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Scottish Left Review Issue 81 March/April 2014 £2.00 NUJ Ad.pdf 1 06/03/2013 14:15 Fighting against Delivering relevant compulsory training for the Scottish redundancies and media industry in a campaigning for the partnership of members, resources to produce employers and quality journalism at academics to the BBC Scotland highest level C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Encouraging media employers to support Campaigning for an journalists by independent, robust and maintaining staffing transparent media levels and provide the regulator to implement fullest possible debate Leveson proposals to on the future of Scotland restore trust and protect as part of the ordinary journalists independence doing their daily jobs. referendum campaign. 2 Scottish Left Review Issue 81 March/April 2014 Contents Comment .......................................................3 Ending Europe’s economic war .....................5 Email: [email protected] Web: www.scottishleftreview.org Alexis Tsipras Views of Europe .............................................6 Tel: 0141 424 0042 Michael Keating, Maggie Chapman, Ian Bruff, Bill Paterson Address: Scottish Left Review c/o Reid Foundation It’s Greens versus ........................................14 PO Box 8781 Gary Dunion Biggar ML12 9AG It’s no obvious ..............................................16 Grahame Smith Editorial Committee A real chance for workers ...........................18 Malcolm Balfour Henry McCubbin John Duffy Cat Boyd David Miller The university challenge .............................20 Moira Craig Gordon Morgan Mary Senior Gregor Gall Tom Nairn Isobel Lindsay Jonathan Shafi Crown Estates .............................................22 John McAllion Tommy Sheppard Jim and Margaret Cuthbert Robin McAlpine (Editor) Elaine Smith Reviews .......................................................24 Peter McColl Bob Thomson (Convener) Kick Up The Tabloids ...................................26 Printed by Clydeside Press Ltd, 37 High Street, Cover and illustrations: Nadia Lucchesi Glasgow G1 1LX [email protected] Comment You would barely think there is an EU election barely two months away for all the profile it has. But ignoring Europe is a mistake. t’s a fascinating issue of Scottish Left for working people?’ and we don’t frame membership of the EU. In the self- IReview, if only for the complexity and elections to the Scottish Parliament in reflecting world of the UK media it is diversity in our Views of Europe feature. terms of ‘can this Parliament make any widely predicted that UKIP may ‘win’ We asked four writers to answer six real difference?’. But suddenly the EU the Euro election primarily on the questions each. All of the writers come has a very specific feel of being optional. basis that they have received saturation from a left, socially-progressive position. In Scotland we’ve been forced to coverage from the media telling us it All of them want to see an effective social think about life outside the EU as a is likely to win the Euro elections. If Scotland. And yet when asked if the EU result of political interventions in the UKIP was ever to take power in the UK is a barrier to that, one answers Yes, one independence debate on the part of it would be perhaps the first case not of answers No, and one answer Yes/No. right-wing Eurocrats like Barosso and a state controlled media but of a media Under usual circumstances this right-wing European politician like Rajoy controlled state as wild-eyed radical would not be the question you’d be threatening us with eviction. righ-wing editors pushed for ever-more asking. We don’t frame a British General Meanwhile at the UK level we right-wing politics. Election in the terms ‘can British are now staring in the face an in/out So that’s easy then, the right hates Democracy ever deliver social benefits referendum on the UK’s continued Europe so the left must love it? Except 3 the one attempt to set up a left party in without debate - national leaders were make it illegal for nation states to do the UK in recent years was the RMT- left with the option of going along with almost anything that a secret court of funded No2EU. any new set of proposals quietly or face business figures think interferes with the The confusion is straightforward the wrath of the global markets on their commercial interests of a corporation. in origin; the EU is a pretty effective own. So the EU can easily become ally tool for protecting various of the social That was until a group of Latin or enemy to progressives depending on gains of the post-war era and for pushing American nations gathered together the issue. It seems hard to come to a agendas such as equalities and human under the banner of MERCOSUR and final conclusion - although if the TTIP rights. It has acted to prevent the decided collectively to block yet another is passed as it stands it certainly clarifies continent-wide Dutch Auction which round of trade libreralisation. Twice it the risks. has afflicted the US in which states and blocked attempts to introduce laws that Which all means that Scotland/ nations are set one against the other in basically put the interests of corporations UK membership of the EU becomes a an attempt to undermine protections for well ahead of those of any democratically complicated question for a progressive workers and the welfare state. It is fair elected government. But both the WTO’s (though virtually none wants to be left to say that the EU has both protected Doha and Copenhagen summits ended outside the EU in a rightward-drifting and extended the gains of post-war social in deadlock. It became clear that the UK). democracy. ‘bully the globe in one go’ model had However, this is for a not-to-distant But if all-for-one-and-one-for-all reached the end of the line. future. The key in May is that the EU we can be used to protect us from global Which is where the EU comes have is populated by as many progressive corporations picking us off one by one, it in. Trade deals are now negotiated voices as possible. Yes, this issue has given can also be used by global corporations to not multilaterally at a global scale but the Scottish Greens a platform to make pick us off all in one go. From the 1980s bilaterally between nations or groups a case for why we should consider giving until a few years ago there was a powerful of nations. Since it seems unlikely that our vote to them. Many of you may global movement which aimed to bypass there is a member state of the EU that choose to stick with Labour or the SNP. democracy altogether in the pursuit of would easily pass legislation in its own But we must all think carefully about the destruction of the post-1945 social jurisdiction that granted supremacy to the outcome. It cannot be in anyone’s democratic consensus. Its primary agents corporations over their own government, interests on the Scottish left for the were the IMF and the WTO which the EU was seen as suitably distant and end result to be Nigel Farage gaining a sought to create global trade rules that undemocratic to be the vehicle instead. foothold in Scotland. worked against citizens and in favour And thus we have the Transatlantic Trade of corporations. And it sought to do it and Investment Partnership, a move to Defending FREE education www.ucu.org.uk/scotland in Scotland 4 Ending Europe’s economic war Alexis Tsipras is the candidate of the European Left Party for the post of President of the European Commission, which will be elected by the European Parliament following the Elections in May. He outlines his platform. urope is at a critical crossroads. solution to the problem. It is for that people that we could win and change the EAnd there are two ways to go. The reason that the European political conservative policies and political parties alternatives are clear. establishment – a voluntary hostage to that divide Europe. We want to unite Either we stand still. Or we move Ms Merkel – insists to impose on the Europe. forward. Either we consent to the entire Eurozone South policies that have My candidacy for President of the neoliberal status quo and pretend that deteriorated the initial problem. European Commission is on behalf of the crisis can be resolved with the policies We have to stop austerity. Current each and all of you – on behalf of the that have recycled it. Or we march into policies create pain, disappointment, European Left – for the Presidency of the the future with the European Left. unemployment and disaster in Europe. European Commission. It is more than Because the peoples of Europe are in We have to create hope. Europe needs a candidacy, it is mandate for hope and danger, democracy itself is in danger. a ‘New Deal’ to fight unemployment change in Europe. Neoliberalism is a threat to the and to finance its future. If Europe is It is an honour for Syriza and the peoples of Europe. The extreme right to survive it needs redistribution and Greek people who are in the front line. is a danger to democracy. And the only solidarity. It is a roll call for democracy, in which alternative is the resistance of the peoples Those are the foundations of the every generation deserves to participate, and the strengthening of the European totally new Europe that we are fighting which every generation is entitled to Left for; in the place of a Europe that live. However, let me assure you, my There can be redistributes income candidacy is not just a candidacy of the no monetary union The European to the rich and fear to south of Europe but of all of Europe.