Why do British socialists hope Scotland will vote for independence?

Today’s events in the UK could turn out to be a political earthquake – the break up of the imperialist war mongering British state. The people of Scotland are voting in a referendum on independence.

This is a rare chance for people to vote on whether they want to stay in ‘their’ country. Working class people have been turning out in their hundreds to mass public meetings to discuss this issue. Many will be voting against the ‘United Kingdom’ and all it represents.

A vote for independence will be a vote against the imperial past of Britain and the more recent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It will also be a vote against the poverty and inequality, which are worse in many parts of Scotland than the rest of Britain. There are more private school pupils per head of the population in Edinburgh than any other town or city in Britain. Showing that amongst the poverty there is much wealth.

A vote for independence will be a vote against the Queen and other remnants of feudalism including the huge landowning estates. In many parts of Scotland huge landed estates are used as the playgrounds for hunting and fishing for the rich or investment in huge areas of forestry.

The Thatcher and Major governments unleashed unemployment, deindustrialisation, government spending cuts, welfare restructuring and the poll tax on Scotland. Even when the Scottish people repeatedly voted against such policies, with very few Conservative Members of Parliament being elected, these neoliberal ‘reforms’ continued.

Devolution and the introduction of a Scottish parliament have already changed politics in Scotland and brought some improvements for the poor and working classes. In Scotland, unlike in the rest of Britain, there are no university student fees, no charges for medicines and the health service is under less threat from privatisation.

Independence provides the opportunity for further change. The removal of the bases for Trident nuclear weapons and US military bases, for example, have been promised.

In reality, Britain is not united, but like most countries in the world it is fragmented with many communities that would like independence – or in the case of Northern Ireland to re-join the Republic of Ireland.

As socialists, we do not support ‘our country’, the state or the government. We know that the state, the police, the army and the prisons are not there to protect us, but to be used against us to protect the rich. So we remember that it was the real threat of the armed might of the state on the streets of the major cities that led the trade union leaders to panic and call off the last general strike in January 2012.

We know that the police are used to frighten and repress the working class. It is the poor people who die in police custody and fill all the prisons. In contrast, the rich elite are regularly provided with protection and armed escorts by the police and soldiers.

A vote for Scottish independence will be a vote against the inequality of Scotland and all that the British state represents. However, independence, in reality, will bring little change for the poor and working class. They will have to continue their struggles to win the fight against neoliberalism, privatisation and to ensure that Scottish oil is used for the benefit of the mass of the people and not just the rich elite.

* Andy Wynne is a British socialist working in sub-Sharan Africa, currently in Nigeria.

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