Are Scottish workers more "advanced" politically?

Date: 18th April '01

Name: William Wallet

Country: Alba

From the latest issue of the 'Scottish Socialist Voice', newspaper of the Scottish Socialist Party, 11/04/01.

Editorial comment

Scotland swings to the left

AFTER ONE false start, it now looks certain the general election will go ahead on June 7.
In contrast to 1997, when there was a sense of desperation to get rid of the Tories, there is little enthusiasm for this election.

And no wonder. For many people, deciding between New Labour and the Tories is like being offered the choice of eating grass or eating hay.

In Scotland, there is a wider choice on offer. The SNP stands for the break up of the United Kingdom.

It opposes some of the worst excesses of Thatcherism/Blairism such as creeping privatisation in the NHS and education. Yet even the SNP is in essence a party of free market capitalism. It stands for lower corporate taxes and a Scotland that will be under the thumb of European bankers and businessmen.

But in this election, for the first time ever, every single adult in Scotland will have the opportunity to support a red blooded socialist party to the left of Labour.

As a result of a mammoth fund-raising effort, the Scottish Socialist Party is now able to confirm it will stand in all 72 of Scotlands parliamentary seats.

This is a monumental achievement for a small party not yet three years old. The SNP, for example, had been in existence for 40 years before it was able to launch an electoral challenge the length and breadth of Scotland.

In another milestone in the advance of socialism in Scotland, the Scottish Socilaist Voice will become a 16-page weekly from May Day onwards.

Not for generations has there been a weekly socialist newspaper written, edited and printed in Scotland.

These advances for socialism shatter the myth that society has shifted irreversibly to the right and that socialism is obsolete.

In fact, as a new study by Edinburgh University academics reveals, Scotland has swung to the left over the past few years.

The study reports that 45 per cent of Scots now describe themselves as to the left of Labour - up from 32 per cent in 1997.

Public support for increased public spending and for redis-tribution of wealth has risen substantially in Scotland over the past four years compared to the rest of the UK.

The team who carried out the study go so far as to say that Scotland is experiencing the closest thing to a social revolution that can be found in the West.

With the economic upswing of the past two years threaten-ing to make way for a vicious recession, that revolution in social attitudes is set to intensify.

The SSP wont win any seats in the coming general election. But the party could win 100,000 votes across Scotland, setting in motion an unstoppable socialist bandwagon and a spectacular breakdown for socialism in the critical 2003 Scottish general election.

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