GREGOR Gall’s piece in The National on July 22 seeking to discuss how the case for independence can best be presented either simply as independence alone or as a campaign for wider change neatly illustrates the danger discussing theory and ignoring practice.
The reality is that all political issues arise and are discussed in the wider context of real-life events and these events in turn will inevitably play a major part in shaping attitudes to independence.
The idea that we simply park all discussion on issues such as wages, workers rights, the rapidly escalating climate crisis, NHS, nuclear weapons, housing and so forth will simply not survive contact with reality.
Just in the past few days, the soaring heatwave has spotlighted the reality of the rapidly escalating climate crisis and the urgent need for action now while the two prospective PMs compete for votes among a handful of Tory members in a battle for Thatcher’s crown.
Meanwhile, under the pressure of a mushrooming cost of living crisis, tens of thousands of workers are saying “enough” and taking action on pay and jobs against bosses who pay themselves fat pay cheques, bonuses and inflate profits.
Calls for immediate tax cuts and that old Tory favourite, a bonfire of regulations and promises of economic growth, simply underline the fact that both Truss and Sunak are operating in a universe far, far away from daily reality.
As the then Tory PM Harold Macmillan warned, the most dangerous thing in politics is “events, dear boy, events” – and this will be true of any independence campaign. It will not be insulated from the world around it.
In September, a Thatcherite will get the keys to 10 Downing Street, and the most likely winner, the ghastly Liz Truss, has as her economic guru a far-right free marketeer and former Thatcher adviser Patrick Minford.
We don’t need to guess the outcome of a Truss-led, Minford-informed government -- we’ve seen the result last time around under Thatcher with the slaughter of jobs in steel, coal, cars and manufacturing, sacking tens of thousands and offering casual zero hours jobs or the dole. Many of the communities blighted by what was then termed as “sado-monetarism” bear the scars to this day.
Amid the spin, the reality of the Tory small state, slashed tax, economic growth offer not only endangers jobs and living standards, but also flies in the face of the urgent need for action on the climate peril.
This is bad enough, but within weeks of the September Tory coronation, the US mid-term elections are likely to mark gains for the Trumpite Republicans reinforcing the hold of right-wing extremism on western politics.
All amid a war in which one combatant holds nuclear weapons.
In this chilling domestic and international scene, far from taking the advice of the Unionists to stick with the UK, it is past time to back independence and in so doing open the prospect for a people and planet over profit Scotland.
The resistance and energy of workers taking action on jobs and pay not only deserves full support but needs to be built into a wider movement to break with the relentless drive for more and more planet-trashing production and ever-bloated profit.
Only a decisive break with the capitalist market which is at the root of today’s cost of living and climate crisis can provide the changes urgently needed if people and planet are to survive and thrive.
The need to break with the uncritical idea that growth which aims simply at producing endless commodities for sale – whatever the impact on both people and planet – as an answer as currently supported by most major parties is urgent.
Such an approach described as a Socialist Green New Deal based on public ownership of key resources and green based re-industrialisation has been set out in the SSP book Socialist Change, Not Climate Change – Poverty, Pollution and Working Class Solutions.
It is our case that such a political approach which puts people’s priorities at the centre of politics must form part of any campaign to win independence, break with Westminster and open a road to a Socialist Scotland.
Such politics cannot and will not be parked in the fight for independence and in offering a coherent vision of what it can achieve.
