REPORT OF THE GALLOWAY ROADSHOW IN EDINBURGH
On Monday 3rd February, George Galloway brought
his ‘Just Say Naw’ roadshow to the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. There were over
150 people in attendance, including Labour Left unionist sympathisers, a few
Scottish nationalists, Irish-Scottish republicans and members of the Edinburgh Radical
Independence Campaign. Tickets were £10 a head, but in order to get a fuller
house, free tickets had been released at the last minute. RIC was able to get
some of these.
RIC debated how it should relate to this event. Quite
clearly Galloway has been using his roadshow to try to poison the waters of the
independence debate. He has made accusations of ingrained Scottish
anti-Catholicism, only held back by support for the Union and Labour. This
accusation had already spectacularly backfired, when he accused West Lothian
council of sectarian bias, after they refused to provide a meeting place for
his roadshow. West Lothian though is not an SNP-run, but a Labour-run council!
RIC realised though, that as well as some die-hard Labour
unionists, Galloway could still attract others more open to debate. People remember
his better days during the time of the Iraq War. Indeed, an obvious
contradiction of Galloway so publicly throwing himself into the ‘No’ camp, is all
the allies he now has in ‘Project Fear’.
There is pro-war Labour, Alistair Darling, and Tory, David Cameron, as
well as Lib-Dem, Nick Clegg, who wants British troops in Syria today! And to these
people you can add the unofficial ‘No’ camp with UKIP, the Orange Order and
Loyalists, the BNP and SDL!
RIC decided to hand out leaflets to those coming into and
leaving the meeting to show that those supporting Scottish independence
stretched considerably beyond, and to the Left of the SNP. RIC also held up to
hold up two banners outside the meeting with the RIC logo prominently displayed:-
NO TO RACISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA,
NO TO
AUSTERITY AND ILLEGAL WARS;
YES TO INDEPENDENCE,
ANOTHER SCOTLAND IS POSSIBLE
However, there was an added complication. The SDL decided to
show up to condemn Galloway as a ‘traitor’ because of his support for Muslims
in Britain. The SDL has had some problems trying to inject the Islamophobia of
its much larger parent, the EDL, into Scottish fascist politics. In the 1930s
Mosley had similar problems bringing his anti-Semitism to Scotland. The British
right populist/fascist franchise in Scotland had already been cornered by
Loyalist organisations, like John Cormack’s Protestant Action (which won over
30% of the vote in the Edinburgh local elections). The prime basis for British
fascism in Scotland has always been anti-Catholic and anti-Irish Loyalism, and
upholding the Union. Since the purpose of Galloway’s visit was precisely to
uphold the Union, only a dozen SDL members could see the point of a
counter-demonstration.
However, to counter the tiny SDL presence, Unite Against
Fascism mobilised about 80 people. The resulting very one-sided shouting and
name-calling amounted to ‘a dialogue of the deaf’. UAF insist the SDL are German-style
Nazis, whilst the SDL hotly deny this. The SDL forgot to bring the Israeli
state flag, which they frequently fly, but the joined in some of the anti-Nazi
chants, started up by UAF supporters! This may indeed have caused some
confusion amongst the ‘Nazi-haters’ in UAF.
However, the SDL identify with the
UK’s very own unionist, racist and imperialist tradition, with a special
fondness for very British fascism of the UVF and UDA. Yes, they still attract
some old-style Nazis, but that is not the political trajectory the majority are
following, anymore than the majority members of the post-1968 Communist Parties
have all been Stalin worshippers.
Once the meeting started (cue - Gerry Rafferty’s Stuck in the Middle with You) Galloway
began his perfomance well enough, with some knock-about humour directed against
the SDL and Scottish nationalists. Had all Galloway’s remarks been in the tenor
of those reported by The Herald
journalist, Mark McLaughlin, then a good political discussion could have
resulted. However, those who questioned Galloway turned out not to be members
of the SNP or Scottish nationalists, whom he had anticipated.
The questioners were Scottish internationalists, who think
that the prospect of the break-up of the UK its anti-democratic politics would
be beneficial for workers in England, Wales and Ireland too. The UK state
weighs heavily on all our backs. For Scottish internationalists the purpose of
Scotland beginning a process of breaking away from the UK, is not to leave the
people of England, Wales or Northern Ireland stranded in an eternal Tory
dominated ‘Britain’. It is to provide an example so that others will follow.
Galloway could not cope with these arguments and just
resorted to a combination of personalised abuse and puffing up his own
political record and the role of Westminster. It is unlikely that even his
keenest supporters were entirely happy with his personal attacks on socialists,
whom he dismissed as “ultra-left”, and his calling SNP Depute Leader, Nicola Sturgeon,
“Thatcher in a kilt”. The SNP has moved beyond being Tartan Tory to becoming Tartan
social democrats. It just makes you wonder where Galloway’s attack on Nicola
Sturgeon would place Johann Lamont politically!
Galloway treated each query as a stand-alone opportunity to
put down the questioner. He also showed absolutely no regard for consistency
from one answer to the next. Damning attempts by small nations to break free
from unionist or imperial domination, he invoked James Connolly’s famous
criticism of Irish nationalists, “If you hoist the green flag over Dublin
castle, England would still rule you”. Yet Connolly famously led the worker-based
Irish Citizen Army in the 1916 Easter Rising to win Irish independence.
Galloway was especially enthusiastic about Castro’s Cuba. When Cuba fought free
of US imperial control, it had a population not much larger than Scotland’s
today. Cuba was then under the tight grip of the USA with its population of 150
million.
It is the politics of those fighting for emancipation and liberation, which
will decide both their willingness to really challenge corporate capital, and to
provide the inspiration for others in the world to do likewise. The UK state
may be larger than Scotland, and the British Labour Party may cover a greater
geographical area. However, the UK state and British Labour are both totally tied
into to US/UK imperialism and the banksters’ austerity programme. They form no
basis for any challenge to the existing order.
It took a long time during the meeting, but in the end, Galloway did offer his
alternative to those he dismissed as “ultra Left”. He asked his audience to reclaim
the Labour Party. He put the blame for the problem that Labour faces in the
hands of New Labour, who had stolen the party. He especially attacked Gordon
Brown and Alistair Darling’s role in this, emphasising they are Scots! (It’s
their Labourism not their nationality that is the problem). He thinks Miliband
is an improvement, albeit saying there is need for further improvement
yet. He completely fails to see that
‘One Nation’ Labour is merely ‘New Labour’ updated for a period of opposition.
As for Galloway’s strategy for reclaiming Labour for the Left in Scotland,
he is living in his own ‘Brigadoon’. Len McCluskey, leader of the largest union
in these islands, with millions of members in England, Scotland, Wales and the
whole of Ireland, pursued such a strategy. Miliband killed this off, when he prepared
the way for the Grangemouth fiasco. Meanwhile, Galloway can not even get back
into the Labour Party as an individual!
However, if Galloway was serious, he would have asked his audience to come
and sign up for a campaign to reclaim Labour, and to get him reinstated.
Instead, he decided that signing his latest books formed the best conclusion to
this roadshow. This, and the £10
entrance charge, probably tells you more about Galloway’s personal intentions
than anything else.
The fundamental reply to Galloway is that, on September 14th,
the people of Scotland are voting for constitutional change, not for Alex
Salmond or the SNP. Back in 1979 and 1997, people voted for the Labour
government’s constitutional changes, not for Labour. Labour’s Lord Robertson,
later head of NATO, thought that after 1997 Devolution would see off the SNP. He
was proved wrong. Salmond and the SNP leadership may also hold illusions that
they will be the sole beneficiaries of any constitutional change in 2014. The
Radical Independence Campaign not only thinks otherwise, but is prepared to
organise to ensure that ‘Another Scotland is possible’.
Allan Armstrong, 5.2.14
