AWL PRE-CONFERENCE MEETING, GLASGOW, 21 APRIL 2007

SCOTLAND

Stan: Over recent years the SSP has shifted to become more populist. For example, how it describes 1707 - a triumph of bribery and military threats. But it wasn't just that.
On the 300 years since 1707 - "many Scots on the make gained from the Union, but ordinary Scots gained nothing". But there has been positive bourgeois development since 1707!
SSP focuses on Scottish independence. SSP even argues that independence is necessary to "energise the Scots", make them less feckless.
Also, that independence enables Scots to become a proper nation again, "a nation at peace with itself".
In contrast, "Britishness" is equated with servility to Bush.
SSP economic policy? E.g. for free public transport - advocated because it would boost tourism and business efficiency.
SSP is now more pro-independence than the SNP, e.g. when SNP says a referendum four years after it takes office at Holyrood the SSP says it has to be within one year. And SSP says it wants "cross-party" action to get that referendum within one year.
SSP misrepresents its own history, saying that in the early 1990s it was campaigning for devolution. Actually the people who set up the SSP were then immersed in the poll tax campaign and other economic issues, and very lukewarm on devolution.
SSP argues for a constitutional assembly "independent of political parties" to draw up a new constitution for Scotland after a vote for independence in a referendum.
SSV does not talk about class, but only about rich people and poor people. Workers' control not mentioned.
SSP fails to do serious trade union work, e.g. the trade union page on its website has not been updated since 2004, and it has no trade union fractions.
SSV has not covered the John McDonnell campaign at all.
There's a very strong strain of idiot "anti-imperialism" in the SSP, e.g. Castroism, support for the Maoists in Nepal, boycott of Israel. SSP does have policy to support trade unions in Iraq, but there are lot of people in the SSP who support the Islamists.
There's also a strong strain of "identity politics", e.g. Peter Tatchell denounced on SSP discussion forum as "racists" for supporting gays in Jamaica.
And a drift to "community action" rather than orientation to trade unions and workplaces. And a lot of "idiot optimism". E.g. scenario that SNP will win the elections, SNP will win independence but carry out capitalist policies, so masses will break from SNP and join SSP, and we'll win a socialist Scotland.
Why these trends in SSP? A lot of people who have joined from SNP or other nationalist backgrounds; the ex-Militant tendency has collapsed intellectually; there's a low level of working-class struggle; Labour Party is pretty moribund.
SSP is much clearer about what it is against than what it is for.
So:
1. What are we doing in the SSP? It's difficult now even to get any discussion on independence.
2. What do we do outside the SSP, e.g. Iraq Union Solidarity activity?
3. What do we mean by a democratic federal Britain?

Martin: Questions:
1. Could SNP success bring the vague idea of "independent Scotland" into focus, and provoke some rethinking?
2. Is the SNP success mostly a matter of the same sort of disillusion with Blair which has boosted the Tories in England going to SNP instead in Scotland because Tories start at too low a level here? That pro-independence feeling is more a matter of "yes, why not?" than of enthusiasm.
3. The old SSP cadre is bio-degrading. But what are the prospects with the livelier youth in SSY?

Elaine: Despite Stan's introduction, the SSP does do basic agitation quite well on issues like free school meals and public transport and council housing. And I think people vote for it because of its stand on those issues - for its better side - rather for its pro-independence populism. If we can present ourselves as a Marxist, working-class, union-oriented current in the SSP, we can win support. And doesn't the self-dissolving tendency among the SSP leadership create openings for us?

Danny: So SSP is losing its socialist, Marxist grip?

Stan: Yes. It's not like New Labour, which positively embraces right-wing ideas. But SSP is losing any clear idea of its positive programme.

Danny: What is the SSP take on globalisation?

Stan: "Globalisation" is a vague term. SNP's perspective is much the same as New Labour's, only for Scotland rather than for Britain - cut corporation tax, adapt to world market. SSP's perspective is more for an economic "Fortress Scotland" - withdraw from European Union, separate Scottish currency. It includes nationalisation, but it's very inward-looking, quite reactionary.
Pro-independence feeling? I think it's shallow. Academic research published last week suggests 29% support independence, 24% want Holyrood to have more powers, and 27% want status quo, or less devolution.
I don't think SNP taking office is going to provoke helpful debate.

Danny: Are working-class people in Scotland becoming more nationalist or more socialist?

Stan: The SNP has never been socialist. Historically in fact it has been very right-wing. It's not now. It has some "old Labour" type policies. But the left in the SNP is now much weaker than it was. It attracts people on the basis of anti-Trident, or anti-Blair, as well as pro-independence.

Elaine: Is Stan saying that SSP has got so bad that we should not be in it? Or that we should be involved only on a token level?

Stan: I'd like to have more involvement in SSP, but organisationally it's difficult. Since I moved back to Glasgow, my branch has met 5 times, but without a single political discussion. That is exceptionally bad, but far from unique. There's a bit of a collapse in the SSP after the Sheridan debacle. We'll have to see how things look after the election when branches start functioning again. If the SSP loses its MSPs, it will be pushed down a long way.

Angela: I'm not so convinced that the SNP will make big gains.

Danny: How are the trade unions moving?

Stan: FBU is reported to have given money to SNP in some areas. RMT was affiliated to SSP. No more (though I think two branches are still affiliated). Most unions tepidly support Labour.

Peter: There are lots of possibilities of 3 May for coalitions. Could be SNP and Lib-Dem, but that's not guaranteed. SSP are facing a danger of electoral meltdown. Maybe after the election there will be an opening to argue to refocus the SSP on class issues. We should not renounce activity like IUSS and No Sweat and confine ourselves to work in SSP. But conditions are very bad and will be very bad for some time to come.

Elaine: How is Solidarity Scotland doing? Will they do better on 3 May and then pull people away from the SSP?

Stan: Possibly Sheridan will get elected. I doubt anyone else will from Solidarity Scotland. SSP may get zero, or one, or two MSPs. A lot of people in SSP see the election campaign mainly as a competition with Solidarity Scotland. If Sheridan wins a seat and the SSP gets no MSPs, then that is very bad for the SSP.

Jim: In Scotland you have a nationalist party on the verge of taking power - and nobody is bothered, nobody is scared. Scottish nationalism is not scary. It is very pervasive, but very anaemic. I think the Labour vote will suffer more in the Scottish Parliament election than it will in an all-British general election, because the "anti-Tory" factor doesn't operate.
Yes, the SSP is bio-degrading. It always was nationalist, but it had a certain vibrancy. We have to be hard-nosed about assessing it. But where else do you go? As a small group, we have to find openings where we can. Is work in the Labour Party out of the question?

Martin: The whole situation is adverse. What we can do: develop, educate ourselves, educate others, in Marxist ideas. We seek openings for that. Even an SSP with an actual real membership of only a few hundred - even a weaker SSP - is a relatively good opening for us. It's not as if things are improving in the Labour Party.

Stan: Yes, it's a generally unfavourable period. The drift of the SSP is one expression of that. "Socialism" in Scotland has been based on a norm of white male manual workers in heavy industry, and the working class has changed. Yes, SNP will do better on 3 May than in Westminster elections. You can say even that the SNP is not really nationalist. It does not promote national hatred. Its politics are more social-democratic, except within a Scottish framework.

FEMINISM

Elaine: The second-wave women's movement developed in the early 1970s, about basic equal-rights demands that affected a lot of women. It changed mass consciousness considerably and contributed to changing laws. It was closely linked to working-class struggle like the Ford women workers' struggle of 1968.
There were socialist women involved in the movement. But by the late 1970s and early 1980s the movement had disintegrated, and cultural feminism and career feminism became dominant.
What to learn? To focus on real social issues for working-class women, not the "lifestyle" stuff of later cultural feminism. To combat the identity-politics "essentialism" of strands of cultural feminism. To learn from the failings of the left at the time - from those who stood aside in a sectarian way.
The retreat of the left and the defeats of socialist feminism were not inevitable. E.g. the miners' strike gave feminism a big boost.
Reactionaries argue that social problems are to do with the breakdown of the nuclear family. We have to show that there are ways of living other than the nuclear family.
Abortion rights are also an issue. With religious forces on the offensive, that will continue.
"Third wave" feminism? The term has been used since the 1990s. It covers a wide range of perspectives. But "Third Wave" feminists have been critical of some of "second-wave" feminism, more open to black women and working-class women, more open to organising sex workers rather than taking puritanical attitudes.
We have to review AWL functioning to help women to be fully involved in political decision-making. We have to re-educate ourselves on the issues.
We have to explain why we talk about the centrality of the working class. It is not because of class oppression being "worse" than racism or sexism, but because of the role of the working class as the active force for changing the world.
NUS women's campaign is very focused on banning lads' mags in university shops. You see that sort of trend in the SSP, too, e.g. against the unionisation of sex workers.
The labour movement? We should argue for better pay, for genuine family-friendly hours and rights in the workplace, an end to sexual harassment at work, and better maternity and paternity rights. Also, defence of the welfare state. Expose the hypocrisy of union leaders on women's rights.
Issues under debate include pornography and censorship. We are against state censorship, though we are for women's rights in their workplace to get sexist material removed.
Abortion: campaign for better resources as well as to defend the current law against anti-abortionists.
Hijab in schools: AWL position is that we oppose the hijab and pressure on girls to wear the hijab; we fight for secular education; but we don't support the French law to ban the hijab in schools. My personal view is to support the ban in schools, but how can you support a government ban by a government which is also promoting faith schools.
There's a short resolution about what we should do, focused on self-education and campaigning on abortion rights.

Jim: The document is right to oppose faith schools and the new offensive of religion.
Prostitution? I'm on two minds on that. There is moralism in what some people on the left say. But prostitution is different from other kinds of exploitation.
I've worked in homeless services. There are 1500 or so prostitutes working on the streets. The big majority are drug-addicted, were victims of sexual abuse as children, etc. The answer is not just about demanding the right to unionise, but also about demanding social provision, welfare services.

Pauline: I agree, but we can combine the two things, the right to unionise, and social provision which undercuts prostitution.

Jim: I agree. I oppose criminalisation. But we should not regard sex workers as just any old group of workers for whom we demand union rights. Lots of women in Glasgow are driven into prostitution by terrible social conditions. There are ethical issues there.

Elaine: I agree. Prostitution isn't just another job. We're against criminalisation as demanded e.g. by the SSP; but we're for unionisation partly as a means to create pressure for more social services, etc.

Stan: There has been some real discussion on the SSP Discussion Forum about prostitution. And even among those who opposed unionisation of prostitutes there were different views. In Germany, e.g. prostitutes have unionised to demand state benefits as top-up in weeks where their earnings are poor, in the same way as other part-time workers. Equal pay battles? They tend to get channelled into legal proceedings.

Martin: There's a new generation of young women who've grown up in conditions different from any previous generation: when girls are more articulate and successful in schools than boys; when women are the majority in universities and in the trade unions; where there is more or less complete legal equality. We have to catch up with them.

Peter: At the SSP conference an FBU official was very dismissive of unionising prostitutes. There was a lot of moralism. There's more economic pressure today on students and young women to turn to prostitution to make ends meet. Unionisation and basic work conditions are necessary, in the context of a longer-term drive to make more choices available.

Danny: On abortion rights - do we recognise a time limit?

Pauline: On the hijab - with Iraq Union Solidarity I've circulated a lot of material from women in Iraq and Iran. Worker-Communist Party of Iraq argues that adults should be free to wear or not to wear the hijab, but children should not wear it.

Angela: We don't want prostitution. Most of the time it's a forced choice.

Elaine: Prostitution? We are in favour of prostitutes having the right to organise and win health and safety and protection at work. We are in favour of support services, too. That's different from the SSP view, which is basically for a legal ban on prostitution.
In some countries you have legalised, state-regulated brothels. We should discuss that. It might help health and safety, but it does legitimate the industry. Does it mean that unemployed women get their benefits stopped if they turn down a job offer in a brothel?
Abortion rights? Obviously there are medical advances. But I don't think that cancels the issues of women's rights. Our focus should be on making proper abortion services available, making choices available easily and earlier.
Equal pay battles? Yes, they get shunted into legal channels. But so do many things. It's a matter of the general state of the labour movement.
Hijab? I agree that children should not be forced to wear it. So it seems reasonable that it should not be worn in school. But you do get young women wearing the hijab as a random gesture of protest.
The new generation? Yes, there are more confident young women. But the situation for many working-class women is still the same. The new feminists do have to tie into the demands that affect the lives of working-class women.

IRAQ

Martin: The US invaded Iraq in 2003 under the impulse of the neo-cons' vision that invasion would quickly produce a stable pro-US Iraqi government which in turn would help stabilise this whole oil-rich, strategically-crucial region. It turned out different.
Two by-products from the invasion: the emergence of an independent Iraqi labour movement and a more-or-less independent press and some civil liberties in Iraq; and, sadly dominant so far, a sectarian polarisation driven by Islamist militias.
In that situation we must argue for a "third camp" stance - support for a working-class "third camp", however weak it is so far, against the other reactionary poles.
To detach an additional slogan, "troops out now", or "troops out", for agitation, makes no sense.
In the past it has been argued, e.g. by Barry Finger, that if the troops disappeared quickly then the present more-or-less elected Iraqi government could survive, so some degree of Iraqi self-determination would result. That looks very improbable now.
Removing the skeleton of state authority from Iraq - i.e. the US troops - would unleash a process of each militia seeking to gain what it could for its own "mini-Taliban" rule, and almost certainly invasions by neighbouring states. I.e. destruction of labour movement, of possibilities of democracy, of possibilities of self-determination.
Yet the US occupation is making things worse. We certainly cannot support it. Hence, "third camp".

Stan: Yes, we support the Iraqi unions. But some of what they say is nonsense. They have exaggerated their success. Is the FWCUI really a trade-union, or is it a trade-union wing of the WPIraq?

Elaine: What are the disagreements in AWL?

Martin: As in previous years, some comrades say we should add an extra slogan, "troops out now", or "troops out", or similar: I don't know which variant they will propose. But they have promised an amendment by the deadline of 28 November.
Yes, some WPIraq people obviously exaggerate their support. But Falah Alwan in his recent statement published in the paper, and in the interview we did with him while in Britain, gave a more sober assessment. There seems no doubt that the FWCUI is a genuine union organisation, however weak.
Maybe the claims for big support for WPIraq are a bit like what we used to hear from WOSA in South Africa in the early 90s. They would e.g. go into a township and do a meeting. An appreciative audience would hail them and vote to join WOSA en masse. But none of them expected to be attending regular branch meetings or paying regular dues.

Stan: I find the debate frustrating, even though broadly I suggest the majority position. Kurdistan? Why is it in a better situation? Because it had semi-autonomy after 1991. And if the no-fly zone had been lifted, then Saddam would have invaded and massacred thousands of people. So simplistic "troops out of Iraq" isn't much answer.

Pauline: "Troops out now" is the wrong focus. If you really care about the Iraqi people, you should be supporting the people who can really improve things.

Stan: What about partition?

Martin: Partition would even be a workable outcome from limited civil war, if only because of Baghdad (Shia-majority or near-majority city which also constitutes the majority of the population of the "Sunni" central region). Sunni resistance? Some may have a more or less realistic aim of preventing (by sabotage, etc.) the consolidation of a Shia-dominated government, and forcing the US to install a more "balanced" government. Some just want the Americans to get out of their Sunni-dominated province (Anbar, especially) and have no clear programme for what happens elsewhere. Some, apparently, really believe that Sunnis are the majority. Some are religious crazies of the al-Qaeda type who think of the Shia as infidels. Their military struggle is not necessarily rational. Remember, the Provos had more or less realisable goals for their military struggle in 1970-2 - and did achieve some, e.g. abolition of old Stormont, negotiations with the British government - but after some point in 1972 they could see that their armed struggle could not possibly achieve their goals. Provos are infinitely more rational than the al Qaeda types, yet it took them 22 years to adjust and move to a ceasefire and entry into routine bourgeois politics as per now.

Pauline: Taking Iraq Union Solidarity Scotland forward? We did a stall in Glasgow regularly for a while. We've got a few affiliations, and a lot of email activity. On Unison international committee I've argued about affiliation to the Stop The War Coalition. Now I have to send an email with details to the chair of the Unison international committee; and I've been elected as link-person between Unison international committee Scotland and STWC.

Martin: STWC?

Keir: The 2002-3 demonstrations were organised by the Scottish Coalition for Justice and Peace, but that no longer exists, at least in Glasgow and Edinburgh. STWC - which is pretty much just SWP - has taken the niche.

Peter: Potential for getting something going in Edinburgh. Maybe a meeting round the university?

Stan: I'd prefer a trade-union focus in Edinburgh. We need to raise money through the unions.