SSSSH... LET’S NOT TALK ABOUT INDEPENDENCE

Unionist parties’ constitutional love-in masks the seething tensions in their relationship, writes Ken Ferguson
STROLLING almost hand in hand in front of the Scottish Parliament, the leaders of the three main unionist parties unveiled their master plan to defeat independence.
Their supposed high-powered commission on the constitution will refuse to discuss it in the hope that it will go away.
United only in their determination to ensure the survival of the imperialist British state, Tory, LibDems and Labour leaders unveiled a plan which relies heavily on asking questions with already determined answers.
Along with the refusal to talk about independence, the choice of chairman for the ‘commission’ clearly signals the establishment nature of the plan.
Sir Kenneth Calman is what used to be labelled a ‘distinguished public servant’ with service as a senior medical officer in Edinburgh and London and in the university world.
Perhaps the most public role in his career to date was to oversee the BSE or ‘mad cow disease’ crisis in the early 1990s as the senior medic at the Department of Health.
What is clear is that the entire operation is about bogging down the wider democratic debate on independence in talk about the powers of the Holyrood parliament within the UK.
Reinforcing this point is the fact that the entire show is described as a ‘cross border’ affair or, in other words, subject to a London veto.
The can be no doubt that Gordon ‘Union Jack’ Brown will use all the political and bureaucratic resources of the Westminster machine to derail any moves towards independence.
And it is this ‘two state’ aspect of the unionist plan that is likely to prove its fatal flaw.
Already the leaks from within the Labour camp about the process being a two-way street, which might give powers to Edinburgh but also take some back to London, is ringing alarm bells.
This might not trouble the Tories but it has already sparked concern from the LibDems.
The game plan in Downing Street is to claw back powers on supposed big issues while firmly putting Edinburgh in its subordinate role.
For Brown this has the political attraction that it would placate the increasingly restive Scots Labour group of MPs whose noses have been put out of joint by the diminishment of their powers over Scottish affairs.
While the media has focused on the issue of terrorism as the area where London might take back powers, there is also pressure for Westminster to have all UK power on global warming.
Voters will be told that such a serious global issue can only be dealt with by London.
However this has a clear and immediate potential conflict, given that London Labour is increasingly presenting nuclear power as the ‘green’ energy source of choice.
In the debate so far the SNP government has firmly rejected the idea of new nuclear stations in Scotland and could, under current powers, block any such plans.
If global warming is to be dealt with by London, will go the argument, then London will decide how many new nukes we need and where they will be built.
This approach is only likely to be reinforced with the revelation that the neo-Thatcherite French government and the Brown administration are likely to collaborate to export nuclear power across the globe.
As a Scots MP Brown would dearly like to see new nuclear stations North of the border as part of the planned sales drive.
Tensions already clear from the LibDems on any moves to return powers to London are likely to be sharply increased by any proposal on nukes which would seriously compromise their much hyped green image.
Perhaps the party with most to gain from the unionist commission are the rebranded people’s friends of the Scottish Tories.
Having fought devolution tooth and nail in the Thatcher years, only to be wiped out by voters, the Dodo-like Scots Tories were thrown a lifeline by the proportional Holyrood elections. They have played their limited hand skilfully.
Yet it may well be the growing Tory revival which is the key factor blocking any serious input into the process from Goldie and Co.
Labour faces local council and London mayor elections in England in May and the indications are that they are headed for a kicking.
The commission is supposed to report in September but by then Labour could well be under the cosh of an increasingly confident Tory UK challenge boosted by local election gains.
There can be little doubt that the pressures generated by the battle to win the next general election will put any idea of cross party co-operation between Labour and the Tories firmly off the agenda.
Add in the fact that the ever flexible LibDems will be seeking votes from both the others and the inherent instability of the entire enterprise becomes clear.
The truth is that the apparently high-minded commission is really an anti-independence front dressed in supposedly neutral clothes.
Set against it the SNP’s national conversation with the proposal for a multi-option referendum not only looks more democratic and less elitist, it might actually provide a vote on independence at the point of maximum advantage to its supporters.

Is New Labour’s sell-by date up?

By Ken Ferguson

IN a softer moment you could almost feel sorry for the besieged Gordon Brown.
Years of plotting, compromise and smouldering fury culminated last year with the ex-socialist bowing the knee to the monarch and leaving with the keys to 10 Downing Street.
However the glittering prize of Prime Ministerial power turned, after a brief honeymoon, to ashes and dust as crisis piled on crisis and the real possibility of defeat loomed for the first time in a decade.
For that is the new reality.
At UK level the Tories, who seemed terminally doomed after the horrors of the Thatcher years, are now leading New Labour in opinion polls and are serious contenders for power.
Indeed the designer-dressed Blairite vanguardists who claimed that the left was as outdated as UK Gold might want to consider that recent UK polls place them on 29 per cent.
That is the same level of support achieved by the much-derided Michael Foot in the 1983 election, the high peak of Thatcherism.
To grasp the sheer depth of the crisis that ten years of warmongering and crawling to the rich has created it is now a serious prospect that the buffoon Boris Johnson could defeat the highly experienced Ken Livingstone in the elections for the London Mayor in May.
Nor is the news in Scotland any brighter with Salmond still dominating politics and Wendy Alexander stumbling from crisis to crisis amidst increasing backbench mutterings.
Once the dominating force in Scottish politics, New Labour now appears lost, carping and facing serious problems in deciding what to do about the SNP.
The result is that a recent poll put the SNP and Labour level pegging in a UK election while Salmond has a personal approval rating of 53 per cent with Wendy trailing far behind on 22.
On cue the ungrateful Jocks are being told by Labour London ministers that all manner of disasters, from not hosting the UKs war machine to facing certain poverty, are about to overwhelm them if they are foolish enough to leave the union.
All this is backed by an increasingly shrill campaign, fronted by Brown himself, to reinforce our Britishness, fly Union Jacks in every room of the house and then, most farcical of all, parade the country’s youth to swear loyalty to the crown.
So off the wall was the oath idea that even the Buckingham Palace spin machine was spurred into action and let it be known that we are not amused and the idea was a nonstarter.
Briefings suggested that the monarch had not been consulted and that the effort to conscript the monarchy into New Labour’s Britishness drive would be most unwelcome.
What is clear is that Labour’s dominance is under sustained attack and may well now be irretrievably lost both in the UK and in Scotland.
The truth is that this process was already well under way before Brown took the helm.
The Blair backing of Bush’s war was undoubtedly a key moment in this process but the sleaze and scandal which lapped around his government, from Blunkett’s cavortings to the cash for honours affair, clearly accelerated the decay.
Brown now faces the consequences of ten years of money worshipping and warmongering topped by a growing economic crisis at home and military pressure abroad.
The Northern Rock affair, which saw at least £50 billion pumped into a vain attempt to keep the bank private, struck Labour like a hammer blow.
The reformed former socialists around the cabinet table were forced to nationalise the bank.
Years of wooing the city money men and soothing the rich with tax breaks to create a business friendly image were blown away in days.
Now, amidst soaring prices, wage pegs, sackings and growing fears of a recession, the hollow shell at the heart of the market-friendly New Labour message is harshly revealed.
While billions are found at the drop of a hat for missiles or fat cat bankers the smallest spending on pensioners or public services is stone walled.
Sick workers are threatened with tough tests to ‘prove’ they are ill while well-heeled experts run propaganda campaigns to label them scroungers.
At the same time Darling tries desperately to placate the super rich and assure them that they will not face increased tax.
War spending is soaring as the costs of playing second fiddle to Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan hits home. Far from the short, sharp campaigns they were supposed to be, both Iraq and Afghanistan look increasingly long term.
Even in Iraq Brown’s claim of a pullout later this year is under pressure from both the US and the Iraqi green zone government pressing for the Brits to stay.
All of this adds up to what looks very like a terminal crisis for the entire New Labour pro-market project putting on the agenda the key question - what next?
At UK level the odds must now be shortening on a Cameron government which, ironically, is made to appear humane and people friendly by the sleaze and deception of New Labour.
However there is little doubt that the main change will be in the detail rather than any change in direction away from the current government’s pro-business policies.
In Scotland the real risk for Labour is that, now the illusion of invincibility has been shattered by the SNP 2007 victory, they will lose their Scottish dominance permanently.
The fear for Wendy must be that the prospect of a Tory UK victory bolsters the SNP as the defenders of the Scottish interest against a hostile Cameron government.
Longer term such a government could prove a fertile recruiting ground for the SNP if the Tories move to cut spending on services and attack Scottish interests.
With government in Edinburgh the SNP would be strongly placed to take on London and at the same time sideline Labour who would be forced to back them in a battle with the Tories.
Such a scenario could set the scene for a potential SNP triumph in the 2011 Holyrood polls and open the way to a successful drive to independence.

Chinese Rocked By Tibetan Protests

By Jack Ferguson

TIBET has been rocked by some of the biggest protests for 20 years as police fought running battles with demonstrators, and horsemen attacked government buildings.
The Chinese government has responded by sending in large numbers of troops and banning foreign reporters, suggesting a major crackdown.
The Chinese army has occupied Tibet since 1950, and the protests that have broken out mark the anniversary of an anti-Chinese uprising on 10 March 1959. Tibet is now counted as an autonomous region of the Peoples’ Republic of China.
What began earlier this month as a small march of Buddhist monks in the Tibetan capital Lhasa became a much larger movement after repression by Chinese police.
The protests are a big problem for China, and for western powers.
China is preparing to showcase its new found status as a major world power with the Beijing Olympics in a few months time. Part of their plans was to have the Olympic torch pass across the Himalayas and through Lhasa on its way to the Chinese capital. The protests have thrown this into doubt.
The key western powers, like the US and Britain have a long history of involvement in Tibet - when the British ruled India they sent troops to control Tibet, and in the 1950s the CIA sent arms to the Tibetan government as the Chinese army was invading. Their aim, as a former CIA agent has admitted “had nothing to do with the Tibetan people and everything to do with harassing the Chinese Communists.”
However, since then many of the gains made by workers and peasants in the Chinese revolution have been lost as the government decided to turn wholeheartedly towards capitalism. China is now a huge economic power where most of the world’s consumer goods are manufactured. Western corporations and governments support this because it means they can get Chinese workers who are paid virtually nothing and have no ability to organise in unions, because the Chinese police work with multinational companies.
US and British leaders are of course extremely worried about the rise of China and the threat it means for their power in the world. But they also depend on the Chinese government keeping their workers in line and their products cheap. So they make noises to support the Dalai Lama (Tibet’s former king and spiritual leader), but in fact do nothing to about the crackdown in Tibet itself.
Tibet before the Chinese invasion was feudal country where the Dalai Lama was considered a God king. The vast majority of poor peasants had to labour on the estates of powerful lords and Buddhist monasteries, and if they didn’t faced beatings or mutilation. Since the uprising in 1959 the Dalai Lama has been in exile in India. While many western leaders have supported him, this has become more muted as China’s economic importance for the west has grown.
In Tibet itself the Chinese brought economic development like road building and new hospitals and schools. But the occupiers have also discriminated against Tibetan culture and encouraged migration of Han Chinese to Tibet, where they often get the best government jobs, and more menial work is left to Tibetans.
It seems that the protests that have broken out in Tibet may originate in some of the same grievances that have led peasants and workers to demonstrate and strike in the rest of China. As China is returning to capitalism, people have been thrown off their land and conditions for workers have grown worse. In Tibet there is the added problem of discrimination against Tibetans, and so protests have taken the form of people demanding independence.
The Chinese government has accused the Dalai Lama of orchestrating the protests from exile. However, he in fact has called for an end to violent protests, and said that if protest is violent then he will resign from his position as head of the government in exile. The Dalai Lama does not call for independence for Tibet, but instead wants autonomy, like Hong Kong, within China.
Ultimately the Dalai Lama, and certainly not the western powers that have themselves invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, can’t help the protestors in Tibet.
It’s for the Tibetan people to decide the future of their country, not their former feudal lords in exile or the imperialists who support them when it suits them.
And the more that Tibet is drawn into the brutal capitalism throughout China, it is to be hoped that Chinese workers and peasants protesting the way they are treated will link up with them.
The protests certainly show that Tibetans are angry at their treatment, but it remains to be seen how much that can translate into a movement against Chinese capitalism.

Venezuelan steel workers call for strike action

By Jack Ferguson

IN Venezuela steel workers in the country’s largest steelmaker have called a 24-hour strike, following their protests being violently broken up by the National Guard.
Workers at the Argentine controlled Ternuim Sidor plant have been demanding collective contracts to raise wage levels for 14 months, and already held an 80 hour strike.
This is the sixth time this year that the plant, located in the southwest state of Bolivar, has been shut down as part of demands for higher pay.
“The plant is now closed for 24 hours,” the United Steel Industry Wo