Thank you for the reply. I note your two criteria.

Sadly – and I consider myself to be a socialist (whatever that means!) – your second criterion has often been the one which a number of self proclaimed leftists, gave, as the last hurdle was reached, as the reason for withdrawing their support. What was being proposed, hey claimed, with finger-jabbing raucousness, was a ‘sell-out’ or ‘there were better things to be got’. As one of the soixante-nuit generation, I have met plenty of such people, in my career-long years as a trade union member.

I do not intend to imply that you are insincere in your views. I accept your argument as honest.

However, there are many with pretty strong left wing views who support independence for Scotland, clearly believing that an independent Scotland offers a better chance of socialist or democratic socialist or social democratic policies being enacted.

Personally, I do not think we should be going into any second referendum on a policy of creating a ‘socialist Scotland’. The question we have to face is do we want an independent, democratic, pluralist Scotland, in which we can decide for ourselves how we want to organise our affairs? It is up to socialists in that context to argue their case.

We have seen recently who the donors to Scotland in Union are. They are certainly not the horny-handed sons of toil. But, these are the people from whom Labour in 2014 took ‘the Queen’s shilling’ and with whom Labour members celebrated when the NO result was announced. It was this betrayal which turned many long term Labour voters permanently against Labour in Scotland.

The United Kingdom no longer serves any useful purpose for the great majority of its population. It needs to be ended. The people of Wales and England need to work out what their concepts of Wales and England are.

the coercive and invasive nature of markets;
the unfairness and rising inequality;
the lawlessness and tax evasion of the rich;
the perennial resort of elites to wars of aggression;
the persistence of racism, sexism and homophobia in a world where they’re supposed to have disappeared;
the return of fascism, xenophobia and ethnic nationalism;
the unaccountability of elites; and
the precariousness and often pointlessness of work.

It is uni-dimensional. It merely takes the C19 arguments and updates them; it is about class and money. I’m afraid that the ‘left’ needs to get away from that and look at what ‘citizens’ need to be doing for their future by looking at the planet: what use more work and money if it continues humanity’s unsustainable activity wrt the planet. Climate change is happening with a vengeance and Labour is counting the proverbial deck-chairs. It is not good enough to be mildly sneering about the Greens – Labour can only survive by beating the Greens at their own game.

1) Democracy. The Scottish people must have the right to self determination. There can be no working class/Socialist unity on any other basis.

2) Is it in the interests of Socialism?

Therefore I cannot but agree with 1) but it doesn’t follow I would campaign for independence.

Scottish Socialists should support the right to self determination, but they should assess the situation according to its impact on the interests of Socialism.

If there were the prospect of a Socialist govt in Scotland, that could act as a beacon ,set an example for the UK and beyond, I would campaign for independence.

But is that the case now? I suppose it depends on your assessment of the SNP.

If Scotland won independence now, there would be an SNP govt. Is the SNP a Socialist Party? Avowedly not. Some are and some are not.

Without Scottish Labour MP’s, a majority for a Corbyn led govt at Westminster (the nearest thing to a beacon we have in prospect at present) would be highly unlikely

To me – and more importantly, to Corbyn – I think that is the decisive thing.

It is not accurate to compare the Scottish Labour Party of today with that under Kezia Dugdale. Brown disgraced the Labour Party when he guaranteed Cameron’s bouncing cheques re Devo Max and Dugdale should have been sacked on the spot for advocating Labour supporters vote Tory to keep the SNP out in the General Election.

As far as I know, that is not the situation today, although I take your point about Unionism in the Labour Party.

As I understand it, Corbyn’s position is that Scotland should have a second referendum if it wishes. Whether Scottish Labour should decide its line and campaign accordingly, is another matter.

That would be my position, let the Scottish people decide. No repeat of the great Unionist Tory/Lab united front with the Tories like last time. There again, it would be impossible for Labour as a whole to not have an opinion, but, unlike last time, Labour should let the Scottish Labour Party campaign as it sees fit.

No repeat of the last time!

I agree that Brexit is a factor, particularly given the votes in Northern Ireland and Scotland in the EU Referendum.

When the EU results were declared I felt then that Brexit and the UK would find their greatest existential threats in Ireland.

The demographics of NI have changed. No longer is there a Protestant majority in the population. Protestants (self declared) remain the largest group, but, I suspect that by the 2021 Census that might have changed. Many residents in the north of Ireland now hold dual citizenship. Immediately after the EU referendum, although he personally was a LEAVER, Mr Ian Paisley Junior, advised his supporters to avail themselves of their right of dual citizenship. The economies on either side of the ‘border’ are so intermingled that it is clear Mrs May and her team have no idea how to solve it. It will probably help break open the crack in the Tories. Either there is a border in the Irish Sea – anathema to the DUP – or there is a customs union and access to the single market. However, rationality has never been in good supply in the north of Ireland, and there is a chance that ‘the Six Counties’ shrink to three, with accompanying ethnic cleansing and a permanent British Army presence.

Although the term Conservative and Unionist Party has been in greater use, we must remember that much of Labour is a Unionist and English colonialist Party. The Labour Party in Scotland were eager to work with the Tories during the Scottish referendum, and, in the subsequent Smith Commission were far stronger opponents of any further empowerment of the Scottish Government than were the Tories. Indeed, many Scottish Labour supporters have far more admiration for Ruth Davidson, than they ever had for Richard Leonard, Kezia Dugdale, Jim Murphy, Johan Lamont, Iain Gray. Having rejoiced with the Tories over the NO vote, I think a fair chunk of Labour voters have realised they are Unionists first and that Ruth Davidson articulates their (small ‘c’) conservatism satisfactorily. There is some evidence of some direct and long lasting switching as well as tactical switching, for example to allow the Tories to regain Eastwood constituency.

I think we are seeing an overt Unionist/BritishEnglish nationalist/anti immigrant/ racist ethos emerging in places and, people like Mr Rees Mogg and several of the recently elected Scottish Tories at Westminster are keen to go along with that. At Holyrood, we have the ‘Queen’s eleven’ Rangers fanaticism of such as Murdo Fraser and Adam Tomkins.

I think some, are, indeed, playing with fire. I am a bit more sanguine than you about violence. It is possible amongst some in Northern Ireland, but I think the majority have enjoyed peace too much to let it go. In Scotland, despite the historic sectarianism – now substantially in decline – in the Central Belt, we did not experience ‘Troubles’ as NI did. So, I do not think we will experience violence. However, I think there will be an increasing polarisation of views: people will, increasingly, have to decide on whether they want to be in the kind of UK Mrs May and her party represent, or whether, to ‘work as if they are in the early days of a better nation’ and vote for Scottish independence.

I agree, there are strains and I do not think there will be a consensus for the kind of nasty unionism that is evolving.

Labour has no real answer.

It is not fanciful to think that within 5 years, due mainly to Brexit, there may be pressure for a united Ireland, independence for Scotland (possibly even Wales), not to mention regional govt.

In these circumstances Unionism is bound to find a new lease of life. Is it just me who has noticed the Tories’ renewed use of The name “Conservative and Unionist Party”?

They are playing with fire! It is no exaggeration to forecast a possible renewal of civil war in Ireland and possibly Scotland too.

The fact that members of the above social category’s material economic resources, class bases, and therefore interests are so diverse and the existing manifestations of their political consciousness have tended to be individualistic, issue and usually identity based, and ultimately quickly and highly politically mutable and short termist and short lived – and very clearly low in any clear socialist and communist orientation (other than a vague, temporary, kitsch solidarity that Mason often mentions) – is no problem for Mason because he argues that (a) it needs to mature politically as a subject – with the help of political parties (in the UK led by Labour) and (b) communism is passé anyway – the ‘argument’ seeming to be that it was never Marx’s goal in any case – which was apparently individual human freedom! Mason’s freedom apparently doesn’t rest on anything as authoritarian, constraining, and in other words naff as a communist societal form! All it needs is the *network*! An example of Mason’s highly idiosyncratic self professed leftist worldview (and don’t get me started on his neo-con, western neo-imperialist like views on foreign policy which frankly I find dangerous and abhorrent! Incidentally the only left wing writers I’ve aware of to publicly call him out on this aspect of his views are the couple from MediaLens. The silence is quite shameful!).

To go back to the problems with this idea of the networked generation/individual Mason gives us very little reason in my opinion to see it/them (as he puts it) as NOT ‘a degenerate offshoot from the proletariat but as an improvement on it’. The material root of Mason’s belief in the inherently emancipatory potential of this category is the ‘network’ which he argues is inherently non-hierarchical and opposed to, indeed incompatible with, ‘hierarchy’. I’m aware that some very good critiques on this subject have already been written including one on this website called ‘Mason’s Postcapitalism – are networks actually part of the problem?’ (see https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/david-beer/masons-postcapitalism-are-networks-actually-part-of-problem ). Beer argues that in fact networks often contain hierarchies and that ‘[d]ecentralization, then, is not necessarily equivalent to empowerment or democratisation.’ It is even worse than this Beer suggests – referring to the work of (real) leftist political theorists like Jodi Dean (and David Hill) – that networks are in fact central to the functioning of neoliberal capitalism not inherently, or maybe even potentially, antithetical. I quote from Beer:

“Jodi Dean is even more negative in her understanding of these decentralised networks. Her argument is that the there is a lot of noise and very little listening going on within social media. She calls this ‘communicative capitalism’. Her point is that the communications we engage with in these networks are all part of the capitalist system of which those networks are a key component. Even where we appear to be resisting, questioning or, as Mason suggests, ‘rebelling’, Dean’s point is that we are merely contributing to the maintenance of communicative capitalism. What we say has little value other than to the system to which we are contributing content. Here the network is not seen to offer any alternatives, it merely serves to reinforce neoliberal capitalism. And then we can add to this David Hill’s recent observation that such communicative capitalism promotes precarity, fragility and exacerbates individualism.

“The question this poses is that if networks are indeed both hierarchical and central to contemporary capitalism, then how do they fit into a vision of postcapitalism? What if, rather than offering opportunities for alternatives to be fostered, these networks are in fact cementing existing social hierarchies? …”

Damn good question!! Any responses or answers??

Thank you for the reply.

The ‘Labour Party’ I am referring to as a potential dodo, is a composite. It contains the branch in Scotland, particularly, the section comprising its MSPs, who are still from the small exclusionary clique which controls many constituency parties. It contains the Blairite MPs at Westminster and their friends in the media and who are particularly hostile to Mr Corbyn. Having failed twice to dislodge him, they are using the antisemitism issue as a third attack, coupling it with his principled (if, in my view, outdated) hostility to the EU. It contains many right across the political spectrum in Labour, who are, at root, English nationalists and completely disinterested in constitutional and electoral change.

The ‘revival’ of the Tories in Scotland is complex. Most of the constituencies which they gained, were, historically, Tory seats and the SNP interregnum in these seats was due, I think to three factors. Firstly, the electors in these seats were genuinely disgusted by the conduct and attitudes of the cadre of MPs such as Nicholas Fairbairn. Secondly, seeing the growing power of Labour in the Scotland of around 20/30 years ago, many Tory voters switched to SNP to keep Labour out. Thirdly, the quality of SNP candidates in these areas, such as Alex Salmon, Angus Robertson, was very good. When the SNP came to power and came pretty close to gaining independence, these voters returned to the Tory fold and, joined by permanent converts from Labour (following the referendum), and tactical voting by LibDem and some Labour voters, with a fair chunk of SNP voters staying at home (the SNP 2017 Westminster campaign was poor) they were able to win back these seats. They probably got a boost from the EU referendum result, because these areas are agricultural and fishing communities and there was hostility to the CAP and the CFP. It is pretty complex!

It is clear in England that there has been substantial recruitment to Labour and Corbyn supporters are in influential positions. This is one of the reasons for the Blairite revolt. In Scotland, Labour has gained members, but is far behind SNP in numbers. In addition, many of the more affluent, higher educated former Labour voters in Scotland are drifting to the Greens. At a Council level, many of the old Labour dinosaurs have retired and the newer councillors are more open minded about alliances – they have to be, since council elections are multimember constituencies elected under STV, and overall majorities are unlikely. Holyrood is also elected by PR, but by a different system, and the SNP overall majority of 2011 was a statistical ‘freak’. The 2016 outcome was no overall majority – SNP just 2 seats short – and more accurately matched the voting patterns. So deals have to be made. At present, Labour at Holyrood still finds this difficult, whereas all the other parties have been able to make policy gains by horse trading. Labour is not being principled; it is motivated by hatred.

To use the term ”market’ to describe the Tory Thatcherite privatisation fraud is a totally unacceptable use of the word or the term.
Shame on you!

This is why mass deselection has not taken place, lets hope the membership is patient long enough to give the rebels a chance for redemption.

It’s clear that the two Bs did great damage to the traditional labour party and it’s supporters, Blair is still one of the most hated men in the UK, the surprise Scottish independence referendum played it’s part well for the Tories (the Tory plan worked well for them then, do you think that this success which helped them win the election by dividing the Scottish labour voters, encouraged the Cameron government to give the EU referendum? And,or the May government to call a general election?) and helped them to almost virtually destroy labours roots in Scotland many years ago, since then and with the new leadership we say they are returning in droves.

Certainly, now that more of the electorate is realising the dangers of the Tory ideology, causing many to live a painful life waiting for their NHS operations and the realisation that most of their money and property that sustained their high standard of living is about to become history because of the Tory Privatisation fraud, there is a real possibility that even traditional Tory voters will abstain at the next ge.

On the international stage, one can only assume things must be getting ten time worse.

Things are happening on a world scale which the western working class are having little, if any, influence on

The rise of China alone is revolutionising the world. Some will say it is Capitalist, but that is to confuse the form ( market mechanism) with the content (publicly owned land, banks and large scale industry that give China the ability to do what no Capitalist country can do – plan).

Since the Deng reforms from 1978, China has pulled more people out of absolute poverty, more quickly, than anything that preceded it. Ditto with the rate of growth of the economy.

So what I am saying is there have been advances towards Socialism over the past 15 years or so, but not in the West. This is hardly surprising as the whole rationale, from the point of view of the Capitalists, of Social Democracy, was to buy off sufficient numbers of the upper strata of the working class to buy relative social peace at home.

2007/8 has made this a very difficult project – hence ‘centrist’ Social Democratic parties across Western Europe that have given up trying to buy off the upper sections of the working class have faced electoral rout.

At the most fundamental level what use to the workers (or networked individuals) is Social Democracy if it can’t or won’t deliver reforms for the workers?

This is where Corbynism in Britain comes in.

First the perspective has to be clear. Corbyn doesn’t have, nor will have, the numbers to form a radical left Socialist govt. This is just a fact. He couldn’t fill the cabinet posts on that line, let alone command a majority in Parliament.

What he CAN do – and would be a huge step forward from the shit of the last 40 years – is modernise Britain by pursuing his policy of public led investment and some public ownership of the natural monopolies, modernise Britain’s view of its place in the World away from being the 51st state of the USA, and unite people around a modern view of the UK which celebrates diversity.

Were Labour to have some success along those lines, probably needing two terms, there might then be a ‘market’ for trying a more radical program. For now, I will be delighted if we can get a Corbyn led govt in!!

There is a great deal with which I agree.

Where I have concerns is his contention that the solution for re-empowerment for the increasing number of disempowered people lies within the Labour Party. Perhaps he has written this article for the Labour Party.

As he indicates, and has recognised on a number of previous occasions, the Labour Party is, itself, a problem. For someone like me – born into the industrial working class, well-educated and having held a number of high level professional positions, now retired, and living in Scotland – the Labour Party in Scotland is a serious impediment to progress. I was a trade unionist, I was a member of the Labour Party and had, until the advent of the current century, voted in every possible election for the Labour Party. But, in the 1990s, with the advent of ‘new’ Labour, I became increasingly uneasy about the way in which Labour and its policies were developing. Like many, Iraq was for me a significant error, which made me recognise explicitly the Thatcherite nature of the policies it was enacting. The farcical premiership of the ridiculous Bodger Broon and the defence of his class by ‘Lord’ Darling, released the bitterness lurking in the destroyed communities of industrial England. These communities contain people whose histories are much the same as mine and whose humanity and decency match my own concepts. But, for them ‘new’ Labour destroyed hope. At least, in Scotland we had the option of an alternative of creating an independent country: in the Greens and in the SNP we had parties who are more in harmony with the kind of ideas Mr Mason has set out. The creativity of the campaigns since 2009 has been exhilarating!

The conduct of the Labour Party in Scotland during this period was appalling and continues to be, mainly within the deadwood inhabiting its benches in Holyrood. It is a classic example of an organisation that has undergone goal displacement or ‘producer capture’ – the Labour Party existed for the people who considered themselves to be the Labour Party. As Mr Gerry Hassan demonstrated in his book, ‘The Strange Death of Labour Scotland”, it had become a small, excluding clique, and, despite the election of Mr Leonard as leader, it continues to be, particularly in Holyrood and in some local parties.

The point I am trying to make is that ‘Labour’ is reified by these members – Labour is they/they are Labour. So, if anyone wishes to join Labour they have to submit to what ‘those-who-define-Labour’ deem it to be. These newcomers have to comply. This is quite contrary to what Mr Mason is proposing – that the people whom he is asking to join the Labour Party and use it as a vehicle for empowerment determine what the Labour Party become, determine what its policies are, and determine how it will campaign.

The Blairites, whom he rightly excoriates, are determined this will not happen, but so too are the cliques which are in with the bricks of many local parties. For many of the latter ‘Labour is they’ and it can only be what they want it to be. They are as likely to destroy Labour as the Blairites are.

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have many views with which I and, probably, ‘the 100 000 old men in the west of Scotland’ (as A former Labour Lord Provost of Glasgow sneering condemned those of us who voted YES in 2014), actually agree with. But, both are creatures of the Labour Party: when pushed their loyalty is to it rather than the re-empowerment of the majority of the population. When Jeremy Corbyn in his decent way in the early days of his leadership indicated a relaxed attitude towards ideas of independence in Scotland, the troglodytes in the Scottish party went berserk. Now, he sounds pretty much like Mrs May with regard to any power outwith London/Westminster.

I think that social media has unleashed new ways of communicating and campaigning in which movements for change have developed and can develop. Having had the experience of the referendum in Scotland and the seen the sheer enthusiasm of so many young (and not so young) people, I am a bit optimistic. I think Brexit will result in substantial change (and I think that Ireland will be the spark), I think that the sheer nastiness of Mrs May’s government and I think that the rent-seeking management of the economy will all produce sufficient pressures that change will come. I do not think that the current Labour Party can withstand it. It might well become like the dodo.