non-payment situation requires enor- mous mass campaigning: petitioning, demonstrations, activities, to heighten the awareness of the Scottish nation on Grasping the question. If all those things are sufficiently well done, then non- payment can be a serious possible option within a big, big campaign. The Thistle The other thing I think is very interesting - and perhaps the reason A Roundtable Discussion for some of the splits and divisions - is the question of devolution, which is The Scottish nation is implacably anti-Thatcherite. now much more sharply focused, pre- But it remains politically bound to Westminster. cisely because of the schism that's taking place over the poll tax cam- Where can its people turn for a change? paign. Isobel I do agree with George. I argued against the SNP's decision to leave the STUC's campaign because it did seem to me there was potential to keep a fair degree of unity while still pursuing an active non-payment cam- paign on our own account. There has been a tendency towards sectarianism on our part, which is not the right atmosphere for Scotland at this point. At the same time I think that the whole question of non-payment is central because we have to give the people tools of resistance, build up a kind of oppositional consciousness. Let me go back to that critical point when The participants in the roundtable are: George Bolton, president of the Scottish the SNP withdrew and a split occurred in National Union of Mineworkers and member of the Communist Party executive; the campaign. Was the focus on opposition Isobel Lindsay, an executive member of the Scottish National Party and the to the poll tax the best basis for getting campaign for a Scottish assembly; John McAllion, MP for Dundee East since 1987; unity at that stage? Could more have been Joyce McMillan, Scottish theatre critic for The Guardian and radio columnist for the done to have put a more positive aspect Glasgow Herald; and Tom Nairn, journalist and author of The Enchanted Glass, a into the campaign? recent study of the British monarchy. The discussion was chaired by Doug Bain, Isobel You are never going to get a co-organiser of the forthcoming What's Left For Scotland event. vigorous campaign for a local income tax, it's just not the kind of thing that Maybe we could start with the poll tax, John What, surprisingly, has become people campaign about! The trouble, which has been the dominant campaign in an issue is the poll tax itself, because George, about all the emphasis on Scotland over the past period. How would when you look back to the housing building up the conventional type of you assess that campaign? benefit and social security changes, campaign is that we didn't have to Tom Well, surely the thing that's there was virtually no campaign at all convert public opinion: this is the going to be in the public attention over until they were actually implemented. tragedy of Scotland's position. We have the coming period is the fact that the There's been a major poll tax campaign won the arguments, we don't have to go only two serious candidates in the long before it's ever likely to have any around convincing and converting peo- Govan by-election, Scottish National effect on anybody. ple - we have to find the forms of action Party (SNP) and Labour, are both I think it was necessary that the that are going to put greater political advocating non-payment of the poll tax: debate inside the Labour Party between pressure on governments. Unfortu- in effect extra-constitutional action. I the payers and the non-payers went on, nately, the traditional forms of ex- think this is the only by-election in because it is a very difficult choice. It's pressing democratic opinion have not modern times where this will have an issue that divides every party, but been effective and this is the dilemma happened, and that's surely a tribute to the importance is to try to establish we are in in Scotland. the extent to which the anti-poll tax some form of unity. I would like to see George My concern is to find the campaign has advanced and become a non-payment becoming one aspect of a widest range of public expression; even central part of Scottish politics. broad-based campaign against the gov- a flag day - money in a box - is giving Isobel The central problem has been ernment and against the poll tax, people a way to express opposition. And the divisions in the campaign. If there because there's a constitutional issue unless we do find that then we'll finish had been a fairly united front by here: I don't think there's any democra- up with a very narrow non-payment Labour, backed up by the SNP, then the tic mandate for the poll tax. campaign and it will not shift this campaign could probably have taken George Well, I thought the Scottish government. Only the mass weight of off. What I think will happen now is that TUC (STUC) did a first-class job of Scottish opinion finding some express- we will still have very extensive having formed a steering committee ion can shift it. Weeks and weeks of non-payment but it will be higher in the for all the parties, and it's regrettable patient work by the STUC went in to try 'can't pay, won't pay' than in the 'can that some did not join. The SNP for and build a broad alliance with every- pay, won't pay' category. We'll get a example. Just as it's regrettable that one in it. The danger is that the steering very respectable proportion of the some in the Labour Party are breaking committee and the whole broad cam- politicised Scottish middle class parti- away by trying to make non-payment paign could collapse. It's a very serious cipating in non-payment, but the effec- the central question; because that question. tiveness of this is going to be blunted concedes the principle that the tax is John It's a very fair point that the somewhat by quite a strong campaign coming in. My worry is that the STUC were genuinely trying to bring against non-payment coming from the non-payment thing narrows the whole all the opposition political parties official Labour Party. campaign down. To get a meaningful together. But each of the opposition 34 MARXISM TODAY NOVEMBER 1988 political parties saw the main chance representation. for themselves in taking distinct lines on the poll tax. I don't want the From Do you think that the political parties are non-payment issue to interfere with all Devolution able to set aside to a certain extent the the other broad campaigning but it's To Assembly differences between them in order to important that somebody takes a stand concentrate on the common enemy? to say that what's happening in Scot- Following the 'failure' in 1979 of John I agree with George - this is a land is illegal. There's separate Scot- the Scottish referendum on de- personal view - that proportional rep- tish legislation. There was a separate volution, the cross-party cam- paign for a Scottish assembly resentation is a matter of necessity. Scottish manifesto, the poll tax was a was established, to keep alive the Because it's a socialist idea, which goes real issue in the election in Scotland. It demand for self-rule. way back to the early days when Jimmy was rejected clearly by the Scottish In 1985 the CSA called for the Maxton and the early Clydesiders were people. Somebody has to say it's an creation of a Constitutional all in favour of PR. One of the great abuse of power. Most people won't be Convention. This would bring things PR would do would be to stop able to take that stand because of the together elected representatives Thatcher winning in the next general penalties and the fines that are in- in Scotland to prepare proposals for an assembly and to seek wide- election. The best chance of anyone volved: but some people can. It's spread agreement for them. The else winning is the Labour Party and important that people in high positions Convention would also be the therefore that does influence the way it take it. And the link goes in to the body responsible for negotiating looks at other parties. I'm personally Constitutional Convention (see box), with the Westminster govern- quite happy to work with other parties, because it has to be a means of bringing ment for the transition of powers. as long as they are prepared to work on together the overwhelming anti- In July 1988 a CSA-appointed an agreed basis on things which are not Thatcher forces in Scotland. constitutional steering commit- directed against the Labour Party. tee produced Scotland's Claim Doug: Of Right, a full proposal for a Isobel I think there have been major It seems to me we're at a stage where the Constitutional Convention, and 'The things shifts in Scottish politics during the campaign's in danger of disintegrating. Is through it a new set of political that 80s; there has been a lot more co- there an initiative that can be taken to pull arrangements for Scottish identified operation at various points. I think the whole thing together? government. and CND's been very valuable in this role.