Scotland: class or nation?
This year is the centenary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC). This august event in the calendar of the labour movement is being celebrated with millennium-style revelries, ranging from face-painting to street-busking. Unfortunately the festivities have diverted attention away from one fundamental fact: during the hundred years of its existence the STUC has turned away from working-class politics, in favour of Scottish-consensus politics of the lowest common denominator. The founding of the STUC in 1897 was a by-product of a conflict in the late nineteenth century British labour...