ScottishLeft Review Issue 120 November/December 2020 - £2.00 'best re(a)d' 'best

1 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Standing up for Scotland’s teachers, lecturers and associated professionals

As Scotland’s largest teaching union, representing more than 80% of the profession in Scotland, the To find out EIS is always standing up for Scotland’s teachers, lecturers and associated professionals. more about the work of the EIS, With an unparalleled network of establishment-level or to join, visit: Reps, local associations and full-time officers across Scotland, the EIS can offer an unrivalled level of www.eis.org.uk support and advice to its members. 2 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 feedback

comment Living la vida loca lockdown oris Johnson, for his Tory the Labour right argues, that this is the asks searching questions of all sides government, proclaims how patriotic path to power, then something on the union-independence divide. ‘incredibly generous’ it is being has come badly unstuck. Maybe The pamphlet can be bought from the B ferocious attacks on a Tory toff PM Scottish Left Review to those affected by the impact of the website - https:// lockdown restrictions. Not only is this a who believes his own bombast would www.scottishleftreview.scot/ barefaced lie – with the added pizzazz resonate a lot more allied to advocating that you’d think it was his own (and huge tax increases on the super-rich for STOP PRESS: As we go to print, Jeremy Corbyn has not taxpayers’) money being ‘given’ the benefit of the poor. reviewsbeen suspended from the Labour Party. out – but everything has been granted As we go to press, we do not know how The reason given was Corbyn’s state- so grudgingly, with limited concessions Brexit and the US presidential election having to be wrung out of the Tories. ment that the problem of anti-Semitism will play out on these matters. But they In the last issue, we characterised the in Labour has been ‘dramatically over- furlough scheme as a Boots’ ‘meal are unlikely to ease the Tories’ travails stated for political reasons’, an obser- deal’ – cheap but not very cheerful for or Labour’s lethargy. As is often heard vation shared by the SLR. It is a grave those put on it because they ordinarily in these times and in this context, it’s attempt to restrict the right of reply and lost 20% of their wages. The ending of not ‘rocket science’ to understand open debate. This spurious charge con- that scheme on 31 October and the why support for the SNP Scottish stitutes a continuing declaration of war rolling out of a more sectorally based Government and for independence against the left as was predicted in the short-time working scheme from 1 are at all-time highs. Though Sturgeon last issue of our magazine (see https:// November is financially even worse for may be savaged by the ‘Save oor www.scottishleftreview.scot/analysing- those covered by it – and employers swally’ brigade, her government’s real the-contours-of-the-one-of-the-most- contribute even less to it than before ‘missteps’ can be found elsewhere – successful-political-campaign-of-recent- they did in the previous scheme. like allowing universities to re-open years/). We will fully cover the issues in our next issue. Add to this, the issues of lack of free halls of residence and conduct face- school meals in holiday times, ludicrous to-face teaching in plans for retraining those whose jobs order to protect their are now deemed ‘unsustainable’ (at the revenue streams or same time as defunding Union Learning) subcontracting out the and continuing but groundless bombast test and trace service Join the struggle to get rid about world-beating test, track and to the private sector. trace capacity and it’s not hard to see As Scottish Labour of nuclear weapons from why more and more people – even in continues to dither in the Tory ‘red wall’ areas – are coming the electoral doldrums, Scotland and our world. to see Johnson and his ilk as super- the Scottish Greens have spreaders of so much misery. This is, made a pitch for many Join Scottish CND today. indeed, la vida loca – the crazy life. of Scottish Labour’s Labour under Starmer has maintained remaining traditional its overall neck-and-neck position in working class voters by For more details about the polls with the Tories. But, despite endorsing proposals Starmer’s polished performances, not which are found in the joining Scotland’s largest only is there a lack of righteous anger STUC’s Peoples’ Recovery peace movement in his delivery but Labour should also report – see Roz Foyer’s be away ahead in the polls. After the lead article in this issue. killing of the Corbyn leadership, Starmer organisation was presented as the acceptable and In these circumstances, necessary face of an electable Labour. all those on the left will E mail - He’s certainly delivered on that on a benefit from reading the host of fronts, from abstaining on the Jimmy Reid Foundation [email protected] likes of the Tories’ Overseas Operations, commissioned and ‘SpyCops’ (The Covert Human pamphlet by Professor or phone 0141 357 1529 Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct)) James Mitchell of the Bills – to preventing criticism of Israel. University of Edinburgh. These all seem to do with proving that Called ‘The Scottish Labour is patriotic. If it is the case, as Question revisited’, he 3 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 The People’s Recovery: A different track for Scotland’s economy Roz Foyer introduces the Scottish Trades Union Congress’s response to the COVID calamity e face the biggest economic democratic public ownership. While ● Implement an immediate £2 pay crisis in living memory. The the Scottish Government’s Programme rise for all key workers and raise the Wimmediate cause may have for Government offers the potential national minimum wage to £10 an been Covid-19, but the virus drew its for fundamental reform in care and the hour. strength from a generation of injustices. introduction of a National Care Service, ● Introduce sectoral collective Coronavirus may not technically on topics such as rent controls, wealth bargaining agreements in childcare, discriminate on class lines – but its effects taxes, public ownership, collective social care, hospitality and tourism. are clearly exacerbated by inequalities bargaining, and state support being ● Only provide government funds – in income, wealth and power. When conditional on fair work practices, it has through procurement, contracting and we speak of recovery, we do not mean little or nothing to say. commissioning – to employers that reverting to 2019. We mean recovering, Ahead of the 2021 Scottish elections, recognise unions in their workplace for working class people, the income, The People’s Recovery: A Different Track and apply union negotiated rates wealth and sense of collective purpose for Scotland’s Economy combines short- of pay. Place effective voice at the stolen from them by decades of political term measures to rebuild our economy heart of corporate governance and bias towards the rich and powerful. with medium and longer-term measures encourage sustainable and ethical This is where we take issue with the to create a democratic and green business models. Scottish Government’s response. For all economy and a society in which workers the welcome rhetoric of government ● Establish regional and sectoral forums and their families have fair work, decent intervention, we must also abolish the to provide economic information to housing and a proper safety net. It workers, trade unions and citizens built-up conditions that made this crisis calls for a fundamental rethink on the to enable them to organise workers so virulent in the first place. purposes of growth and the introduction and engage in local economic Mass privatisations, short-term of a number of urgent measures. development. investment and dominance of Roz Foyer is the general secretary of the multinationals placed workers in a Green recovery Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC). position of weakness exacerbated by A Just Transition to a low carbon The full report can be found at http:// attacks on unions. This has led to the economy remains a slogan rather than www.stuc.org.uk/files/Policy/Research- growth of precarious work through bogus a reality. Markets, corporate slogans papers/peoples-recovery-full.pdf self-employment, zero hours contracts and individual behaviour change are no means to achieve either social or and unwanted part-time working. Nearly Industrial democracy and fair work environmental justice. The Scottish 50 years after the Equal Pay Act, the We need to make the Scottish Government has adopted the language gender pay gap remains while workplace Government’s Fair Work policy a of a Green New Deal but not the reality injustice is a daily fact for BAME and reality and give meaning to its laudable of it as it promotes ‘market-ready disabled workers, and both groups have aspirations. With the pandemic having projects’ by offering ‘strong commercial suffered disproportionately from the already radically altered work patterns, returns’ to private capital. A just, green coronavirus crisis. the guiding principle should be to give future can only be built on public workers greater control of their own Alongside this, we have lost the power investment, democratic ownership, labour and their own data. We need to guarantee basic rights such as good and a strong domestic supply chain, a four-day week with no loss of pay, quality affordable housing, a living beginning with energy and transport. All so that rising productivity enables full income for the sick or unemployed, and this means we need to: employment and greater leisure. We a dignified care system for young and old should regulate home working so that ● Fund an emergency green alike. According to data from the Sunday it becomes a system of greater freedom infrastructure stimulus to support Times Rich List (May 2020) and the ONS rather than one of employer control, Scotland’s economic recovery, Wealth and Assets Survey (January 2020), cost-cutting and surveillance. Central to including a comprehensive housing this has led to Scotland’s two richest building and deep-retrofit programme this should be the concept of industrial families now having as much wealth as to drastically reduce building democracy and a fairer distribution of the poorest 20% of the population. emissions and tackle fuel poverty and the costs and benefits of work. Strategies support public transport while usage The private sector has shown itself to eliminate poverty must address the recovers. Invest in local authority woefully inadequate to meet the workplace conditions that produce low led public works programmes and challenge of the crisis and there is no pay. All this means we need to: apprenticeships to provide meaningful prospect of a green recovery without ● Devolve employment law, remove employment opportunities to support massive public sector intervention. curbs on union freedom and give right and upskill young workers in new jobs. But this public sector intervention of access to unions to all workplaces. ● Require local content in all green must come with conditions. In return Strengthen employment rights and energy leases and planning consents, for financial support, employers make them legally enforceable from shortening supply chains and providing must provide fair work and recognise day one in order to end precarious manufacturing jobs in Scotland. unions. In areas such as health, care, work in all its forms, including through ● Establish a publicly owned energy education, energy and housing, we zero-hours contracts, umbrella company and publicly owned need to rebuild public services and contracts and bogus self-employment. construction and infrastructure 4 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 company to drive forward green consensus has moved towards job Responsibilities have been passed down energy development and strategic guarantees, infrastructure projects to private individuals and private firms. infrastructure while supporting high and support schemes for businesses. The results are growing homelessness, health quality employment. However, this will not be enough to put exorbitant rents and a generation of Democratic public ownership and our economy back to normal. All this younger people forced to live with means we need to: parents into their thirties. All this means community wealth building we need to: Decades of political sloganeering ● Rebuild tax: Introduce wealth and established the principle of ‘private progressive income taxes to address ● Provide a Minimum Income good, public bad’. Yet the banking and economic inequality. Guarantee for all. Raise the weekly coronavirus crises served to illustrate ● Rebuild borrowing capacity: Devolve level of statutory sick pay to £320 that businesses are substantially borrowing powers to the Scottish a week and removing the lower dependent on public investment. Yet, Parliament to allow it to pursue earnings limit, end benefit sanctions too often, state intervention has been expansionary economic policies and and the benefit cap, replace the Work bailouts for shareholders paid for by cuts restructure our economy. Capability Assessment with NHS to public services. But public ownership ● Rebuild investment: Enable the medical assessments, and end the has a positive, entrepreneurial role. Scottish National Investment Bank to DWP’s target-based culture and the High-tech, innovative products rarely invest in a more socially just, resilient outsourcing of contracts to the private emerge without massive public subsidy. and low-carbon economy, via state sector. Enshrine in law a right to access This means addressing the gaps in holding companies and public sector healthy, affordable and nutritious food companies such as Lothian Buses. accountability that have allowed and properly fund public services to Reverse the cuts in local authority privatised firms to ignore democratic do this. funding and offer adebt amnesty for norms. And it means ensuring that Scottish councils as part of a package ● Redistribute working hours across the public ownership increases the of measures aimed at easing the economy through a 4-day week with autonomy and power of workers. There financial crisis facing Scotland’s local no loss of pay. Provide opportunities have been welcome moves to public authorities. for young people and those out of ownership in Scotland, but these remain work, paid at the real living wage or Equality for all small scale and focused on bailing union bargained rate for the job by The effects of coronavirus do out failing enterprises. A strategic augmenting Job Guarantee schemes discriminate against certain groups, be approach to address climate change with local authority led public works they BAME people, women, disabled and unemployment would involve programmes. developing profit-making enterprises. workers, the young or those from the ● Massively expand the supply of To address the decline of regional town LGBT+ communities. All this means we publicly owned housing through centres, and to ensure wealth does need to: municipal housebuilding and protect not flow out of our communities but ● Devolve equality and employment law private renters with rent controls. circulates within them, we should draw and ensure a day one right to flexible on the concept of community wealth working for all workers. Universal public services building. All this means we need to: ● Take action to reduce the disability Austerity has left our public sector poorly equipped to plan for and deal ● Establish a publicly owned energy employment and pay gap and the with emergencies. Systems for supplying company and publicly owned race and gender pay gaps, including through introducing sectoral and distributing PPE and testing construction and infrastructure bargaining arrangements in sectors have been found seriously wanting. company to drive forward green such as care and hospitality, where energy development and strategic Thousands of people in care homes have women and BAME women are died, with almost half of all of Scotland’s infrastructure while supporting high over-represented. Ensure 10% of all quality employment. deaths being in care homes. For those apprenticeships go to disabled workers facing a sudden loss of income, a lack and ensure proportionate numbers of ● Support community wealth building of social security advisers has meant initiatives by providing greater powers women and Black and minority ethnic people access job guarantee schemes. lengthy waits to access social security and funding to local government to support. All this means we need to: insource local services and address ● Rebuild equality in pay: Conduct an • issues of corporate control. equal pay audit across the public End outsourcing across public services sector in Scotland and resolve all and properly fund health, education, ● Create a Scotland wide Highstreet outstanding equal pay claims. emergency services and central and Taskforce to regenerate towns, protect local government recognising their Social security and housing jobs and improve shared community essential role supporting a wellbeing Damaging welfare reforms were forced space. economy. through by governments intent on Public Finance and investment rolling back social security regardless • Create a National Care Service, Public services have been neglected, of the costs. The sick, unemployed rooting out for-profit care provision regional economies have declined, and vulnerable have been effectively and levelling up terms and conditions and firms have put short-term profits criminalised and forced onto society’s through collective bargaining. over research and development. These margins, subsisting on meagre benefits • Commit to publicly provided early problems existed long before 2008, but and faced with arduous and humiliating learning and childcare. Value teachers austerity made matters much worse, means tests. Social housing has been by reducing stress and over-working. leaving a run down and divided society. transformed by deliberate government Support Universities and Colleges with But now traditional limits on public policy from a normal fact of everyday life a support package which enhances spending and investment have been into an emergency system for isolating democratic accountability and fair abandoned. Superficially, the political the extremely poor and vulnerable. work practices. 5 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Community Wealth Building – the beginning of a new economic order Joe Cullinane explains what North Ayrshire council is doing to roll back the neo-liberal tide e are in the midst of the approaches that got us here in the first so few family-owned businesses have biggest economic and place. And in May, in the middle of the succession plans in place representing Wsocial crisis of our lifetimes. first lockdown, we launched Scotland’s a massive risk to our already weak Coronavirus has exposed the fragilities first Community Wealth Building (CWB) labour market. That’s why our CWB of our prevailing economic model strategy, setting out a new approach strategy sets out the intention to work which for decades has been based on to the economy that will intentionally with those businesses on succession extraction rather than production. An use the economic levers available to plans, and where possible to support economic system where ‘economic the local state to redirect wealth and their transition to worker ownership growth’ has not resulted in higher wages economic control to the local economy as the most viable option to protect and raised living standards for the many, and our communities. the business and the employment it but rather the massive accumulation of provides. Those economic levers include our wealth by the few. public procurement spend, which totals In total our strategy contains 55 The last decade of austerity accelerated over £1bn pa across the public sector actions. It is not a short-term project the disinvestment and disempowerment in Ayrshire, the land and assets that we but a long-term intention to create that has entrenched poverty in own and the power we can exert on a fairer, more inclusive, sustainable communities across Scotland and the the local labour market as the largest and democratic economy from the current pandemic threatens to make employers in our local and regional bottom up and that means it includes it even worse. How we respond to the economy. But what is at the heart of longer-term actions. One such action crisis will shape Scotland for decades our CWB strategy is more democratic is to explore the creation of a West of to come – and now is not the time control of the economy. Scotland Community Bank. It would for more empty rhetoric. Vacuous be a mutually-owned bank that has a proclamations like ‘Inclusive Growth’ Take procurement for example, our full banking licence from the Bank of or ‘Community Empowerment’, that intention is to support and create England, enabling it to use its customers have so easily rolled off the tongue new local supply chains with more deposits to create new investment to of national politicians in recent years procurement spend, helping to create support the regional economy it serves. without any semblance of action or more local employment - but that’s not the limit of our ambitions as we want CWB is more than just another concept practice, will not suffice. We need a or term. Rather, it is economic practice complete reset on the economy, from to use the spend to expand democratic forms of ownership by supporting that has the potential to turn the dial national government but also local on our current economic model and to government. co-operatives, social enterprises and worker owned businesses. create new local economies that tackle In North Ayrshire, my Labour the big issues we face such as poverty administration is seizing the moment Similarly, we want to use the land and and deprivation, the concentration to press reset and to create a new assets that we own for the common of wealth and the stagnation of living local economy. North Ayrshire is an good. Too often, as a result of austerity, standards. It is a growing movement area with some deep-seated problems. public bodies over the last decade have across the globe which should give Deindustrialisation in the 1980s ripped seen the land and buildings that they us hope that a different economy the heart out of Ayrshire’s proud own simply as financial assets to be sold is possible and the seeds of it are industrial heritage. Big employers left to manage budget cuts. That approach being grown by progressive municipal and alternative employment never fails to recognise the actual economic governments around the world. and social value of those assets and came. Local economic development has Joe Cullinane is the leader of North through CWB we want to start realising been largely limited to the pursuit of Ayrshire Council and Cabinet Member that value by putting our land and inward investment in the hope that, if for Community Wealth Building. He is a assets into productive use to benefit the the investment ever came, the benefits member of Scottish Labour. would trickle down to our citizens and community. We will do that by pursuing communities. But readers of Scottish policies that will transfer ownership to Left Review do not need me to tell the community, convert vacant buildings them that trickle-down economics in our towns into council housing EDITORIAL COMMITTEE does not work. Instead, all it has done and allocate land for rewilding and Bill Bonnar Lilian Macer is rapidly increase wealth inequality, renewable energy generation to aid our Carole Ewart Gordon Morgan and in North Ayrshire its pursuit has fight against climate change. Roz Foyer Carolyn Scott resulted in up to 1 in 3 children in some Gregor Gall Dave Sherry As Ayrshire’s economy declined Editor Stephen Smellie of our communities being brought up in following deindustrialisation, family- poverty. Tommy Kane Chris Stephens owned businesses became the Pat Kelly Maggie Chapman It was clear before the Covid pandemic backbone of our economy. Those Convener Bob Thomson that we needed to break from the business have sustained employment Bill Ramsay Vice Convener traditional economic development for many through difficult times but 6 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 A nuclear weapons free world is still possible Arthur West makes the case for a non-nuclear future ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections uring the Covid 19 crisis Scottish former Defence Minister, Des Browne, to develop nuclear weapons. Now, 50 CND (SCND) and the wider peace claimed in 2015 that Trident could be countries had ratified this important Dmovement have been organising vulnerable to cyber-attack based on treaty so it has passed into international online meetings and discussions. During evidence he had received from an US law. these, activists have expressed the view Department of Defence report. Wallis • Nuclear weapons militate against that the crisis has probably resulted in also said this report warned that the diversifying the Scottish economy the case for abolishing nuclear weapons US and its allies could not be confident and not renewing Trident becoming that their defence systems would be One of the ways to make progress even stronger. This was because the last able to survive a concerted attack from a is to set up an adequately staffed few months have illustrated how useless sophisticated opponent such like Russia and resourced Scottish Defence nuclear weapons are in dealing with or China. Diversification Agency. In 2016, a threats such as a pandemic. Jimmy Reid Foundation report made a • Nuclear weapons are a health and Prior to the lockdown, SCND ran the compelling case against Trident renewal: safety disaster for the planet if they ‘People not Trident’ campaign. It main it showed that only 600 civilian jobs are were ever used demands were an end to austerity related to the existing Trident system at policies and the scrapping of Trident. Nuclear weapons today are at least Faslane. Annual running costs of Trident Campaign materials illustrated how the five times more powerful than those are between £2bn-£3bn and renewal money used to maintain the current dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. will cost £205bn. Trident system and the huge sums They have a capacity for irreversible and This is money which could be used to earmarked for its replacement could be global destruction of innocent victims decommission Trident, retrain workers better spent in other areas. One of these and can cause irredeemable poisoning and develop jobs in areas such as health, was health. During the Covid 19 crisis, of land. Medact, the campaigning housing, education and social services. it became clear that years of cuts to the organisation for health professionals In the run up to the 2021 Scottish NHS and other public services presented has said: ‘Unlike natural disasters, Parliamentary elections, it will as always major difficulties in responding to the the consequence of nuclear weapons be important to raise nuclear weapons crisis. use would include lethal harm from related issues. SCND Trade Union radiation and climate disruption to Given the threats to peace and stability Network will be presenting these ‘5 millions of people who are not party to in the world today, it is crucial that SCND Good Reasons’ to candidates during the the conflicts in which they are used’. and the wider Scottish peace movement campaign and asking if they agree with emerge from the crisis ready to continue • Nuclear weapons are illegal and them. We will also be asking for electors the struggle for a peaceful world. As a immoral to vote for candidates and parties who contribution towards the struggle for a are in favour of scrapping Trident and International humanitarian law forbids nuclear weapons free world, the SCND not renewing it. There is confidence indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Trade Union Network will be highlighting in the Scottish peace movement that Treaties are supposed to be binding on the following five good reasons for parties in favour of scrapping Trident will states that sign them. The Treaty on the scrapping Trident and not renewing it gain voter support for this. We also hope Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Scottish Labour will highlight its policy • Nuclear weapons have become already prevents those who sign it from of opposition to Trident replacement as militarily irrelevant developing new nuclear weapons and agreed at its party conference in 2015 commits states in possession to disarm Major Patrick Cordingley, leader of – but this will require Scottish Labour as soon as possible. Another treaty the British Forces in the First Gulf War, to distance itself from British Labour’s called the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear argued: ‘Strategic nuclear weapons support for renewing Trident under the Weapons, more commonly known as have no military use. It would seem the Starmer. the Global Ban Treaty, was passed at a Government wishes to replace Trident special session of the United Nations Arthur West was the former chair of simply to remain a nuclear power in 2017. It forbids countries to possess, Scottish CND and is the Joint Convener of alongside the four other permanent use, threaten or assist other countries Scottish CND Trade Union Network members of the UN Security Council. This is misguided and flies in the face of th public opinion - we have more to offer e are TWENTY years young! This is the 120 than nuclear weapons’. issue of Scottish Left Review. Publishing six • Nuclear weapons are useless in issues per year means we’ve clocked up twenty dealing with cyber-terrorism Wyears of commentary and critique. To help us keeping The last national security risk assessment carried out by the going for the next twenty, please subscribe and donate: government identified cyber terrorism http://www.scottishleftreview.scot/subscribe/ as a tier 1 security threat. Quaker peace activist, Tim Wallis, pointed out and http://www.scottishleftreview.scot/donate/ in his The Truth about Trident book, 7 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Testing times – human rights should not be an afterthought in the pandemic Mhairi Snowden stress tests our human rights practice and finds our governments wanting f COVID-19 has been a fundamental a considerable proportion of people cultural minority communities, stated test for our societies as Michele who use social care support at home the NRPF immigration policy ‘represents IBachelet, UN High Commissioner for experienced either a reduction or a direct derogation of the prohibition Human Rights has insisted it is, how complete withdrawal of support during of racial discrimination as set out in the have we done? How have human rights COVID-19. People were suddenly left International Convention to Eliminate and dignity been respected, protected unable to get out of bed, unable to get Racial Discrimination’. It is time for the and fulfilled during the pandemic? to work, unable to leave their homes, NRPF system to be publicly shamed and At the outset, it is worth reminding leaving their sense of dignity in tatters. ended, and in the meantime, for the ourselves that human rights are not There needs to be an emergency Scottish Government to use all of its abstract or theoretical, and though they decision making framework for social powers to mitigate it. are internationally agreed, they are care which is grounded in rights-based During COVID-19, in prisons, short intensively local and practical. Human principles of inclusion and participation scrutiny visits by HMIPS and HMI Prisons rights are very much about power – in decision making, and transparency. found that many prisoners were locked about ensuring that no government Emergency coronavirus legislation in their cells for more than 22 hours body has too much power but that this reduced the duties of local authorities per day, with some only allowed out power is shared, and that use of power to assess care needs on the basis of for 20 minutes per day. This meets the is restricted and characterised by dignity ensuring flexibility to councils to be able internationally accepted definition of for individuals and communities. to respond in the midst of staffing crises. solitary confinement, thus, contravening It is true that COVID-19 has seen the However, the prerequisite for use of this the Mandela Rules and amounting to restriction of human rights for all of us. new weakened provision was set far inhuman and degrading treatment in Our rights to liberty, to association with too low, stating that needs assessments breach of Article 3 of the European others and to family life have all been do not need to be carried out if ‘it is Convention on Human Rights. Alongside drastically curtailed. Both Westminster not practical to do so’. Allied to this, recent damning criticism of Scotland’s and Holyrood prison conditions by governments have the Council of Europe, been at pains to this is a significant point out – at human rights concern some times more during the pandemic than at others – and beyond. that the human I have only touched rights principles on a number of of proportionality, human rights impacts of the pandemic necessity and lawfulness all must emergency coronavirus legislation also response. Human rights now need be applied if such restrictions are to reduced duties to consult individuals to be at the heart of COVID recovery be legitimate. However, these are and their advocates around decisions – this means a rejection of any UK principles which must be backed up by on mental health detention and Government attempts to replace or rigorous assessment. They are not to accommodation. Agency over where water down the Human Rights Act. In be easily assumed, or to stand still in you live is so very much bound up with Scotland, it means incorporating our time. Rather, they must be constantly dignity. international human rights into Scots assessed for their efficacy. Restrictions There have been some positives. For law, making sure that people with must remain in place not one day longer example, the UK Government increased lived expertise are at the post-COVID than necessary. For example, it may be Universal Credit and Working Tax decision-making table, making sure that restrictions not allowing visitors we recognise the impacts on particular Credit by approximately £20 per week to care homes back in April may have groups such as BAME communities, – this increase was needed before been proportionate but as the pandemic and making sure that the way we set the pandemic, and it is welcome that changes and time goes on, when does priorities and budgets leads to the it has happened now. However, in this become a disproportionate and realisation of rights for all. The more contrast, asylum support rates are discriminatory impact on the right to we get this right during recovery and, barely 40% of the allowance people family life of care home residents? yes maybe even in ‘normal’ times, the over 25 receive on Universal Credit. better we will have a dignity-respecting It is this rigorous consideration of People with no recourse to public response in times of crisis. human rights in decision-making that funds (NRPF) and EU citizens with appears to have been lacking in many pre-settled status were particularly at Mhairi Snowden is the coordinator for aspects of COVID response (or possibly risk of infringements of their right to Human Rights Consortium Scotland was non-existent in the first place). an adequate standard of living during ([email protected] Twitter @ For example, research by the Scottish COVID-19. As BEMIS, the organisation HRCScotland, and https://hrcscotland. Human Rights Commission shows that for empowering Scotland’s ethnic and org/ 8 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 1912 Scotrail.qxp_Layout 1 17/12/2019 11:53 Page 1

ASLEF For train drivers, trade unions & the Labour Party since 1880

ScotRail is failing to deliver for the people of Scotland. The performance of Abellio has been truly terrible. The company has failed to recruit enough drivers, is continually skipping stations, does not have enough rolling stock, has used HSTs that have not been refurbished, and has a history of poor industrial relations. But we don’t want to replace one failing private train operator with another because the model is broken. It is clear to everyone – to businesses as well as passengers, and to everyone who works in the rail industry – that privatisation has failed. The Tories privatised our railways and the SNP refuses to bring our services back into public ownership. But it’s time to stand up for Scotland and run our railway as a public service, not as a vehicle to make a private profit.

Mick Whelan, general secretary Dave Calfe, president Kevin Lindsay, ASLEF’s organiser in Scotland

STUC 2018_Layout 1 09/01/2019 10:04 Page 1 Britain’s specialist transport union Campaigning for workers in the rail, maritime, offshore/energy, bus and road freight sectors

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www.rmt.org.uk General Secretary: Mick Cash President: Michelle Rodgers 9 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 HA Advert for SLR FEB 2020_210mm x 150mm 14/02/2020 10:54 Page 1 PROUD TO BE UNIONISED, PROUD TO SUPPORT THE UNIONS Hampden Advertising For all your print requirements. Take advanTage of our full in-house mailing service. newsletters, banners, flyers, booklets, stationery, placards, postcards and much more.

- Scottish Review Issue 120 November/December 2020 10call noLeftw on: 0141 429 1010 or email: [email protected] UCU_STUC_half_page_ad_Feb19.qxp_Layout 1 12/02/2019 12:26 Page 1

Defending jobs and fighting cuts in Scottish higher education.

www.ucu.org.uk/scotland

Since 2014. the Peoples Assembly has been the broadest campaigning group in Scotland. With support of the STUC, major unions (national to branch level) Trades Councils and many community groups, local Peoples Assemblies have been established in many areas. We oppose cuts to services and fight austerity regardless of whether it ema- nates from local councils, Holyrood or Westminster. Locally, we provide materials to advise and support those at the sharp end and suffering most from poverty. Our range of publications include advice on what to doif ‘sanctioned’ by government agencies, a guide to Universal Credit and guidance to elected members on parallel budgets. We are not affiliated to any political party, though our steering committee has members from a variety of groups. Similarly, we have taken no position on recent referenda and have all strands of opinion represented. As part of our antiausterity strategy. we support workers fighting closures, privatisation, racism and attacks on union rights, and campaign for peace and respect for the environment. For information or details of how to affiliate come to our stall at congress or by using any of the means below. Facebook: The People’s Assembly Scotland Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Peoplesassyscot

11 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020

Since 2014. the Peoples Assembly has been the broadest campaigning group in Scotland. With support of the STUC, major unions (national to branch level) Trades Councils and many community groups, local Peoples Assemblies have been established in many areas. We oppose cuts to services and fight austerity regardless of whether it ema- nates from local councils, Holyrood or Westminster. Locally, we provide materials to advise and support those at the sharp end and suffering most from poverty. Our range of publications include advice on what to doif ‘sanctioned’ by government agencies, a guide to Universal Credit and guidance to elected members on parallel budgets. We are not affiliated to any political party, though our steering committee has members from a variety of groups. Similarly, we have taken no position on recent referenda and have all strands of opinion represented. As part of our antiausterity strategy. we support workers fighting closures, privatisation, racism and attacks on union rights, and campaign for peace and respect for the environment. For information or details of how to affiliate come to our stall at congress or by using any of the means below. Facebook: The People’s Assembly Scotland Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Peoplesassyscot A ‘Scottish Question’ time for Scottish questions In his new pamphlet, James Mitchell highlights the complexities we must comprehend for mature discussion ebate over Scotland’s Brexit, the complex fiscal proposals follow). There is much that the Scottish constitutional future is stuck in required more time and reflection Parliament could have done within Da rut. Public opinion is roughly than had been available to the Smith existing powers across a wide range even on whether Scotland should be Commission. Brexit changes the context of policy areas but has chosen to be independent. Small movements in these beyond anything imagined back when cautious under successive Executives/ polls are fought for in a form of trench the Scottish Parliament was created Governments. Equally, there is ample warfare. The constitutional question or even during the 2014 referendum. evidence that a different path has been dominates and Scotland’s constitutional COVID ought to awaken us to the followed than would have been the case status has become the singular limitations and weaknesses of the form without devolution. lens through which so much else is devolution now takes. A large part of the problem with current discussed. Even in the midst of the The other ‘Scottish Questions’ debates is that the start and end point is pandemic, differences in Scottish and UK constitutional preference. An alternative Governments’ approaches are seen in The ‘Scottish Question’ is itself a approach would be to first consider terms of the constitutional question. A misnomer. There are many Scottish what kind of Scotland is desired then crude Manichean choice, trading insults, Questions and it is their interaction how this is best to be achieved. There exaggerated and heated claims by- that is usually meant when talking is no weakness in acknowledging pass an actually wide range of possible about it in the singular. At its heart different views on how best to achieve a political choices. The variety of forms is the relationship Scotland has with common outcome. This would allow for independence or union might take are the rest of the UK (rUK) but it has a mature discussion. There are people glossed over in this hyper-adversarial broadly four elements (in no particular with progressive views on both sides of battle. order): national identity, constitutional preference, party politics, and public the constitutional question just as there This contrasts with the extraordinary policy/ideological position. are conservatives and reactionaries on levels of public engagement and rich both sides. But portraying those with discussions that animated the first It is wholly legitimate to see Scotland’s whom we disagree on how as if we independence referendum in 2014. And constitutional status as of paramount disagree on what is not only unhelpful yet, debate on the future of Scotland importance and all else secondary. but dishonest. It should not be beyond culminated in a grossly over-simplified Nationalists on both sides of the us to conduct a respectful debate binary choice that could never capture debate are unmoved by any other recognising these distinct dimensions. It all that had been discussed. That choice considerations. They provide ballast would also help insulate much current forced apart many who were otherwise to the debate but the dynamic lies policy debate from the heat of the on the same side on a wide range of amongst those who are instrumental in constitutional question. policies and forced together many who their view of the constitution. In other Scotland’s constitutional status will would otherwise rarely agree. While the words, those who are more concerned never be ‘resolved’ in the sense of main campaigners and media focused with outcomes than institutional being settled for all time. It has always on the set piece and highly predictable structures have long determined the lurked in the background even when debates, the referendum provoked course of Scotland’s constitutional it appeared to be settled. Changes in much wider deliberations. journey. For instrumentalists, the key question, in the broadest sense, is which Scottish society and economy drove The appointment of the Smith constitutional arrangement is most demands for changes in government and Commission was an odd postscript likely to deliver social justice, well-being, public policy with implications for how to the referendum. In place of a long economic security or whatever public Scotland should be governed. Scotland open debate, a tiny group of politicians or private good is desired. And, people was never assimilated into a greater hurriedly agreed a scheme without have different, including diametrically England and there has never been any serious public input or ratification. opposite, goals which need to be taken serious effort to do so. There have been A more open process would likely into account in making sense of the tensions between those who saw the have come up with a more robust debate. Campaigners might agree on need for uniformity in service provision and coherent set of proposals. This is the likely consequences of union and and those who thought it necessary to neither a criticism of those involved nor independence but find themselves on allow for Scotland to pursue its own a comment on whether more or fewer different sides of the Yes/No divide path. powers should have been agreed but because they have very different policy ‘Administrative devolution’ allowed a that the process after the referendum goals. limited degree of autonomy but only was the antithesis of what had gone Of course, part of the answer will to Scottish Office Ministers appointed before. depend not only – indeed, far less – by the Prime Minister. It recognised It was never likely that Smith would on constitutional arrangement than Scottish distinctiveness but not Scottish settle much for long. Indeed, the very political will and political choices. As we democracy. But it provided the basis notion of the ‘settled will’ is absurd for have seen over the last two decades, for the new elected form devolution anything other than the short term. having the legal capacity to act does not took in 1999. Devolved government Each generation has grappled afresh mean that action necessarily follows provides some autonomy. The creation with the issues involved. Even without (or even particular actions necessarily of the Scottish Parliament owed much to 12 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Shared institutions or common regimes, involving a diminution or even abnegation of ‘sovereignty’, may empower a polity. Belonging to the EU has weakened member states in some respects but has increased each member state’s ability to deliver wellbeing to its people. As in any relationship, membership involves trade-offs. In much discussion of inter- governmental relations, there is an emphasis on areas of disagreement and conflict ignoring business transacted on an everyday basis that fails to grab attention because it is not seen as opposition to 18 years of Conservative breaks are not possible or, at least, not exciting or newsworthy. But serious Governments. It was sold as a means of without massive cost. students of public policy will be aware stopping Thatcherism at the border, as that much that that goes on that Interesting possibilities open up when a protective shield. The extent to which does not attract attention is vital and we consider these debates in terms of devolution today successfully performs important work. Focus on the dramas relationships rather than simple binary that function is part of today’s debate. of Ministerial meetings and visits gives choices. Situations are conceivable in There is a desire to strengthen the shield a false impression. And, it is difficult to which far greater autonomy exists in and, indeed, to reform it to allow a avoid the conclusion that much of the some areas while cooperation or even more ambitiously progressive society. drama is manufactured. Additionally, uniformity and shared services exist But there is also a belief that a common there is far more to the relationships elsewhere. It’s difficult to imagine UK framework, even uniform policies than those between politicians and Scotland without some common and rights, are necessary to defend and officials. institutions with the rUK such as shared develop progressive policies. This gets to services and deep cooperation. The Options the heart of the issues for those on the question is: which areas should be broad progressive wing of politics. Independence and union come in independent, cooperative, shared or many forms but this is often obscured Relationships uniform? And, crucially, whatever may in much debate today. While clear be decided at any point must be open The classic understanding of sovereignty legal constitutional definitions of to challenge and change in the future. is that a state has unlimited, undivided independence exist, these can only be Relationships evolve over time. They are and unaccountable power to any higher a starting point. We need a much richer never static for long. authority. The rhetoric of sovereignty debate that recognises this diversity. The is a fiction but creates impossible and Regardless of constitutional status, possibilities are endless when debate is undesirable expectations. It assumes relationships will continue to exist. framed in terms of relationships. states can operate in isolation when If Scotland voted for independence Even options that may not appeal can all states must, in the interests of their in 2014, institutions would still have provoke ideas and open up what has citizens, engage with others. The very been required to manage relations become a stale debate. Amongst the notion ‘sovereignty’ has mystical roots between Scotland and the rUK. Part of many options that might be considered and has had greater rhetorical value the problem is that discussing these include what have been referred to than offering a serious guide to options relationships is limited when only one as Partially Independent Territories beyond superficial ones. It proves party to the relationship engages in (PIT), confederations, federations and easier to mobilise people in support of debate on their nature. And there is different forms of devolution. But sovereignty than use it as a guide on little prospect of serious consideration incantation of soundbites on ‘DevoMax’, good government and public policy. in the heat of a referendum. Discussion ‘Devo+’, ‘home rule’ is not so much old Acknowledging and engaging with that would normally be conducted wine in new bottle as no wine in new different and complex relationships is a amicably on such relationships become bottles. A case can be made for what better way of framing discussion. part of the campaign as was witnessed the Scottish LibDems refer to as a ‘third when opponents of independence A further dimension of the limitations way’ but this has barely got beyond a claimed to oppose a common currency, of the binary choice is the failure soundbite or series of principles. against their own best interests, in 2014. to appreciate the complexity of Federalism has frequently been relationships involved. Campaign A distinction needs to be made here mentioned in debates over many rhetoric might suggest a simple choice between formal legal independence decades. It recurs regularly as an between union and independence but, and meaningful autonomy. A polity option but is rarely developed. As in fact, a vast array of relationships may attain so-called ‘sovereignty’ with other options, federalism can is involved. Nuance is required. The but for a variety of reasons may be come in a number of forms. If it is to simplicity of a clean break belies these no more autonomous than before. become a genuine alternative and not complex relationships. Even the most Equally, it might be possible to have a convenient slogan for those seeking hostile neighbouring states have some considerable autonomy in choosing to avoid serious engagement with the interactions with each other. Brexit alternative social and economic paths issues, then more information will be should have taught everyone that clean without having formal independence. required on the form and function of the 13 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 federalism proposed. A key challenge openly advocated in the 1950s. An the 1945 election that the Lords would that cannot be avoided, regardless of argument can be made that the Scottish not block any legislation passed by the which federalism might be proposed, Government White Paper published Commons that had been set out clearly is to take this debate beyond Scotland in 2013 offered confederation rather in a manifesto of the elected party. An and provide evidence that it has support than independence though the overall majority achieved at a Holyrood throughout rUK. Even if there was rhetoric surrounding it emphasised election would be more challenging significant support for federalism in independence. Leaving aside semantic given the electoral system but is a likely Scotland, it could not be imposed on debates which can descend into contender for cross-party agreement. the rUK. But leaving that aside, there is pedantics, the key point is that there is Conclusion much in the literature on federalism and considerable scope for a more nuanced rich experience of federalism across the debate on alternatives. Ensuring that the proportions of light globe to draw upon and inform debate and heat are balanced more in favour Choosing Scotland’s future in Scotland. of the former will be challenging in There is one area in which agreement our hyper-adversarial politics. Heated The UK at present offers a range of is essential. Agreement is needed on assertions put off many voters and intriguing models with the special how authoritative decisions are made are all too often substitutes for lack relationships between London and and will be implemented. Absence of answers. There are many people, the Channel Isles or the Isle of Man. of such agreement can only stoke up perhaps a majority, who will not change As Crown Dependencies, the islands resentment and grievances. Using raw their mind on Scotland’s future split provide residents with UK citizenship. In power to enforce an unpopular policy is between supporters of independence 1973, the Kilbrandon Royal Commission dangerous and undemocratic. We now and the union. This leaves a significant on the Constitution described them as have rules on the conduct of referenda group who will play a decisive part in ‘like miniature states with wide-ranging but no clarity on whether or when a any decision. But no decision can ever powers of self-government’, having no referendum can take place. A case for a be final. Today’s electorate has no right representation in Westminster, making third option on the ballot paper can be to disenfranchise those not yet on the ‘annual voluntary contributions towards made but that requires far more detail electoral register by making a decision the costs of defence and international as to the nature of that third option and for all time. Change is inevitable though representation by the UK’ and with who would draw up such a proposal. change may come slowly, incrementally Westminster not legislating for them Failure to provide such information or in significant and substantial forms. without their agreement (and not being means that such an option will not It is all our responsibility to make the members of the EU). Few are likely to be available. Again, there are various information and knowledge for that be attracted to such an arrangement possibilities that can be considered. process of change as robust and rigorous for Scotland, not least UK Governments Research is clear; it makes little sense to as possible. especially as far as ‘voluntary use the simple plurality voting system contributions’ for services, but this James Mitchell is Professor of Public when three options are on the ballot model may provoke thought and debate Policy at the University of Edinburgh. His paper for the possibility exists that the on other possibilities. Jimmy Reid Foundation pamphlet, ‘The option with most support falls short of Scottish Question Revisited’, is available The case of Northern Ireland and the 50%. There are ways of avoiding such an at: Good Friday Agreement (GFA) also outcome such as ranking preferences or highlights what is possible within the forms of approval voting but whatever https://reidfoundation.scot/ existing UK. There is much that is system was adopted would require publications__trashed/the-scottish- remarkable about the GFA not least agreement. question-revisited-pamphlet/ that it brought agreement to a part But even more pressing is the issue of the world that had witnessed a of what constitutes a mandate for a deeply entrenched binary divide that referendum, whether simple binary was presumed to be intractable not or other. The battle on mandates so long ago. The three strands to the Cover: Nadia Lucchesi continues with the Scottish Government Agreement include one addressing the ([email protected]) arguing it already has such a mandate establishment of the Northern Ireland and UK Government insisting equally Assembly and executive; another on Proofing services: that it does not. This highlights the relations with the Republic of Ireland; John Wood and John Daly absence of clear constitutional rules and the third on relations with the of the game. The 2012 Edinburgh Editor Email: Gregor Gall rUK. Leading authorities on the GFA Agreement between the Scottish and [email protected] have noted both its consociational and UK Governments might be seen as confederal aspects. There is merit in setting a precedent that an overall Web: www.scottishleftreview.scot considering the Scottish Question in majority in Holyrood is a mandate but Tel: 0141 424 0042 terms of strands because they provide precedents can count for little in the evidence of what is possible with some Address: Scottish Left Review, UK constitution. While constitutional creative thinking. conventions may be, as a leading scholar 14 West Campbell Street, Glasgow Confederation has been the once stated, ‘somewhat vague and G2 6RX constitutional option that dare not slippery - resembling the procreation speak its name. Yet, that was what of eels’, they are as good as it gets Printed by senior members of the SNP, along with under the UK constitution and some Hampden Advertising Ltd, Plaid Cymru and Common Wealth new convention is needed. The nearest 403 Hillington Road, G52 4BL, (a small socialist party founded in equivalent is the Addison/Salisbury Tel: 0141 429 1010 1942 with a handful of MPs briefly) Convention in which it was agreed after 14 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 “It is not possible to build a democratic socialism by using TO BUILD A the institutions of the Ancient British state...in the way that POLITICS it is not possible to induce a vulture to give milk” NEAL ASCHERSON FOR THE MANY TRADE UNIONISTS FOR THE HOUSE OF LORDS POLITICAL REFORM HAS GOT TO GO There is a new democratic frontier for trade unions in Britain: reforming Westminster’s creaking establishment. For too long, Westminster’s political system has been for the few, and by the few. Politics for the Many is the trade union campaign to reform the British state - starting with the unelected Lords. Join us. We believe change comes through people joining together – in unions, in parties, in campaigns – to say ‘enough is enough’. Sign up at politicsforthemany.co.uk

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CWU wishes all delegates and those participating in this virtual STUC 2020 a successful and enjoyable Congress.

· CWU fighting to “Save our Post Offices” whilst calling for re-nationalisation of Royal Mail. · Campaigning against compulsory redundancies and the eradication of terms & conditions #CountMeIn · Fighting for a For a New Deal for Workers Craig Anderson Regional Secretary Scotland Pauline Rourke Regional Chair Scotland

15 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 16 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 FBU Scotland sends solidarity for STUC Congress 2020 and congratulates Scottish Left Review on 20 years of advancing a progressive left agenda

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17 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 18 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Only by having constitutional choice can Scottish Labour’s radical reasoning be realised Katrina Faccenda says the roadblock must be removed so socialist policies can become attractive again he fightback against the latest Scotland – and not Westminster - must on the doorsteps people told us how attacks on Richard Leonard, decide upon a second independence much they liked our manifesto but they TScottish Labour leader, has referendum. His reasons may be radically were still voting SNP. energised the party’s left activists. The different from those who want to wrap What could make a difference? Beyond Campaign for Socialism (CfS) organised Scottish Labour in a union jack, but the a better constitutional position, we need one of our biggest events in years to outcome is the same. We will continue a transformation of party structures. rally people behind Richard and more to be seen as a party which priorities We need to increase the active importantly to defend a left policy defence of the union when the majority membership; the unionist conservative agenda for Scottish Labour as it looks of people in Scotland no longer do. rump holds too much power on local towards the elections of May 2021. With the shambolic, reactionary Tory party structures. We need our local Online meetings have given us a chance government under Johnson, the only parties to be active campaigners not to include activists from the Shetlands viable position is to recognise that power just electioneers and to select fighting to the Scottish Borders in our meetings within the union needs redistributing and socialist candidates. and discussions, and we have been using how much we need further devolution this time to promote political education. We need to focus on issues where only of power away from Westminster to the We will emerge from the pandemic with our party which gives a vote and where rest of the UK. Arguing for a nebulous a stronger group of core activists. a voice for organised labour will deliver. version of federalism just is not enough. The crisis has shown the importance But keeping that energy going when we One of the successes of the Corbyn of unions and their strengths in are in lockdown is difficult considering project was to revive the sense of pride organising workers for better, safer the level of disillusionment with UK in standing for radical, redistributive conditions. Although employment law Labour. The recent abstention in policies. That strength of emotion seems is not devolved, we need to make the Westminster on the ‘SpyCops’ Bill led hard to replicate around a federalist arguments for getting rid of all anti- more members gave up their party cards. agenda. By accepting the democratic union laws and expose the weaknesses For those of us active in the Labour left, argument around any future referendum, in the Scottish Government’s business- we are fighting on two fronts: to hold on we can start to talk about why we know orientated approach to industrial tightly to our activists and to defend our that the SNP version of independence relations, where the power imbalance socialist agenda. For the CfS, our tasks will not bring manifest improvements is never properly addressed. There are clear, we have to keep fighting the to working people’s lives. When you are needs to be more emphasis on how internal battles but we need to be more living in poverty or exploited on a zero- organisation empowers workers and outwards looking. We need to encourage hours contract, and when the balance of how businesses exist to make a profit, our members to organise and revitalise power is in the hands of the bosses and not to serve the interests of workers. local party structures. This is hard work big business, there is no freedom. It is up Basically, we need people to know that when many find their local party hostile to us as socialists in Labour to articulate Labour in Scotland stands for the change to debate and any political activity these ideas. It really should not be that that is much more radical than breaking outside of elections. Fundamentally, difficult as we face up to the economic away from the rest of the UK. we must give people a reason to stay consequences of the pandemic. by building campaigns and leading the Katrina Faccenda is CfS chair and Labour In the same way that our electoral fightback against austerity. The degree of candidate for Edinburgh Northern success in Scotland continued when the recklessness of those trying to oust and Leith in the May 2021 Scottish we were losing in England, I don’t think Leonard is astounding. Scottish Labour’s Parliaments elections that Starmer’s popularity or success right-wing still push its ‘let’s make the nationally will party as right-wing as it used to be and make a significant people will vote for us’ rhetoric and is difference to Scottish evidently prepared to burn the house Labour at the ballot down as long as it is control of the ashes. box in Scottish CAMPAIGN As we unite behind Leonard, we cannot or Westminster FOR SOCIALISM ignore the fact that he does not always elections. We saw represent the developing position that in 2017 when of the Labour Left on constitutional despite our gains issues and it is disappointing he does nationally and an VOICE OF THE LABOUR LEFT IN SCOTLAND not share our position on the matter increase in the of Scottish sovereignty and a second number of Labour Twitter: @LabourCfS referendum on Independence. We MPs in Scotland, our Facebook: CampaignforSocialism@LabourCfS understand his position as socialists who vote increased by put international solidarity at the top only 9,000. We saw it Join at: www.campaignforsocialism.org.uk/join of our agenda butwe believe that only again in 2019 when 19 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Smoke and mirrors: ‘The Great SNP Enigma’ Campbell Martin unravels the continuing battle for the soul of the SNP n years to come, students of Scottish that, despite being frightened to fight have added to this mantra is placing politics will look back on this time unionists, they did not hold back ‘identity’ issues ahead of delivering Ias ‘The Great SNP Enigma’. They will in putting the boot into fellow SNP an independent Scotland. The young try to unravel how the SNP and party members of the left. In 2004, shortly ‘new’ SNP activists place greater leader, Nicola Sturgeon, could have after I was expelled for calling on emphasis on self-identity in relation been achieving record-high support Swinney to resign and for Alex Salmond to gender, than on delivering a better, in opinion polls, yet a large section of to return as leader, Swinney resigned fairer, more equitable Scotland for all independence supporters was calling and Alex Salmond returned as leader. the people who live here. Their gender for the leader to be replaced. Looking The purge of ‘fundamentalists’ and the obsession could be delivered by an back on today from the vantage point left was ended as Alex Salmond re- SNP Government in a limited, devolved of a future independent Scotland, will united the SNP and transformed it into a parliament, but a better, fairer, more students and others understand why party of government. equitable country for all Scots requires so many on her own side turned on the independence, so they appear willing to leader of the SNP? Sadly, today, under Nicola Sturgeon’s settle for running devolution. leadership, the ‘gradualists’ are once As First Minister of Scotland, Sturgeon again in positions of power within the In addition to the new ‘gradualists’ has been outstanding: so impressive has SNP. Criticism of the leader and her down-playing independence, and she been during an unprecedented global advisors stems from a perceived lack putting the boot into ‘fundamentalists’ pandemic that only partisan, political of urgency, on their part, in delivering and the left, today’s SNP also has to opponents would attempt to contrive independence. There appears to be no contend with the possibility that some criticism of her performance. If Scotland plan to take Scotland forward, other than around the Sturgeon leadership may was already an independent country, few asking a Tory Prime Minister in London have colluded to try and jail former candidates could come close to matching to give his permission for the Scottish SNP leader, Alex Salmond. Serious Nicola Sturgeon as an ideal First Minister. Government to hold an independence charges relating to sexual offences were However, we are not, yet, independent, referendum. Theresa May and Boris presented against Salmond, but a jury and the current SNP leadership’s Johnson have both refused such at Scotland’s High Court in Edinburgh ‘gradualist’ approach to restoring to permission and, given majority support listened to the evidence and acquitted him of all charges. Still, though, concerns Scotland the sovereign powers of a for independence in opinion polls, why remain that some senior SNP members normal, independent country is what would a Conservative and Unionist Prime might have played a part in trying to jail generates the criticism of Sturgeon and Minister change their mind? Why does Salmond. Information that could split the those in her leadership-bubble. the party that styles itself ‘the party of SNP wide-open may emerge as a Scottish independence’ have no clear-cut plan to My membership of the SNP came to Parliament Inquiry into the Scottish actually deliver independence? an end 16-years-ago; a decision made Government’s handling of actions against by the party, not me. At the time, I was Against this background, in the Alex Salmond takes its course. an SNP MSP and I spoke-out against Sturgeon-led SNP, prominent party the ‘leadership’ of John Swinney, However, much of this has played-out activists on the left of the party are, below the general public’s radar, which who had replaced Alex Salmond as once again, being marginalised and National Convener in 2000. I was a is why we have the apparent enigma attacked, even blocked from standing of soaring support for a popular First ‘fundamentalist’, generally described as as party candidates. The difference, this people who want independence, and Minister, her party and independence, time, is that much of the often vicious want it ‘now’. Swinney and the small while criticism is levelled by those in attacks come from young, sycophantic, clique around his ‘leadership’ were the SNP and wider movement who are leadership acolytes using social media. ‘gradualists’. Essentially, ‘gradualists’ aware of what is happening. were prepared to ‘park independence’ The SNP’s new ‘gradualists’ are clearly A former SNP MSP (2003-2007), and, instead, they sought to gradually being manipulated and used by some Campbell Martin is now broadcast – and very slowly – build the powers of of the old guard who still advocate the journalist and factual programme the devolved parliament in Edinburgh. parking of independence and slowly director. He is not a member of any Swinney once told me he was impressed building the powers of the devolved political party. with what Tony Blair had done with the parliament. What the young members Labour Party – creating ‘new’ Labour and turning the former party of the working class into a clone of the Tory Party. His vision was the creation of a ‘new’ SNP, and under his ‘leadership’ Care After COVID: Constructing an adult social care service fit for purpose The private the party moved from its traditional moderate, centre-left position to a sector model of providing care is badly broken and needs replacing. But ‘with what?’, moderate, centre-right position. ‘what form should it take?’, and ‘how do we go about doing this?’. In this paper, the salient issues are laid out and a suggestion is made for how the process to resolve these Under Swinney’s ‘leadership’, party issues can be undertaken. Most obviously, this involves the care workers and their members on the left were marginalised unions. This particular path is advocated in order to provide a much-needed balance and found themselves attacked by to the Scottish Government’s own review of adult social care militating against the anonymous party spokespeople. It necessary radical change. See https://reidfoundation.scot/2020/10/4645/ became a trait of the ‘gradualists’ 20 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 All change at the top of the big unions? Stephen Smellie surveys the field and asks whether change at the top will presage change beneath ver the next 18 months UNISON, deliver or even explain how it could General Secretary candidate were UNITE and GMB, our biggest be delivered. Paul Holmes, male NEC dashed when McAnea won double the unions, will be electing new Local Government representative, is the number of branch nominations and O Holmes achieved more nominations general secretaries. Consequently, the candidate for the remaining UA faction. landscape could dramatically change, Pierre’s supporters claim Holmes’ than any previous lay member or it could pretty much stay the same. current suspension by the union and candidate. All three ballots will have similar his employer, on charges not officially McAnea, from Glasgow, has been a lead contexts within which they will be made public but subject to discussion negotiator for the union in many sectors conducted. These include the pressures on social media, make him an unsuitable and currently heads up bargaining in of austerity, Brexit, the crisis of political candidate for the ‘left’ to rally round. her AGS role. She launched a detailed representation that the current Tory Holmes promises that, if elected, he manifesto focussing on better organised majority and the failure of Labour would move UNISON HQ out of London campaigns and more visibility in the presents, and Covid-induced economic and give branches 50% of all subs paid media, including as the leader of the collapse. Adding colour will also be the by members (compared to the 20%-25% biggest organisation, never mind political groupings and cliques within they currently get). With commitments union, of women members in Britain. each union. to lead from the front and organise She proposes establishing a UNISON national campaigns and strikes, his None of the three unions has ever College to deliver training for members. programme is questioned on how he can had a woman general secretary. This She points out that, unlike the others, achieve this with significantly less funds is an issue that will play a significant she recognises the union is led by available for the national union. role, even before the exposure of the lay members on the NEC and other culture of sexism and harassment in Both Holmes and Pierre promise to take committees and she would work with the GMB. UNISON, with 1m them to achieve her aims. women members, is the most Scottish branches likely to break this particular overwhelmingly supported glass ceiling with a woman McAnea’s nomination and candidate, current Assistant she is well known among General Secretary (AGS), activists here. The Scottish Christina McAnea, receiving constitutional position has far more nominations than not featured in the debates, any of the others, including with the union having a clear the NEC and several regions policy position that it is up including, by a large majority, to Scottish members and Scotland. The other three candidates, the Scottish union to determine its Roger McKenzie, also an AGS, and NEC only a ‘worker’s wage’ although with position. McAnea is the favourite to win, members, Paul Holmes and Hugo Pierre, differing figures in mind. based on the number of nominations. are competing to be seen as the best Holmes received significantly more However, with Holmes having support ‘left’ candidate to offer change whilst nominations than Pierre, including of many of the bigger branches in McAnea is being described by some the big Local Government Executive England and McKenzie’s profile as AGS of their supporters as the ‘continuity’ and North West Region, leading to responsible for Organising at a time candidate, a charge she refutes and suggestions that Pierre should stand when Black Lives Matter has raised points out that as a woman she offers down to allow Holmes to be the one greater awareness of racism, nothing the greatest possible change. ‘left’ candidate. However, the UA faction can be taken for granted, except that As in many unions, a UNISON broad left actually split 3 ways with some of their Pierre cannot win. Whether McAnea grouping has existed for years. This has supporters preferring to support Roger emerges as the first woman General rarely reached beyond a core of activists McKenzie as a ‘left’ more likely to win Secretary, McKenzie as the first black of the Labour left allied to Socialist than either of the other two. General Secretary or Holmes as the first lay member to be elected as General Workers’ Party and Socialist Party McKenzie, whose nominations are members, who occasionally have rallied Secretary, UNISON will look different around the same level as Holmes, has in future. Whoever wins it is possible to form an anti-Prentis alliance in NEC been an AGS for 10 years, despite which elections, recently under the banner that the bi-annual NEC elections due he is presented as a change candidate. next year will be the determining factor of UNISON Action (UA). As in previous His responsibility is for Organising which years, they have failed to agree on a as to whether the union not only looks he presents as his main issue for the different but acts different in future. single left candidate. union. He is well known in the union Hugo Pierre, elected to the NEC in movement as one of the most senior • The UNISON ballot opened on 28 the Black Male seat, is accused of black trade unionists and his election October, closes on 27 November and splitting UA to promote the Socialist would be the first time a black person the results will be announced on 11 Party. His programme of demanding has led a major union since Bill Morris January 2021. national action to fight pay and cuts is was General Secretary of the TGWU. Stephen Smellie is Depute Convenor the same programme that, in theory, Any hope amongst his supporters that UNISON Scotland many people support but which no- he would emerge as the leading ‘left’ one in the union has been able to candidate or even the leading Assistant 21 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Tackling the epidemic of gender-based violence in the midst of a global pandemic Natalia Equihua reports on continuing campaign to protect women from male violence his 25 November marks 29 years of women already living with trauma. events and campaigns and make sure you since the 16 Days of Action Against spread the work. If you can: The increased risk of abuse for women Gender-Based Violence was first T and children has led to a higher demand • Donate to your local Rape Crisis centre launched, a global campaign started by for support from front-line services like or Women’s Aid group. Rutgers University’s Center for Women’s ours. And in a time when the women’s Global Leadership to demand an end • Keep informed: check what services are to violence against women and girls. sector (especially local services and available in your area for women living It unifies the efforts that women’s those supporting minority women) have with abuse. You never know when you organisations and feminists around the faced insecure funding, the pressures might be talking to a survivor. When you world throughout the year. Despite are enormous. Despite the difficulties, do, let them know they don’t need to almost three decades of campaigning women’s services in Scotland quickly deal with the abuse alone. and the activism before that, 2020 adapted to continue providing vital • Believe, listen and support survivors: has been particularly challenging for support. At our Centre, we launched an this is the single most important thing women’s equality. The unprecedented online contact form to ensure women you can do. Abuse can happen to any global health crisis we are facing has laid living with their abusers could safely get woman at any point in their lives, bare the scale of the problem, making the advice they needed; we increased and coming forward takes incredible this global call to action feel ever more our capacity to help them apply for legal courage. When someone discloses to pressing. protections; and aware of the changes in the justice system and the dynamics you, let them know you believe them When the pandemic was declared of abuse, we have published practical and ask how you can best support and governments around the world information so women know what to do them. introduced ‘stay at home’ measures if, for example, they have child contact Gender-based violence existed before to contain the virus, the epidemic of arrangements with an abusive ex-partner the pandemic and it will not go away male violence against women came during the pandemic. Like us, sister once it ends. We must strive to engage into sharp view. It confirmed what at organisations have had to rethink their in actions beyond these 16 days, to women’s organisations we have been services in order to continue providing advocate for meaningful systemic saying for years: home isn’t a safe what can be lifesaving support. change and, above all, to be there for place for everyone and abuse is rapidly the women and girls whose lives have moving to online platforms and mobile been irrevocably changed by their technologies. Since lockdown started, in abusers. the UK there has been a 50% increase in calls to domestic abuse helplines, and 1 References https://equalityhumanrights. in 2 women and non-binary people have com/sites/default/files/equality_and_ experienced online abuse, with 29% human_rights_commission_how_ reporting abuse has worsened during coronavirus_has_affected_equality_ the pandemic. and_human_rights_2020.pdf The current crisis is also having a huge https://www.unwomen.org/en/what- impact on women’s ability to access In the midst of this complex landscape, we-do/ending-violence-against-women/ justice. If before Covid-19 women the international theme for this year’s 16 take-action/16-days-of-activism already faced an uphill struggle to bring Days of Action makes four concrete asks • If you have been affected by the their perpetrators to account, let alone to governments ‘Fund, Prevent, Respond, contents of this article, please contact to do so successfully, the barriers have and Collect’. It asks to prioritise flexible the Domestic Abuse and Forced exacerbated with lockdown. At the funding for violence against women Marriage helpline on 0800 027 1234 Scottish Women’s Rights Centre —where (VAW) organisations; to create national (open 24/7) and helpline@sdafmh. we provide free legal and advocacy and local plans to tackle gender-based org.uk or Rape Crisis Scotland’s services to women affected by abuse— violence during the pandemic; ensuring National Helpline 08088 01 03 02 we hear women are finding it harder to the continuation of VAW services and an (open daily 6pm-midnight) and get legal representation. At the same adequate criminal justice response; and [email protected]. time, we have helped more women than collecting data to help women’s services uk For legal advice and information ever before to apply for legal protections improve. In Scotland, there have been call the Scottish Women’s Rights against their perpetrators. We are also some positive steps in this direction Centre on freephone 080880 acutely aware of the long delays in with Equally Safe, the national strategy 010 789 (see https://www. domestic abuse and sexual violence to eradicate violence against women. scottishwomensrightscentre.org.uk/ criminal cases brought on by the As a society, however, we must ensure helpline/ for opening times). pandemic which, according to a recent this strategy addresses the current Equality and Human Rights Commission circumstances and make our government Natalia Equihua is the Administration report, could lead some victims/ accountable as much as we need to take and Communications Worker at the survivors to withdraw from the process action in our own lives and communities. Scottish Women’s Rights Centre (https:// — not to mention the huge toll these So what can you do this year? Support www.scottishwomensrightscentre.org. delays are having on the mental health women’s organisations: follow the uk/) 22 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020

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Visit TalkToThompsons.com23 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 24 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Feeding the thousands: the right to food in Scotland Elaine Smith outlines the progress on her bill to enact the right into law n Scottish Left Review(111, May/June usage has surged with nearly 600,000 Scottish Government. UNISON Scotland 2019), I argued the Scottish Parliament food parcels handed out in Scotland has welcomed my Bill highlighting, in Iemerged partially as a response to between April 2018-September 2019 its consultation response, support for the rampant injustices inflicted upon and has significantly increased during the ‘Framework legislation (which) would Scotland during Thatcherism, and that pandemic. Emergency food aid cannot be enable the structural causes of hunger it had not lived up to its potential as a a permanent solution and it’s appalling and malnutrition in a wealthy nation left-leaning defence against cruel Tory that we need foodbanks at all. like Scotland to be addressed, such as policies. Improving access to healthy, low pay, race and sex inequality, and nutritious food has been an area where My proposed Right to Food (Scotland) our inadequate benefits system’. UNITE parliamentary progress has been Bill seeks to enshrine the human Scotland, in its submission, emphasised painfully slow and this is highlighted by right to food into law, giving effect ‘Scotland’s Food is everyone’s the lack of progress of free-school meal to our international commitments in business. … [I]t is therefore important (FSM) provision in the last 20 years. domestic legislation and ensuring that that the right to food should involve no one living in Scotland goes hungry. Government, public bodies, agencies, During the second session of the The issues we face are systemic. That business and unions working together in Scottish Parliament, I co-sponsored is why my proposal takes a cross drawing up policies’. Frances Curran’s Bill on FSMs which cutting approach, seeking to address outlined a universal approach and the current disjointed approach to The consultation on my Bill has would have extended entitlement to food by proposing the creation of an generated hundreds of responses, with FSMs to all children in state primary independent statutory body to oversee overwhelming support for the principle schools in Scotland and given Scottish our food system, bringing together of enshrining the right to food into law. Ministers the ability to expand this Most respondents also supported the key stakeholders from across the food entitlement to secondary schools. The proposed mechanism of an independent sector and the various government 2007 SNP manifesto committed to statutory body to provide oversight, departments and authorities who ‘the introduction of free school meals, and the proposals to enshrine the right have responsibility for aspects of food beginning with our youngest children to food into law in advance of wider policy, and placing clear duties upon the and expanding free entitlement for human-rights legislation and to place Scottish Government. children in poverty’. More than 13 years the responsibility for ensuring the on, only primary 1-3 children have a right to food is realised on the Scottish universal entitlement to FSMs. Government. The need for a radical and transformative With this clear support, I will publish approach to food has never been greater, a final proposal and seek fellow MSPs’ yet the Scottish Government is prone to backing to introduce a Bill. Due to the tinkering around the edges and resisting likely end of the parliamentary session radical change. Many other countries, in March 2021, it will not be possible such as Cuba, guarantee all their children to introduce the Bill this parliamentary FSMs every day. Misplaced priorities and session. Many of my fellow Scottish a lack of ambition are all that prevent us Labour MSPs are already actively from following the same path in Scotland. campaigning on the right to food and reform of our food sector, and my The Good Food Nation Bill was an decision to stand down from parliament opportunity to make meaningful means that one of them – probably, progress in tackling the issues in The proposals have been supported Rhoda Grant if re-elected - will seek to our food system, yet the Scottish by members of the public, unions, take this proposal forward in the next Government ignored the strong academics, local authorities, public session. campaign for a right to food, and ruled health bodies, charities and community out including the right to food as part organisations. One of the main causes of As an MSP since 1999, I have promoted of that Bill. It then announced that the rising food insecurity has been the rise a socialist vision for Scotland and fought whole bill had been shelved due to the in precarious work and wage stagnation for a progressive society no longer pandemic – even though action to tackle resulting in increased in work-poverty. plagued by the harsh inequalities. poverty-related hunger has never been In responding to the Good Food Nation Securing a future free from hunger, more needed. Bill consultation in 2019, the STUC called through the legal guarantee of a right to food, and a government with the will to While the issue of food insecurity has for legislation to incorporate everyone’s ensure that every individual and family been brought much more sharply into right to access healthy, nutritious and has access to healthy, nutritious and focus by the pandemic, with some affordable food, and to place a duty on sustainable food, will be key to ensuring unable to leave their house or access public bodies to contribute to the ‘Good that vision becomes reality. supermarket delivery slots, thousands of Food Nation’ ambition. I’m pleased to jobs lost and many workers finding their have received STUC support for my Bill Elaine Smith is the (Labour) MSP for income gone or reduced, the pre-Covid in order to realise those ambitions which Central Scotland situation was already shameful. Food bank appear to have been abandoned by the 25 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Dundonians doing it for a decent Dundee Stuart Fairweather looks at the successful creation of the Dundee Action Forum and asks what next undee Action Forum (DAF) was took on the role of ensuring that enhance the plans; and iii) continue established in May of this year. everyone who wanted to speak was ongoing engagement with local groups There were two main reasons allowed to speak and they encouraged and the assembly. This was supported D by all the councillors. for this: one, a wish to coordinate all to listen. It was agreed that the campaigning and two, a recognition initial outcome should be a deputation Although it had been signalled to the to the city council timetabled for 24 that the Covid-19 pandemic meant deputation earlier in the day that August. School grounds growing more that things would need to be done amendment would likely carry, it was differently. Experienced campaigners food, environmental education, better still an emotional ‘victory’, representing attended discussions via Zoom with bus services, and useable cycle lanes an important step forward, so thanks are newer activists. Early discussions were all amongst the demands called due to all who attended the assembly, were focused on a desire to see a for. These along with the retro-fitting lobbied councillors and put forward different sort of city emerge from the of housing, making use of the docks for arguments that built on previous policy health crisis and a decade of austerity. energy generation, and stimulating the advances. DAF’s first venture into Listening to each other was a key local economy would be issues raised supporting local campaigners ended in feature of these initial meetings. Social with the council. success. justice, climate emergency and doing In planning the presentation, it became Since that high point in late August, it democracy differently, including our clear that many points raised at the own democracy, all featured. has been recognised that the hard work assembly aligned with Dundee City has just begun. Links have been made After a few weeks this loosely organised Council’s Climate & Biodiversity Action with those using the assembly approach group contacted climate emergency Plans. All 29 councillors were reminded in Aberdeen and at a Scottish level. The activists, and drew upon union links of this directly and via the press in outcome of the deputation has been and other connections. There was a the run up to the meeting. What was shared on the DAF Facebook page and shared interest in exploring Extinction also made clear was the almost entire established environmental groups have Rebellion’s People’s Assemblies model. absence previously agreed policy within been included in discussion. Two key This coincided with a recognition that the recovery plans. Therefore, on the questions remain on DAF’s agenda. First, Dundee City Council was likely to night the on-line deputation demanded how can the overlapping environmental produce a recovery plan responding to on behalf of the assembly that the and social justice agendas be addressed? Covid-19 and this created a timetable Council: Plans for holding an assembly in each for activity. • Reassert the climate and ecological of the city’s eight wards might help Following some planning meetings, 12 emergency; address this question. Second, how and 13 August saw 80 people from all can an alliance be constructed with • Reaffirm commitment to and the power to move us beyond policies eight wards in the city come together accelerate the Council’s Climate based on trickle-down economic and to listen to expert views and agree on Action Plan and Biodiversity Plan, environmental destruction? Doing this ideas to present to the council. Those strengthening them with specific effectively and inclusively will hopefully attending listened to Kate Treharne goals, targets and timescales; encourage many more Dundonians to speak about biodiversity, Russell Pepper, get involved in delivering the recovery Lynsey Penny, and Keith Skene suggest • Revise the restructuring phase of the city desperately needs. practical ideas relating to transport, the current Recovery Plan to include food, and ecology. Chris Law MP specific environmental and ecological Stuart Fairweather is a UNITE union rep considered the world we are leaving goals; and member of Democratic Left Scotland to future generations while Lorna • Ensure that no action within the Slater and Katherine Trebeck talked recovery plan puts any aspect of the about wealth, work, and the wellbeing climate and biodiversity targets at risk; economy. and Those taking part had experience of • Establish a mechanism for ongoing the city and the surrounding areas. engagement and collaboration with Some were in their twenties while the Assembly and green groups to others were in their nineties, and every progress jointly on the green recovery. age in between. People drew on their connections to their work and to their In response, Dundee City Council unions – like UNITE, UNISON, GMB and leader acknowledged the deputation UCU. People spoke about the private on behalf of DAF and the People’s rented sector and council housing. Assembly. He acknowledged that the Relationships to the two universities, authority’s Covid-19 recovery plan and churches and community groups did not do enough to ensure a green were all cited. But importantly, future for the city. SNP councillors put people attended both nights not as forward an amendment to: i) reassert representatives of organisations with the commitment to the climate and pre-set ideas but as individual citizens. the ecological emergency; ii) publish a detailed report in the coming months Additionally, one of the Forum members on what can be done to accelerate and 26 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 The other October revolution – reflecting on a counter-revolution Victor Grossman argues much was lost and not much gained by East Germans under the new Germany espite being the thirty-year later euros) must somehow be earned. sleeping in the street – or begging. anniversary of German unification, No easy matter; within three years the One tax covered all medical and dental Dthis year’s 3rd October speeches entire GDR economy was closed down. expenses, prescription drugs, four-week seemed more restrained, without rehab trips, six months paid maternity Despite distortion, it had much to be balloons, laser shows and packed leave, free abortions, child care and proud of. Built up without millions based auditoriums. The blame lay largely on summer camps, three-week holidays on wartime slave-labour, or Marshall the virus but also reflected fears about at lakes, mountains or beach for thirty Plan aid, but paying over 90% of war the economy, the environment, the EU marks - and much more. The cultural reparations, possessing almost no and eastern Germany. I thought back scene was also hit hard; cheap books, resources beside crumbly lignite coal, it to that fateful autumn in 1989 when theatre and opera seats became sad had created a broad industrial base, a people in Leipzig poured into streets to memories, libraries and youth clubs product of gritty sacrifice and dedication voice anger at shortages, a scarcity of were defunded. without profits being pilfered. But in fashionable, modern goods, restrictions the 1980s, confronted by the need to Worst of all, the evil giants returned; the on western travel, misleading reports on build an electronics industry with no aid Deutsche Bank, Hitler’s financier, Krupp, the economy, falsified electoral results from Sony, IBM or the USSR, a mounting Siemens, Auschwitz-profiteers Bayer and and the weakness of a new leadership. military threat, and engaged in a giant BASF, the producers of Hitler’s tanks, Then standing in Leipzig’s main square effort to provide cheap, modern housing bombers and guns regained lost sites. in late November 1989 and reflecting on for everyone, it could not match super- The GDR had aided ANC and Algeria, the choruses of ‘We are the people’, I wealthy West Germany, especially in its Vietnam and Allende, Cuba and the noticed threatening-looking young men consumer goods sector. This, plus some Sandinistas; it represented a moral anti- shouting instead, ‘We are one people’, planning missteps, lay behind most pole to neo-colonial exploitation and a clear call to join West Germany and difficulties and dissatisfaction leading to expansion. After its demise a monolithic terminate the GDR. Later, I saw similar 3 October. Germany, eager to build its military young men unloading bundles of might and extend its power, joined The price paid was a heavy one. Not leaflets from a van with a West German unashamedly in bombing chemical only were small out-dated factories licence plate. Within two weeks, I read plants and bridges in Serbia, sending shut down, often a town’s main basis, of attacks by young men in Leipzig on soldiers to battle in Afghan mountains but also modern industrial ‘Kombinats’ students carrying a GDR flag and against and Saharan deserts and heavy weapons producing top-quality goods, the centres a Somalian woman student. to Near East aggressors. of whole new communities, were taken Until then I think that many, while over for a song by former rivals. Some And what is next? The GDR’s holiday demanding changes, improvements became low-wage adjuncts making military marches are constantly and new leaders they could trust, did parts; a high proportion were purchased ridiculed. Yet today, almost every not wish to give up the GDR. But in the by speculators, West German or foreign, weekend in Germany, East and West, tumultuous months which led up to the who dismantled the machinery and neo-Nazis march with banners, jackets decisive 18 March election, a powerful, let the buildings rust away. Almost all and tattoos, frighteningly demanding highly experienced, well-financed the 8,400 publicly-owned enterprises a return to an earlier past! Will the campaign by Westerners, headed by were eradicated; millions were thrown approaching crisis strengthen them? Helmut Kohl, had its effect. While calling out of work. October 3rd is praised as a democratic movingly for freedom and democracy, revolution – though somewhat less Soon West Germans seized every their undertone offered other prizes: jubilantly this year. Is perhaps ‘counter- administrative job, from waterworks Hershey bars, Cokes and Big Whoppers revolution’ more apt? to sewage control, traffic planning, law as well as hitherto scarce bananas and courts and police officialdom. For their Defecting to the GDR in 1952, Victor oranges, Opels, VWs, maybe Mercedes, sacrifice in moving to the ‘Wild East’, Grossman writes the ‘Berlin Bulletins’ foreign travel and the key to all such they received a so-called ‘bush bonus’. and his autobiographies are ‘Crossing delights, the ‘West (Deutsch) Mark’. Universities and scientific institutes were the River, A Memoir of the American When Kohl promised a quick realisation cleansed by mass firing exceeding that Left, the Cold War, and Life in East of this dream, it brought election victory by Hitler against Jewish intelligentsia. Germany’ (2003) and ‘A Socialist to his Christian Democratic Union. A big Newspaper, magazine, radio and Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx- majority in the East German parliament TV staffs were replaced by Western Allee’ (2019) approved unification for 3rd October, journalists, and every positive mention while the successor to the GDR’s leading of GDR life was tabooed. party, despite its pledge to abandon all traces of ‘Stalinism’ and which received There had been many positive features. only 16% in the election, stood almost Workers were secure in their jobs. alone in opposing unification. Those Even when a pit ran out of coal, or a promised delights did become available. factory moved, all were guaranteed new Many are doubtless happy with jobs. Evictions were legally outlawed. them. But jubilant East Germans soon Unchangeable rents cost less than 10- discovered that the magic marks (and 15% of income. I never saw one person 27 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 feedback

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Hiroshima (2005), perspectives of this profoundly experiment to produced and directed by Paul catastrophic tragedy of war. For measure the Wilmhurst instance, through intercutting real and effects of the dramatised footage of President Truman bomb. From Reviewed by Jackie Bergson aboard the presidential yacht, taking their direct remiered on British terrestrial charge in war rooms and attending experiences, we learn about radioactive television earlier this year, political meetings with Churchill and fallout - black rain – being swallowed Hiroshima recounts and illuminates Stalin, Wilmhurst conveys an acutely by burned victims, desperate for water; P tangible sense of how terrifyingly quickly about hollowed out people who were one of the most horrific war atrocities of the twentieth century. Beloved war leaders came to the ‘momentous’ evaporated or instantly roasted to the actor, the late John Hurt narrates in decision to drop the A-bomb. bone; about beyond heartbreaking journeys to find signs of humanity passionate detail; his rich, authoritative The last living person present during amongst the devastation. tones conveying absolute depth discussions in the White House map of commitment to describing and room, duty officer George Elsey, gives This astounding documentary more than explaining details and facts about an honest interview about ‘top secret’ successfully showcases why and how events before, during and after the USA meetings. Paul Tibbets, commanding Japan’s civilian population was targeted dropped a four-ton atomic bomb upon officer and pilot on the host warplane, by USA military. It also gives an entirely Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Enola Gay, and his logistics colleague, human perspective on Hiroshima’s Seventy-five years after Hiroshima and ‘Dutch’ Van Kirk, are given space to talk staggering readjustment, to become the Nagasaki began their almost impossible openly. Weapon test officer, Morris thriving, democratic, pacifist city that recovery from the deadly radioactive ‘Dick’ Jeppson talks of realising that he exists today. Japan’s current economic devastation wrought upon them during was the last person to put his hands successes and its fight to remain the closing stages of WW2, Hiroshima on the nuclear bomb they dropped. independent from China may influence delivers powerfully clear reminders of Tibbets talks in ordinary-seeming tones the way that audiences who watched how bad things can get when humans about how he named Enola Gay after his this film now respond to it. So too may decide to stop at nothing to control and mother, so that history would remember their awareness of the fact that in 1945, win the spoils of war. Fifteen years after her. the country was governed by imperial dictators. its release, the stunning relevance and John Hurt’s gripping voiceover command of this documentary have accurately describes the minutely Enormously profound changes which not diminished. Its wealth of hindsight exacting, nerve-wracking procedures shaped Japanese society and politics delivers unforgettable memories. involved in dropping the bomb. Hurt’s between those years arc across the In freshly witnessing images and incredible tones add even more gravitas unimaginable yet real impressions memories conveyed by this film, we to the film’s telling of the unfolding we can acquire through watching rediscover and discover both forgotten nightmare of events on the ground in Wilmhurst’s outstanding documentary and never before recounted, heard Hiroshima before, during and after the at any time. Moving, traumatising, or seen emotions and facts about bomb landed. deeply absorbing and enlightening, its the inconceivable horror which befell storytelling thoroughness honours and One of the few survivors of the blast, Dr Hiroshima in 1945. Through juxtaposing respects its subject matter to the nth Hida recalls that in 1945, all Japanese these revelations in stark, glaring degree. As harrowing as the effects of civilians, including schoolchildren, were contrast to news archive images of seeing this film will be upon all who drilled in taking up arms against the jubilations around the western world view it, the importance and weight of its American enemy. He reveals that during as a result of the announcement that anti-war message is one from which no those war years, he taught medics these horrific events effectively ended moral being should shy away. to become suicide bombers. Other WW2, we also come to fully understand blast survivors equally describe their Jackie Bergson has worked in the how tragically hollow those celebrations personal experiences with awe-inspiring voluntary sector and commercial were in retrospect. power and overwhelming depth of business development in technology and Through expertly combining dramatised, detail. Some, such as then bank teller, creative sectors. Educated in and living re-enacted and real, archive footage, Akiko Takakura, explore reasons why in Glasgow, her political and social views Wilmhurst throws light upon all they were targeted by the USA as an chime left-of-centre. 28 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 Lesley Riddoch, somewhere in the Scottish countryside. LOVE AND LOCKDOWN Huts: a place beyond - how Lesley’s vision of the hut is we return People love and are shrill to that. Perhaps, some of us will. But By accident of proximity to end our exile from nature, will many urban Scots turn their backs Fulfilling Napoleon’s observation That emotions like politics Luath, 2020, £9.99 on the Spanish and Turkish holiday packages for this? I fear this a romantic Are dictated by geography Reviewed by Hamish Kirk dream akin to those who long for a Some succumb to loving ooking back upon the heady days Gaelic-speaking life on a croft, but Others release by hating of 2014, I remember Riddoch’s actually live in a flat in Strathbungo! But most by location Lbook, Blossom, which engendered Hamish Kirk is a retired teacher, linguist We compete in closeness some debate and discussion. I hope and translator living on the Isle of Bute Friendship lends distance, Huts will do the same. She asks: Kinship claustrophobia ‘Why are attitudes to using the great Some are family Von Trapp outdoors so different in Norway and in Poems penned during the Others are family Von Trapped. Scotland?’ In Norway, at weekends and in holidays, many head for their huts pandemic GLASGOW GREEN in the countryside and use them as a In the last issue, we featured two poems Battalions of women base to relax and commune with nature. from history teacher, David McKinstry, Washed their sheets This exodus is made by Norwegians of who had been engaged in home At a swift pace Loading them in prams differing classes and ages. Activities like schooling and dealing with the effects of With love and rough grace. this in Scotland are done differently. COVID-19 on family and work. Here, we Aristocrats go hunting and shooting, the bring you several more. A thousand sheets they pinned middle classes rent a holiday cottage, In the Glasgow wind, and the lower orders are more likely to THIS IS WHAT I VOTED FOR Keeping hearth and home in union head to a caravan park or a successor to When the dust settles Whilst their men staggered hame, Butlin’s holiday camps. And the campaign is over, Two sheets to their own divine wind. You can sit back Riddoch traces this ‘apartheid holiday’ Countless washings in the wind With a malt and say Memories of weans tucked up in bed system in Scotland to land ownership. This is what I voted for. Land ownership in rural areas in Thousands of sheets they’ll dry Carting back and forth Scotland is still dominated by feudal When the pound is safe With a communal sigh. lairds like Buccleuch, Sutherland and And the food banks Bute. Norway does not have that to Are doing a roaring trade, DIGITAL DICKENSIAN AGE contend with. It seems that the Scottish You can say Whilst tearing the social fabric Government is busy making pals of our This is what I voted for. Out of the nation, feudal lairds rather than dealing with Brexit jingoists wrap themselves this blight on our country. When free higher education Round the union flag, There are great differences culturally Once again is a privilege Whilst packing their jewels and socially between Norway and Rather than a right, In a Fagan SWAG bag, Scotland. In Norway, there were few You can say Welcome to the Digital Dickensian Age voices for maintaining the union with This is what I voted for. Sweden in the 1905 referendum. As a The financially revered major cultural figure, Norway had Ibsen When health is in private hands Are artful tax dodgers, with his very radical outlook on his And waiting lists grow longer, Whilst the bedroom tax native land. Scotland had Walter Scott You can say Force some to take in lodgers whose views have created images of This is what I voted for. Welcome to the Digital Dickensian Age Scotland for outsiders and for ourselves Scrooge gets rich off for 200 years. Facing the problem of When your gran kids Sweat Shop labour, language, Norway saw a linguistic Are leaving to take Never playing host revival led by Ivar Aasen who created Jobs on a distant shore, To the conscience ‘New Norwegian’ or Nynorsk using a You can say Of Marley’s ghost, variety of Norwegian dialects to create This is what I voted for. Welcome to the Digital Dickensian Age a consciously ‘folky’ form of language. When America demands Bill Sykes runs drug mules He did for Norwegian what Hugh Cannon fodder for Over home county line, MacDiarmid tried in Scots with minimal To serve up Coke effect. Another oil war, You can say To suburbanites as they dine, Nynorsk is now one of the two accepted This is what I voted for. Welcome to the Digital Dickensian Age forms of written Norwegian. The idea Politicians refuse free school meals of using Lallans as a written Language When overworked minimum waged Though food is in plenty store, creates hilarity in our ranks. You may Assistants close your costly Turning a deaf fat ear remember the ‘The Broons’ in The Care home room door, To the communal cry Sunday Post. They often headed off You can shut your eyes and say “Please, Sir, I want some more”, on a holiday to their ‘but and ben’ This is what I voted for. Welcome to the Digital Dickensian Age. 29 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 VLADIMIR McTAVISH’S Kick up the Tabloids

e have now reached the shitstorm that faced us last January, be history. If he isn’t, please let’s all beginning of the last Brexit plus Johnson’s muddled give up and go home. I honestly can’t two months of 2020. approach to the pandemic promises believe even his stunt of pretending W to have the virus (seriously, how many The world, at least my admittedly to provide us all with a perfect fairly unimportant part of it, looks clusterfuck to start off the New Year. morbidly-obese 74-year-olds recover remarkably similar to how it did at after two days?) will not have saved Less than a year ago, BoJo proudly the end of the first two months of the him from the wrath of the American announced that he had an ‘oven-ready year. Namely, there’s nothing going voters. To claim to be ‘immune’ to a deal’ with Europe, which would have on right now, and on the horizon, I plague that has claimed the lives of a been all well and good had he not can glimpse the tantalising prospect quarter-of-a-million of your citizens is spent the last twelve months fumbling bugger-all else happening any time just plain bonkers. soon. about and trying to work out how to turn the gas on. Someone who can’t But, coming to the last of those These are tough times for the even strike a deal with Manchester is issues, the Scotland football team has performing arts in Scotland. Normally, hardly likely to be able to do so with been going about its job quietly, and when writing this column, I would the European Union. Can’t negotiate now stands one game away from its add a strap-line at the bottom with one city in your country? Best first major tournament since 1998. informing readers of any forthcoming of luck trying to get any kind of Not only that, it has done so without performances in the Scotland. There agreement from twenty-seven other any fans to cheer them on. It did is now no need, as I have not stood on nations. strike me that this could be the very a stage at home since mid-March. Nor reason the team is doing so well. The PM now seems to be taking the has any other Scottish performer. Maybe us loyal foot-soldiers of the attitude that if he ignores the EU, it Tartan Army aren’t such a valuable Reading through my 2019 diary, I find will go away. As we all remember, he twelfth man and have been holding out that I did over two-hundred live took a similar approach to Covid back them back all these years. Maybe gigs between March and October. In in March, and we now all know how Scotland should carry on playing the same seven-month period month successful that turned out to be. behind closed doors - as long as we this year, I have made a couple of If you had asked me at the start of can all meet in socially-distanced forays over the border, playing a weird groups of six to piss in fountains. version of Russian roulette with drunk this year which issues concerned me audiences in the Covid hotspots of the most, Brexit aside, I would have Vladimir McTavish may be performing Northern England, which is a risky answered, not necessarily in this somewhere before the end of 2020. strategy. order, the following: climate change, Trump in the White House and the It looks very possible that comedy state of the Scotland football team. clubs and theatres will not be able to re-open before the end of this year, Then along came a global pandemic which is a disaster for the industry and a worldwide shortage of and a huge loss to the general public. toilet paper to put everything into It could mean no pantomimes this perspective. We are so focussed on winter. Although I think panto could the one crisis facing humanity that work with both audience and cast we are in danger of not remembering being socially-distanced, it may what a parlous state the world was require the altering of some of the old in before Coronavirus struck. But traditions. For example, the audience in the cases of some of those huge would maybe have to warn: ‘He’s TWO problems facing the planet, we may METRES behind you!!’ be beginning to see some glimmers of light at the end of this year-long dark The only certainty right now is tunnel. At least, climate change has uncertainty. That, plus the knowledge been partly aided by a drop in foreign that while the entire planet may be travel and a temporary fall in road enduring some rough times, we in traffic. the UK are almost certainly ensured our own particular version of Hell Deadline dictates I file this copy before come the start of 2021. Let’s face it, the end of October. However, I hope if we thought Brexit was the biggest by the time you read this Trump will 30 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 31 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 The pandemic reminds us all of the importance of public services

Scotland’s public services have been at the heart of this pandemic, supporting and protecting communities throughout the country. But it hasn’t been easy. The public service workers that we all relied on to keep our services running have been undervalued, underpaid and mainly invisible for far too long.

Years of neglect made the effect of the pandemic so much worse. One example of that neglect was the PPE shortage that emerged when the pandemic hit. Another is the fragmented nature of care services for the elderly and vulnerable - where staff frequently experience low pay, insecure employment and impossible workloads to manage. In our NHS a shortage of nurses and other key staff means there are fewer people to look after patients.

This is the result of more than 10 years of spending cuts and austerity. The damage to all the vital services that make our communities strong and resilient, including schools, policing and local government, is plain to see.

Despite all this, key workers in our public services pulled through for all of us. As we look ahead to rebuilding the country following the pandemic, it’s crucial for all of us that the same mistakes aren’t made again. We can not return to undervaluing our public services and the people who provide them.

Mike Kirby said: “Scotland depends on key workers to keep public services running and everyone protected. But it’s taken a pandemic for their worth to be properly recognised.

“Everyone is desperate to get back to normal. However, ‘normal’ cannot mean a return to low pay, penny-pinching and public services staff being under-valued. For too long, this has been the reality for those providing vital amenities including health and social care, policing, education and local government.

“The government must invest properly in public services and respect Mike Kirby workers by paying them fairly and keeping them safe. It must reverse UNISON’s Scottish Secretary a decade of neglect - and start right now.”

#NoGoingBackToNormal www.unison-scotland.org 32 - ScottishLeftReview Issue 120 November/December 2020 joinunison.org

27.10.20 Scottish Left Review ad.indd 1 27/10/2020 13:45:44