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Porridge to Catalonia

Nov 28

Posted by James in Constitution, Elections, Europe, International, Parties | 9 Comments

The Catalan election at the weekend has attracted a lot of interest here, and comparisons are being drawn left, right and centre. Peter Jones in the Scotsman finds it rather baffling that the centre-right independence party of Artur Mas lost vote share while independence-supporting parties overall boosted their position.

Jones suggests two main reasons for this apparently odd result, the first being the austerity imposed by Mas’s administration before the election, and the second being some kind of cultural argument that he either didn’t flesh out or I simply don’t understand. The idea that one of the reactions to austerity is a shift left makes sense, though.

And it’s true, the three other parties in the Catalan Parliament who now support some form of independence are all more radical than Mas: the Republican Left, narrowly now the largest opposition party with 21 seats; the ICV (the Greens’ sister party there, with a strong ecosocialist side) who went up to 13 seats, plus the Popular Unity Candidates, who won 3 seats.

By coincidence, the Radical Independence Convention met in Glasgow as Catalans voted. I couldn’t make it, unfortunately, but if you read the press, it sounded rather depressing. If you followed it on Twitter, however, it was buzzing with ideas and collaborations and points of contact, all united by two common themes. First, support for independence. Second, a desire for that independent Scotland not be a kind of timid low-tax tartan-austerity Westminster-remade-in-Edinburgh.

Instead, delegates wanted various more radical versions of independence, typically ones where control over the details of the constitution is vested in the people, where there’s room to build support for a Scottish republic with its own currency, a Scotland outside NATO, not beholden to the banks and the speculators, more equal, so on and so forth. It’s a desire which extends into the SNP too, despite the cautious approach the leadership seems determined to take, as illustrated not least by the close vote on NATO.

Again, by coincidence, the Scottish Greens picked their top candidate for the 2014 Euro election this weekend, choosing Edinburgh councillor Maggie Chapman from the party’s left. First elected in 2007, Maggie will be the Greens’ most experienced top candidate ever.

These three events look intertwined to me. The June 2014 Euro-election will come just four months before the independence referendum itself, and it would be a serious mistake to think the media won’t regard the it almost exclusively as a prelim for the October vote. Given that likely media narrative, let’s accept it, and confidently treat that vote as a test of views on the constitution.

If you want a more radical version of independence in October and after, voting Green will be the only plausible way to indicate that (apologies to friends in the SSP). If you want an independence referendum that isn’t just tied to the SNP’s agenda, either because you think that can’t win or because you’d prefer an open constitutional process, electing a Green MEP will be the only credible way to try and achieve it.

What’s more, to get a third SNP MEP elected in place of the Lib Dems takes three times as many votes on average, given the specific electoral system. In real life that varies quite widely. To take 2009 specifically, it would have taken 47,000 more Green votes nationwide to take that final place, but more than 60,000 extra SNP votes would have been needed to see the Nats get a third.

The risk of failure is substantial, too. Two pro-independence MEPs out of six, as now, and both from the same party: it’s quite a plausible outcome, and it would be seen as a massive dent in the Yes Scotland campaign. Electing Scotland’s first Green MEP, especially in a climate where this vote is seen as Scots giving their view on the constitution: that’d be a major prize for Yes.

Just as in Catalonia, that way the main party of independence might make no progress, but the cause of independence itself can be advanced and diversified at the same time. It’ll mean the Greens making an explicit pitch for the Radical Independence Convention vote in the runup to that June, and I hope that’s how the party chooses to take it. Cllr Chapman’s well placed to lead that argument.

What type of Nationalist are you?

Nov 27

Posted by Jeff in Constitution | 58 Comments

“I’m not a Nationalist” announced Denis Canavan at the Radical Independence Conference event in Glasgow over the weekend. The emerging Father of the Nation figure was no doubt speaking from the heart but this line is nonetheless a clever way to soften the pro-Yes cause that can at times be too hardline, too patriotic and too, well, radical for the floating voters to get onboard with.

 It’s a shame then that Denis was wrong in his assertion.
 
We’re all nationalists, every one of us. National boundaries must be drawn somewhere and we are unable to avoid taking a view on where this somewhere should be. How we arrive at that view can take many different forms but they are all a form of nationalism. 
 
So what type are you? How do you decide in your mind’s mind which country you wish to live in? Here’s how I see the main options:
 
 
An economic nationalist
 
‘I’d be financially richer if we drew our border closer/further to home’ is the mindset of the typical economic nationalist. It’s not particularly worthy but it’s perfectly understandable.

The logical extension of economic nationalism is a small island, chock full of extremely rich people, driven largely by a motivation that no undeserving poor scoundrel will get their hands on his/her money.
 
This type of nationalism in milder forms is much more palatable. Most people work most days and questioning who it is you are working for, what it is you are helping drive towards, is not an unreasonable question. Picking a smaller or larger economy because it better suits your outlook is valid, and, despite what I wrote above, may not even necessarily involve being richer as a result of your choice. Ireland is scraping the economic barrel at the moment but you’d do well to suggest that they’d vote to join the United Kingdom.
 
That said, there is clear evidence that there is a significant tranche of economic nationalists in Scotland right now given a fairly recent poll that showed that about 60-odd% of us would vote Yes if we would be £500/year richer under independence.
 
The flip side of this little factoid is that many economic nationalists, and probably most, do not currently believe that they will be richer under independence and their inner economic nationalist is driving them to vote No in 2014.
 
 
A cultural Nationalist
 
 A person who wishes to draw their country’s borders based on which people he/she feels an affinity with.  It would primarily be political outlook, language, religion or race that would make the crucial difference. It could also be music or Wars gone by, as recent unionist arguments have hoped.

For me, and particularly with the relative success of the EU, I can’t say that I have more of a bond with someone from Dover as I do with someone from Dusseldorf. I do however sense I’m a part of something other, and greater, when I consider life through a Scottish prism. That’s neither wrong nor right, just the way it is. 

One would expect that cultural nationalists have already made up their minds as to whether they are voting Yes/No, although in a political sense there may yet be some flexibility. Scotland and the rest of the UK may use the same words, but do we really speak the same language? 

I suspect both sides will try to answer that question with different answers over the next two years but you either feel more British or Scottish, and noone can tell you any different if you believe that should dictate which country you wish to live in.
 
A Tartan Army Nationalist
 
I was tempted to mix what I consider Tartan Army nationalism in with cultural nationalism above, but I suspect those that go doe-eyed at the thought of St Kilda expressive dance at the Festival Theatre are not in the same bucket as those hardy souls who troop out to the Faroe Islands to watch the Scottish football team get their backsides handed to them by a bunch of fishermen.
 
And yet, I wouldn’t bet the mortgage that the Saltire-heavy, face-painted mob are squarely in the Yes camp.

There’s only so many times you can suffer footballing heartache before having any Nationalistic confidence crushed forever.

If we can’t beat Macedonia at home, can we really run the country ourselves? It’s not altogether a daft question.
 
A British/Scottish Nationalist

For me, no such thing really exists. You’re cultural nationalism may result in you wishing to live in a separate Scotland or stay in the UK but ‘British nationalism’ is not a philosophy in its own right. Something deeper must underpin it. 

My personal belief is that many Scots see themselves as British nationalists but don’t know why and if they dared to scratch deeper might find they’d take a different view. I’m referring to the disappointingly many Scots who happily claim ‘I’d leave Scotland if we ever got independence’. 

If there’s an economic or cultural reason for such statements then that’s fine. I just don’t believe there is.
 
 
A Nihilist Nationalist

There are sadly too many nihilist nationalists at the moment, those who would go out of their way to take no part in the brewing debate and who claim to have no interest in whether they live in the UK or Scotland. People too tired to think perhaps, or, for whatever reason, afraid of forming their own view. 

And that’s a shame, because all views are valid and the referendum process will be richer the more people put into it. 

My cultural nationalism has always leant me towards independence. I believe I’d be more motivated at work, I’d be even more engaged with our country’s politics and I’d generally be more optimistic for the future if Scotland was independent. That has recently been topped up with an economic nationalism directing me the same way what with defence savings and concentrated oil revenues likely to allow Scotland to balance its books quicker than the current UK is on course to. 

All in all, I just hope the wider debate can at least discuss the correct forms of Nationalism – cultural and economic rather than bluntly Scottish and British.

Terms of Engagement

Nov 26

Posted by Malc in Constitution | 1 Comment

A wee guest post today from former Better Nation editor Malc Harvey on the various ways the public might be engaged with the you-know-what in October 2014. Thanks Malc!

Via http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/mh____/saltire-548.jpgIn a little under 24 months’ time, the Scottish population will make the biggest political decision it has faced, probably for 300-odd years.  The question, as framed by the Scottish Government (and formalised by the Edinburgh Agreement between it and the UK Government) will be a solitary one – currently to be put to voters as “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?”.

A clear choice then, between a future as an independent state or a continuing as a component nation of a 300 year old union.  The Scottish public have two years to make their decision.  Plenty time for debate, for consideration of the numerous issues contained within this single question.

Whatever your perspective on the constitutional question – to stay or go, to embrace independence or defend the Union – you cannot deny that the decision itself presents us with an opportunity.  An opportunity to engage the public – the disengaged, disinclined, cynical and potentially apathetic public – in conversations about where we are going as a nation, a country, a state, a society.

This opportunity has already been grasped.  We’ve had the Scottish Government’s National Conversation and, concurrently, their opposition’s Calman Commission– public consultations which, for the most part, failed to capture the public’s imagination (or, indeed, engage with one another).  Limited public consultation yes, but progress too, for A National Conversation laid the groundwork in the last parliamentary session for the referendum process in this one, and the Calman Commission progressed the powers of the Scottish Parliament (albeit in a limited manner) while at the same time engaging Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians and activists on the issue of Scotland’s constitutional future.

Internal party positions have shifted; policy commissions have come and gone as, too, have party leaders.  These are expected actions, consequences of the changing scope of the political scenery.  That parties have been engaged in the constitutional debate is not in any way surprising.

They have not, however, been the sole actors in this process.

The Electoral Reform Society (for whom I’ve been interning) have an exciting programme of events comprising an inquiry into the future of Scottish Democracy.  The Constitutional Commission is holding public meetings, engaging the public on the idea of how a new – written – constitution for Scotland might be developed.  The Devo Plus group – with supporters from each of Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – have published a second report, outlining a third constitutional option for Scotland, enhancing the powers of the Scottish Parliament but retaining membership within the United Kingdom (an option which will not be on the ballot paper in 2014, but appears to be the favoured option of the Scottish population).  And the University of Dundee recently launched a new programme called Five Million Questions which seeks to link academic research with public concerns about the constitutional debate, providing clarity to an oftentimes complex and partisan discussion.

These are but four organisations engaged in public discussions on the constitutional debate.  There are countless more voluntary sector organisations, private enterprises, churches, university societies and many more who are taking the time to think about these issues.  Sure, in some cases, this isn’t formalised, there’s no roundtable discussion or deep consultation process – often it might just be a chat over a pint or a passing conversation at a coffee morning.  But – slowly – the Scottish public is engaging itself in this discussion, involving itself in the process, considering the impact each of their options might have on their lives.

This is a sign of a healthy democracy.  I almost wrote “healthy society” there, but that’s a step too far, even for this almost entirely optimistic piece. We have two years to figure out what we want from our political classes, in constitutional terms at least.  For two years, our political classes – and our civic society – might well have a willing audience.  They might be interested in finding out why you think running Scotland from Edinburgh is better than from London, or why a Union of 63 million is better than one of 5 million.  They might be interested in other ideas about democracy – the need for a written constitution perhaps, or whether 32 local authorities is too many or too few. Ask them.  Find out.  Engage with them.  Take the opportunity.

The referendum “campaign” hasn’t officially begun yet, and won’t until mid-2014.  But the signs from the main political protagonists thus far are not good.  Petty partisan politicking has been the order of the day.  Discrediting politicians through personal attacks, making hay out of blunders, a lack of clarity in strategy – or, indeed, a lack of strategy entirely – has quickly overtaken any positive case either side has attempted to make.  This needs to change – and soon.

The public ARE interested in this discussion.  We need our political classes to treat them with a bit more respect, to avoid the partisan nonsense, and to provide information for what will be a momentous decision for our nation.

For while that decision is still 24 months away, the clock is ticking…

Swedish welfare reform – unemployment benefit which benefits everyone.

Nov 26

Posted by Dom in Economy, International | 1 Comment

Sweden is on the cusp of pushing through a cross-party welfare reform which will both guarantee a minimum level of unemployment benefit and allow higher earners to insure against the risk of unemployment. This week a parliamentary commission came to agreement on reforming the unemployment benefits system in a way which will accommodate the twin requirements of maintaining a reasonable standard of state benefit and accommodating well established union-linked unemployment insurance funds.

One of the big lessons in the UK of the financial crisis and subsequent recession has been that, rather than unemployment benefit being the preserve of all those fabled tracksuit-wearing benefit scroungers, a large number of middle income people with families to feed and mortgages to pay found themselves having to survive on Jobseeker’s Allowance and what savings they may have had. The cruel irony of wealth is that the more people accrue in terms of financial obligations (and there are very few who are lucky enough to be able to buy houses, cars and much else outright), the larger the fall when their income stream is taken away from them.

A signature visual trope of the global financial crisis has been Americans bedding down for the night in tents and cars after losing their homes – the product of a society where there is no real apparatus for helping people cope with a sudden inability to meet their financial obligations when unemployed, and very little consumer protection to stop banks doing as they please.

Now the bottom-most rung in Scotland were poor before the recession, are poor during and will most likely be poor afterward if we continue with the current financial and welfare model. What is more concerning is when people who are, in statistical terms, safe and middle class find themselves spiralling downward.  Even if downsizing is an inevitability, many do not even have the time to take stock of their assets before the wolf comes knocking. This underlines one of the biggest problems with contemporary society – the constant fear experienced by those without significant liquid assets that their life might vanish in an instant.

Jobs for life are now a thing of the past. People pursue multiple careers and during that time they will often spend months between jobs – months in which bills need to be paid, mortgages serviced and essentials bought.

It is of course unworkable that, without taxing everybody at eighty per cent, we should expect state unemployment support to replace the income of somebody earning upwards of 40,000 pounds a year. It is however morally and economically necessary to provide a basic level of income support which allows people to survive unemployment with their dignity and will to work intact.

The Swedish reform is designed to unify the roles of state unemployment benefit and the so-called ‘A-Kassa’, or unemployment fund. This is in effect a form of insurance against unemployment which, like a pension fund, is paid into and grows from private contributions, but is protected by the state. In the event of unemployment it then pays out at a rate relative to earnings which will function as a cushion above and beyond the basic level of unemployment benefit.

It is very difficult to make a moral case for taxpayers’ money being used to defend the accumulated assets of individuals above the basic standard of living which everyone in our society should enjoy, but it IS in the public interest that those on medium incomes should be given a framework of protection which will prevent them from entering a downward spiral. One of the most absurd things about the UK government’s current welfare reforms is the insistence that the system should be completely devoid of any cushioning elements whatsoever. As we all know, the stress and fear of losing everything you have ever worked for is the best possible motivation for finding a new job as quickly as possible. Why else would the men with the most embrace a welfare system which takes this as one of its core beliefs?

Imagine, for example, that you are a self-employed shop-owner or a freelance consultant of some form. In a good year you might hope to take 50,000 pounds or so, but come a recession, or a decision by your landlord to hire your premises to someone else, your work may dry up. As there is no severance package, you are essentially on your own. You might, in theory, have some assets which you could turn into liquid capital by remortgaging your house, or raiding your pension, but neither of these are particularly sensible long term options. Neither is it a question of lifestyle. You might possibly try and save energy, buy cheaper food and go out less, but these things will never vanish completely. Moreover, not having a miserable life and staying positive when unemployed is actually quite important, so eating Lidl value pasta seven days a week and leaving people to the joys of daytime television for lack of opportunity to do anything is not the kind of lifestyle we should be forcing people into.

Now, the beauty of the A-kassa system is that it makes a direct link between work and the amount of money you get back. It is in the interests of benefit claimants to seek work (combined with measures such as the living wage where working is actually a means by which people can take control of their own lives instead of servicing somebody else’s), and once you start paying in you can expect the fund to pay out. This is all in addition to your basic state unemployment benefit. Before anybody accuses me of wishing to burden people with more tax to pay for the unemployed, I should point out that this is a proportional tax which benefits the people who pay it.  Like National Insurance, it builds upon the idea that not everybody will become ill at the same time, but that in the event of illness the cost burden has already been dealt with or will be dealt with through future payments. We can try to build a society where fewer people become ill in the first place, just as we can try and remove the scourge of unemployment through more sustainable economics and foresight, but neither illness nor unemployment will ever vanish completely.

Becoming unemployed is actually a fairly natural event which will likely happen to many of us at some point, and it is time that we had a welfare system which recognised that unemployment is not the preserve of only the poorest. Green policy already envisages a basic level of income via the citizen’s wage, a simple and basic unit of government benefit essentially payable to all, but in the majority of cases recouped via higher tax receipts. The A-kassa system is designed as protection above and beyond this, meaning that unemployment need not result in the spectre of home repossession, rental eviction or severe financial hardship, and that working pays even when unemployment rears its head – a particular help to people working in changeable, short contract jobs. It also has the benefit of allowing people to feel that they are investing instead of throwing tax money at something which is of no benefit to them,

Not everything from Sweden is great, but breaking down the work/benefits dichotomy and helping people to recover from unemployment is something which can only ever be a public good.

Where next for the Greens?

Nov 22

Posted by Dom in Holyrood | 6 Comments

It’s a busy week at Better Nation – yesterday we unveiled Natalie McGarry, and today it’s the turn of Dom Hinde, who’s blogged here for us before. He’s a Green activist and a postgrad student of matters Scandinavian. Here’s where he’s coming from, and again, we’re very proud to have him on board.

To make it absolutely clear, I have enormous respect for both Alison Johnstone and Patrick Harvie.  Patrick in particular has shouldered a huge responsibility in recent years, and along with Caroline Lucas has done more than anyone else to put Green politics on the map in the UK. At the last Holyrood election the Greens came agonisingly close to having a good few more MSPs, beaten down only by the tidal wave of SNP list votes. At the council elections too we saw huge jumps forward. The number of seats taken may not have been game-changing, but we were increasing our vote share in areas where we had done no direct campaigning, and in some target areas we were picking up the majority of first preferences. We do however need to look for a time when Alison and Patrick are just two of many working toward a better nation.

Sometimes it feels hard to be hopeful, but I remain so, and I firmly believe that the Greens can become the driving force in modernising Scotland. I did not join the Greens to spend the rest of my days shouting in the corner. The challenges facing us are too important for that. It isn’t so much a matter of self-interest than of responsibility, because at the moment no other party is stepping up to the plate to meet the challenges, responsibilities and possibilities of the future. Everyone seems to be living in different versions of the past. Depending on the independence referendum’s outcome, the past may indeed soon be a foreign country.

The Greens are not the parliamentary arm of Friends of the Earth.  We are a political party. We exist to make people’s lives better. To paraphrase the former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme (who was assassinated for his trouble), we are doomed to live on this earth and our job is to make life as agreeable as possible for as many people as we can. The way we will be do this is by having serious, open discussion about what is the right way forward, both morally and economically (and these two things are often one and the same). Better Nation itself is a product of the new Scotland we find ourselves in. It is a more democratic Scotland than previously, a better Scotland, but not a perfect Scotland. That devolution coincided with the beginning of the internet age was fortuitous to say the least, but it is also perhaps an apt symbol of changing times. Institutionalised media has not quite yet caught up with devolution, nor with the changing landscape of modern Scotland, its needs and its responsibilities. Neither has it really understood what Green politics in our country – almost entirely a product of the same process – is about. This was typified by the Greens being more or less shut out of the last Holyrood election campaign by the BBC. It wasn’t a conspiracy, just an inability to come to terms with the realities of modern multi-party Scotland.

The next four years, with a European election, the independence referendum and then Westminster and Holyrood could come to define not just the Scottish Greens but Scotland as a whole. I want to see a Green MEP, at least one Green on every Scottish local authority, ten to fifteen Greens at Holyrood – including from constituencies – and if it is still required to tackle the issues that matter in Scotland then a Green MP as well.

This might sound like a big ask, but if we do not aspire we cannot hope to inspire. The thing which has always defined Green politics for me is its ability to see things differently, and at this moment in time it is quite clear that the status quo simply won’t do.

Neither should politicians be the ones to consistently lead. It is a co-productive process, and many of the problems we face as a society are the result of politicians not listening. Working in academia myself, I am amazed by the slow rate of knowledge transfer between experts, innovators and government. Information exchange is the essence of any democratic society; indeed one of the most saddening things about the independence referendum has been the poor quality of information from both sides, typified by the BetterTogether devolution plan leaked today without any rationale of how it would work. People deserve better than just being told what is best for them.

For me Green politics is the politics of modernity. Born with the internet, with devolution, and with my generation of people born in the 1980s. It is liberated by its lack of history and its sense of purpose in tackling the issues of today and tomorrow. There are those who would see Green politics as just another manifestation of middle-class Marxism, or a pointless single-interest sideshow, and they would be wrong.

There may come a time when the Green party is no more, when it has faded the same way as many of the old fashioned political ideologies which now survive in name only. Then it will be time to stop, but at this time in Scotland’s development it is absolutely critical that we continue to challenge, to question, and eventually to lead. In the face of poverty, climate change, self interest and the symbolic violence against the most vulnerable, against women and against our own better natures, I have never been more proud to be a Green. It starts now.