leading roles in the Radical Independence Campaign. In this article, which is taken from the book ‘Time to Choose’ and published online for the first time here, they address the issues around reviving the left in Scotland.

A socialist strategy in Scotland must necessarily involve two parts. The first is a consideration of the objective possibility of and need for an anti-capitalist party in Scotland.[1] This is the question of “political space”: how much room do we have for an alternative at the ballot box when we are squeezed between SNP and Labour? The second is about our own behaviour, the trust we have for each other and our legitimacy with social movements and working class communities. This may be called the subjective factor.

Our position is that there is space for a radical Left alternative in Scotland. There is a crisis in Scottish society, lying somewhere between the nationalisation of RBS/HBOS (economic crisis) and the referendum of 2014 (constitutional crisis). This Scottish crisis presents definite opportunities. But to anticipate and shape this process, we must face up to our own need for reform. Due to the SSP split, the left in Scotland has a toxic reputation that extends far beyond our own ranks. We do not think our own crisis can be resolved by the final defeat or victory of any sector of the left. What is required is a three step detoxification process.

In the short term, we must fight for left unity. This is not just about united action with the Greens, trade unionists, and so on. It means active steps to restore working relations in the post-SSP left. In the medium term, we must regain the trust of protest movements and the wider radical left currents in society: we may call this left renewal. Lastly, there is the broad task, to win the leadership of society in the battle to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. This hegemonic task clearly requires winning over “reformist” voices in the SNP, Labour, and the unions. We call this left realignment. These steps, we wish to argue, depend on each other. But they stem from a reading of objective difficulties in maintaining existing Holyrood alliances.

Space for the Left?

Scottish politics is often thought of as a “village” in which “everyone who is anyone knows everyone else who matters”.[2] Few will deny that there are elites who shape the policy framework in Holyrood. But we also need to remember that Scotland is a capitalist, class society with staggering inequalities of wealth and power. One study, in 2003, showed that two Edinburgh districts have more millionaires than anywhere in Britain but Hampstead, London. “Blackhall is better heeled than Belgravia and Morningside is more upmarket than Mayfair,” reported The Telegraph.[3] Contrast this to the figure that men in the Calton ward of Glasgow live to an average age of 54. With these facts in mind, we dispute any idea that Scotland has a distinctively “collectivist” civil society. The neoliberal trajectory in Scotland, like elsewhere, has led to extreme polarisations of income.[4]

Reversing these trends is the goal of the anti-neoliberal left. The size of this group may be disputed. At the higher end of estimates, 43 percent of Scotland favours government action to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor.[5] In practice, this is unlikely to form part of the platform of either Scottish Labour or the SNP. But this should not lead to the conclusion that this group is liable to switch allegiances to the Left anytime soon. Winning this layer of Scotland to the left is the long-term goal. In the short term, we must seek to win back those who have deserted anti-capitalist politics in recent elections.

It is over-simplistic to attribute the decline of the radical Left in Holyrood to the SSP split alone. Clearly, there are objective socio-economic and political factors to account for. Some argue that the Left was always liable to get squeezed in the battle between the SNP and Scottish Labour, and thus view recent results as inevitable irrespective of contingent factors. Conveniently, this “objective” account draws attention away from our own flaws. There are certainly good reasons to look at objective circumstances. But the thesis is flawed in three respects.

Firstly, the fact that Scottish Labour is consistently positioned to the right of the SNP government puts the identity of trade union politics in question. Trade unions will not jump ship to SNP; such an arrangement would suit neither party. But their current link with Labour is not feasible so long as the neoliberal turn continues. The Left could, and should, play an active role in resolving Scotland’s crisis of working class representation.

Secondly, there is lasting evidence of anti-capitalist and left-of-Labour sentiment in Scotland. A decade ago, the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) was able to command 130,000 votes and 6 MSPs. The Greens secured a similar vote, roughly 7 percent, with 7 MSPs. The Iraq factor played a strong role in this. But it is evidence that there is a significant part of the Scottish electorate that can be won to leftist ideas. Anti-war sentiment in Scotland did not emerge from nowhere. It built on frustration with the “village” atmosphere of Scottish politics, especially the failings of Scottish Labour to tackle poverty and class inequality. These frustrations have only intensified recently. While we may disagree on the actions of the SSP in Holyrood, we can surely agree that they had some success in tapping into this current of anger.

Thirdly, the last few years have seen a significant revival of the extra-parliamentary radical Left in Scotland. The student movement against fees and cuts was the precipitating factor. But this has helped to reinvigorate other currents as well, such as feminist, environmental, and international solidarity campaigns. Many of the people involved with these campaigns will strongly disagree with us on the need for political organisation. But we ignore them at our peril. Our belief is that they can play a strong role in revitalising the Left, but only if the existing Left is ready to change its own habits and routines. We have as much to learn from the movements as they have to learn from us.

A crisis of radical Left politics is not peculiar to Scotland. All across Europe, the victories of anti-capitalist forces after Seattle and during the Iraq war have been pushed back for a decade. The organised Left has failed to offer a coherent challenge, system-wide, to the crisis, the bailouts, and the cuts post-2008. But the defeats have not been even. In some nations, the Left has positioned itself well to present a challenge to the dominant austerity narrative. If Syriza in Greece is at one end of the spectrum of left-wing success, Britain has most definitely been at the other end.

For these reasons, we believe there is no reason for fatalism. We are a victim of contingent events, largely of our own making. By contrast, there is a much more protracted, structural crisis of Scottish politics. Qualitatively new forms are likely to emerge from this. We can help to shape this process, by putting poisonous recriminations aside, by participating in grassroots campaigns, and by leading the battle for a break with Britain in 2014.

The Perverse Glocalization of Labour

Scottish Labour is at the centre of the Scottish crisis. Accusations of “machine politics”, of “negative campaigning”, and of “tribalism” are common in all accounts of Scottish Labour. It was widely accepted that Labour had to learn from its Holyrood electoral hammering in 2011. Iain Gray, a “flop” as a leader, was replaced by Johann Lamont last December. Lamont conceded that Labour had an image problem, coming across as “a tired old politics machine which was more about itself than it was about them.” But this dour public face is symptomatic of deeper factors.

Adapting factional local politics and “patronage networks” to demands to “think global” is a particular challenge. Hardly a month goes by without new reports of a hornet’s nest of factional antagonisms and interest group politics in Labour, often, but not always, grouped in the West Coast of Scotland. Most recently, Labour’s chief Scottish spin doctor, Rami Okasha, was suspended amid allegations of “insubordination”. This exposed East-West coast divisions, and also divisions been the Holyrood and Westminster arms of politics.[6] These often express themselves as divisions within groupings, as the recent debacle over candidate selection for the Glasgow Council elections exposed.

At the same time, Scottish Labour is open for business when it comes to the amorphous benefits of “globalization”. It has proved far too intellectually timid to challenge Blairite norms. Gordon Brown summed up this new spirit: “The message London’s success sends out to the whole British economy is that we will succeed if like London we think globally…advance with light touch regulation, a competitive tax environment, and flexibility.”

A consensus held that London was a “model” to imitate for other urban economies. Glasgow City Council, in any case, had long been at the vanguard of neoliberal “urban boosterism” and place-marketing strategies.[7] Thus, when Jack McConnell implored Labour to act as “the party of enterprise” in 2004, he was merely stating conventional wisdom and long-established practice. It is telling that Scottish Labour has not produced critical figures like John McDonnell MP and Jeremy Corbyn MP. They would almost certainly find other political homes in Scotland, perhaps even in the SNP.

There has thus emerged a perverse “glocalization” effect in Scottish Labour. On the one hand, there is a far more ingrained policy consensus in Labour than in any other organisation. The “race to the bottom” in regulation and the virtues of competition were accepted with little resistance. The only qualification was the need to preserve the “cherished values”, lying somewhere between “Britishness” and “social democracy,” of the Labour movement. A very British and very “global” consensus thus prevails. The monetarists won the intellectual debate; but social democracy still has “the right values”. There is no dissent from this flimsy intellectual framework.

But imposing neoliberal demands in practice needs a party machine built on a tough local fabric of council housing, local council employment, and trade unions. Gerry Hassan and Eric Shaw refer to a (mythologised) “Labour Scotland” that services Scottish Labour in this regard.[8] These factors are still largely responsible for Labour’s core base of support in Scotland, despite decades of appeals to “professional” middle class voters through “modernization” policies. Trade unions, to take one key example, are still by far the biggest funders of Scottish Labour. The result is that loyalty to Labour is corrupting local representation with intellectual complacency and widespread factionalism. Although working class voters may be less inclined to vote Scottish Labour, the tissue of representation is still poisoned by its local feuds and its superstitious respect for “global market forces”.

The Lamont Moment

It might be argued that these factors culminated with the diabolical election performance of Iain Gray’s Labour in 2011. But we wish to extend this a step further. The apogee of Labour’s factional-intellectual crisis has arrived only this year, with Lamont’s attacks on universal benefits and Scotland’s supposed “something for nothing culture”.

Two factors have been identified here. The first is a lack of vision about Scottish taxation that Hassan calls “Block Grant conservatism”.[9] The result of thinking of Holyrood in terms of fixed fiscal parameters is to regard funding as a zero-sum game between “middle class benefits” and tackling poverty. Of course, there is no intellectual wriggle room in this straightjacket, since any leeway is likely to lead to further calls for “fiscal autonomy”, a slippery slope to independence.

A second issue is that Lamont is trying to massage internal disputes between roving bands of councillors, MPs, and MSPs.[10] The attack on “freebies” like free education and prescriptions may satisfy the need for daylight between the SNP and Labour in policy terms. But how will the public respond? The problem is that these “freebies” are inexpensive and highly popular.

The assumption that universal benefits are primarily a tax-break for the middle class, and a distraction from fighting poverty, is also highly dubious. Certainly, there is a problem of poverty in terms of direct material deprivation in Scotland. But often the deepest impact of poverty is the humiliation and stigma of it. Means-testing benefits, to save very meagre sums, will do what it always does: pile up bureaucracies and pile on humiliating poverty exams for the most vulnerable in society.

Even if Labour can successfully mount a defence of this policy, which seems unlikely, there is little prospect of any minor “cost savings” getting used to fight a war on poverty, in any sense of the word. Scottish Labour finds itself on the right of the Scottish government on almost every social issue, never mind Trident and war. At the same time, Labour’s roots and its funding base remains in the trade unions. This settlement is surely unstable and fundamental revisions in Scottish politics are possible.

The many hats of nationalism

While the Lamont factor has forced Labour further to the right, it has reigned in some of the more neoliberal tendencies in the Scottish government, at least temporarily. Education Secretary Mike Russell used a 2006 book to claim that Scotland should scrap universal benefits, as part of a sweeping set of cuts to the public sector. He was forced to retract these claims under pressure. “I am more than prepared to say today that my experience of the recession and the loss of 25,000 university places south of the border makes me believe I was wrong.” It would be foolish to read into this a change of heart from the SNP’s small, but influential, free market wing. What it represents is an attempt to unify the shifting imperatives between Scottish government, SNP party organisation, and the Yes Campaign for 2014. How these tensions play out will shape the future alignments of Scottish politics.

With a more or less fixed income from Holyrood’s block grant, Salmond’s team will be under pressure to make cuts as part of the Britain-wide austerity squeeze. There is no escaping this, all things being equal constitutionally. On the basis of its defence of the NHS, its opposition to tuition fees, and its defence of universalism, the SNP government has a legitimate claim to the identity of “real Labour” against New Labour. But this political manoeuvring does not change the social base of Salmond’s power amongst elements of the new middle class, small businesses, unorganised sections of the working class, and nouveau riche “entrepreneurs”. This clash between collectivist “values” and social structure was dramatised over the N30 strikes, in which SNP ministers happily crossed picket lines. The idea that N30 was an act of London-based “vested interests” with no relevance to Scotland was uncritically accepted in some sections of the Scottish broad Left.

Since the SNP membership is not, and cannot be, built out of trade unions, breaches like this are inevitable. However, this does not mean the SNP is a right-wing wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is a party built on the class faultlines of a nationalist platform. There is clearly a very genuine enthusiasm for anti-war and anti-nuclear politics in the SNP ranks. This has been qualified by a sad oversight on Afghanistan, where leaders have stuck to mainstream complacency. But this is a telling contrast with Labour, where any anti-war politics is a dirty secret.

The debate on NATO clearly reveals the fractures of trying to win the public to independence. On the one hand, Yes Scotland repeats the official line: let us not talk about the precise details of a future nation, let us unite for today and all issues can be democratically agreed after 2014. But all the while the media and “civil society” demands answers about “security” after independence. The British establishment is adept at manipulating the politics of fear, and Yes Scotland has no basis to tackle this. Thus, the SNP is buying time with the Left using Yes Scotland’s sterile optimism, while shifting its own positions to make ground to the right in practice. This has already led to a humiliating public spat with the Scottish Green leader Patrick Harvie. This wrangling has resolved itself, for the time being, but serious divisions remain over the function of Yes Scotland.

For the time being, the SNP is still clearly to the Left of Scottish Labour. Only the most dogmatic determinist would pretend otherwise. In a peculiar twist, the SNP got a majority of working class votes in 2011. It even managed to break Scotland’s Catholic community away: 43 percent voted SNP against 36 percent for Labour, testament to its break with a toxic perception of pro-Orange politics. But these factors cannot withstand the elements forever. Divisions have been held off for the time being. But after the 2014 referendum the SNP’s contradictions must start to unravel, or it will move back to the right of Labour under pressure from the pro-market wing of the party.

The Movements

No consideration of the future of the Left can leave aside the question of the extra-parliamentary movements. There are two aspects to consider in this respect: trade unions and protest groups. We would defend the decision to consider these forces separately. Sadly, the evidence of surveys has suggested that these rarely crossover.[11] While there are many honourable counter-examples, we feel these are two separate strands. It goes without saying that it is incumbent on trade union leaders, at the top and the bottom of organisations, to change this.

Trade union adaptation to devolved Scotland has been very uneven. The apparatus of the major, Labour-affiliated unions have been reluctant to acknowledge a Scottish dimension to politics. Many still deny that any substantial changes to the “united British working class” are worthy of consideration, or constitute anything more than a distraction. Labour tribalism is deep rooted in many unions. A huge proportion of trade union officials belong to Labour.[12] Attitudes to devolution have thus often fallen into the same complacent, business-as-usual mode.

However, the STUC has a somewhat different approach. They have a long record of campaigning for devolution, and to some degree have shown willingness to work engage with “Scottish civil society”. This has led, in practice, to a tendency towards “popular front” mobilisations, which are often accused of defining “broadness” by how many priests they can put on a platform. A more radical case is the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), which at one stage considered affiliation to the Scottish Socialist Party. The RMT actually affiliated to the SSP, before the split. Sadly these openings have been the exception, not the rule, and the Left has failed to capitalise on disenchantment with New Labour.

Not surprisingly, trade union officials have been awkward and stilted when responding to 2014. They have not given direct material support to Better Together, an openly reactionary coalition of interests which has been startlingly uncritical of the British status quo. An explicitly pro-British line would be difficult to maintain for the unions. Their core supporters are divided, and the most likely supporters of independence are the manual and routine working class.[13] Thus, the unions have instead played a peculiar game of brinksmanship, flirting with devolution max while claiming to “facilitate debate”. Anecdotally, it is often claimed that many trade union leaders actually support independence, and privately they will vote for it. Of course, they can never state this publically, for fear of breaches with London central offices. But many are keeping their options open in this fluid Scottish conjuncture.

By far the most inspiring recent challenges to Scottish neoliberalism have come from outside the organised Left. There is a broad, confused ecosystem of protest movements that has become a significant factor in its own right. The catalyst for this was a highly successful student-led movement against cuts and fees in Scottish universities. This took its momentum from England, but unlike the English movement it was ultimately successful in forcing the SNP into a dramatic policy u-turn prior to the election. The context of anti-cuts protests was undoubtedly a huge factor in Labour’s heavy defeat in 2011.

A significant consequence has been the radicalisation of a layer of young people against the violent arm of the Scottish state, as campaigns have been mounted to defend student protesters against victimisation. But the youth-led protests have reinvigorated other dormant leftist trends: Palestine solidarity, feminism, and anti-racism to name but a few. Perhaps the most inspiring example was the sight of young activists from Coalition of Resistance and the Hetherington Occupation joining with community campaigners to save the Accord Centre in East Glasgow. Meeting the organisational and intellectual needs of this sort of “movement from below” is precisely the reason for rethinking old habits on the Left.

What needs to happen on the Left

Ironically, both the trade union and the protest movement have reached a similar dead end after the concessions post-N30. It is at a time like this when an organised Left is most needed. Sadly, our authority has been badly tarnished by the aftershock of recent splits. Only a Panglossian optimist would claim that the post-SSP left in Scotland has clarified anything about socialist strategy or tactics. The split has generated a volcano of heat and precious little light. Electoral programs of post-SSP groups have been nearly identical. Any promise that the split would bring new opportunities for the Left to relate to political movements has surely been refuted in practice.

We believe that restoring the health of the Left in Scotland requires three points. Left unity, the restoration of working relationships in the post-SSP fragments, is a logical first step. It is very difficult to build trust in wider society when paranoia and suspicion is rife in our own ranks. Some will object that any future moves towards unity, however desirable, must be made Britain-wide. But this does not take full account of the territorial changes in British governance. The Holyrood system offers far greater opportunities for the Left to gain a purchase in parliament. This may not be the end goal of revolutionary politics. But it is surely desirable to have a permanent voice of opposition to cuts, war, racism, and sexism in public focus.

The referendum in 2014, whatever the result, is another reason for restoring working relations in Scotland without waiting for consent to break out in the rest of the UK. The last thing we want is to end up like Scottish Labour, belatedly forced into accepting the need for Scottish organisation after years of pummelling defeats. Left renewal needs to happen. It is our job to ensure that left dis-unity is not a roadblock to the organisational needs of the movement from below. At present, the organised left has a toxic reputation. Only unity can solve this.

The subjective factor, the modification of habits and “behaviour”, is thus highly important. Objective factors do count. But when opportunities open up to shape the debate, the Left’s intervention will be lacking if we put our own bad blood over the needs of the movement. Even if we profess good intentions, an “end to sectarianism”, etc, we must prove it in practice.

A last factor is that the wider, societal left, i.e. those concerned with fundamentally changing the pattern of wealth and power in society, is fragmented across various organisations. Many belong to no group. To win the respect of this group is contingent on left unity and left renewal. That is to say, trade unionists who wish to see a radical left-of-Labour force will not take us seriously until we have won the right to represent the needs of the movement.

In Holyrood, the centre cannot hold, and things as they stand are liable to fall apart. One way or another, this is the trajectory of the 2014 referendum. The SNP’s credibility as a moderate party of government will come to a head with its credibility as a force of constitutional change. Labour’s base of financial support from nurses, school teachers, and cleaners will conflict with the needs to make Westminster the hub of pro-market politics in Europe.

We are not claiming to offer a blueprint for the sort of party we need in the future. It is merely our intention to say that the patterns of the last five years do not have to recur forever as in Groundhog Day. We can choose to put an end to this. Another five years in the ghetto is unforgiveable. The renewed radical left current in Scotland is already emerging from below, and there is space for it to grow. Unity is about ensuring that the toxic waste of past splits does not poison the future.

The International Socialist Network is a new group bringing together socialists who have recently left the Socialist Workers Party. In this article Raymond Watt outlines the view of ISN supporters in Scotland concerning the way forward for the left in Scotland.

Since this is the first public article by International Socialist Network supporters in Scotland, it may be useful to introduce ourselves. The ISN (International Socialist Network formed from the recent split in the SWP) is very much in its embryonic stage and therefore we greatly welcome being part of discussions in Scotland and across the UK with other socialists, anti-capitalists and non-aligned activists around the possibilities and way forward for left unity/renewal.

The ISN is based on the principle, revolution from below as the sole means by which socialism can be achieved. It is refreshing that those currently engaged with the network are working to develop our ideas, which come out of Marxist revolutionary politics, on such questions as revolutionary organisation, feminism and left unity – and we recognise that we have much to learn from others in doing so. Marxism should be a living, breathing tradition. This means healthy and open debate, taking a realistic look at the past decades of neo-liberalism, changes in the composition of the working class, identifying the challenges faced by the left in the 21st century and seeking to modify revolutionary theory and practice to meet those challenges. The ISN seeks to be a forum in which such debate takes place and a network of activists committed to revolutionary socialism form below.

The Broader Context

Readers will be aware of the circumstances in which the ISN came to be formed by members of the Socialist Workers’ Party – more information is available here. Rather than rerun that history, we want to take this opportunity to engage with others in developing our understanding of the present period and working through our attitude to concrete issues of left realignment in Scotland.

We start, as most socialists do, from the principle of “fighting in the interests of the working class”. There are those that argue that these interests are best fought through elections, parliaments and governments and those,like the ISN, who believe that this goal can only be achieved through revolution. This is, of course, the division into ‘reformist’ and ‘revolutionary’ strategies that we, and others on the left, became very comfortable debating because it offered us a series of ready-made answers.

Yet, the movements of the first decade of this century from the anti-capitalists of the early 2000s to the ‘Indiginados’, Occupy and anti-austerity protests have forced us out of this comfort zone. These two roads to socialism have faced a direct challenge from many other forms and methods of organising and activity. Many of these new forms of organising emerge from anarchist and self-defined ‘horizontalist’ movements – leading to hasty and counterproductive dismissal of these alternative ways of organizing by those who keep a focus on independent political organisation within the working class and trade union movement as the main strategy for revolutionaries. Many new activists have come into politics through those movements. And therefore it is crucial to understand why over the last couple of decades many more new activists have been attracted by such movements rather than avowedly socialist organisations, whether they be reformist or revolutionary. We agree with Ben Wray of the International Socialist group that this reflects a great weakness on the part of the Marxist left. Of course, the utter capitulation of all mainstream political organisations to neo-liberalism has led to disillusionment with the whole electoral system and any kind of “party organisation’ – not to the generalised apolitical apathy with which middle-class commentators comfort themselves, but nonetheless an enormous challenge for socialists. Furthermore, it is not enough simply to point to the mainstream parties as the source of this disillusion: many activists are repelled by party-based politics not because of a lack of contact with left-wing parties, but because of their own experience within those parties.

Does that just mean we were wrong about revolutionary socialism and organisation? Capitalism is still here, and the problems to which revolutionary socialist organisations were an answer are also still posed. This is not the first time historically that left organisations and working class political representation has been in crisis. As Jules Alford’s article (Some Notes on The British working Class 1900-1914) argues on the ISN web site, that… “There are instructive parallels with the long ‘downturn’ that proceeded the Great Unrest 1910-14 when only one in eight workers held a union card and today when union density in the private sector has fallen so low.” The institutions and consciousness of the class are at a historically low-level and as a result the left is in a critical state and needs to adapt. It is not a pretty picture but we are where we are - or, as Marx put it “the conditions of this new movement must result from the premises now in existence”. Marx, German Ideology (1845). The door to a revival of the left has been opened. It is up to us to decide whether we take the doors off their hinges or re-close them. We have a historical role to play now in the development of a new left movement.

The Scottish Situation

The shift in working class votes from the Labour Party to the SNP has highlighted the continued shift of the Labour Party away from the working class. Recent changes to its internal structures and election processes, and the increasing dominance of a middle class professional elite who control the party, can only further detach working class people from the Labour Party – and we would expect therefore from the notion that Labour can be transformed from within. From its foundation the Labour Party has always pursued the goal of building an electoral machine, with the final result that the party leadership now competes to best serve the interests of neo-liberalism. It is shifting away from being a working class “movement” , with a growing fetishisation of parliament and leadership of civil society functionary bodies. The Labour Party currently sees its aim for working class people as attempting to lift a minority out of the working class (as Joahnn Lamont put it out of the”something for nothing society”) as opposed to building a movement that, in John Maclean’s words, encourages the working class to “ rise with their class not out of their class”.

The SNP electorally has out flanked the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) to the left and over the question of independence the SLP has shot itself in the foot by alignment with the NO Campaign. The STUC’s position was recently stated by General Secretary Grahame Smith rather than engage with the Radical Independence Campaign he argued that “The challenge that matters in Scotland, ‘whether independent or as part of the UK’, will be how wealth is redistributed and that is a question of tax, public services and how we go about improving pay equality in Scotland.” First of all, this is not just a question of tax, services and pay equality but of class struggle – a struggle for which the independence campaign may change the terrain.

The Labour Party & Trade Union Left as Part of the Movement

It would be premature to extrapolate from the current poor state of the Scottish Labour Party the terminal decline of the party as a whole in terms of its relationship to and support within the working class. This leads to the question: should we seek to involve and work with those who view themselves as left-wing activists who exist both within the Labour Party left and/or in the Trade Unions in the discussions over left unity/renewal ?

We would surely have welcomed and indeed tried to win STUC and Scottish Trade Union representation into the Radical independence Campaign so why not encourage those who campaign to regain the Labour Party to a reformist road to socialism, even if we are sceptical of this strategy, into the process of building left unity?

One obvious difficulty would be around the question of winning the unions to a position of breaking the financing of the Labour Party by the trade unions. However, although there exist many such contradictions within the trade union movement - any possibility of raising the levels of trade union membership and increasing its participation within grass roots anti-cuts movements, should certainly be something we would welcome and engage with.

This lays a challange at the feet of those Labour Party and trade union left activists to break with their fears of the radical left and sectarian fears of “the Trots under the bed”. As Sarah Collins stated in (Issue 75) of Scottish Left Review the trade unions must learn to “Dance with the people that brung you. Those on the left are not your enemy”. To date, certain left union officials have been keen to speak on a plethora of “united front” anti-cuts platforms but then never to be seen to positively and actively back such campaigns or encourage their union members to become active in them. The only exceptions are when such activity has been specifically called by their union sector and only if ever raised and discussed within the tight confines of the union offices or branches and with “trusted” reps.

If the trade union left is to play a serious role in the fight against austerity then it must break out of its comfort zone, open its doors to the movement and fight with the anti-cuts movement, not just in words but in day to day action and activity. As John McDonald also states in (Issue 75) of Scottish Left Review “…it is the trade union movement that now needs to step up to the plate to mobilise and support a wider community campaign of resistance and austerity”. However, local community campaigns alone will not be enough to stop the austerity attacks on the working class unless linked to a national co-ordinated campaign which works to bring together both political and industrial action.The trade unions must begin to flex their ‘industrial’ muscle if they are to be viewed by the wider movement as any more than “boardroom” activists. The trade union movement cannot continue to confine itself within the restrictions of anti-trade union laws or wait for the glourious day when some elected Prime Minister miraculously reverses the law . Unite’s setting up of community branches is very welcome, but when Len McLuskey also thinks that Ed Miliband is the political answer to austerity, it does raise the question ; are the community branches a base for recruitment of possible electoral campaigners for Ed Miliband and his brand of austerity lite or a genuine attempt to rebuild fighting unions? It is one thing building branches in the community but quite another to build a union prepared to fight!

The truth remains to be seen in relation to union community branches, but one thing is for sure we cannot afford to go through another 30 years of broken promises from the Labour Party both when it is in power or in opposition neither can we suffer to wait until the “time is right” approach of the trade unions, if we do, we will end up where the Chartists had to begin.

Where next?

We cannot begin to build the left unless we are genuinely prepared to bury many hatchets from the past, for many. This will not be easy for any of us, yet it is essential. Of course, the experiences of the past leave divisions that will not be buried over night. Hence, open political meetings and open discussions on future joint activities must be viewed as a process of rebuilding trust and confidence amongst those who have been active for the last couple of decades and more.

For the International Socialist Network this process of left unity/renewal has the potential to gain pace and growth but only if we assist in creating more open, democratic and less rigid structures which permit those coming into left politics the space to develop new left organisational structures fit for the battles of the 21st century and for regeneration of a new left. This does not mean that we become less ideological but have to become more ideological – in the sense of having a more up-to-date, accurate and fundamental analysis of contemporary capitalism that can guide our struggle.

Questions around the development of theory and its relationship to practice become more crucial, therefore. For too long, the left has been guilty of saying to new activists: “here is our theory and here’s how you will apply it”. Such a dogmatic approach has led on many occasions to wrong practices and ultimately contributed to the failure to retain new activists and grow the left. Hence the type of democratic structure within any new left project must be one which is developed and led from the bottom up. We would rather see 1000 more new grass roots activists fighting for the interests of the class and making mistakes along the way as they cut their political teeth, than a small group thinking they have all the answers.

At the high-point of the Stop the War and anti-capitalist movement in the early 2000s, a left realignment on an electoral basis did occur. In 2003 the left thought it had found the answer with the election of 6 SSP MSP’s and in 2004 Respect in England made important electoral gains. The successes of Rifondazione in Italy soon passed into defeat following party’s compromise with the participation of the Italian state in imperialism – although the current ground being made by Syriza in Greece may provide a more positive example. Just as the organisational formulas of the revolutionary left cannot simply be repeated and replicated, so we should also be cautious about thinking these organisational models, which brought about electoral successes during the aforementioned period, can be repeated as a strategy for helping the left to grow today. Of course a debate on and balance sheet of this period is both welcome and necessary but should not be the central focus and starting point for the future shaping of the left. The relationship between the level of concrete social and political struggles and the electoral process is extremely complex and indirect.

The Potential for Left Unity/renewal

Currently the left in Scotland have two central areas of work, one on the question of independence through the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) and the second through the fight against austerity, via the anti-Bedroom Tax Campaign and other anti-cuts movements, both of which offer an opportunity for the left to work together including those of the left within the trade union movement, the SLP and the SNP. The key to the success of both these Campaigns, will be to ensure that one does not take precedence over the other. We do not wish to predict what the result of the referendum will be nor the resulting impact on Scottish politics, but what we do know is that left unity must be based on going beyond 2014. Therefore it is crucial that we continue to work in other campaigns which involve those not supportive of Scottish Independence.

As Alister Black stated in Issue 20 of Frontline “New generations of activists have no interest in the splits of the past and will be attracted to organisations who are unsectarian and hold socialist unity as a principle. A new electoral list, coalition or party remains necessary to give us the strength to stand up to the neo-liberal onslaught that we will face regardless of the outcome of the referendum.”

At the May Day rally in Edinburgh an activist in the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign stated in conversation that “there are many more people who consider themselves “socialists without a home” than there are with a home”. By this they meant that the current state of existing left organisations and there attitude to one another has disillusioned and prevented activists involved in other campaigns from joining the left.

It is to the activists of a new generation, activists in other campaigns who view themselves as socialists and older activists who are prepared to drop ultra-left sectarianism of the past, that we must listen to.

The ISN in Scotland believes that the potential to build a new left unity movement exists, and currently in Edinburgh roads towards such unity are being slowly but openly and positively discussed. As Marx said “ We have nothing to lose but our chains”.

Allan Armstrong, of the Republican Communist Network, and Editorial Board member of Emancipation & Liberation, examines the renewed shoots of socialist unity in Scotland, and some of the remaining pitfalls and possibilities.

The quest for socialist unity can often seem a bit like The Labour of Sisyphus. This is the ancient Greek myth about pushing a rock up the hill every day, only for it always to roll back down again. Only in that uphill struggle for socialist unity, there has been an added drama, when many are flattened as the ‘rock’ rolls back once more.

a) The problem of celebrity left politics and the socialist sects

So, what problems confront socialists trying to achieve such unity? We only need to examine the record of the Socialist Labour Party (SLP), Socialist Alliance (SA), Respect, Campaign for a New Workers’ Party (CNWP), Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), and the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) to see many of these.

Socialist sects, celebrity left populists, or combinations of both, have created havoc. They have either held back the ascent of the socialist unity ‘rock’, or contributed to its spectacular descent and fragmentation, whenever some upward progress has been achieved.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) or the Socialist Party (SP), controlled the SA, Respect mark I, CNWP and TUSC. Celebrity left populists, Arthur Scargill and George Galloway, made the SLP and Respect mark II their own creatures.

The SSP appeared to be different, though. It had a number of more promising features. However, it eventually split over whether it was to be a party in which all members were considered equal, or whether it was a vehicle for another celebrity left populist – Tommy Sheridan. Celebrities notoriously pursue their own personal interests above all else. They want only adulatory fans, not discerning and questioning equals.

Until the ‘shock, horror’, News of the World revelations, the SSP leadership had strongly promoted Sheridan. They had thought that by promoting a celebrity politician, this would finally help to push that ‘rock’ over the top of the hill.

As a result of ‘Tommygate’, the socialist unity ‘rock’ in Scotland split into two pieces– ‘Continuity’ SSP and Sheridan’s Solidarity. They both ended up rolling back downhill at increasing speeds, knocking into each other on the way, splintering into further fragments. Both can still found at the bottom of the hill today. Each is now preparing to make another ascent, largely oblivious to the lessons of the past.

The SSP leadership has not accounted for its own shortcomings, which contributed to the ‘Tommygate’ fall. It has produced no public balance sheet, and indeed they rejected such a course of action at the 2011 AGM (1). With Solidarity, now all but vanished, they think it is back to business as usual. It is just a case of finding the best issues, and mounting big enough campaigns, to push the SSP ‘rock’ back up that hill again.

The SSP leadership also thinks, that it has finally seen off Solidarity, and found a new helping hand. The SNP leadership has awarded the SSP the official socialist franchise in it’s ‘Yes’ campaign for the 2014 ‘Independence-Lite’ referendum. They think this will soon see them up that hill again.

However, although the Solidarity ‘rock’ has all but disappeared, Sheridan and his fan club (which still includes the SP and the pro-Central Committee wing of the SWP) have now metamorphosed into something else. They have found the anti-‘bedroom tax’ campaign, hoping this will give them a new upward impetus.

Back in the late 1980’s, Scottish Militant Labour (SML) had helped to form the Scottish Anti-Poll Tax Federation (SAPTF). Many local anti-poll tax groups participated in the SAPTF’s campaign of mass defiance. After the defeat of this hated tax, first SML, and then later, the SSP, built on this success. They gained seats in local councils and the Scottish parliament. In the process, they unwittingly launched ‘Tommy’, the celebrity politician.

Hoping for history to repeat itself, Sheridan has now become leader of the Anti-Bedroom Tax Federation (ABTF), with the backing of the SWP and the SP. The idea has been to quickly cobble together a national leadership to pre-empt any more critical voices emerging from newly formed independent minded local groups. These might just question why neither Sheridan, nor the majority of other ABTF office bearers, is directly affected by the tax, and therefore ask - in whose interests is the ABTF being run?

The cynical purpose behind the ABTF is to relaunch Sheridan’s political career. Meanwhile, the ABTF also provides another recruiting opportunity for the SWP and SP. The ABTF national demonstration on June 1st is meant to duplicate the SAPTF’s first Glasgow march in 1989. Only today it is fronted by the politically tarnished ‘Tommy’ and backed by the sectarian SWP, which did not support that earlier march. If the ABTF proves not to be the best vehicle for further career or party-sect advance, then they can move on to something else.

b) The political dawning of new days?

However, there have been growing signs of opposition amongst socialists to these long-standing bad practices. The failings of celebrity politicians have been evident for some time. Nevertheless, they have been given life support, by the activities of the socialist sects.

But many members of these sects have also been experiencing increasing self-doubts. The SP and its Scottish satellite, the SPS, are the much diminished remnants of a once much larger Militant, which has shed Socialist Appeal (still in the Labour Party!), and the International Socialist Movement (ISM) (formed inside the SSP). Furthermore, the SP’s bid, through TUSC, to build up a new Labour Party based on Broad Left trade union officialdom has been dealt a major blow. Recent TUSC supporter, Nick Wrack, of the Independent Socialist Network, has provided an incisive socialist critique (2).

And a growing crisis has also overwhelmed the SWP, after the revelation of its leadership’s blatantly unjust handling of a rape accusation directed against a CC member. This has highlighted the much wider problem of continued male chauvinism and the bureaucratic organizational methods on the Left.

Growing numbers of former and current members of the SSP, Militant/SP, and the SWP, have started to openly question past bad practices. In the process, organisations like the Republican Communist Network (former SSP platform), the International Socialist Group (ISG) and now the International Socialist Network (both coming from the SWP), have been formed. They have become involved, with others, in the first stages of a radical reassessment of the Left’s recent past in Scotland. They have begun discussions about how to achieve principled socialist unity on a higher level than those recent failed projects. Frontline (magazine of the former Scottish Militant/ISM) has also been involved. These are welcome developments.

c) The continued problem of Social Democracy, Left Labourism and Broad Leftism

However, although there are signs that growing numbers of socialists are questioning celebrity politicians, party-sect fronts, the continued sexism and blatant lack of democracy on the Left, other obstacles to principled socialist unity still remain, Foremost amongst these is that deep-seated Scottish legacy of social democracy, claimed by Labour, the SNP, and accepted, in practice, by many claiming to be socialists.

It is not just Tommy and the socialist sects, which have tried to create their own fronts. The STUC and Unite the Union have backed the No2Bedroom Tax Campaign (No2BTC). No2BTC’s somewhat naïve organisers seem to think that bringing the STUC and Unite officials was a positive move, not realising they only come on board to take over. The STUC leadership wants something like its ‘Axe the Tax’ campaign, back in the 1980’s. That represented an earlier attempt to control a growing movement of opposition, and to divert it into electoral support for the Labour Party. It disappeared once a Scottish Labour conference had decided to implement the poll tax.

Playing to form, STUC and Unite officials called off the No2BTCs proposed May 18th demonstration in Glasgow, under pressure from the city’s Labour council. Scottish Labour only wants a campaign which will embarrass the SNP government at Holyrood, not one that mounts the direct action required to take on Cameron and Clegg, and to expose Miliband’s hypocrisy.

The role of the local Unite official in this climb down was revealing. This has just been just one incident in a wider Broad Left offensive promoted by Unite’s General Secretary, Len McCluskey. Unite is the largest union in these islands with over 3 million members. Broad Leftism is designed to derail any moves towards unity on a principled socialist basis, based on independent grassroots working class organisation. Instead, Broad Leftism seeks to divert such challenges into the social democratic schemes of trade union officials and the Labour Party. Above all, control remains in their hands.

Broad Leftism puts its faith in the having the right leaders in place to bring about change. These leaders seek election where they have to, but often get their jobs through appointment. They usually have a strong belief they are far more capable than the rank and file. Therefore they should be suitably rewarded - £122,000 a year plus perks, in McCluskey’s case!

McCluskey is very aware of the continued slippage of support away from Labour, particularly at the grassroots level. This is why he has mounted a campaign to try and win back that support. He gave his union’s backing to Ed Miliband in the Labour leadership election back in 2010. He hoped Miliband would move Labour to the left – in words, if not in deeds. Left social democrat that he is, McCluskey ensured that John McDonnell’s more socialist leadership challenge was killed off. McCluskey arranged for Miliband to be given Unite’s block vote, which secured him the Labour leadership.

However, ungrateful Miliband did not move left. Instead, he began to promote himself as ‘One Nation’ Labour. The only debates at Labour leadership level have been between Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ supporters - or ‘Tory-Lite’ for the middle class (e.g. Harriet Harman and Stephen Twigg); Blue Labour – or ‘UKIP-Lite’ for the working class (e.g. Jon Cruddas and Chuku Umanna); and some unreconstructed Blairites (e.g. Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy).

With the Con-Dem government’s austerity drive taking its toll on Unite’s members, McCluskey hoped that a Labour leadership in opposition could at least make a few more leftist noises. Miliband, however, knows that Unite’s aspiring full-time officials are not going to abandon their future careers prospects. These are best ensured by a future Labour government – any Labour government.

Miliband, following Blair and New Labour, wants big business support, especially from The City. He is an avid British nationalist and upholder of the UK maintaining its imperial interests in alliance with the US state. Miliband clings on to a belief in a nice capitalism - an illusion, Eric Schmidt, Chair of Google, confidently laughed off.

McCluskey may mount some token protest actions, but the last thing he is going to do is let the rank and file call the shots. He might have seen off the old Right officials in his 2010 General Secretary bid, but Jerry Hicks, the Grassroots Left candidate, emerged in second place, something which has obviously rankled McCluskey.

McCluskey has been involved in a series of manoeuvres to contain any challenges from below. He has already showed his penchant for purely token actions. He made sure that Unite was one of the first unions to break away from the ‘unity’ shown on the public sector pensions strike of November 30th, 2011.

McCluskey wants actions confined to publicity seeking events. He certainly has no intention of challenging the anti-trade union laws (supported by both Tories and Labour). Unite officials sometimes try to divert workers’ actions into parliamentary channels – by making rhetorical attacks on Tories and Lib-Dems (or the SNP in Scotland), or lauding the work of Labour members (including Ian Davidson!!!) on Westminster and Holyrood select committees.

The idea is to pull back support back towards Labour, in preparation for the next Westminster General Election. McCluskey did not want to embarrass Labour in 2015, so he decided to stand for re-election as Unite General Secretary, two years before this was necessary. He hoped that he would face no challenge. However, Jerry Hicks opposed him again. Jerry’s considerably increased his vote, in the face of McCluskey’s disgusting red-baiting campaign, somewhat dented the triumphalist ‘coronation’ he had hoped for.

Nevertheless, McCluskey used his re-election to try and assert his influence on the Labour leadership. Behind-the-scenes, he no doubt pointed to the possible threat to Labour support amongst the working class, highlighted by Jerry’s unexpectedly large vote.

Therefore, McCluskey wrote an article in the New Statesman, calling for Miliband to dump such Blairites as Alexander and Murphy from his Shadow Cabinet. This could only move the Labour leadership a nanometer to the Left, but it would publicly demonstrate McCluskey’s influence.

But, as we have seen, Miliband has the measure of McCluskey and Unite officialdom. Miliband thought that his future election chances would be better advanced by appealing to the Right wing press over this unwanted trade union interference. So he very publicly told McCluskey’s exactly where to get off! A bruised McCluskey claimed he had been misquoted!

Rebuffed for now by Miliband, McCluskey still knows that, in the Broad Left game of seeking influence over Labour, he must continue to build up his machine, and hold down the rank and file.

McCluskey supports appointed not elected union officials. In the North Sea, Unite is involved in sweetheart agreements with the oil companies. These benefit the officials not the members, who may not even know they in the union under these agreements. Unite is absorbing yet another union, the Transport and Salaried Staff Association. This is being done, not with the intention of organising wider more effective action, but to increase the union HQ income, and to provide the Unite leadership with even more patronage opportunities. McCluskey has also attempted to get his favoured candidate, Karie Murphy, former Unison official, selected as Labour candidate in Falkirk.

However, in a bid to buy over, or to deceive some of the more credulous some on the Left, McCluskey has become involved in some Unite ‘outreach’. Superficially, the recent Unite Community initiative appears to be an attempt to organise in working class communities beyond the traditional workplaces. Such social unionism is very much to be welcomed.

What happens, though, if any new Unite Community branch activities go beyond what is acceptable to McCluskey and Labour? The fate of Unite’s ‘Justice for Cleaners’ campaign provides a warning. When London migrant cleaning workers in Unite started to take the more decisive action needed to challenge intransigent companies, a union official viciously turned on them. They had to continue their campaign outside Unite. We may have an inkling of Unite Community officials’ future actions, in the climb down over the No2BTC demonstration in Glasgow on May 18th.

d) The Unite Broad Left, the Labour Party and the UK state

It is also significant that the Red Paper Collective (RPC), which consists of what remains of the Labour Left and the old British Communist Party in Scotland, is a vocal backer of McCluskey and his Broad Left politics. RPC supporter, Neil Findlay MSP, is involved in Unite’s campaigns, continually trying to boost Labour in the process. Just as McCluskey has tried to derail any rank and file socialist challenges in Unite with left rhetoric and bureaucratic manoeuvres; so the RPC wants to divert the growing movement for Scottish self-determination into dead-end attempts to bring about reforms through the UK state under a future Labour Westminster government. They must think we have very short memories! (3)

Indeed, in the face of this very real challenge for greater Scottish self-determination, the Scottish Labour Party has been forced to create its own anti-independence campaign, headed by Gordon Brown. This is because trade unions in Scotland have been less than forthcoming in their support for ‘Better Together’ – the Labour/Tory/Lib-Dem coalition, financed by businessman, Ian Taylor, who also provided funds for a Serbian death squad leader.

Trade union officials in Scotland will now be able to back the opposition to greater Scottish self-determination, by saying that it is Labour, not ‘Better Together’ they support. This duplication, purely for the sake of appearances, must be a bit irksome for the British Labour Party, since like the Tories and Lib-Dems, they also support the existing UK state and its Crown Powers, the City of London, Trident, NATO and all its wars, a clampdown on migrants, and are preparing to dismantle universal benefits and end free student fees. Labour is already in coalition with the Tories in six Scottish local councils.

e) The need for socialists to meet up with the new challenges

So, where lies the social basis for a new principled socialist unity? There are growing number of anti-cuts and anti-‘bedroom tax’ groups, actively basing themselves on local communities. In the Lothians we have such examples as East Edinburgh Save Our Services, Greater Leith Against the Cuts, the Midlothian Campaign Against the Cuts.

These include activists who are well aware of the pitfalls of dependence on celebrity politicians, socialist sects and the Labour Party. Whilst these groups are quite prepared to support any public demonstrations organised by others, they know that their current strength lies in retaining their independence. But many participants are also on the look out for others, who want to develop more links on a democratic and fully participatory basis. Principled socialists can help in this process.

We have also seen the first signs of rank and file movement in the trade unions, willing to defy both the anti-trade union laws and trade union bureaucrats. The latter are either tied into social partnerships with the bosses and the state, or limit their actions to what is acceptable to Labour. The sparks’ successful campaign of strike action and direct action, against the bosses’ attempt to tear up their national agreement (BESNA), was inspirational.

Another battle has emerged against the Blacklist. The nature of this will be hotly contested. Unite’s current official ‘Leverage Campaign’ will not deliver a victory. Those Grassroots Left and rank and file Siteworker activists know they have to push beyond the limits imposed by McCluskey and Unite officials, who do not want to embarrass Labour in the lead up to the next election.

Neither do Unite nor UCATT officials want any public exposure their own officials’ earlier collaboration in the employers’ and state’s blacklists. Only a willingness to expose such odious practices can prevent their re-emergence. And, the imaginative use of independent (unofficial) strike and other direct action, in defiance of the anti-trade union laws, as used in the BESNA dispute, will be the only way that the bosses can be forced to back down.

Jerry Hicks, very much the antithesis of the celebrity-seeker, highlighted some vital socialist principles in his recent rank and file bid to become Unite General Secretary. He stood on the principle of taking the average pay of Unite members, and supporting the election of all union officials, as well as backing independent action, and active defiance of the anti-trade union laws.

This contrasts with Len McCluskey, who believes that he should earn nearly five times his average member’s pay, has the right to appoint union officials, and must observe the laws of the state, no matter how they cripple effective union action. But this sums up social democratic politics – the belief in having the right people in place to impose reforms from above, through use of the existing union, Labour Party and state machinery.

We also have the example of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC). This has been one of the most effective campaigns seen for many years – a fact conceded by pro-Zionist apologists for the apartheid Israeli state. The SPSC has not only brought together socialists from different backgrounds, but has involved Muslims, Jews, Christians and secularists. It has also been scrupulous in challenging any anti-Semitism. It has pushed the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against the Israeli state to the centre of Scottish politics. The SPSC has avoided domination by any socialist sect, celebrity politician, or by trade union officialdom.

However, the arena with the biggest potential is the campaign for Scottish self-determination. It is not often that socialists are in the situation, where the very nature of the existing state is brought into question.

Indeed, it is very clear that the SNP leadership wants to downplay this at all costs. Their ‘Independence-Lite’ proposals are designed only to bring about the changes that would benefit a wannabe Scottish ruling class. They want a junior managerial buy-out of the Scottish component of the UK state, before continuing with business as usual with British Imperial Ltd and the US Global Mega-Corp.

Socialists have the chance to put forward the case for the genuine Scottish self-determination, denied whilst Scotland still remains in the UK under the Crown Powers, the austerity stranglehold imposed by the City of London, and continuing involvement in imperial wars ordered by the British High Command and NATO.

The Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) was initiated by the ISG, but now involves considerably wider forces (4). It has become the arena in which such issues can be raised and linked to the immediate perspective of creating a democratic, secular and social republic. For this to become a reality, RIC needs to become the most effective political voice for all those campaigns mentioned earlier.

Old challenges and new opportunities mean that socialists do need to become united around firm principles. The political dead-ends offered by socialist sects, celebrity left politicians, trade union bureaucrats, the Labour Party and SNP, need to be opposed. There is no social democratic road to socialism, just a return to more rapacious forms of capitalism, as the recent experiences of Papandreou in Greece, Zapatero in Spain, Blair and Brown in the UK, Sigurdottir in Iceland, and the current experiences of Gilmore in Ireland, Berzani and Letta in Italy show, with Hollande in France and Thorning-Schmidt in Denmark, following the same path.

The required socialist principles could be summed up as:-

i) Countering the multi-facetted crisis which capitalism is currently facing, through the active promotion of a socialist alternative (which means seriously beginning to develop a socialism fit for the 21st century).
ii) Opposing the bureaucratic unionism and imperialism of the UK state and its British Left apologists, and the wannabe Scottish ruling class separatism of the SNP within the existing global corporate order, by championing socialist republican ‘internationalism from below’.
iii) Actively dealing with the rampant sexism still found on the Left, and developing new social relationships, which provide emancipation for all.
iv) Ending the sectarian and bureaucratic practices, which have caused so much havoc on the Left, by the development of new democratic and genuinely comradely forms of association.

And hey, why push a socialist unity ‘rock’ up a capitalist ‘hill’ in the first place? We should be creating a far more effective instrument to tunnel into capitalism’s foundations, meet up with others, and take us on to that global commune.

Notes

(1) republicancommunist.org/blog/2011/12/23/beyond-the-ssp-and-solidarity-forgive-and-forget-or-listen-learn-and-then-move-on/
(2) http://www.independentsocialistnetwork.org/?p=1938
(3) http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2012/10/08/scottish-self-determination- and-the-actually-existing-labour-movement-2/
(4) http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2012/12/20/radisson-blu-or-post-radisson-red/