English support for Yes grows
Today the Sunday Herald has published a letter signed by a number of writers and academics in England who’re supporting a Yes vote, which can be read here. Below, we also publish a statement from Steve Freeman, a member of the Republic Socialist Alliance and Left Unity party in England. He was also a speaker at last year’s Radical Independence Conference, during the ‘After the UK – the future for the four nations’ session.
Response from England to the new threats to the Scottish people
This week has seen the British Establishment step up their war against the SNP government plan for constitutional change to be put to the Scottish people in September 2014.
The Prime Minister’s speech at the Olympic Park in East London on 7 February 2014 launched the attack by appealing to the people of England, Northern Ireland and Wales to back the Tory government in this struggle by appealing to British patriotism and commending the bloody history of the British Empire.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer on 13 February 2014, supported by Clegg and Miliband, threatened to sabotage the Scottish economy by refusing the option of a currency union in the event of a Yes vote. This ‘united front’ of the three main establishment (or monarchist) parties is the kind of unity which occurs, as in the Falklands war and the Iraq war, when the political class believe the fundamental interests of the state are at stake.
Whatever view we take of the SNP government plan for Scotland there are certain demands which the left in England, Northern Ireland and Wales must support.
We call on the labour movement, trade unions and socialist organisations, and the people of England, Northern Ireland and Wales more generally to support:
1. The right of the Scottish people to self determination.
a) The right of the Scottish people to a referendum without threats of economic sabotage or covert action sanctioned under the UK state’s Crown Powers.
b) The right of the Scottish people to form an independent sovereign democratic state.
2. A Yes vote in the referendum
We will support those in Scotland who are calling for a democratic republican and internationalist approach to the referendum. We note this approach is being taken by the Radical Independence Conference which is critically supporting a Yes vote in September 2014. We will urge support for this approach by all progressive forces in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Regardless of the outcome of the referendum organised by the SNP government, we will support those in Scotland who intend to continue the struggle for self determination to secure an independent sovereign democratic social and secular republic with the closest voluntary relations with the people of England, Wales and Ireland.
3. People united
We call on all labour movement, trade unions and socialist organisations in Scotland to support those in England, Northern Ireland and Wales who defend their right to self determination and the sovereign rights of the Scottish people to republican self government.