Should socialists vote for the SNP at 2015 general election?

[littlebabyjesus]

Indeed. But to assume that they're all duped pro-independence folk is a mistake.

Yes, absolutely. That's been a theme in the last few days that has left a very bad taste in my mouth. Not you, but others, on here and elsewhere, who should know better, assuming that they lost the referendum because many of the 'no' voters had been duped.

One of the lessons I see from the various polls is that a sizeable chunk of left-leaning working class people voted 'no'.

 

[redcogs]

There is no doubt that significant sections of the Scottish working class have been drawn into supporting the myth-based attraction of a supposedly "independent Scotland" - supposedly awash with socialistic milk and honey for ever more. That is happening all across Europe - particularly in France with huge working class support for the currently "left faking" National Front.I listened to Marine Le Pen on RT on the ghastly Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal recently - and if you didn't know she was a dyed in the wool fascist, you'd have thought she was a socialist.

So what should the Left Do ? Jump on the petty nationalist bandwagon by going along with the SNP bullshit ? No. The Left needs to take it on the chin and tough it out - and stick to insisting on the long term need for joined up socialist internationalism and working class solidarity across all petty nationalist boundaries - through unity in action against todays Austerity Offensive. That significant (but still minority) sections of the working class have fallen, hook and sinker, for the SNP nationalist message is no justification for colluding with this poisonous ideology - even with a pseudo socialist surface gloss.

Many of these arguments apply to the Labour Party don't they. Will you be advocating a Labour vote in England and Scotland in 2015? i'm interested to know because i'd like to be able to take the advice of the genuine Left seriously.

 

[gosub]

Here's a thing. Read the whole post #20 and get back to me.

So some old leadership looking at how things used to be had an idealized view of what they needed. Doesn't really help on 2015. SNP gt the 79 referendum by having 11 MP's for example.


In answer to the opening post, think its too early to say. See what london actually comes up with, and what Holyrood actually does other than say its hands are tied by London

 

[danny la rouge]

So some old leadership looking at how things used to be had an idealized view of what they needed. Doesn't really help on 2015. SNP gt the 79 referendum by having 11 MP's for example.

Your first sentence doesn't make sense. And even if it did, it wouldn't be a response to my post.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Many of these arguments apply to the Labour Party don't they. Will you be advocating a Labour vote in England and Scotland in 2015? i'm interested to know because i'd like to be able to take the advice of the genuine Left seriously.

I don't pretend to have answers, but one thing that would be an enormous mistake would be to see the nationalist question as one that defined 'sides'. There are people who voted both ways last week who should resolutely see themselves on the same side as each other and on a different side from others who voted the same way as they did on this particular issue.

 

[butchersapron]

Just because people voted 'no', that doesn't automatically make them 'Unionists'. One of the problems with this referendum is that it's forced people into one of two camps, both of which contain people saying 'If you're not with us, you're against us'.

I didn't see anyone say that it did. I said that ex-tory supporters who switched to the SNP and voted for the union last week are pro-union and would likely be driven away by an aggressive sort of strategy outlined by Sheridan and others rather than being won round by them. So to add a) existing support to b) new support to arrive at c) huge increased support seems a bit unrealistic.

 

[ayatollah]

Havn't the working class in the UK been told, for decades, by various socialists, that Labour is a "fully capitalist" organisation in the way you describe the SNP ayatollah? The same socialists have then advocated a tactical vote for Labour at every general election that i can remember!

Please explain why a tactical vote for the SNP would be any more disastrous than the numerous tactical votes for Labour that have been urged upon us by the 57 varieties of trot-types across the years?

The Labour Party is indeed now a fully capitalist bourgeois party - with a major working class base. In the long term it needs to be replaced with a genuinely radical socialist party.TODAY though , and in the 2015 General Election, the SNP clearly stands for a divisive petty nationalism - the break up of capitalist Britain into smaller , still fully capitalist sub units- ever less able to stand up to the might of globalised capitalism in its "race to the bottom" in tax avoidance and lowering of workers rights and living standards. Whatever the petty Left nationalists of RIC might imagine - the creation of the United Kingdom as a multinational political entity was, and still is, a progressive historical achievement - and remains so compared to breaking that up into smaller - competitive capitalist states. The SNP is in no way a Left-leaning political party - it is entirely pro capitalist - and will enforce austerity on a Scottish working class which, in significant sections, has now bought into the "cross class mutual Scottish national interest" bullshit that demobilises the working class ideologically from fighting their bosses.

The Labour Party are utter shit - a dying party in the PASOK mould . It needs to be replaced by a real radical socialist party . But the SNP , and what they represent are EVEN WORSE than the current Labour Party. In the next general election most workers will have to hold their noses once again and vote Labour - even though Labour will definitely continue the Austerity Offensive for their capitalist paymasters. Where more progressive parties of the socialist Left (or in some places , the admittedly dodgy Greens_) are standing (eg, Left Unity or TUSC, or others ) then they should vote for them . In the medium term though a Labour (or Labour -led) government will be ever so slightly marginally better than a Tory one for working people. Voting for a capitalist petty nationalist SNP in either the 2015 British General Election or the 2016 Scottish elections is simply a vote for reaction.

 

[redcogs]

My apologies for causing offence. I don't see "twat" as a gendered term, and sometimes forget that others do.

However, let's not make this about Tommy. Let's look at the principles.

I'm not against tactical voting as a principle; indeed, I think it's got more going for it than straightforward "representational" voting. I've been involved in "tactical voting" campaigns before. For example, a group I was involved in recommended how best to register an anti war vote in each constituency and list in the 2003 Holyrood general election. But that was a specific campaign with specific outcome in mind.

So, does this come into that category? No, I don't think it does at present. I have several problems with it: the terms are too vague, the suggested support for the SNP too open-ended, and the chances of success as yet ill-defined.

Take it all back a step or two. Before there was a devolved parliament in Edinburgh, the SNP's policy was not to hold a referendum. It was only devolution that led to the referendum policy (for reasons I've discussed before). It used to be that the SNP said their policy was that were they to win a majority of Scotland's Westminster seats, they'd take that as a mandate to start negotiating an independence settlement.

Of course, they never got close. So, that's two problems: what are their chances of success this time? And, will they revert to the policy of "majority of seats = mandate to negotiate"? This last point is important. I think another referendum so quickly would be a mistake for all sorts of reasons. I understand that people are saying that the Vow has already been backtracked on, and it has, but my issue with that is that we don't know how many people would have voted Yes but for the Vow; maybe they're Unionists anyway. So there would need to be clear evidence that the No side has backtracked. Between now and May 2015, there would need to be widespread anger from No voters that the Westminster parties had misled them (rather than from Yes voters!). So some ground work needs to be done there.

However, the advantage of organising around a Westminster vote is that the SNP is not going to form the government in Westminster, unlike at Holyrood. So, their neoliberal-lite policies are actually less of a stumbling block in this case. They would need to, however, base their whole campaign on the mandate for negotiation and the duplicity of the Westminster parties.

Is the Scottish public ready for that, after the 2 year campaign we've just had? And would there be a chance of the SNP winning 30 seats or more. At the moment I'd say the answer to both of those question is no.

You didn't really offend me danny, i was just amused at the irony.

i tend towards agreeing with you about the advisability of another referendum too quickly. But, i can see that a 'shock squad' of well motivated SNP MPs at westminster could be quite disruptive for the incoming government in 2015. i'm all for disruption at that place - preferably by an organised movement on the streets, but i'd take a more sedate house of commons approach (as an interim measure), particularly if that was all that was available short term.

 

[ska invita]

Its hard to predict what the SNP will do in power next term (Id expect them to win another working majority) and from what ive read the Tories projected austerity drive still plans to cut tens of billions off the state spending bill <since Labour have vowed to continue this spending plan thats what Hollyrood can expect to be faced with...

Will the Westminster chancellor try and buy Scottish support or will they punish them for defiance?
Would the SNP try and maintain its perception as a party of social justice in contrast to the other 3?
Will any new powers for Hollyrood allow it to dodge any of the next deep round of cuts?

There are a lot of unknowns out there - unknown to me at least. You'd expect that the SNPs interests are to capitalise on this and steal ex-Labour voters, and to make the best of that honeymoon period of ex-Labour voters you'd expect them to try and act in their interest.

Lets be clear, the SNP is a fully capitalist petty nationalist party- that has in recent years "tacked leftwards" in rhetoric, though not in policy implementation at all

its not just rhetoric - for example IIRC its the SNP that has kept free university places as opposed to the wonderful system the rUK is now burdened with. Scottish posters are better placed to say what else the SNP have achieved in real terms during this period of coalition government in the rUK - could someone give a quick run down of that?

 

[gosub]

Your first sentence doesn't make sense. And even if it did, it wouldn't be a response to my post.

Yes it does, you are basing the need for a majority of Scottish MP's on something SNP said in the past. It bares no relation to how Westminster operates or that positions change. Ruling out SNP because they clearly can't hit 30 MP's next election, that, is nonsensical.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

its not just rhetoric - for example IIRC its the SNP that has kept free university places as opposed to the wonderful system in the rUK is now burdened with. Scottish posters are better placed to say what else the SNP have achieved in real terms during this period of coalition government in the rUK - could someone give a quick run down of that?

And would independence have led them to do more of the same, or less of the same? Is it the institution of devolved government within a larger polity that has enabled/forced them to respond in this way?

I don't think the answers to these questions are obvious.

 

[danny la rouge]

Yes it does, you are basing the need for a majority of Scottish MP's on something SNP said in the past. It bares no relation to how Westminster operates or that positions change. Ruling out SNP because they clearly can't hit 30 MP's next election, that, is nonsensical.

My post sets out quite clearly what I see as stumbling blocks to my supporting a tactical vote for the SNP: "the terms are too vague, the suggested support for the SNP too open-ended, and the chances of success as yet ill-defined."

I am not prepared to vote SNP in the hope that they get a few more seats. That's not something I'd be interested in either campaigning for, or, in fact, actually achieving.

I'd only tactically vote for them if they a) adopt a policy of majority = mandate to negotiate, b) have a good change of achieving that.

 

[Sue]

A large part of the existing SNP support (i'm waiting on reports on the membership) voted NO - giving weight to the idea that many tories simply moved their support across during the tories downward spiral in scotland. If the party has doubled it's membership in a week with 50% now being pure nationalist/pro-independence supporters then that party is not going to smoothly achieve its aims, it's going to have to fight a large chunk of its old support base and argue for things that they just openly voted against. It's going to cause trouble inside and outside the party.

To add the existing levels of SNP support to that coming from it fresh from the referendum - and on the basis of a simple call for independence (or that voting for SNP will force a process leading to this due to the electoral make up of the next westminster parliament) is madness and will paint a false picture - both socially and in terms of electoral expectations. It would be, to again, not take seriously those who supported NO and their reasons for doing so. And it would see a huge drop in votes and support from the NO part of the SNP support. And where would these union supporting former tories go?

The left will have spent serious time effort and resources urging and building support for a neo-liberal nationalist party that, largely as a result of a process the left is a key part of, will be losing ground electorally. Total utter mess and terrible politics.

Depends what you mean by their support. I know a lot of people who voted SNP in 2011 because they reckoned they'd made a decent go of things at Holyrood. Many of them voted no. These are ex Labour and SSP voters which is why the no vote = Tory stuff that's flying around is so unhelpful/counterproductive.

 

[redcogs]

The Labour Party is indeed now a fully capitalist bourgeois party - with a major working class base. In the long term it needs to be replaced with a genuinely radical socialist party.TODAY though , and in the 2015 General Election, the SNP clearly stands for a divisive petty nationalism - the break up of capitalist Britain into smaller , still fully capitalist sub units- ever less able to stand up to the might of globalised capitalism in its "race to the bottom" in tax avoidance and lowering of workers rights and living standards. Whatever the petty Left nationalists of RIC might imagine - the creation of the United Kingdom as a multinational political entity was, and still is, a progressive historical achievement - and remains so compared to breaking that up into smaller - competitive capitalist states. The SNP is in no way a Left-leaning political party - it is entirely pro capitalist - and will enforce austerity on a Scottish working class which, in significant sections, has now bought into the "cross class mutual Scottish national interest" bullshit that demobilises the working class ideologically from fighting their bosses.

The Labour Party are utter shit - a dying party in the PASOK mould . It needs to be replaced by a real radical socialist party . But the SNP , and what they represent are EVEN WORSE than the current Labour Party. In the next general election most workers will have to hold their noses once again and vote Labour - even though Labour will definitely continue the Austerity Offensive for their capitalist paymasters. Where more progressive parties of the socialist Left (or in some places , the admittedly dodgy Greens_) are standing (eg, Left Unity or TUSC, or others ) then they should vote for them . In the medium term though a Labour (or Labour -led) government will be ever so slightly marginally better than a Tory one for working people. Voting for a capitalist petty nationalist SNP in either the 2015 British General Election or the 2016 Scottish elections is simply a vote for reaction.

Sorry ayatollah, but you cant be serious. If the SNP (who last week took significant working class votes from Scottish Labour) are a capitalist organisation we should not vote for, then Labour are surely the same. Labour bombs falling in Syria kill and maim in the same way as any other types to protect capitalism's thirst for oil, but you tell me to vote Labour!? You'll be explaining next that Labour austerity is more beneficial to workers than SNP cut backs.. oops, i think you already did.

 

[danny la rouge]

Anyway, Sturgeon (who will, barring upsets, be Salmond's successor) has just said that the SNP will be "the party of devo max until Scotland decides otherwise".

Well, since I have no interest in devo max, I'm out. Cheers.

 

[ayatollah]

Its hard to predict what the SNP will do in power next term (Id expect them to win another working majority) and from what ive read the Tories projected austerity drive still plans to cut tens of billions off the state spending bill <since Labour have vowed to continue this spending plan thats what Hollyrood can expect to be faced with...

Will the Westminster chancellor try and buy Scottish support or will they punish them for defiance?
Would the SNP try and maintain its perception as a party of social justice in contrast to the other 3?
Will any new powers for Hollyrood allow it to dodge any of the next deep round of cuts?

There are a lot of unknowns out there - unknown to me at least. You'd expect that the SNPs interests are to capitalise on this and steal ex-Labour voters, and to make the best of that honeymoon period of ex-Labour voters you'd expect them to try and act in their interest.


its not just rhetoric - for example IIRC its the SNP that has kept free university places as opposed to the wonderful system the rUK is now burdened with. Scottish posters are better placed to say what else the SNP have achieved in real terms during this period of coalition government in the rUK - could someone give a quick run down of that?

Ok, Ok, I accept that the SNP for tactical reasons , to outflank Labour, Has indeed delivered a few important but isolated desirable policies in Education grants and no prescription charges. They are now however intending to introduce huge budget cuts to the NHS in future though - and have shown no interest in abolishing the huge raft of anti trades union legislation on the statute books - or introduce a radical mandatory living wage. We know the SNP intend a "independent Scotland" to be competing with RUK on ever lower higher end tax rates and lower Corporation taxes for Big companies too. For anyone who is economically literate it is also the case that the entire SNP "economic plan" is utter bullshit - with no answer to the fundamental "currency issue" - or the future need to gain EU membership which will require massive public sector budget cuts to meet the EU budgetary model . The SNP are entirely motivated by the divisive poison of narrow (myth-based) nationalism - within a purely capitalist framework - that some of their tactically driven policies have outflanked Labour on the left, doesn't mean that they are anything but a reactionary bunch of petty nationalists in the long term - with only economic disaster to offer the Scottish working class.

 

[butchersapron]

Depends what you mean by their support. I know a lot of people who voted SNP in 2011 because they reckoned they'd made a decent go of things at Holyrood. Many of them voted no. These are ex Labour and SSP voters which is why the no vote = Tory stuff that's flying around is so unhelpful/counterproductive.

Indeed, that's another component of the pre-referendum existing SNP support that Sheridan and others are just assuming will remain SNP supporters once he/them get a leading role/voice and make the single issue that they (the ex-labour people) just voted against the single positive demand and focus of the SNP.

 

[tony heath]

An independent Scotland has been thoroughly rejected, so the dream of a socialist Scotland can only be achieved with a socialist Westminster government, the SNP should just call themselves the Scottish Tories and try and win socialist votes that way.

 

[danny la rouge]

An independent Scotland has been thoroughly rejected

No, it's been supported by 45% of Scots. That's not a tiny minority.

so the dream of a socialist Scotland can only be achieved with a socialist Westminster government

No it can't.

 

[tony heath]

No, it's been supported by 45% of Scots. That's not a tiny minority.


No it can't.

2665403 didn't vote YES, that's over a million more than did vote YES

 

[danny la rouge]

2665403 didn't vote YES, that's over a million more than did vote YES

I'm aware of how voting works, cheers.

 

[ayatollah]

Sorry ayatollah, but you cant be serious. If the SNP (who last week took significant working class votes from Scottish Labour) are a capitalist organisation we should not vote for, then Labour are surely the same. Labour bombs falling in Syria kill and maim in the same way as any other types to protect capitalism's thirst for oil, but you tell me to vote Labour!? You'll be explaining next that Labour austerity is more beneficial to workers than SNP cut backs.. oops, i think you already did.

Maybe you should actually read my post, rather than imagining what I said , redcogs. I hate the Labour party and all their class collaborationist works. The SNP is EVEN WORSE though. You can vote (in Scotland that is) for a capitalist party (Labour) which is still restrained on the margins by its still major Labour Movement links - OR you can vote for a fully pro capitalist party of fundamental petty nationalist sectarianism (the SNP). Up to you mate. In some instances I'd hope to have a Left alternative to vote for in some constituencies in 2015 - and in the longer term a new radical socialist mass party has to be built as capitalism continues its dive into permanent crisis.

Voting for petty nationalist parties which are currently "faking Left" (Plaid and the SNP - and those Cornish Nationalists) simply helps to confuse and divide an already confused and divided British working class even more. Voting tactically for UKIP in England might be said to help break up the staid dominant three party stitchup too - but I wouldn't advocate that either. UKIP is a (all UK) nationalist party too, but doesn't currently feel the need to "Left fake" in its policy offer - racism and anti EU right populism serving its purposes. It's still the same sort of political creature as both Plaid and the SNP though - just separated by tactical policy differences.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Not sure British workers are confused by Mebion Kernow

 

[redcogs]

Maybe you should actually read my post, rather than imagining what I said , redcogs. I hate the Labour party and all their class collaborationist works. The SNP is EVEN WORSE though. You can vote (in Scotland that is) for a capitalist party (Labour) which is still restrained on the margins by its still major Labour Movement links - OR you can vote for a fully pro capitalist party of fundamental petty nationalist sectarianism (the SNP). Up to you mate. In some instances I'd hope to have a Left alternative to vote for in some constituencies in 2015 - and in the longer term a new radical socialist mass party has to be built as capitalism continues its dive into permanent crisis.

Voting for petty nationalist parties which are currently "faking Left" (Plaid and the SNP - and those Cornish Nationalists) simply helps to confuse and divide an already confused and divided British working class even more. Voting tactically for UKIP in England might be said to help break up the staid dominant three party stitchup too - but I wouldn't advocate that either. UKIP is a (all UK) nationalist party too, but doesn't currently feel the need to "Left fake" in its policy offer - racism and anti EU right populism serving its purposes. It's still the same sort of political creature as both Plaid and the SNP though - just separated by tactical policy differences.

Are you seriously trying to explain that Labour has not frequently mobilised nationalism to benefit the capitalist establishment ayatollah? Of course it has. Labour has been responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people across the middle east, it wraps itself in the union jack at every politically convenient turn, and appeals to the most disgusting and divisive nationalism whenever it feels the need to. You might feel better as you recite ridiculous platitudes about the SNP being "EVEN WORSE", but it is unconvincing. You know that Miliband, (who you have just advised me to vote for!) cant wait to become Labours next apologist for mass murder across the globe in the interests of greedy and brutal speculators of every type.

You will always fail to make a coherent case against a tactical vote for the SNP as long as you are prepared to advocate a tactical vote for Labour in the way that you have.

 

[butchersapron]

Not sure British workers are confused by Mebion Kernow

The 2nd homers are though.

 

[tony heath]

The 2nd homers are though.

It hasn't become a burning issue

 

[butchersapron]

It hasn't become a burning issue

Watch it, you'll get a knock at the door the way things are going...

 

[redsquirrel]

The thing is, supporting independence was a tactic, not a principle. It was a good idea for what the working class could get out of it. It's not worth expending our energy on if it isn't achievable. There are far more important things that can be achieved with what we've built in this campaign that will improve lives here and now, not at some unidentifiable point on our great grandchildren's lives or maybe never. I don't believe in suffering now for paradise after death.

As usual I think you're spot on Danny.

As for the OP the SNP have been arguing for lower corporation taxes, and Salmond has shown perfectly well that he's willing to stick his tongue up the backside of scum like Trump and Murdoch, it's another neo-liberal party

its not just rhetoric - for example IIRC its the SNP that has kept free university places as opposed to the wonderful system the rUK is now burdened with.

But that's as much to do with the fact that they are (a) totemic policy of Scottish Devolution and (b) allow the SNP (and the LDs previously) to try and pretend it's different from the other three parties. If Scotland had become independent I'd have put good money on University fees being introduced. The lack of university fees and prescription charges shouldn't be chalked up to the SNP but rather the ability of the working class to use competing interests of the state/capital that devolution has brought about to work for it (which leads back onto Danny's point).

 

[redsquirrel]

. If the SNP (who last week took significant working class votes from Scottish Labour)

Did they? Why is it so hard to believe that someone might vote for Independence, for the SNP at Holyrood and for Labour at Westminster? The results over the last few years show plenty of people have done precisely such.

 

[articul8]

I think there should be/have been a "radical independent alliance" - linking up the SSP, Greens and others but NOT the SNP