• £10-An-Hour Living Wage • Tax the Rich • Scrap Trident • Fight the Cuts

Radical voices: Jonathon Shafi, Alan Bissett, Colin Fox, Isobel Lindsay, John McAllion, Paul Holleran & more • see inside £1 • issue 448 • 21st November – 4th December 2014 scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com SCOTLAND DEMANDS CHANGE • £10-an-hour living wage • Tax the rich • Scrap Trident • Fight the cuts • Protect benefits • Axe the Council Tax • Dump anti-union laws ScottishSocialistVoice.wordpress.com /ScottishSocialistVoice @ssv_voice EDITORIAL by Ken Ferguson AT THE heart of the broad vibrant Yes campaign, which A people before profit Scotland culminated with a massive 45 per cent vote in September’s independence referendum, is the spearhead of change PHOTO: John Lanigan was the clear belief that independence could open the road to a socially just and sustainable Scotland, putting people before profit. Astonished unionists have looked on aghast as the Yes campaign, fuelled by this key vision, not only failed to melt away but—in all its aspects— mushroomed in size and activity. Now the supposed victors of Better Together particularly the sham socialists of the once all conquering Labour Party are staring down the barrel of a political defeat of immense proportions as the reality of the No vote is revealed. SOCIALISTS SAY NO TO NATO: pro-Yes parties differ on issues such as corporation tax, monarchy and NATO Chilling reality The polls predicting a The key question facing the live issue with the proposal For example, it has been Labour meltdown underline left in this situation is how to for a Yes alliance targeting Scottish Socialist Party policy the chilling reality for them turn that rejection of Labour Labour’s unionist No for some time to seek a that the old song of it’s us or duplicity into a movement campaign Tory soul mates common programme of the Tories is fast losing its that can turn what are issues and significant moves by the progressive demands magic and more importantly backed by the public such as SNP to allow non-party capable of garnering support the hard truth that Labour is rail nationalisation, public members to stand under from a range of political equally tied to the austerity ownership of energy, ending their banner. forces and this approach agenda has been revealed to poverty pay into mainstream might be one way of working class voters. politics. Labour’s dead hand advancing the energy of the It was this fact which was Campaigning in our The Yes alliance idea has Yes campaign in May. hammered home by the left workplaces and communities been welcomed by the SSP, Certainly, the prize of in the Yes campaign in public on the streets and on social who have also made it clear breaking the dead hand of meetings, mass canvassing, media will all be vital parts of that they are minded to Labour on working class in cyber space and by a building such a movement contest seats in May, while Scotland in the wake of the myriad of websites and but it must also find a way to the Greens are already Yes vote in their heartlands publications from Scottish give an electoral expression selecting candidates so the and inserting a large pro- Socialist Voice to Newsnet to the desperate need to take entire issue is complex but, independence bloc of MPs Scotland and many others Scotland in a new direction. as yet, not set in stone. into a hung Westminster is which sealed the Yes deal in Put simply the ideas of the Unlike the referendum, redolent with real working class Scotland. left have to be put at the heart where the aim was one clear possibilities. More importantly, that vote, of policy making in order to be aim—independence— Beyond May to next year’s as we discuss elsewhere in translated into concrete elections bring with them Holyrood elections it will be this Voice , has potentially change which impacts on the issues of policy where the even more essential that the broken the once iron grip of reality of peoples’ lives and pro-Yes parties have real and socialist ideas which played Labour on these communities this means they have to be principled difference on such a part in energising the and is a major factor feeding part of the mainstream of issues such as corporation Yes campaign find elected the vortex of chaos elected politics. tax, monarchy and NATO expression in Holyrood and convulsing the so called The debate around the making a unified ticket this must be a key priority in peoples party. best way forward on this is a complex but not impossible. the months ahead. 2 • scottishsocialistvoice.wordpress.com • issue 448 ALAN BISSETT by Alan Bissett ten years. Membership of the pro-Yes parties—the SSP, THE NO vote in the referendum Greens and SNP—has gone in September was truly devastat - The Scotland we are through the roof, whereas ing to those of us who voted Yes. Labour, who worked hand-in- We felt it as yet another blow to living in now was glove with the Tories through - social justice—to the new, mass out the campaign, has seen its alliance of working class and support north of the border young people, socialists, femi - inconceivable three slump to unprecedented levels. nists, artists, greens and national - All the signs are that the ists—from the concentrated Unionists may have won the power of the UK Establishment. short years ago battle but lost the war. No sup - We have been here before, of porters have gone quiet, as course, with the failed (albeit events disprove their case, re - rigged) devolution referendum duced to pleas for Yes activists of 1979; with the imposition of to simply ‘let it go’. The Yes successive Tory governments movement, however, is regroup - which Scotland had voted ing and renewing its strength, against; with the shocking dein - with not one but two enormous dustrialisation of our industry gatherings in Glasgow. and the atomizing of communi - Nicola Sturgeon’s address to ties; with the smashing of the the SNP at the Hydro and the working-class in Thatcher’s Radical Independence Confer - victory over the miners; with ence in the Clyde Auditorium, Blair and Brown’s betrayal of where the socialist issues of na - the Labour movement after tionalisation, anti-austerity and 1997; and with, despite massive gender equality will be very public outcry, the calamitous in - much to the fore. vasion of Iraq in 2003. Let’s stop to take stock of that: Sometimes being on the left a radical and (relatively) unified feels like one long chain of de - movement has managed to sell out feats. But if there is another SPIRIT OF 45: the Yes movement is regrouping and one of Scotland’s largest music thing which history teaches it is renewing its strength, with not one but two enormous venues—a mammoth 3000- gatherings in Glasgow PHOTO: Craig Maclean that neither the need nor the seater—while another meeting of hunger for socialism die easily. bourgeoisie such as Barack footing in Iraq and Syria, Cen - 12,000 people, who share many of Obama, the Pope, EC President tral Scotland is being opened up our aims, takes place at exactly the We get knocked down Manuel Barroso and Australia’s by Westminster for shale-gas same time next door. This is the Just as the forces of the right hawkish PM, Tony Abbot—threw fracking, new oil wealth has Scotland we are living in now, in - believe they have delivered the every conceivable threat at the been suddenly discovered in the conceivable three short years ago. fatal stroke, some fresh willpower Scottish people, but the polls kept North Sea, and the Bank of Such is the Unionist ‘victory’. lifts us again to face the next crisis rising in Yes’s favour. Only when England have revealed their of capitalism, or Unionism, or they attempted the carrot rather plans to calm the markets But we get up again whichever bourgeois ghoul flits than the stick, with the infamous should Yes have prevailed. The Yes campaign saw disil - before us. As that refrain from the ‘vow’ promising “substantial new The influence of UKIP in lusioned, marginalised, work - anarchist pop-group Chum - powers”, were Scots persuaded to England grows ever-greater, ing-class people become buwumba goes: “I get knocked give the Union another chance. with Ed Miliband now ‘talking re-energised by left wing issues, down, but I get up again/You’re The No vote, however, has tough’ on immigration, and a meaning Scotland now has one never gonna keep me down...” left a biter aftertaste in Scot - Tory victory in 2015’s West - of the informed, engaged and Since that awful morning of land’s mouth. The day after the minster election seems ever- politicised electorates in Eu - 19 Sept, the Yes movement has referendum fascist thugs more likely. To quote another rope. The ground from which shown spadefuls of this grit. A ‘cleared’ George Square of Yes pop anarchist, Johnny Rotten: an independent, socialist repub - No vote was supposed to destroy supporters. ‘The Vow’ has de - ‘Ever get the feeling you’ve lic can grow is more fertile than us, cement the Union and con - scended into a power struggle been cheated?’ ever. It becomes evermore clear firm the right of the British rul - between Labour and the Tories, There is evidence that even that the visible consequences of ing-class to keep us in our place. and there is little confidence many No voters have realised a No vote were simply another The entire upper layer of soci - that the Smith Commission will their mistake. Two successive precondition for the eventual ety—the Westminster parties and be able to deliver something “as polls have shown support for in - triumph of Scottish socialism.

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