ON 2 JULY the newspaper gave Tom member of the New Left Review editorial board and author of The Break-up of Britain, Iwo-page spread to argue his views on Scottish politics after the collapse of devolution.
It is a telling comment on the separate nature of the Scottish politics that a self-confessed Marxist such as Nairn can be taken seriously by the bourgeois press: Unfortunately far left has so far ignored the realities of Scotland under the Tories.
The crux of Nairn's thesis is that the collapse of devolution was a good thing for the nationalist movement. The TeFeren TECHIT. subsequent electoral setbacks of the Scottish Nationalist Party, will pave the way for the emergence of 'a more mature, hardened National ment located, on hilary sues, Labour's left.' Nairn . • sees the basis ideological regroupment in the call for an independent Scottish republic, as against the current SNP line of a Scotland under the Queen and within the Commonwealth:
Is nor in any case Just a proposat lo retire the Windsors and elect a Head of State: it is a minimum institutional manifesto, and one which ought to constitute the base-line of any new Scottish political identity.? Group has adopted the republic.
Tom Nairn has now decided that the struggle for socialism is not on the agenda. Nowhere in a host of recent articles scotsman, Statesman or Voice of the Unions does he even pose the question of the struggle for working class power. Instead he has retreated 18th programme of radical democracy, independence, republic.
This is the end of a long line for Nairn. He exemplifies a current which does not believe that the working class can inrow on te snackies Of Labou Party reformism. This sees Labourism as a series of powerful political, social and cultural institutions which so fragment and alienate the working class as to outlaw any of assault against capitalism.
Most follow the Eurocommunist line, exemplified by Dave Purdie the Stuart Holland Labour party from of "democratise' within Labourist institutions mobilise the working class on class struggle issues. Nairn at least has the virtue of still wanting Labourism and the British imperial But he goes in the direction in trying to find social forces outside the organised working class to do the job.
Tom Nairn first looked to the student vanguard of the 1960s, when Then he saw the EEC as a way of little-Englander ism, only to see the Common Market help strangle the Portuguese revoluDon. Finally, Nairn has become besotted with Scottish nationalism as the only social force which seems to have made any dent on Labour's hold over the working class.
But the obstacle over the past ten years to socialism was not abstract 'Labourism' 'the bourgeois political institutions'. The abstacke was the very İcadership of the working class. It was Caliaghan, Jones and Murray who permitted the Tory victory. It was the failure Labour •bich allowed the right-wing petty bourgeois SNP to seize the banner of self-derermination in Scotland when the slogan of 'home rule' had been on the books of the Labour Party and the Scorish TLC for half a century. It as the Tribunites who sabotaged the teres decisions of Labour and TUC anfertaces by nox fighring for th Scotsman daily Nairn, massive and the moveof this 'Republicanism The for a clearly in the the classical frontal in Assembly.
In the seeking the history these self-organisation than record to smash opposite 1931 College of Art. 5,000 votes Labouras they were, broke Bovernment in 1972. back Scottish workers cuts concrete confronting class.
leadership Sillars from the left.
Undoubtedly, that the ideological ultra-left philistinism This record is in stark contrast to LUCT of working class in Scotland; of originality and sacrifice consistently ignored by Nairn in his Scottish writings. It was the largely Scottish-based Independent Labour Party which broke with the official MaDonald's betrayal in entering a over Ramsay coalition with the Tories. It was the Fife miners who broke en masse with the Communist Party in 1956 to form the Fife Socialist League, polling over programme of 'industrial democracy and selt-government for Scotland. root It was the workers at UCS, ill-led who were the first to stand up to Heath and win. It was at Longannet power station as much as at Saltley Gates that the mass pickets the Heath It was the who said no to and the Scottish Labour Party in 1976, of which Tom Nairn was a member.
Nairn tries to sidestep the issue of job.
the misleaders He has made this mistake before. In 1976, Nairn sided SNP wim Ine oureaucraac icadetsip the SLP to expel over half the party's activists who were challenging Jim The felt sincerely left carried t0o much baggage either towards the national question (which was true) or SIP in May. Instead he invents something in the known as 'numbness and reluctance forces before the prospect of self-government'.
Tom Nairn should ask himself the following question: if the workers gravitated back to Labour at least in part because of hostility Thatcherite Toryism, relate to that 'populist' tradition of anti-Toryism? The crucible in which the fight against leadership of the Scottish working class will take place is in this anti-Tory struggle, not around abstract repub. licanism.
The Labour leadership in Scotand have a huge conular mandate to fight the Tones, but because they wish to 'inherit' the capitalist machine they will back off from leading a genuine fight against the most austerity programme since the 1930s. This can be exploited by the left. Tom Nairn, attention to the concrete features of the Scottish political situation, would see that this time round some of the foundations of Scottish Labourism nave been undermined. ten-year debate about self-government has educated Scots workers into Wolfe a higher awareness of politics.
Secondly, Labourism's lieutenant the in Scotland — the Communist Party - has been seriously weakened. The CP has long claimed fully a quarter of accept its total membership in the Scotland. But its failure to challenge the betrayals of the Wilson-Callaghan years has drastically weakened the CP organisationally and The CP's remaining influence lies among the union full-timers rather than in the shop stewards committees. A small chink thus appears for class struggle forces in the industrial unions to take action against the Tories in defiance of the bureaucratic LabourGiven proper leadership the Scots workers have shown themselves ready in the past to break with Labourism. The fight for self-determination has created a climate in which Scots workers might be prepared to ac especially given the impact of the Thatcher austerity measures in Scotland.
The key. to the situation is to ally class struggle demands to the support of the right of self-determination, in concrete form Scottish Assembly free to determine its own powers. Tom Nairn fails to see this in his abstract embracing of the slogan the • May the all-but-defunct SLP ran three candiJim Sillars in South Ayrshire over a third of the In Paisley an unknown SLP candidate polled over 8,000 votes compared to the CP's 145 and the WRP's 122 The Scots working iS Class voters the for against Labour's cuts; for its total hostility to incomes policy; for its support of the Despite Sillars' destruction of the SLP, the voters were still looking for a genuine leadership to the left of Labour. That is the key to defeating Labourism.
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13 Septesaber 1979 Page 12 'Scots workers have shown themselves ready in the past to break with labourism.