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Ssv Voice EDITORIAL by Ken Ferguson 50 Year Grip on Scottish Politics Is Increasingly Endangered

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Ssv Voice EDITORIAL by Ken Ferguson 50 Year Grip on Scottish Politics Is Increasingly Endangered John McAllion: ‘Labour Party are Scrap Trident: Glasgow committed to even more austerity demo on 4 April. Faslane than the ConDem Coalition...’ blockade on 13 April • see page 5 • see page 12 £1 • issue 455 • 27th March – 9th April 2015 scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com As official report reveals 50% of Scottish wealth is owned by just 10% of the people, Labour’s hatchet-woman Rachel Reeves spells out her party’s policy: We are not the party of people on benefits. We don’t want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those RACHEL REEVES Labour MP, Shadow who are out of work Secretary of State for Work and Pensions We say: • £10/hour min. wage NOW • End zero hours contracts • Axe anti-trade union laws ScottishSocialistVoice.wordpress.com /ScottishSocialistVoice @ssv_voice EDITORIAL by Ken Ferguson 50 year grip on Scottish politics is increasingly endangered. NICK CLEGG makes a desper - The likely winners, the SNP, ate bid to rally about to be by contrast have occupied the so - eclipsed Scottish Lib Dems and WWIILLLL UUNNIIOONNIISSTT cial democratic ground deserted makes fantasy world claims by Labour of universal benefits, about his party defeating the SNP. a public NHS, free prescriptions In the heart of Red Clydeside WWOOEESS OOPPEENN DDOOOORR and opposition to Trident and a in Clydebank Ed Miliband twists droves of former Labour voters and turns in what looks like a are set to back them in May. desperate attempt to stem the TTOO RREEAALL CCHHAANNGGEE?? Certainly, the demise of SNP tide engulfing Scottish Labour may be exaggerated but Labour and ignore the likelihood there seems little doubt that that he will need their support to after 7 May, the political terrain form a government after May. in Scotland will be transformed Nobody bothers to factor in and looks likely to be open to a the Tories and UKIP’s sole policy direction informed by the elected representative is univer - vision of the Yes campaign and sally condemned for his ugly ultimately a fresh look at the in - racist attacks on Scottish minis - dependence issue. ter Humza Yousaf. For Scotland’s left there is Welcome to the reality of much to welcome in these de - Scottish politics with only velopments with the SNP de - weeks to go until a UK general manding an end to austerity and election. opposing Trident renewal as a Bemused unionists who, just part of any type of deal it could last September, were hugging do with a minority Labour and kissing under the Union Westminster administration. Jack as Project Fear paid off However welcome as such a and delivered a No vote are now PHOTO: Craig Maclean policy shift is, it leaves much to counting down to defeat in what First, how did we get here surge for the Scottish Socialist be addressed if Scotland is to will seen by many as the second and secondly what to we need Party, the Greens and most take a course which advances the half of the independence match. to do next? There is no question spectacularly the SNP, and at interests of people and planet. that the drama now unfolding is the same time is dire news for Smell of panic firmly based on the fact that the the business-as-usual unionists. Dogma The smell of panic from the recent indyref campaign not Of course the demise of Lib Key to this is a break with the smug London pundits is over - only fought for a Yes vote but in Dems has been long predicted, blind faith in market economics powering whether its Guardian doing so built a process of mass and the Tories dismissed years and privatisation which has dom - cartoonist Steve Bell increas - engagement which went be - ago, but for Labour, so long top inated UK politics sine 1979 and ingly shrill efforts or any one of yond the democratic issue to dog, the outlook is doubly grim: is the ruling dogma of the EU’s a dozen “grown up” Westmin - look at what kind of Scotland wipeout in Scotland and failure unelected ruling commission. ster scribblers and politicians might flow from it. to win in Westminster leaving It is this dogma which keeps unsure whether to portray Scots While the mainstream politi - them facing a meltdown in their railways private, power firms in voters as fools or lunatics. cians debated currency union, EU former stronghold. the hands of profiteers and has Tories have a cartoon membership, oil and so on, in vil - Labour’s plight has been seen the demise of large Salmond bogey man, suppos - lage halls, town meeting up and worsened by the fact that, since swathes of manufacturing in - edly serious journalists queue down Scotland a much more they lost power at Holyrood in dustry. Along with legal shack - up to parody and misrepresent deep discussion developed in 2007 they have moved right - les on trade unions and the low any alternative posed by the which a view of what was possi - ward as Scotland moved left, wage/zero hours culture this ap - Scots electorate to their dismal ble was forged and that view—on and far from solving the prob - proach has seen a massive shift austerity consensus while comic poverty, equality and peace—de - lem, the anointment of arch of wealth and power from the duo Danny Alexander and veloped a growing conviction Blairite Murphy as leader has many to the wealthy few. Paddy Ashdown dip into the in - that another world is possible. simply made things worse. The task of the SSP and the sults book as they beg for Tory What has resulted is a grow - No amount of noisy left- wider left is to develop and popu - voters to save them. ing understanding that, despite sounding policy pronounce - larise policies which address is - Two questions arise for the the dismal drumbeat from the ments look like altering the fact sues such as pay, scarce housing, Left in this unprecedented con - Westminster elite that austerity that Labour is tied into a policy fuel poverty, free public transport fusion and disarray besetting the is the only way, an alternative is of austerity and nuclear and many others to construct a beleaguered band of former Bet - not only possible but essential. weapons increasingly rejected policy offering distinctive socialist ter Together comrades in arms. This underpins the membership by Scottish voters, and that their answers to Scotland’s challenges. 2 • scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com • issue 455 JONATHON SHAFI by Jonathon Shafi MUCH HAS been made in Can Westminster poll open the recent months about the depth of the crisis of the British state. The UK state is used to crisis way for revitalised Scottish left? of course. It has withstood GLASGOW, 1919: Party, and the British State. the British State wars, domestic unrest, general sent tanks into Now, both of these institutions strikes and it has experienced George Square to are in rapid decline, and the serious economic crises. Dur - quench a mass general political conditions workers’ rebellion ing the general strike of 1926, under which their decline is the government sent war ships taking place have been fur - to Tyneside to quell dissent. nished by the radical left In the past, troops, police throughout the referendum. and tanks confronted workers That means, despite the in George Square. surge to the SNP, that the situ - In the 1970s, trade union or - ation remains fluid. It means ganisation and militancy was that there is an opening that will such that it threatened to bring develop more visibly after the the commanding heights of the General Election for socialists economy into workers control. to draw up a framework In recent years we saw mil - through which we can deliver lions march against a war that present crisis in Britain. There fail to resolve themselves over mass radical politics not just in stretched legitimacy in the state is a reason why the political at - a period of time, until it be - the movement, but at elections. to breaking point, a mass stu - mosphere is so fraught. In comes untenable to sustain. dent rebellion which physically short, this is because the crisis They have strategies to New left opposition rocked London, and of course is multi-dimensional. combat the crisis. For one That is the moment where the that most intense period of cri - We are not talking about a thing the privatisation agenda left can set out its stall and start sis, the independence referen - stand off battle with a particular continues at a fast pace, a mass process of replacing the dum. It is often said that people Prime Minster. We are talking though this builds its own prob - Labour Party as the official op - in the UK are indifferent to po - about the long decline of every lems into the situation. If you position in Scottish politics. litical and social regressions, single institution in the British think the economic crisis has Not only will this revitalise and don’t resist. In actual fact polity. Not just the government been bad, the next one stands the possibility of genuine there is in many senses a very of the day, but the media, the a chance of being much worse working class representation healthy history of resistance. financial institutions, national as the shallow recovery built in parliament, it will intensify political structures and local on sand becomes undone. the unstoppable movement to Resisting the system councils. Every level of author - For us in Scotland the re - independence, and open a left The chartists, the suffra - ity is being questioned. In ad - cent and historic political front in Northern Europe which gettes, the anti-apartheid dition, it is hugely underplayed awakening means that there is can relate to and stand with movement and the defeating of the degree to which the con - massive radical potential.
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