The polls are closed, and we’ll know the results of the Scottish parliament elections, and whether or not Westminister has a different shitey voting system (SO EXCITING!) by Friday morning. SSY teams will be bringing you amazing liveblogging from the Glasgow and North East counts, with extra reporting from SSY’s secret underground complex. But this won’t be your normal boring Guardian liveblog - have a look at last years to get an idea of what to expect. This year, expect us to call for the deaths of EVEN MORE bastards! If we haven’t all gone crazy by the end of the counting, enjoy the liveblog!
Polls opened this morning and votes are currently being cast in the Scottish Parliamentary election. As #2 candidate on the Scottish Socialist Party’s Glasgow Regional List, I should be out at the polling stations, desperately trying to convince voters to put an ‘X’ beside Scotland’s only party of independence, socialism and internationalism. The bogging weather has driven me indoors, where the only way to ease my inactivity-related guilt is to blog about how all parties are bastards except the SSP.
The campaign has been characterised by Labour imploding under the laughable ‘leadership’ of the embarassingly shit Mr Gray; the main parties refusing to lay out resistance to cuts, while squabbling about such red-hot issues as whether or not to rejig emergency services’ management boards; and the public’s interest in Holyrood plummeting to an all-time low.
Gray gunning for power
Analysts are predicting victory for the pro-independence Scottish National Party, with an increase in their number of seats. This seemed highly unlikely at the start of the campaign, with Labour riding high in the polls, independence unpopular and Alex Salmond’s “arc of prosperity” reduced to rubble. So confident was I that Labour would romp it, I bet SSP Glasgow top-of-the-list candidate Frances Curran a hefty fiver that Iain Gray would be the next First Minister. Though I will weep at the loss of 10% of my weekly giro, I am mighty relieved that Elmer Fudd will not be leading my country for the next 5 years. (Dinnae fret about the cash either, ah’m gonnae pull a fly wan n dingy payin her).
If Scottish Labour’s beleaguered leader has done nothing else in this campaign, he has at least provided us with plenty of laughs -- at his expense. As well as allegedly shiting out of being in the same ASDA as Salmond while they were both visiting the seaside paradise of Ardrossan, the aptly-named Gray made headlines by running away from anti-cuts activists in Glasgow, seeking refuge in a local Subway branch. It’s not known whether he went for a 6-inch or a footlong, but if anything like his speeches, it would have been full of cheese and lacking substance with a nasty aftertaste. Many of the protesters wanted to speak to him about the planned closure of the Accord Centre in the East End, a vital resource for disabled people and their families, which the Labour Council are demolishing in favour of a car park for the Commonwealth Games. Check their facebook page here.
I’ve been out and voted already. And I will now undermine the principle of the secret ballot by telling you what I did. Firstly, I voted SSP (obv lol) on the regional ballot paper. The SSP look set to receive an increase in votes compared to the disastrous 2007 election, but we are likely to fall short of the numbers needed to return a socialist MSP. Oh wellz.
Then, I held my nose and voted for Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP in my constituency, just as I did in 2007. The way I see it, there have been many issues on which socialists would challenge the SNP-led Scottish Government of 2007-2011; not least dropping their policy of regulating the buses after receiving a substantial donation from Stagecoach millionaire Brian Soutar, or overruling Aberdeenshire Council and helping evil tycoon Donald Trump to ruin the world. But they are also head and shoulders above the rest -- including Labour -- from a progressive viewpoint. Their regime began with the Scottish Govt stepping in to save hospitals from closure in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.
SAVE CRICHTON CAMPUS!
In the first few months of government, keen to avoid triggering clashes with popular resistance movements, they intervened to prevent damaging school mergers in Edinburgh (following a campaign led by SSY organiser Sarah, among others) and stopped the closure of Glasgow Uni’s Crichton Campus -- another campaign with a high level of input from our members. They nicked socialist policy and got rid of Prescription Charges, even if they did unnecessarily stagger it over 4 years, costing thousands of people money in “sick tax”, but making them look good just before this election. Shame they didn’t stick to their word when they (again borrowing from the SSP manifesto) said they’d scrap Council Tax. But they did destroy a key component of Thatcher’s legacy by abolishing “right to buy” on council housing. Sometimes politics comes down to a choice between 2 undesirable options, making the SNP & Salmond an easy choice compared to New Labour & Gray. Speaking of undesirable options…
There was the referendum on changing the electoral system to use Alternative Vote. I am in favour of real electoral reform, to break the stranglehold of the big-money mainstream parties and stop the crime of huge chunks of the population effectively being disenfranchised because they live in a local Labour/Tory/whoever dictatorship.
Props to Stefan
But AV will not change anything. The LibDems know it, the Yes campaign knows it, everyone knows it. And no-one even supports AV! However, I didn’t wanna vote to preserve FPTP. Also, I consider this an illegitimate plebiscite as it abuses the people’s wish for proportionality by offering 2 systems which aren’t proportional. Therefore I fulfilled a lifelong ambition, drawing a giant willy on the ballot paper. I also wrote “DO YOU THINK WE’RE STUPID? THIS REFERENDUM IS A FARCE” and “Clegg, Cameron, both are dicks”. Yas.
Thankfully in Scotland we have a slightly better electoral system (AMS), so there’s a chance a few Greens will get in. Some sources say there’s a chance that SNP+Greens+Margo McDonald could equal a pro-independence majority. Here’s hoping. From that point of view (and for several other reasons) it is to be hoped that arch-Unionist and sham-socialist George Galloway is not succesful in his self-serving effort to grab a seat in the Parly.
As time has gone on, the shine has somewhat faded from the once bright and hopeful Scottish Parliament. Certainly it was sad that the ‘Rainbow Parliament’ turned grey in 2007, with the SSP presence wiped out along with many other smaller parties and independents. The relatively low levels of interest in this campaign show that the Parliament is in danger of becoming irrelevant to most working-class people. There is only one way for Holyrood to prevent that: by representing the wishes of the vast majority of the Scottish people, and resisting the program of cuts and austerity which has been led by the ConDem coalition at Westminster.
Some career politicians may lie that the cuts are necessary, others that their Parliament can’t do anything. The social movements will pressurise them all. We must tell them: you may not have the constitutional capacity to defy the cuts, but there is certainly the political capacity, and it must be used. The people of Scotland would fully support a Parliament which offered an alternative, where public services are protected and expanded, and the rich are taxed more to pay for that. A defiant, anti-cuts Parliament would be a major act of Scottish self-determination and a key step towards an independent socialist republic.
The likelihood is, no matter who wins, we’ll get another crop of careerist bastards. But those in authority are vulnerable. I am optimistic about the capacity for struggle and change in Scotland, and I’m cheered by the recent emergence of a nascent grassroots anti-capitalist movement based on direct action and direct democracy. Whether the politicians respond or not, there is a new world to be built.
George gets defensive about how many people want him to stand
After lots of threatening to do it over the past 5 years, George Galloway looks set to finally stage a comeback attempt to Glasgow.
This weekend, his party, RESPECT, are discussing the possibility of setting up in Scotland. But before they’ve even had a chance to vote on it, George has as good as said he’s going to do it anyway, if not as RESPECT then as ‘George 4 Glasgow.’
When asked why he’s thinking of doing this, his justification has had two major points: “I am awesome” and that he’s against “separatism.” So we can expect him to run an inspired campaign about how much we need him waffling away in the Scottish Parliament, and against independence. Just check out his recent performance on Newsnight Scotland, where he managed to not mention a single socialist policy, talked about how he was a celebrity and the only piece of politics he did advocate was British unionism:
'Zombie marcher' Andy Bowden is capable of showing his opposition to cuts EVEN WHILE ASLEEP!
. . .at least on Saturday we did for a bit. While opposition to the cuts hasn’t got as cool in Scotland as it is in France yet, this weekend saw an important beginning for a mass movement to defeat the Tories and Lib Dems with an all-Scotland march organised by the Scottish Trade Unions Congress.
Over 20,000 people through the centre of Edinburgh the weekend after Gideon ‘George’ Osborne announced the government’s comprehensive plan for ruining your life. We were proud to take our place alongside all Scotland’s trade unions, as well as angry people facing cuts to services on which their whole lives depend.
Our materials for the day went down well, with socialist meerkats calling on marchers to Compare the Council Tax. With council tax set to become a big issue in the election campaign (the SNP want to continue their useless policy of freezing the level of it, Labour want it to go up, using the cuts as an excuse), the SSP’s policy of taxing the rich according to their income, so that most people pay less for local services but at the same time we raise an extra £1.6 billion to pay for them, is the only one that can deal with both cuts and poverty. Simples!
Welcome fool, you have come of your own free will to the appoined place. . .
Edinburgh also got completely plastered with our ‘Hey Tories, Gonnae no dae that’ stickers as well, which you can expect to see everywhere soon. Apart from these and some pretty homemade placards, perhaps one of our main political contributions was to popularise the chant, “Maggie Maggie Maggie, Die Die Die!” This brought a smile to the faces of everyone who was old enough to remember why it is all the forces of good in the Universe hate Thatcher.
Ending up in Princes Street gardens, the huge size of the crowd at the bandstand showed just how angry people are already, and the real grounds for a fightback there is. But when we all dispersed from the march, that wasn’t the end of the day of politics for SSY, not by a long shot, because we still had AN EFFIGY OF DAVID CAMERON TO DEAL WITH.
After some detailed tactical discussion in our political nerve centre Wetherspooons, it was ascertained that there were in fact some nearby Tory offices which would make the best place for the sacrificial victim to prove that we really are all in this together by burning for our amusement.
This being the posh heart of the centre of Edinburgh, we made our way past all the caviar and top hat shops to the bunker of the Tory occupation forces in Scotland, where Dave was to meet his ignominious end. Or so we thought -- but that was before a wormhole to the 1920s opened up across the street, and a very posh and disgruntled woman (with an amazing hat that made her look like a cockerel) popped out to put an end to the socialist ruffians daring to stand up against the fine gentlemen of Her Majesty’s Government.
YE SHALL BURN ME ONCE AGAIN?!?!
As the flames began to lick at Dave’s bin bag suit, she angrily demanded to know what we were doing, which surely was fairly obvious. She then intervened to bring the sacrifice to an end, but chose the method of blowing on the flame to put it out (we hate to break it to you, but that’s how you make flames get BIGGER). Realising this had failed, she then chose to KICK DAVE THROUGH THE RAILINGS into the front court of whoever is unlucky enough to occupy the premises below the Tory office. Assuming these are not just more Tories, then we can only apologise for the bizarre sight that must have greeted you of a half burned David Cameron on a stick, and assure you that we didn’t put it there!
More photos from the day:
Working class dogs hungry for a socialist message
. . . and he does!
Style and panache: decisive contributions of youth to the anti-cuts movement
Of course, Saturday’s march was only the beginning of the fightback against the Tory blitzkrieg, so keep checking back here for all the latest news about the resistance to the Tory occupation of Scotland.
Demonstrating for a Scottish republic in 2004 on Calton Hill
Yesterday brought news that surprised nobody in Scotland: despite what they promised when they were elected three years ago, the SNP aren’t going to be able to give us a say on independence this year.
After decades of arguing for independence, the SNP finally got their shot at power for the first time in 2007. They published a white paper that, we were told, would lead to the people of Scotland getting to vote in 2010 on the future of the country. But yesterday they announced that they won’t even try putting the referendum bill before the parliament to vote down.
Instead the SNP plan to try and get more seats next year and have the power to push through a referendum in the next parliament, which is a bit like a someone who’s gambled all their money away planning to win it back to pay their debts. As things stand, opinion polls make it look like Labour might get in again next year, in which case the SNP will have missed their biggest ever chance to try and advance independence.
Here, you can see two maps of the election. To the left is a map of all the seats and who has taken them. To the right, those same constituencies are all shrunk to the same size, so that you can see where how much of a proportion of the total UK vote the population of Scotland represents – not very much.
With the prospect of the Tories retaking power (with the support of the fake radical and con man Clegg), Scotland is experiencing a nasty 80s flashback.
Last night’s election results powerfully reinforce the case for Scottish independence.
In the 80s, Scotland consistently voted overwhelmingly for Labour, but it made no difference. The vast majority of the UK’s population are concentrated in the South East, London and its surroundings. This is where British governments are elected. After 18 years out of power, Labour were elected in 1997 because they transformed themselves into a right wing, neoliberal party in order to win the votes of these seats.
Under the last Tory regime, the most notorious example of how they ruled Scotland with contempt came when they imposed the Poll Tax in Scotland a year early. That helped kick off a mass campaign of resistance that ultimately led to the formation of the SSP.
Poster for the SSP's protest in 2004, demanding a Scottish Republic
There’s nothing inherent about being Scottish that means we’re more left wing than people in the South East. Until the 50s, the Tories usually got the biggest share of the vote here. But for the last 50 years or so, the political consensus in Scotland has been that people basically want left wing, old Labourish policies. Since the 80s, although we’ve voted for that, we haven’t got it. Since Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party we couldn’t even try to vote for a government that would implement what most people want.
In the 80s, hating the Tories became virtually synonymous with being Scottish. There was an important reason for that – Scots pretty much didn’t live in a democracy, they didn’t get the government they vote for.
Last night, Scotland overwhelmingly voted Labour again. Things are slightly different now. Although the Labour Party in the 80s was a long, long way from being perfect, people aren’t voting for something that even approaches what they want any more, they’re voting against what they don’t want – the Tories.
Perhaps the most important consequence of the undemocratic governments of the 80s in Scotland was that it became impossible for the British ruling class to not concede a Scottish Parliament. Holyrood was a concession to try and buy off Scotland, staving off the anger of Scottish people that they don’t get the government policies they want.
But the fact remains that the vast majority of people can’t vote to get rid of Trident nuclear weapons from Scottish soil, we can’t vote against neoliberal economic policies, and we can’t vote for a full welfare state and an end to the scapegoating of people on benefits. These things are all still controlled by the London government.
In the aftermath of the election, who will form the next government isn’t clear. In this situation, the need for a republic couldn’t be clearer. The UK government operates in the name of the Queen. The UK is still a monarchy, governed by crown powers. That means that the actions of the UK government, and who ultimately will form that government, isn’t decided by the people, but is controlled by the unelected elite, in the name of the Queen. That’s why the SSP has stood consistently not only for independence, but also for a republic. The SNP say they want independence, but they won’t make a clear commitment to getting rid of the monarchy and establishing a Scottish republic – which would mean Scotland ultimately was still controlled by the traditional British elite.
Scotland became part of the British state 303 years ago. But the Scottish state never ceased fully to exist. Throughout that whole time, there was still a separate Scottish legal system,official church and education system. Since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, the scope of what the submerged Scottish state controls has got much greater. But in the face of a possible return to the power of the anti-Scottish Tories, its time that everything done by the state in Scotland/the Scottish state is brought under full democratic control. The only way to do that is to establish a completely independent, democratic republic.
Protesting for a Scottish Republic, on Calton Hill in 2004
This would mean that the national question would no longer dominate Scottish politics. Nobody would blame England for our social and class problems. People would be able to completely focus on the role of Scottish bosses (and their international partners in England and around the world) and Scottish governments in oppressing the Scottish working class. The SNP would probably split as well, with the many socialists who are members of it but want to see independence first focusing completely on the social struggle.
We’re socialists, and anti-capitalists. We want to see Scotland go further than the reformist politics of old Labour. We want Scotland to move towards the full abolition of capitalism, transforming relations in Scotland so that nobody is exploited, working to make a minority get rich while we get poorer. But there’s a basic issue of democracy here. The vast majority of people in Scotland don’t want the right wing, neoliberal policies of the British governments of the last 30 odd years. If the Scottish state is to become a democracy, then we need an independent, democratic republic.
Bonuses: Check out this article about the need for a republic. And check out this wiki article for full details about the Declaration of Calton Hill and the SSP’s protests for a Scottish republic.
The polls have closed. The votes are in. Now it’s time to bring us the results of Britain’s most important election that isn’t decided by phoning a premium rate number.
All the papers are projecting an SSP landslide in every seat we’re standing in, but we’re trying to keep our feet on the ground.
What does excite us more than Nick Clegg feels about having sex with his 31st woman is the fact that this will be the first ever UK general election to be LIVEBLOGGED in Leftfield. We’ve got two different teams bringing you live updates, one in the count in Glasgow with Socialist candidate and SSY member James Nesbitt, and one with the SSY blog newsroom bringing you updates from around the UK (as they come on the telly.)
Will David Cameron get to piss on the ashes of Broken Britain? Will Gordon Brown continue to do that weird thing with his jaw in the middle of sentences from 10 Downing Street? Or will Nick Clegg get to bring us his brand of “new” politics by returning the Whig party of Pitt the Elder to power?
Which particular colour will the bucket of shit we’re going to get served be? There’s only one way to find out, or one decent way at least, which is to keep refreshing this site obsessively all night. It begins . . .
Entries (RSS)