The General Election saw a wipeout of the Conservatives in Scotland, they lost all their MPs.

While the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Liberal Democrats made some gains at the expense of the Conservatives, Labour were confirmed as the dominant party in Scotland, they have every seat in the central belt except a lonely Liberal Democrat in Edinburgh West. The main event since then has been the referendum on the 11th September (the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, the first battle in the film "Braveheart") on 2 questions: the principle of a Scottish parliament and whether it should have tax-varying powers.

Revolutionaries should welcome the double "Yes" vote in the Scottish referendum. There could be various reasons why support for a parliament was stronger in Scotland than in Wales, but while large parts of Scotland are apart from the central belt and have their own regional identity, there is nothing like the way large parts of Wales are closer to Liverpool or Birmingham than Cardiff. All areas voted "Yes" to a Scottish parliament, only 2 voted "No" to tax-varying powers: Orkney and Dumfries & Galloway. The strongest support was in Labour's urban strongholds in the central belt, the highest "Yes" vote was in West Dumbartonshire (which includes the old Communist Party bases of Clydebank and the Vale Of Leven) and the second highest was in Glasgow. Some might see the lower "Yes" vote elsewhere as an anti-central-belt reaction, but since one of the highest "Yes" votes was in Western Isles (a remote area traditionally fought over by Labour and the SNP) and one of the lowest was in East Renfrewshire (a traditionally Conservative area in the Glasgow commuter belt) this looks more like a reflection of the residual Conservative vote in some areas.

However in Scotland there are not signs that large sections of middle class opinion has been won over to strong support for Blair's "New Labour" project as has happened in parts of England. In Scotland the more saveable sections of middle class opinion stopped supporting the Conservatives some time ago, and Conservatives have been an endangered species in Scotland since 1987 if not earlier. At this election many workers supported Blair because the alternative was too awful to contemplate, and because he seemed likely to swing England, but without enthusiasm, the poll was very low. Since then there are signs of a significant shift to the SNP, but it remains to be seen whether they can achieve the breakthrough into Labour's urban central belt strongholds which they have often wanted.

The honeymoon period during which the 3 main parties in Scotland campaigned together at the referendum did not last long; regrettably recent clashes between Labour and the SNP have not been over serious issues, but there have been pathetic squabbles over the site of the Scottish Parliament and the possible grant of a knighthood to Sean Connery. The Scottish Parliamentary elections, due in early 1999, will take place under a form of proportional representation, so it is unlikely that any party will have a majority; a Labour minority administration or a Labour - Liberal Democrat coalition are the likeliest outcomes, but manoeuvres could produce an SNP - Liberal Democrat coalition.

People may have read an article on the Scottish Socialist Alliance (SSA) in the previous BIDOM. The SSA has done some useful campaigning work, notably against school closures, where it played a key role in the recent struggle which halted the closure of several primary schools in Glasgow, and is currently fighting a further round of closures of secondary schools in Glasgow. It has also campaigned e.g. in support of the Glacial Metalworkers sit-in in Glasgow, the unusual experience in recent years of an industrial dispute which ended in total victory for the workers, against the Job Seeker's Allowance, motorway building, and domestic violence, and in support of the Liverpool dockers.

Late last year the SSA bit the bullet and adopted a policy on Ireland. This has been characterised as a "soft unionist fudge", between people putting forward a "soft republican" position who came out of the now-dissolved Scottish Socialist Movement, and a more unionist position taken by Scottish Militant Labour. Some people who took a more clearly republican position have formed the Red Republican Tendency (RRT). The central role in this was played by some ex-members of the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) in Edinburgh in the Republican Workers' Tendency, linked with the Revolutionary Democratic Group in England, who have been involved in events such as the annual march to commemorate James Connolly (the Irish revolutionary born in Edinburgh) but supporters in Scotland of Socialist Outlook (the British paper in solidarity with the USFI) have joined the RRT. Below is the platform of the RRT.

The RRT can be contacted at this address: Red Republicans, c/o Review Discussion Group, PO Box 512, SWDO, 4 Falcon Road West, Edinburgh, EH10 4AB.

There may well be room for improvement of this platform in some areas, but in my view it does represent a valid basis for co-operation in the present situation in the SSA. It has been suggested that this is actually a programme for the completion of the bourgeois revolution. However point b is hardly a bourgeois-democratic demand, and as for points g to i, arguably the two leading figures in the bourgeois revolution in Britain, Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange, are not exactly noted for their progressive contribution to events in Ireland! Even in Scotland, while it has not been a historically oppressed nation like Ireland, the bourgeois revolution saw a strengthening rather than a weakening of links with England, and there was some Cromwellian repression. This may relate to a wider debate among British Marxists: is there an "uncompleted bourgeois revolution" in Britain? Is the call for Irish, Scottish, and Welsh self-determination a call for the completion of the bourgeois revolution, or a call for he reversal of some events during the bourgeois revolution that Britain actually did have during the 17th century?

At the coming Scottish Parliamentary election the SSA would need to roughly double its vote at the general election in Glasgow to win a seat there, this could be difficult but is by no means impossible. Recently the SSA held a joint discussion forum with the Scottish Green Party and the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) about co-operation at this election. The Greens thought there was sufficient basis for joint campaigning with the SSA around some issues but not for electoral unity, I thought this was actually correct as they are a petty-bourgeois party. The CPB were intending to support a Labour vote at this election, in spite of disagreements we were in a sense speaking the same language as them since they are a current within the workers' movement. The SSA would do better to develop joint work and dialogue with the left wing inside the Labour Party (which has not quite gone away) or the SWP (who remain the largest far left group in Britain) than the Green Party. An important gain for the SSA is that Huw Kerr, a Member of the European Parliament, has joined, after he left the Labour Party with Ken Coates; there was a lengthy discussion with him at a recent SSA National Council. (Although he sits for an English constituency he originally comes from Scotland.)

One controversy could be that the first attempt in the SSA to draw up a platform for the Scottish elections, by Alan McCoombes a leading figure in Scottish Militant Labour, says that this should confine itself to measures that are within the formal powers of the Scottish Parliament, to avoid the charge of "utopianism" being made by other parties. So far some people have tried to resolve the apparent contradiction between doing this and e.g. calling for removal of Trident nuclear missiles (defence will quite clearly remain the responsibility of the British government) by saying that the Scottish Parliament should explore the possibility of using its powers to harass Trident, as some local councils have done using e.g. powers over road safety. This raises a fundamental question: does the SSA see itself as about to become the Scottish administration in the near future (or as a significant partner in a coalition administration)? Or, as revolutionaries should argue, the SSA is not wrong to stand candidates in his election, but should treat it as a platform for raising issues in the wider class struggle?

While most people in the SSA did call for a critical double "Yes" vote at the referendum, there was agreement that our own policy was to call for self-determination, or a Scottish Parliament with full powers i.e. the power to determine its own relationship with the British and European authorities. Recently many want to change this to calling for "a policy of socialist independence for Scotland". Others have called for a "Scottish Workers' Republic"; this was the call raised by John MacLean, the great Scottish revolutionary, not long before his death. Discussion will reveal whether these are disputes over terminology or something more substantial.

Finally, an interesting event took place in central Glasgow in March: a rally of radical Muslims protesting at racist attacks on their community and in particular the recent murder of a youth. Although only 300 strong, it indicated a division between the older section of the Asian communities whose response to attacks is to keep their heads down, and younger people born in Britain who want to fight back; it was particularly interesting to see many young Asian women there.

Discussion of all these issues will continue among socialists in Scotland.