Timing or wording of independence referendum cannot be dictated by Westminster interests

The twists and turns of Wendy Alexander and her big falling out with high heid ‘yin and patron, Gordon Brown, over the question of an independence referendum have provided myriads of column inches and high quality cackle material for the so-called ‘McChattering’ classes. Perhaps we’ll never know what conversations really took place between Gordon and Wendy, but it seems clear that Alexander at least has realised that a Scottish Labour Party in retreat, setting its face against giving the Scottish people the democratic right to decide on their own constitutional future, was on a hiding to nothing.

The cack handedness of the u-turn, all that guff about calling the SNP’s bluff, was typical Scottish Labour schoolyard politics and provided much schadenfreude for those genuinely and seriously committed to Scottish independence. Whatever Wendy believes Gordon said to her in private, Brown saw his true Brit unionist credentials opened up for a Westminster spanking by the resurgent Tories the very next day and promptly hung his protégé out to dry.

The long knives are now out between two sections of the Labour Party and it makes for an engaging if unedifying spectacle. The Westminster MP’s are looking towards potential oblivion in a 2010 general election. Their only hope is that the coming recession - fuelled by the credit crisis and rising oil prices - is not as deep as many economists fear, and that the Tories slip up. Labour MP’s see their priority as either recovering Brown’s position as a ‘safe pair of hands’ for ‘Middle England’ or replacing him. Either way, from the viewpoint of their material self-interest, speculation about ‘the break up of the UK’ is about as welcome as swamp gas in a space suit.  The Holyrood Labour MSPs see a different Armageddon around the corner. They know that if Cameron’s Tories win a general election in 2010 their only hope of not losing further electoral ground to the SNP at the subsequent Holyrood poll is to take Alex Salmond on at his own successful game of ‘speaking up for Scotland’, and to distance themselves from New Labour in Westminster. Neither of those aims is served by denying Scotland a democratic independence referendum.

Solidarity correctly called for an immediate independence referendum following the SNP’s election victory in 2007, but there is some tactical nous – given the Scottish parliamentary arithmetic – in the SNP’s plan to bring forward a referendum bill in 2010.  The idea of a Scottish Government in Holyrood will have been normalised and they know that – should Scottish Labour be seen to stand in the way of giving people a democratic choice – they will pay a heavy price at the following year’s Holyrood poll.

The SNP are also acutely aware that the return of a Tory government at Westminster, will, like being hanged in the morning, concentrate the collective mind wonderfully. For many Scottish working class folk, the choice between becoming an independent country or being run for the next ten years by the Tories - Old Etonian Sons of Thatcher all, despite the skin deep media makeover - would be a no-brainer. 

Although the Scottish Parliament has no constitutional powers to organise a legally binding independence referendum, the wording proposed by the SNP is legal and would leave the UK government little choice but to negotiate with the Scottish Government so that ‘Scotland becomes an independent state’. Although continuing to say that they favour a straight choice between independence and the status quo the SNP have also left the door open for Scottish Labour to introduce an amendment for their own preferred position of a Scottish Parliament with increased powers within the UK.

Is this wise? It’s certainly pragmatic politics, but what position should socialists take?

A three option referendum would be a win-win referendum. If independence failed to gain a majority, then increased powers for the Scottish parliament almost certainly would. In all polls where the three options have been put the status quo has been the least favoured option. On the other hand, the two question referendum is the high risk-high gain strategy. A narrow vote could win independence for Scotland but, given the preponderance of rabidly unionist tabloid media in Scotland, this would not be automatic - even with David Cameron as Prime Minister.

What must be absolutely clear is that the decision about timing and wording of any referendum should lie with the Scottish Government, in consultation with the people of Scotland, and not be based on the political interests or diktat of the Westminster mob, whether led by Brown or Cameron.

On balance socialists should probably argue for a two option referendum at the present time, but it is a tactical matter, not a matter of principle. What is critical is that when a referendum comes Solidarity and the left in Scotland play a wholly committed and enthusiastic role in campaigning and arguing for a pro-independence vote (calling for a 2^nd vote for increased powers in any three option referendum). We should use the opportunity to raise our vision for an independent socialist (and we would argue) secular republic, but not in a dog-in-the-manger pre-conditional way. The day we wake up in an independent capitalist Scotland is the day an even stronger movement for a socialist Scotland begins.

In the immortal words of She Who Has Added to the Gaiety of the Nation - ‘Bring it On.’

Embryology Bill victory a victory for human rights.

Last month, in the teeth of opposition from some religious groups - particularly the Catholic Church and the religious right - the Westminster parliament and Gordon Brown voted to do some good, before reverting to form over the draconian forty two day detention proposal..

The human fertlisation and embryology bill which contained the proposal research into a range of diseases using human animal hybrid embryos was voted through with a considerable majority – as were a range of other progressive measures. Attempts to reduce the legal limit of abortion from 24 weeks were also successfully seen off.

In the run up to the vote the usual suspects were there to be found using the usual language, and parading their religiously inspired ‘moral’ conscience for all to see. Cardinal Keith O’Brien, achieving the kind of blanket media coverage that an elected politician could only dream of, talked of ‘Frankenstein’ experiments and called the proposal to create hybrid embryos for research  ‘monstrous’.  Scientists and medical people were having us all on, apparently, and just doing this for ‘perverse’ reasons. No useful medical breakthrough would come from this ‘flawed’ research. We needed to bring a ‘moral’ dimension to the debate - which, apparently, only certain religious cosmologies could provide.

All this over a few cells, 99% human derived. Not people, not souls, nothing with a nervous system, nothing with a mental history or consciousness, and no intention to bring human beings into the world with horns or hooves - or even wings. There seems no end to the fevered opposition, despite the vast majority of scientists explaining that the research resulting from enabling such embryos to be created could vastly increase our understanding of, and therefore our ability to treat therapeutically, a whole range of debilitating conditions, including cancers, Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis and others in the future.

Socialists stand by the right of people to their religious beliefs, even if such belief means attributing personhood and rights to a clump of cells when all the biological evidence, reason and science tells us otherwise. We cannot allow individual or group beliefs, however, to claim some sort of special privilege or moral precedence over the rest of us in society. Nor should we allow such beliefs to deny either the human right of women to control their own bodies and decide whether or not they wish to proceed with a pregnancy, or the equally human right of the many millions on the face of this planet who suffer or will suffer from debilitating and horrific illnesses to potential cures and therapy that might result from innovative research.

In a genuine democracy minorities have no right to dictate to majorities, nor majorities any right to interfere with minorities, providing they do no harm to others. Laws passed by elected legislatures should not curtail genuine human rights.

It has been claimed by hardline Sabbatarians in the Western Isles, for instance, that Sunday Ferry sailings should continue to be banned because a majority on the Islands don’t want them. This is questionable, but even if true, denying the rights of those substantial numbers who want to travel normally on a Sunday because of the religious beliefs of others is inherently unfair. Socialists would be the first to defend the right of any worker to refuse to work on a Sunday because of their religious beliefs, on Lewis or anywhere else, but no-one else should be constrained by those beliefs.

Similarly, we will be the first to support the right of Cardinal O’Brien, Brian Soutar or anyone else to refuse treatment for illness from any therapies resulting from what  they regard as ‘monstrous’ research – but they should not presume to speak for the rest of us.

The ‘God Delusion’ – particularly in its organised form – continues to play a wholly disproportionate role in public and political discourse in Scotland and wider afield. Freedom of speech must be defended, and cultural diversity celebrated, but thank goodness science and reason won the day in May.

In the meantime, let’s cordially invite the hard-line Calvinists and Cardinals to join the rest of us in the 21^st century.