Report by LU observers on RIC conference in Glasgow on 22 November 2014 On Saturday 22nd November Left Unity sent three delegates/observers to the Radical Independence Campaign conference in Glasgow. What follows is a report based on our comments and observations. Comrades arriving early had a chance to see people arriving, registering and talking. It was obvious there was a definite mood of optimism and defiance, hardly the feeling of the defeated half in a referendum. Three thousand gathered in the Glasgow Exhibition Centre. Across the road an estimate 12,000 came to hear Nicola Sturgeon at an SNP rally. These numbers may serve as a rough estimate of the balance of activists in the national democratic movement between nationalists on one side and internationalists on the other. We took our seats for the opening plenary and the positive mood was reflected in the speakers. Suki Sangha began with the RIC slogan “That another Scotland is possible”, argued that now “radical ideas are not that radical anymore”. She said that RIC had helped break politics away from politicians and brought it back to the people. She stressed that RIC is not a party or based on individual people but on the idea of a different future which brought people back into politics. She said the trade unions would have to change and that unions in Scotland should not pay for Labour to rousing applause. Again to massive applause she asked why the bankers were not in jail, and for banks to be run for the ordinary people. “Britain is led by the rich for the rich” and the campaign needs to continue and women must lead in creating a more diverse culture. Patrick Harvie MSP (Scottish Greens) said that the argument over whether Scotland could be independent had now been won and the fear factor had been overcome. Despite the referendum people refuse to be dejected as they had changed the political landscape and now the challenge is not the same. He wanted to hear Scottish Ministers stand up against TTIP. We cannot afford to allow politics to stay broken. We need to fix it. Aamer Anwar talked about Jim Murphy being sent to try and hypnotise the people of Scotland, but it was not business as usual, that we need to continue to build a movement to unite. He said that Scotland should punish Labour and Miliband should sack Gordon Brown. Miliband had only one job to do and he didn’t do that. He asked who wrote the rule book to say we only get one chance at it. They had smashed apathy. Labour lost its soul long ago and now there are two themes Austerity/Racism and they compete to attack migrants. To rousing applause he said better together may have won the battle but not the war. Colin Fox pointed out it is not always the victors who make history and the 1.6 million people who had not been fooled were the ones who had made history. Again he stressed that what they had built was a movement not a party although the issue was political. He said that they were not defeated. The issue was simply deferred and an Independent Scotland was coming for all that. Next was 17 years old Saffron Dixon. She said she was born in 1997 and had never known a time without wars, without poverty and slaughtering people for profit. She wanted to build a better Scotland and that no one should allow themselves to be silenced. She urged people to fight and vote for the babies of the future. She never wanted to see another child beg for their future. As she is 17 despite all she had done she would not be able to vote at the general election and she called for votes for 16 year olds as Scotland had done. Again it was mentioned that radical ideas are not that radical anymore. We should build homes not punish the homeless and whether you are 16 or 60 your colour or country should not determine your benefits or home. She finished with the call to politicians - there is NO excuse for foodbanks. Myshele Haywood finished up this session explaining that she had originally come to Scotland as an exchange student and had made it her home. She said sometimes it is easy to feel alone as an activist but that Scotland was a country full of activists. She called on people to be nice to each other. She told of how the Yes campaign had taken on a life of its own and had drawn people together who had more to unite them than to divide them and that we didn’t have to worry about all the small detail. She said the campaigns strength was in its diversity and that there was no hierarchy as they were not a party. She called for people to keep together to take the campaign forward. Lesley Riddick finished the session. Her work had made her one of the ‘stars’ in the campaign. She made clear she was not going to stand for parliament. An impressive array of speakers continued in the next session with some very good analysis of the current situation not least from the young revolutionaries of ’68 - Tariq Ali and Bernadette McAliskey. Bernadette was talking about the situation in Ireland and the campaign against water meters there which was bringing people together in a mass campaign. She talked of how the independence campaign was getting people to ask the right questions that we all need to be asking. Scotland had reminded us how to do it. Tariq Ali opened by saying that whether it was in 5 years or 10 years Scotland will be independent. He joked that imposing Murphy (contender for Scottish Labour leader) was a bit of a gift from Miliband to our side and referred to Labour as a monolithic rump! He said that all over the world people were becoming fed up with the “extreme centre” of politics with a right centre and left centre all saying the same things. He said it was the end of an era for the Labour Party which on one level was sad but politically was good. He talked of a political vacuum where Labour had been. He warned against the SNP going into any sort of coalition with the main parties. During the day there were many different workshops to choose in three different sections plus speakers continuing in the main auditorium. We had been invited to book places on workshops prior to arrival so this is where we went our various ways. We cannot report on all the sessions but mention three. First was one on Opposing Austerity Now, Racism UKIP and scapegoating: How do we repel Westminster divide and rule? Second was one on community organising with a national strategy. Comrades found these interesting and informative with a few speakers and contributions from the floor in each. Community organising was especially interesting with ideas which could be useful in Birmingham and other local branches. A third session had platform speakers from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. There were only two contributions from the floor because of time constraints and these concentrated on the problem of England and why the gap between the two countries would widen dangerously unless the left in England began to take the matter seriously instead of sitting on the fence as the majority had done during the referendum. At the end the conference heard from London in the guise of Ritzy cinema workers and Focus E15 mothers with their banner “from London to Glasgow one struggle one fight decent homes for all”. They spoke brilliantly about their campaign to a packed auditorium and received a well deserved standing ovation. Overall view The conference left observers feeling inspired and uplifted by the progress that had been made. Without doubt this is a growing movement despite the referendum defeat. The conference was essentially the radical movement getting ready for the next stage of the war. There was emphasis on RIC becoming more organised and professional. It had since it began two years ago re-established the position of the Scottish left in the mainstream of Scottish politics, which it had briefly enjoyed after 1998 with the rise of the Scottish Socialist Party. Now the left had made a come back. The conference mood could be called the ‘triumph of defeat’. The left had been through its downturn and was now back in national politics. It convinced us that independence will come for the people of Scotland. It is more a question of when. Left Unity intervention Left Unity observers did have some discussion with Scottish LU members who attended the conference. There is political divide among LU members in Scotland shown by members’ approach to this event. Some LU members, including the Chair of LU in Scotland, were at the conference and supportive of the event. Other members were outside leafleting. There was an LU leaflet in the name of Glasgow South. This leaflet condemned nationalism and noted that RIC was demanding free childcare, scrapping Trident, creating 200,000 new jobs, ending benefit sanctions and the bedroom tax. The leaflet said these aims were laudable but impossible. Reforms, it argued, could not be won because of the crisis of capitalism. It was either socialism or barbarism. Socialism or barbarism is not what LU argues in England. But the only argument from LU in Scotland was suggesting that RIC was a waste of time because of the impossibility of reforms. It gave the impression that LU was opposed to the democratic movement rather than being part of it. So on one hand LU is sending observers, and implying some interest and potential for support, whilst another section is opposing it. LU national leadership cannot write all the leaflets for every branch up and down the country. It is neither possible nor desirable. However in Scotland this was a national event and needed a national LU leaflet. Instead the politics of LU was represented by an LU leaflet from one branch. This is not credible for an LU intervention to be represented by one branch. Discussion with the LU members from other branches leads to the conclusion that LU is very damaged and possibly finished in Scotland. It is very difficult to see how LU can recover from its failure to support RIC and the democratic movement during the referendum. Now in the face of the changing political landscape the gap has widened. Gioia Coppola, Steve Freeman, Sharon McCourt 26 November 2014
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 10:30:44 +0000
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