International Socialists (CWI Scotland)

Saturday 27th April saw over 250 delegates and visitors from across the length and breadth of Scotland attend the conference to found the 'All Scottish Anti Bedroom Tax Federation'. Delegates represented 70 local anti-bedroom tax campaigns. Also sending delegates were four trade union branches representing local government and Housing Association workers.

She was dubbed the Iron Lady, a description she wore with pride as she ruthlessly tried to solve the difficulties British capitalism found itself in by launching brutal attack after attack on the working class. However she was not invincible as Liverpool City Council and the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation demonstrated. Some common themes unite these two struggles – a clear set of demands, a clear strategy to achieve them and the involvement of the mass of working class people in active defiance. The role of Militant, the forerunner of the Socialist Party, was crucial in these important victories over Thatcher.

Thursday 18th September 2014 has now been named by the SNP government as the date of the independence referendum. It’s a vote that will take place against the backdrop of unprecedented economic stagnation facing Scottish and British capitalism and deepening austerity.

The fallout from the world economic crisis, which has brought savage austerity for the majority in its wake, is also threatening the possible break-up of states, including Spain, Belgium and Britain. These developments pose important questions for Marxists. In this article we look at the approach that the Socialist Party Scotland is taking towards the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland.

Over 700 people attended the Radical Independence Conference (RIC) held in Glasgow on November 24. The large conference turnout highlighted the continuing evident trend of radicalised layers of Scottish society, particularly young people, looking towards independence as a way out of the nightmare of austerity; this was also present in the 10,000 strong YES demonstration in Edinburgh in late September. (see here)

STUC March against the cuts. October 20th 11am George Sqaure

A rage is building across the working class as every aspect of our lives comes under attack from the ConDems, their big business pals and chums in the right-wing media.  We suffer. They get richer. With 85% of their cuts still to be implemented the ConDems are about to step – up their war against workers, the disabled, the unemployed, women, young people and minority communities.

On the eve of the UK Labour Party conference, Scottish Labour leader, Johann Lamont, has thrown the party north of the border into a crisis following her recent speech that called for an end to the “something for nothing culture” in Scotland. Supported by Ed Milliband, in Lamont’s target sights were free tuition for university students living in Scotland, free prescriptions, the council tax freeze, free personal care for the elderly and free travel for pensioners. In other words almost every relatively progressive policy that has been introduced by the Scottish parliament, many of them by the SNP.

Over 10,000 people took part in the March and Rally for Scottish Independence in Edinburgh on the 22 September. It was clear a large element of the turnout were SNP activists and supporters. However the demonstration was also a broad cross-section of Scottish society, with a significant mobilisation of workers, trade unionists and young people also present.

“As the months have passed and the notion of independence has been boiled down to a tepid soup – new name, same taste, I’ve been anticipating this moment. I’ve done my best to work out how Scotland can be independent, in any sense, under the Crown and within the Sterling area. But Nato is another matter. Nato membership is submission to a doctrine and the doctrine is criminal.” Ian Bell, Sunday Herald 12/8/2012 

The launch of the “Better Together” anti-independence campaign this week saw Labour politicians unite with the Con-Dem’s to extol the virtues of the union. Better Together’s birth coincided with UK Prime Minister David “nasty” Cameron’s brutal speech announcing his support for the dismantling of the welfare state with savage attacks on the benefits of the poorest. If anything was designed to undermine the Better Together message this was it.