I was pleased to attend the ‘Scottish Independence and the British State Ten Years on’ conference to dissect the impact of the referendum and its aftermath. Firstly, thanks to the organisers, for a much-needed conversation on the national question today and the state of the left here and internationally. The event was packed, with over 200 people coming to see a range of speakers and engage in facilitated discussion themselves.
In the opening plenary, Jim Sillars spoke about the poets and artists who were engaged in the independence movement of 2014. I thought to myself ‘I wish some of them were here now’ as there is, in my view, a lack of interplay between formal political spheres and the creative. Controversially, he noted that stopping oil contracts pre-independence was a good thing. Not for environmental reasons, but because this meant having more oil to drill should Scotland become independent. The room quickly perked up and you could spot the visceral reactions of those who disagreed. Yet this set the tone for the conference, which invited ideological conflict, disagreement and a willingness to get into the practical realities of the global context, the economy and financing an independence nation. These are areas that require real debate, and the day offered that.
Also in the opening session, Cat Boyd spoke with, in my opinion, great humility, about the need for critical reflection on left post-referendum, pointing to the economic questions that loom and to the need for an independent left willing to take principled positions, when it might be easier not to. Liam McLaughlan, a key youth leader in the referendum, spoke passionately about the need for socialist politics, with a healthy scepticism about of the road ahead in relation to independence and especially about the SNP. Laura Webster editor of The National gave a brief but insightful speech on the ways the pandemic influenced the electorate’s understanding of devolution and noted the SNP’s journey, shifting from an ‘upstart’ political party to the established party of government.
After the opening session, we had a choice of breakouts. I attended one one focussing on class, nation and power. Niall Christie spoke about his experience of the Scottish Greens and his perspectives on the left of that party.
My thoughts on the Greens are for another day, but they are not, in my view, a viable vehicle in relation to social class and addressing the question of power and capitalism. Dr Jenny Morrison made fascinating points about the relationship of the women’s liberation movement and Scottish independence. The session was well chaired and my central contention was about the need for class and gender to be front and centre of any political movement that attempts to address the wider local, national and international contexts.
After an enjoyable lunch break with yet more political conversations with friends at the conference, we returned for the first of the day’s key note speeches, by Costas Lapavitsas, on sovereignty, nationalism, and the crises of globalisation. The slightly airless lecture theatre was packed, and people were engaged, and we even managed some shared laughter at points in the presentation. Next, I chaired a session on identity, race, and nation. Dr Maureen McBride delivered an insightful, and hard to dispute, presentation around the experiences of Irish Catholics in Scotland. She related this to the mobilisation of the far right, and the regularity and geographies of Orange marches in Scotland. James Foley, the author of numerous books on Scottish independence and initiator of the conference also spoke.
It had already been a long day, and I was tempted to leave after I had finished chairing. However, Professor John Curtis was unmissable. He presented interesting data and polling, and is a brilliant presenter on what could otherwise be a fairly dry topic. What the audience choose to do with the information is up to them, and the way in which the choose to interpret and apply it politically. For me, it was critical to note that support for independence since 2014 has remained roughly the same 45-48%, despite fluctuating and lately, declining, support for the SNP.
The final session was the debate between the SNP’s Alyn Smith and Conter’s Jonathon Shafi. Respect was due to both participants as these difficult conversations are necessary for highlighting contradictions, tensions, and points of complacency around the constitutional issue. From my own observations, Shafi presented Smith with policy issues and programmatic inconsistencies in the existing prospectus being put forward by the SNP. These seemed to be answered more rhetorically than empirically. It was striking to watch Jonathon Shafi, a co-founder of the Radical Independence Campaign in 2012, open up issues which were instrumental in the defeat of the Yes movement of the referendum campaign, namely the question of currency in which the SNP have opted for Sterlingisation, which he opposes.
If someone asked me in 2014 ‘do you think Scotland should be an independent country,’ I’d have a list of facts, figures, thoughts, feelings, poems, and a genuine openness to discussing political formations. Today, I feel much greater ambivalence on the topic. In addition, I am not sold on the idea of electoralism, but remain open to any movement or political organisation that is serious about centering class politics applied to a changed context relative to 2014. This conference, while it would have benefited from a more diverse audience, provided space for such a discussion, in its exploration of power in Scotland, Britain and the world today.
