Let us be clear about one thing. The ongoing coup in Scottish Labour is about the future, not only of the Scottish Labour Party, but the Labour Party as a whole. The recent photograph of Ian Murray rehearsing for the announcement of the launch of the ‘Independent Group’ of MPs tells us all we need to know about the real intentions of Labour’s centrists.
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Not so long after pushing for the SNP Cabinet Secretary for Education, John Swinney, to do a u-turn (which he then did at breakneck speed) on the exam results fiasco (only clinging on to his post thanks to his enablers in the Scottish Greens), Richard Leonard has also been successful in getting a National Care Service on the agenda in Scotland and has forced the Holyrood administration to include plans to explore this in their programme for Government.
Fight for a Scottish Parliament that promotes working class interests by Pauline Bryan, Labour Peer21/8/2020 I have been involved in developing the case for progressive federalism for nearly 10 years when it became clear there would be a referendum on independence. The Red Paper Collective was established by bringing together trade unionists with activists and academics to create a response. It didn’t start from a commitment to federalism. But having rejected everything else it was the obvious answer. It became even more obvious in 2016 after the referendum on membership of the EU Veteran Scottish Football Commentator Archie MacPherson and Labour Peer Lord Foulkes, who were both last week calling publicly for the head of Scottish Labour Leader Richard Leonard MSP, really should take a good look at themselves.
Mr. MacPherson, a ‘proud Labour supporter’, seems to think that a Westminster MP (the only Scottish Labour MP in Westminster) should be leader of the Scottish Labour Party. I mean no disrespect to Ian Murray MP but does Archie really think that the SNP and other opponents wouldn’t have a field day if we had the leader of the Party not in the Scottish Parliament but based at Westminster instead? How would that help us in Scotland? The SNP would run and run with this and who would blame them? It’s astonishing that not only does Mr. MacPherson want ANOTHER leadership change – because we haven’t had enough of those, eh? - but he also seems to conveniently forget that we lost far more MPs under Jim Murphy MP (when we also were reduced to one MP) and that it was under the leadership of Kezia Dugdale MSP (whom I voted for against Ken MacIntosh MSP) that we fell to third place in Holyrood. Lord Foulkes, on the other hand, seems eager to ‘install’ Jackie Baillie MSP as leader, so should we just completely ignore the members of the Scottish Labour Party who voted Richard Leonard in and have someone appointed undemocratically? Jackie Baillie is an excellent MSP but it is for her to decide if she wants to put herself forward for the leadership and if she does then it must be by the members that she is elected. Contrary to what has been implied, Richard Leonard is far from invisible in Scottish Politics. Indeed, to cut through as much as he has done in this strange world of SNP ‘daily updates’ and extreme media deference toward the Supreme Leader, sorry First Minister, would normally be applauded for a ‘third party’ leader. There will be those who argue over Richard’s leadership but it was not under Richard that we became the third party in Holyrood, a position that in itself profoundly limits influence and exposure no matter who is leading. Whilst Nicola Sturgeon and Jackson Carlaw squabble over their different forms of regressive nationalism, Richard Leonard is fighting for a National Care Service, for jobs, for the rights of workers, for the NHS, for our public services and for action on poverty. A Real Labour voice with Real Labour values. It’s not Richard Leonard that will push Scottish Labour towards irrelevance, it’s these ‘high profile’ Labour men who call for a Leadership change every time they don’t get their way and therefore play right into the hands of the opposition. Kevin McGregor was Scottish Labour's 2019 General Election Candidate for Kilmarnock and Loudoun The tertiary sector in Scotland, like much of Scotland’s service sector has gone into crisis as a consequence of the Covid 19 outbreak. A Scottish Funding Council ( SFC) paper published in April showed that universities face operating deficits of between £383 million and £651 million in academic year 2020-21 alone. The SFC also said that the college sector faces significant challenges as a result of loss in income and increased costs. This month, April 2020, sees the 200th anniversary of the ‘Radical War’ of 1820, where workers, led mainly by the weavers, took part in a week of strikes and unrest as part of a campaign for democratic reform of the United Kingdom. The West of Scotland and north of England featured heavily in the action and three men, John Baird, Andrew Hardie and James Wilson, were executed for treason as a consequence of their actions in support of the insurrection. One of the most striking things about the centre of Brussels, one of the two beating hearts of European corporate capitalism, is that buildings the eager tourist might mistake as churches are in fact temples to commerce. A stroll along the Grand Place (see above) will provide plenty of examples. It is probably fitting then that it was in Brussels, Boris Johnson, high representative of finance capital came to sign his divorce papers with Michel Barnier the even higher representative of the Franco-German agri-manufacturing corporate sector.
Labour Party commentators, however, both left and right have been pointing out that there is nothing to celebrate in this new arrangement because it has no commitment to important Labour concerns on workers’ rights. May’s Withdrawal Agreement had included an article on “non-regression of labour and social standards”, which guaranteed fundamental rights at work, occupational health and safety, fair working conditions and employment standards”. The text said that the EU and UK would “…ensure that the level of protection provided for by law, regulations and practices is not reduced below the level provided by the common standards applicable within the Union and the United Kingdom”. This has been expunged from the new text and a diluted commitment added to the political declaration. Much of the rest of Johnson’s deal is depressingly similar to the worst aspects of May’s. In May’s political declaration under Economic Partnership we are told that the economic partnership would be “underpinned by provisions ensuring a level playing field for open and fair competition” and in section xiv of that document we were told that this would cover “state aid, competition … building on the level playing field arrangements provided for in the Withdrawal Agreement…” That has remained the same in Boris Johnson’s version. In other words, Johnson is committing to implementing the very rules that might inhibit nationalisation of rail and mail and the creation of a national investment bank. What has changed in Johnson’s deal is that the notorious backstop designed to ensure frictionless movement of goods over the Irish border has gone. In the words of the legal advice offered to the Prime Minister May by the Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox, the consequences of the backstop were as follows: “…the current drafting of the protocol… does not provide for a mechanism that is likely to enable the UK lawfully to exit the UK wide customs union without a subsequent agreement. This remains the case even if parties are still negotiating many years later, and even if the parties believe that talks have broken down and there is no prospect of a future relationship.” This was no accidental consequence of a desire to address the ‘special status’ of Northern Ireland on the part of EU negotiators: in the book Blind Man’s Brexit by Desmet and Stourton we are treated to this insight into Michel Barnier’s motivation in relation to the ‘Backstop’. Barnier admits in what the authors describe as a ‘startling revelation’ but was fairly obvious to most of us sceptical of EU intentions: “My strategy was to use Ireland if I my say - and here he broke into French – pour emmener vers l’union douanière ( to bring them towards a customs union).” Boris Johnson has succeeded in escaping this trap by replacing the backstop with a commitment that Northern Ireland will retain substantial regulatory alignment with the EU after Brexit. This, and not the backstop will now be permanent. A key difference between May’s and Johnson’s deal is not only the legal texts, but political intentions. Theresa May had committed the government to maintaining the current level of European Union workers’ rights, partly in an effort to win Labour MPs’ support for her deal. David Frost, Johnson’s replacement for Olly Robbins as chief UK EU negotiator, wants to scrap May’s commitment to protect British workers’ rights. He is on record as seeing Brexit as an opportunity to escape the EU’s “heavy labour market regulation” according to The Independent. In light of this it would be impossible for anyone on the left to support Boris Johnson’s deal. It may be the arrogance he displayed in his excessive show of bonhomie with his fellow EU high priests of corporate capital at the end of the EU negotiations may yet return like a boomerang to knock him of his altar. The Scottish Labour Party leadership may, in time, find that John McDonnell did them a favour when he said Labour would allow a second referendum on Scottish independence, if, after sufficient time, the Scottish people were not persuaded that Scotland was flourishing under a Labour government. It is hardly surprising that they will not be thanking the Shadow Chancellor right now. His comments provoked a seemingly endless torrent of bad press as a result of the reckless and self-indulgent comments by Ian Murray MP and his gaggle of political familiars in the Scottish Labour parliamentary group. We were treated to insincere pleas of loyalty to Richard Leonard while the usual poisonous invocations drawn from the great cauldron of right wing potions were cackled in the eager ears of the harbingers of doom for socialism, otherwise known as the Scottish media. There are three key toxins in the right wing recipe. With nothing to say on the core economic elements of Scottish Labour’s manifesto, the Labour right in Scotland have focussed on accusing Labour’s leadership being soft on anti- Semitism, and not enthusiastic enough about the EU. In this they have mimicked their English counterparts. The ingredient that gives it a distinctly Scottish flavour is Unionism. According to Scottish Labour’s right, if you are not out banging the drum (allusion intended) for a Labour Party that is prepared to defend the Union at all costs, even if, as in 2014, that means allying with the class enemy, then you are not to be trusted. If you think that the unalloyed support for the constitutional status quo that this implies is a long way off from a transformational programme that irreversibly shifts power and wealth in favour of the few, as both John McDonnell and Richard Leonard fervently believe, then you are right. For economic transformation cannot be delivered on the back of an undemocratic and highly centralised state designed to sustain the unequal society we live in - unequal on the basis of class which is reflected in the inequality of the geographical distribution of power and wealth to the regions and nations of the UK. There are no doubt many Scots who voted for independence who would be open to a federal UK that seeks to address this democratic deficit, if Scottish Labour could only get them to listen. To do that two thing need to happen. Scottish Labour has to show that it is open to the possibility of changing the constitution in a radical way, away from a unionist monolith. That is what John McDonnell tried to do. The Better Together campaign, combined with a slow burning disgust with Labour as the party of war, privatisation and privilege inured many ‘traditional’ Labour voters and perhaps even more, new, young voters to the possibility of voting Labour. It would have seemed like a betrayal to consider such a thing. John McDonnell gave those voters permission to think about it. Since McDonnell’s comments, independence supporters could vote Labour at General election with confidence that they are not blocking the route to a second referendum. Labour certainly needs the votes of those who voted for independence to consider voting for Labour at a General Election. Leaving aside the poor European Election results where Scottish Labour fell to 5th place with just over 9% of the vote, polling evidence by Electoral Calculus since 2017 suggests Scottish Labour’s average polling is just under 25%, not enough to hold the seats they won in 2017. And if Labour fail to win a Westminster snap election that seems increasingly likely to be called, then Scottish Labour’s prospects in the Scottish Parliamentary elections of 2021 are bleak indeed. If Scottish Labour wants to make more permanent inroads into the anti-unionist vote, especially the working class vote, it is all the more important that it makes a serious offer on the constitution, along with the powerful programme for economic transformation based the Labour’s plans for a green industrial revolution that would create 50,000 good, sustainable jobs in Scotland. Those of us supporting a federal solution are therefore working hard to get the following motion debated and agreed at the Labour Party conference in September. Please give it all the support you can: “This conference believes that to secure a politics for the many we need an overhaul of our broken political system. The UK’s undemocratic and highly centralised constitution is stacked against working people. Long-lasting change is needed to ensure sustainable economic and social justice for the whole of the country. The majority of voters want to see politics overhauled to work in the interests of the many . Corporate Lobbyists, concentrated media interests and unelected elites have too much hold over the state. If power continues to be hoarded by an unelected elite we cannot advance the goals of a radical Labour government to deliver vital social and economic change across the UK. 200 years after the Peterloo massacre we must carry on that unfinished struggle today. This conference agrees that:
Well who would have believed it: in the United States we have an overtly racist multi-millionaire president who holds office partly because sections of the working class believed him when he said he was anti-establishment. Not to be outdone, in the UK an old Etonian who has made xenophobic and anti-working class utterances is now prime minister and don’t doubt it, if Boris manages to present himself as the saviour of Brexit, displacing, or in alliance with that merchant banker, in both senses of the term, Nigel Farage, then there is every reason to believe that he could win the next General Election, and continue as Prime Minister. Unless we stop him. What we need, facing the growth of the might of international corporate capital that the populist right is representing, is a genuine progressive alliance to defend and advance working class interests. By ‘progressive’ I mean an alliance of forces likely to take us closer to a form of socialism that recognises the role of the state in achieving social justice; an alliance that includes the unions, environmental activists, liberation groups and youth and student movements. I think it is fair to say that the Party most likely to deliver a progressive Britain in the sense I used it is the Corbyn Labour Party. But what the EU elections reveal is that right across the UK there was and remains a profound split in the very forces that are needed to build that alliance; no doubt contributing to the exceptionally poor performance of the Labour Party. It is worth remembering what Labour’s position was when it went into the EU elections. The Labour party campaigned to honour the result of the 2016 referendum. Labour also wanted to pursue an alternative plan for Brexit, based on a customs union with a UK say on the rules. And Labour wanted alignment with the single market, a guarantee that Britain would match EU workers' rights standards, and the protection of peace in Northern Ireland. It was only on the basis that it couldn’t win support for its alternative plan, or if the government tried to leave the EU with No Deal and it couldn’t secure a general election Labour supported a second referendum. Of the other parties that might be considered to have members looking to radical change in Scotland, the SNP and Greens both took uncomplicated positions in support of remaining in the EU and for a second referendum. So how did our potential progressive alliance do in the elections. Many traditional Labour voters especially in the North of England and midlands voted for the Brexit Party, as did many, mainly working-class supporters of the SNP in Scotland. The Trade Unions mostly advocated a vote for Labour, even although they varied in their enthusiasm for Labour’s position. Nevertheless, many union members voted for the Brexit party. On the other side of the equation, there were Labour voters who voted for the Lib Dems or the SNP in order to register their support for remaining in the EU. As did many middle class supporters of radical causes. There is certainly evidence, according to Professor John Curtice, that some Remainers who previously voted no to independence are now considering voting for independence as the best way of securing membership of the EU. But that is not the end the splits and divisions in progressive forces. There are those on the left of politics, some of them in leading positions in the Labour Party, who believe that the EU is indeed an impediment to progressive politics but believe we can change it. They want to remain in and reform the EU. So, can we sort this mess out and get some clarity for the way forward for the working class and progressive movement. It is not even the nature of the EU that is the source of the main disagreement between our potential alliance. For example, who wrote this: “The EU is effectively a regional arm of the globalisation project. Its unswerving adherence to liberal markets, deregulation and privatisation is to the detriment of the interests of working people throughout Europe…The EU is a bureaucratic, largely undemocratic organisation with a largely powerless parliament. As presently constituted, it cannot and will not serve the people of Europe” It was John McDonnell in Another World is Possible, 2007. John believes in remain and reform. Let us ask two questions: is John right to be so critical of the EU? If he is, is a remain and reform position feasible? What will happen if we remain in the EU. Can Labour deliver a radical programme. The former British Airways chief executive Keith Williams, who is leading the Government-commissioned Rail Review has suggested the possible return of a body similar to the Strategic Rail Authority, which existed from 2001 to 2005. But the Shadow Labour transport secretary Andy McDonald dismissed that suggestion. "Instead, we should bring the track and train together in a single company in public ownership but, critically, at arm's length from Government and removed from Government interference and micromanagement." But how can we do that if, as we would be, we are obliged to accept the EU’s Fourth Railway Package? This package, which has to be in place by 2020 includes opening up domestic passenger services to on-rail competition in all member states – exactly as we now have in the UK except it will be right across the EU. Or what about Labour’s manifesto pledge to “Regain control of energy supply networks through the alteration of operator license conditions, and transition to a publicly owned, decentralised energy system. And “Reiterates pledge to reverse the privatisation of Royal Mail at the earliest opportunity.” Under Article 106, of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European union (TFEU) the EU prohibits public monopolies exercising exclusive rights where this violates EU competition rules. Or what about state aid to industry. At Bifab 500 jobs are at risk because EDF want to give a contract to a company in Indonesia. Scottish Labour calls for procurement to be used to save the jobs and the SNP government says it can’t. And so does the British government in response to demands by the Labour Party that 5000 jobs at the Roislin facility in Midlothian should be saved by nationalising the plant. This is because Article 87 (1) of the Treaty, tells us that “any aid granted by a Member State or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings …Therefore, procurement … may be prohibited if they qualify as State aid.” The argument John McDonnell would no doubt come back with is that we can reform the rules of the EU by winning support from the left across the whole of the EU. There are two problems with this. The first is political. The Left, especially the left as we have described it – the progressive left – is very much in a minority in the EU. The socialist group, and the word ‘socialist’ here is used very loosely, has 154 MEPs of the 751 seats, and the United Left and Green Nordic Left 41. Together they comprise just over a quarter of the seats. In any case it is with the individual nation states that power lies in relation to the treaties through the Council and Commission and it is currently very difficult to identify a single, serious left wing government in power in the EU, never mind one committed to radically reforming the EU. I exclude Portugal, although perhaps it is unfair to write off the likely coalition between Spain’s PSOE and Podemos who could be running Spain soon. However, even if the Left were in a majority in the Council and Commssion, which is not going to happen any time soon, the second problem is that the EU is designed to be resistant to radical change. The legal basis and political perspective of the EU is enshrined in the treaties on which the EU is founded. The most important of these are the Maastricht Treaty, which hard wired a neoliberal perspective into its operations, (eg debt and deficit proposals) and the Lisbon Treaty, which functions like a constitution. These treaties would have to be changed in order to effect any fundamental transformation of the EU. So how do we change them. There is a tortuous 8 stage process which not only means that all of the member states have to agree with the final text, but even to have a change discussed at least half of the member states, 14 or have to be in agreement. Taken together with the political make-up of the EU, this makes the chances of significant change close to zero. I want to finish on this point, however. It may well be that to focus on remaining and reforming or as in Labour’s election position, focussing on a new agreement with the EU is utterly irrelevant. The EU appear to be refusing to budge on the deal they offered Theresa May. A deal which will not be accepted. I think it is now clear from what Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have been saying, the Tory Party believes that without achieving Brexit it is bound for the dust bin of history. The vast bulk of the Tory Party is therefore hell bent on Brexit – deal or no deal - and may well achieve it. If that is the case, then surely what we should actually be focussing on, and fighting for, is the kind of Britain that is going to emerge from that Brexit. How do we ensure workers’ rights, acceptable levels of pay, appropriate standards in food and goods, proper services and more importantly keeping control of Health and other services? This, I believe is where the movement must turn its attention. Away from parliaments, although they cannot be ignored, and back towards forming the progressive alliance we talked of, but this time we must build in the abandoned schemes of Glasgow and the betrayed workplaces of Fife and the neglected streets of Dundee. That is the way to get Labour back into power, not the echo chambers of Westminster and Holyrood. |
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