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Brexit, Scottish Nationalism and Socialism By John Blackburn Nationalism is one of the most powerful political forces in history and remains so today. It has dictated the patterns of voting in the recent British general election which is the product of the three years of chaos that have followed the EU referendum of 2016. In that referendum the percent of the vote for leaving was: England as a whole, 54.2; Wales, 52.5; Scotland, 38.0; Northern Ireland, 44.2. The leave campaign is fundamentally an English nationalist movement while the Conservative and Unionist Party (Tories) has transformed into the “English national party” with Brexit representing the longing to return to the glory days of the English empire. The population of England is 80 percent of the UK, greater than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland taken together, so this skewed the whole UK result of the vote towards leave. When seen in this light England is imposing Brexit on Scotland and Northern Ireland against their will. The general election results have given Johnson’s Conservatives an unassailable 78 majority in Parliament. This is due to large numbers of former Labour supporters in the devastated industrial and mining communities of England voting for Conservative and Brexit Party candidates. The utopian Tory campaign of “Get Brexit Done!” with little else of substance but a subtext that immigration is the real problem, together with an unrelenting campaign of vilification of Jeremy Corbyn by the right-wing media has successfully attracted the votes of many working-class people. In Scotland the vast majority of the working class which has also suffered the consequences of the deindustrialization, austerity and social deprivation that their English counterparts have did not fall for the Brexiteers’ reactionary propaganda. The Scottish National Party (SNP) campaigned to “Stop Johnson,” remain in the EU and for Scottish independence, together with a left-wing reformist program. They took 48 of the 59 Scottish Parliamentary seats. The Tories have only six (having lost seven) and Scotland where the British Labour Party began has now only one Labour MP. The SNP has taken on the radical mantle in Scotland. The Scottish people have overwhelmingly rejected Johnson’s Tories and their Brexit program. Johnson has said that he will not countenance Scottish independence so the imposition of the will of the English Tories on the Scots will be a major political issue for the whole term of this government. UK background “United Kingdom” is the creation of the English ruling class. Wales was conquered, Ireland was colonized and after six centuries of conflict Scotland was finally subdued in 1746. The Union Flag is meant to symbolize the union of these equal partners (though Wales is left out.) The history of all four countries is characterized by ebb and flow in the popularity of nationalist movements with armed conflict featuring frequently between rebels and the British state. Attempts to crush Scotland began with Edward I, known as the “Hammer of the Scots” for his unbridled brutality. With the defeat of his son, Edward II, by a Scottish part-time army, led by Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn, in 1314, independence was secured for a time. The first defeats of the English invaders were by Scots led by the then commoner William Wallace and that egalitarianism was to be consolidated in the Declaration of Arbroath (1320): “As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honors, that we are fighting, but for freedom—for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.” The Magna Carta was about equal rights for barons while the Declaration of Arbroath is about freedom for all Scots. (Most Scottish people know of the Magna Carta but few English people know of the Declaration of Arbroath, which is just as important.) The Reformation occurred in Scotland in 1560 nearly 30 years after England. However, the forms that the respective Protestant religions took were fundamentally different. In 1534 Henry VIII basically substituted himself for the Pope and, provided the clergy came to heal, they were relatively safe. As head of the Church of England, Henry would appoint the bishops and they, with the local aristocracy, would select the local clergy. The religious and political conflicts triggered by Henry would not be settled in England for nearly two centuries with hundreds-of-thousands of lives destroyed on and off the battlefield. In Scotland, the leader of the reformation was a Calvinist protestant John Knox. The Church of Scotland would be Presbyterian, have no bishops and each congregation would elect its own minister. Knox vowed a school in every parish (so that everyone could learn to read the bible for themselves) and a college in every town. French educated and Catholic, Mary Queen of Scots, returned to a protestant country in 1561 but her stay was short and after defeat in battle she was forced to abdicate and flee to England for sanctuary in 1567. Her protestant cousin Elizabeth would eventually have her executed on February 8, 1587. James, Mary’s son, who was raised as a Protestant, would inherit the English throne on Elizabeth’s death. Later it was the refusal of the Scots protestants to accept bishops and the “Book of Common Prayer,” both of which they considered “papist,” (relating to or associated with the Roman Catholic Church) that indirectly precipitated the English civil war and the eventual execution of Charles I on January 30, 1649. Although one of the poorest countries in Europe, by the late 18th century, Knox’s legacy was that Scotland was one of the most literate, and home to some of the most famous names in publishing—e.g., Collins, Macmillan, Chambers. Read more at: http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/janfeb_20/janfeb_20_10.html _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
