Responding the First Minister’s lackluster “strategy” for independence, the Scottish Socialist Party has reiterated the need for a mass, democratic movement to defy Westminster – a movement rooted in Scotland’s working-class.
SSP National Trade Union Organiser Richie Venton wrote in The National this week:
“There’s nothing fresh in John Swinney’s allegedly brand-new strategy for winning independence.
“He emphasised three points: the need to win a sustained majority for independence, “put the heat up” on Westminster to concede a referendum, and gain maximum votes for the SNP in 2026.
“As a founding organiser of the Scottish Socialist Party, which since 1998 has advocated an independent socialist Scotland as its core policy, I agree we need to build a consistent pro-independence popular majority – and wield that as a force to compel Westminster into accepting Scotland’s independence.
“But utterly lacking in Swinney’s proclamation was anything concrete on how to achieve those goals.
“It’s frankly a miracle – or to be slightly more scientific, a reflection of just how rotten the British state is and how deep-seated national consciousness is amongst the Scottish people – that half the population support independence despite 11 years of the SNP putting this issue on the back burner.
“Not mentioning the “I” word for fear of scaring big business – and Unionist voters back to the Tories in areas like the north-east, who temporarily voted SNP.
“Promising, then cancelling a referendum after Brexit. Pleading with the Supreme Court of the British capitalist state, which was never going to give permission for the break-up of its own state structures. Followed by attempts to persuade the population through “good governance” under devolution.
“It’s no accident the gap between support for independence and for the SNP is unprecedented. Eighteen years of SNP administration – including a spell with their Green Party partners – has done little to inspire the doubters or former No voters that independence would mean material improvements for the mass of the population.
“If you wear the straitjacket of devolution without protest, without trying to burst it asunder and break free, you inevitably implement the same austerity measures – with this or that mitigation – as issued by the paymasters at Westminster, regardless of whether they’re Tory or Labour.
“That’s not “good governance”; it’s capitalist rule against the interests of the working-class majority.
“Even under devolution, a socialist government, rooted in the working-class majority, would pursue an entirely different course of action.
“Let me break this down into some concrete, illustrative examples.
“Back in 2013-14, when the SSP were the socialist wing of the Yes movement, we campaigned on the streets with petitions advocating “vote Yes for a £9-an-hour Scottish minimum wage for all”.
“I well recall using that argument as the opener to explain a new vision of an independent socialist Scotland, where the wealth of society is redistributed to the wages, benefits and public services of the millions, away from the bank vaults of the millionaires, converting hundreds of people to vote Yes.
“Updating this, the SSP have persistently demanded the Scottish Government implement a Scottish Living Wage of £15-an-hour, rising with inflation, for all 600,000 public sector workers, plus those employed on public sector contracts, setting the benchmark for private sector employers.
“To help mobilise 600,000 Scottish trade unionists and young workers not yet even in a union to fight for this life-enhancing reform – pointing out independence would empower Scotland to make it a statutory minimum wage for all.
“Westminster has slashed at least £5 billion from Scottish budgets over 10 years. Instead of standing up for the Scottish people in defiant rebellion, Holyrood has meekly devolved the destruction to local government, from slashing more than 60,000 jobs; to further and higher education in meltdown through underfunding and poor governance by overpaid bosses; to fire services facing life-threatening cuts; and to our NHS, in the worst crisis since its formation.
“If the Scottish Government wishes to pick a fight with Westminster that will demonstrate the advantages of Scottish independence to millions, let me be so bold as to suggest that this winter they change their lifetime habits, set a “no cuts” budget – or better still, one with vast improvements to job security and public services – and build a movement of workforces, communities and young people to demand back our stolen billions from the Westminster razor gang.
“If this “No Cuts Defiance Budget” spelled out concrete plans for building 100,000 high-quality, eco-friendly council houses at affordable rent, to tackle the housing emergency with 250,000 people on the social housing waiting list, that alone would enliven huge swathes of the population into fighting for independence.
“Defiance of Westminster with radical socialist measures of wealth redistribution is the road to a huge, unstoppable independence majority – not compliance with Tory and now Labour butchery to jobs, wages and services, which demotivates potential independence supporters.
“Meanwhile, speculation has erupted about the possible formation of a new party by MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.
“I welcome their apparent conclusion that Labour does not represent the interests of workers, pensioners, disabled people, or the Palestinians facing genocide by an Israeli government armed and aided in action by Keir Starmer’s Labour.
“My only surprise is that it’s taken Jeremy and Zarah this long to draw that conclusion; those of us who established the SSP 27 years ago had by then concluded Labour were a nakedly capitalist party lined up against working-class and even middle-class people. Labour are beyond redemption, rotten to the core.
“Genuine political parties cannot be built on personalities. They require principles, policies, programmes. So far, the proposed “new left party” – whose existence will probably be proclaimed in the next few weeks – has no policies, no agreed leadership, no democratic structures.
“In the specific case of Scotland, it is in serious danger of creating the situation criticised by the late Tony Benn of there being “too many socialist parties and not enough socialists”.
“It bodes ill for its prospects in Scotland that prior to declaring this new formation, there was no discussion whatsoever with Scotland’s long-standing and largest socialist force – unrivalled in its record of solidarity with workers’ struggles, opposition to genocide, and putting full-blooded socialism forward in elections: the SSP.
“However, we will seek to rectify the damage thereby done, including in the 2026 Holyrood elections, where the SSP aim to stand in all eight regions, and to build maximum unity in the struggle for socialism.
“There are fundamental principles on which we will not compromise.
“Will they adopt the SSP’s policy of MSPs living on the average worker’s wage, to remain grounded, accountable, incorruptible?
“Where does the putative new party stand on Scottish independence? So far, all that’s been offered is incoherence and wild claims by individuals with no authority to do so.
“A London-based party offering the right to a second referendum would be a small step forward compared to Labour manifestos under Corbyn’s leadership, which were not only against independence but also against a second referendum.
“But a party primarily founded around Westminster politics (with a Scottish “arm” or “branch”), generously granting the right to vote, is a far cry from being a socialist party rooted in Scotland’s working class itself, entirely self-governing in its policy decision-making, which vigorously advocates an independent socialist Scotland.
“Such a party already exists; it’s called the SSP. For us, socialism and independence are inseparable, they cannot be dissevered. As the SNP have found and will find to their cost, the majority of people will not be convinced of independence as they witness austerity being handed down from Holyrood on behalf of Westminster; public subsidies being gifted to arms companies engaged in genocide; secret meetings between Scottish government ministers and the state terrorist Israeli government’s representatives; or continued failure to bring wind power, all forms of energy, bus factories and services, etc, into democratic public ownership.
“You cannot win independence without the help of a powerful force advocating an independent, socialist Scotland. Equally, you cannot further the cause of socialism in Scotland without being proudly pro-independence.
“Over the next couple of years, a million Scots will be of voting age who were either not born or too young to vote in the 2014 referendum. No party will inspire that generation (or indeed older people) of the benefits of independence without advocating radical socialist change that improves their daily lives.
“Nor will it build an unstoppable force for socialism without including independence to the fore in its policies.
“We cannot rely on personalities; we require fighting socialist principles and policies. We cannot rely on messiahs; we need mass movements of the Scottish working class to carve out an independent socialist future.”