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Scottish Socialist Party

Nationalism wrong answer

Like Respect, he Scottish Socialist Party failed to make a breakthrough in the European Union elections. In fact its vote, in percentage terms, was well down on what was achieved in the 2003 Scottish parliamentary elections (5.2%, compared to 7.7% in 2003). But some SSP comrades have taken consolation from the fact that in Scotland the British National Party did not pick up the same level of support. Perhaps some of the credit for this lies with the good campaigning work, based on class issues, that the SSP has done to combat racism in the housing estates.

The key factor which tends to differentiate Scottish politics from elsewhere in Britain is nationalism - not, of course, of the UK variety (although the United Kingdom Independence Party gained ground north of the border too). Support for Scottish independence has grown significantly in the last decade and this has been reflected in many areas, not least election results. However, this time around, the pro-independence parties lost out. Much more serious than the SSP’s reduced support was the haemorrhaging of the Scottish Nationalist Party vote.

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In 1999 a third of the electorate in Scotland voted SNP, but this was slashed to just 19% on June 10. There have been many reasons suggested for this collapse: the protest vote going predominantly to the far right; the fact that the elections were supposed to be about the EU and the UK’s relations to it; or, as writer and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch has suggested, the lack of charisma of SNP leader John Swinney, who has announced his resignation following the party’s setback.

Writing in The Guardian, Riddoch makes some interesting points with regard to the smaller pro-independence parties: “Meanwhile, there are new kids on the indy block - the Scottish Socialist Party and the Greens. Independence is not the major plank of Tommy Sheridan’s fast-growing bunch of outspoken working-class MSPs, but his party has made an impact in the sprawling housing schemes of Edinburgh and Glasgow in a way the kilted caricature of the SNP highlander never could. The nationalists fare no better in the leafy suburbs of the central belt, where the managing classes who’ve always benefited from unionism have put any protest votes the way of the Greens” (June 26).

It is certainly true that the SSP has promoted nationalism with a working class face and the call for an “independent socialist Scotland” has met with some success. But I still think that the SSP leadership overestimates the level of support in terms of both members and votes that its nationalist policy has brought the SSP.

The party has won support from a layer of left-leaning individuals, including in the trade unions and Labour Party, as well as from the SNP. However, while the SSP increased its share of the vote compared to the 1999 Euro elections, it is difficult to see how this would account for any more than a small part of the SNP’s loss of votes.

No matter who is to take over from Swinney as leader, the left in Scotland should be aiming to undermine the SNP’s support. Not by putting across the same nationalist poison in a more “charismatic”, working class kind of way, but by tackling head on the divisive ideas of separatism and fighting for the organisational unity of workers across Britain.
Sarah McDonald