The Judge
RAVES!
Date: 24/11/14
The People's Vow
Politics on these islands is all over the place at the moment, isn't it?
In Northern Ireland, despite all the respectability which comes from having something resembling a grown-up parliament, there are still those who are keen to party like it's 1689.
In Wales, we have a pretend parliament, seemingly locked into a stasis field where it is forever 1978, run by a regime of dormice led by a man so lacking in distinction and character that he has to be permanently surrounded by an entourage of Reminders - they're like minders, but they're there to jog people's memories of who that dull man coming towards them actually is.
And in England, the only remaining sure-fire way of making politics remotely entertaining seems to be to inject even more reactionary poison into it in order to get those hate-glands glowing nicely, and heaven help you if you even hint at calling a knuckle-dragging thicko what he really is, because your party's alleged leader is so desperate for power that he will cast you to the jackals before standing up for anything which might be called A Principle.
But then there's Scotland.
One could have been forgiven for thinking that - after the fairly narrow margin of victory gained by the Unionists in September's referendum - things would have returned to something akin to the status quo ante: the pro-independence campaigners would have climbed tearfully back into the specially-adapted shortbread tin labelled "Incurably Romantic Fools"; the Labour Party would have asserted itself anew as the Natural Party Of Government™, ready, willing and more than able to see off the hated Nat interlopers who had stolen their power by such unseemly means as winning an election in a way which the electoral system was specifically designed by them to prevent; and the liars-in-state of the BBC would have relaxed, certain in the knowledge that their upwards translation to one of The Big Jobs In London could no longer be stymied.
Instead, we see membership of the pro-independence parties - not just the SNP, but the Greens and the Scottish Socialists - increasing threefold or more in a matter of a few weeks; we can observe the flailing and spasming of the Labour Party's branch office in Scotland as it sinks into the darkening waves like one of those nuclear submarines they're so keen on (but without the same overall benignity of intent); and we countenance a terminally-discredited outsider-owned media establishment under attack from the results of its own crude and largely undisguised bias.
We have also been witness to the principled resignation of First Minister Salmond - and I can think of very few other politicians on these isles in my lifetime more deserving of the description of 'statesman' than him - and his succession by a woman who has, in the last couple of weeks, played to more jubilant and packed-out crowds than Eddie Izzard and The Krankies combined.
But it's not just in formal party politics that the joie de vivre and sheer will to triumph can be seen. One of the most hope-giving elements during the referendum campaign was the rise of the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC), which took the message to those areas where the lumpen, arrogant and remote politicians of the Scottish sub-region of 'The People's Party' could no longer be arsed to tread, busy as they were with their internal plotting and keeping a close eye on their property portfolios.
Last weekend, RIC held a conference in Glasgow. At its end, they emerged with a very public and very forceful response to the wretchedly dishonest 'vow' provided by the leaders of the three Unionist parties on the eve of the referendum (in association with what was - but may be no longer - one of the best-selling newspapers in Scotland); a vow which began to be backtracked upon within hours of the result.
You can read The People's Vow here, but you can also read it right here, because it contains aspirations, sentiments and challenges to which my bosom - all too accustomed to a justifiably cynical view of politics in general nowadays - returns an emphatic and resounding echo.
********
The People's Vow
"On Sept 16th 2014, two days before the independence referendum, the leaders of the main London-based parties made a pledge to Scotland called 'The Vow', exhorting us to vote No in return for substantial new powers. History will prove this to be the gimmickry of a threatened elite. We, the Radical Independence Campaign, hereby make a Vow in reply, on behalf of the disappointed, the disaffected, the impoverished and the frightened: the People's Vow. This Vow is eternal, and will be honoured for so long as we, and the generation which follows us, and the generations which follow them, have breath in our lungs to do so.
"We know that the referendum has changed Scotland utterly. For perhaps the first time in their lives, a majority of working-class people felt empowered to take politics into their own hands, standing up to a British state which has become unaccountable and corrupt beyond repair, staring, without blinking, into the eyes of those who had shown them only contempt. The No vote was concentrated among the wealthy. This is significant.
"As democrats, we recognise the result of the referendum but acknowledge the collusion from all corners of the British establishment, to deceive and intimidate the Scottish electorate into voting in a way which maintained their right to rule. It was ever thus, but not how it need remain.
"Despite the immensity of this pressure from above, 45% of the people of Scotland are alive, engaged and hungry for ideas on how to transform this country. They refuse to go back to sleep. This Vow honours not only them but the growing numbers who recognise that independence from Westminster is the best way in which Scotland can protect its most vulnerable citizens, can enable working people to control their own economy, can inspire fellow workers across the British Isles, Europe and the world to take up a struggle against their own masters. The street cleaner, the nurse and the teacher are the oxygen in society's blood-flow, from which the plutocrat draws like a syringe. We Vow to multiply the dreaming power of the ordinary Scottish citizen, and magnify their might. In that sense, we are not the 45% but the 99%.
"We Vow to end the austerity which has become the creed of the London elite. To solve a crisis created by the rich, they say, the public must suffer. We reject their crusade against the poor, both its inefficiency and its immorality. They have the money, but we have the numbers.
"We Vow to renationalise or retain in public hands those industries which are in the common good. Privatisation - a reduction of the necessities for human life to cold profit - is a handshake from the undead.
"We Vow to establish green and sustainable energy. The planet is not the plaything of those who exist in the present. It is the host for our species, and millions of others which make life on Earth possible. We will endanger neither the health of our citizens nor the infinite beauty of the natural world. There exists a fragile ecosystem, stretching from the child whose lungs are threatened by pollution to the basking shark giving poetry to our shores."
"We Vow to establish a republic. The monarchy is an affront to modern democracy, a feudal relic. How can we call ourselves free when we pay fealty to one family, a family which owns vast tracts of our land, which rubber-stamps our laws, to whom we must ask permission to form a government and whose head 'purred' when she discovered our freedom had been denied?
"We Vow an opposition to discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability or sexuality. We are a community of citizens, human beings and participants in our right to define ourselves, rather than be defined. We are a society proud of our multiculturalism.
"Scotland is our home and we fight for the sovereignty of its people, but we Vow to be internationalist. We are opposed to war - in which common people are compelled by their rulers to kill each other - and imperialist entities like NATO. We especially condemn the all-consuming horror of the nuclear threat. We must judge a society on its compassion and solidarity, not on its power to invade or annihilate.
"We are Radical Independence only because an amoral vacuum has occupied the centre ground. The forces of oppression present war-mongering and corporate theft as a law of nature. What we propose is not radicalism. It is the basic normality and decency under which any human should expect to live.
This is the People's Vow and for this we stand. Before the referendum we said that Britain is for the rich, but that Scotland could be ours. We said that another Scotland is possible. Both are as true now as they were then. We are ready to fight for this future.
"Join us, and imagine."
********
The People's Vow Commitments:
1. We won't let the poor suffer any longer for errors made by bankers and politicians. Our movement will endorse higher wages and deeper investment over greed and the backslapping bonus culture. Social justice campaigners everywhere, whether in Edinburgh, London, Cardiff, Dublin or Barcelona, can expect our full support because our challenges are international. Together with trade unions, community groups, charities and academic experts, we will prepare a people's budget to save Scottish public services.
2. We won't let anyone sell our natural resources to the highest bidder. Scotland has a unique physical inheritance and polluters are not welcome to it because it belongs to us. We will make sure the Scottish government uses planning laws to stop fracking, and we will support direct action against fracking companies if they continue to threaten our environment. Green energy is the only civilised future, and we promise to make Scotland a model country for the 21st century by combining social and environmental justice.
3. Scotland's feudal legacy will end. We won't allow the next Holyrood government to leave communities at the mercy of corrupt landlords. Scotland's people will have the power to own and control their resources. Our land will support our goals of sustainability and social justice: it won't be used as hunting and fishing estates for aristocrats and tax exiles. We will call a demonstration for land reform centred in one of Scotland's rural communities.
4. We won't allow equality to become a buzzword. We will expect positive action to reverse inequalities between men and women, and we will punish politicians who fail to take this seriously. Our better Scotland must abandon the macho political culture of Westminster and the macho economic culture of the City of London. We pledge to make our company boards, QUANGOs and political parties representative of Scotland as a whole. Fifty-fifty representation for men and women is a minimum; we'll make equality compulsory, not an afterthought left to the whims of employers.
5. We won't let NATO use Scotland as a dumping ground for nuclear weapons. If politicians fail to act in 2015, we will launch an intensive campaign of civil disobedience against Trident to highlight the deep inequalities between public opinion and Westminster. Nor will we tolerate laws that put our vital public services in peril to global corporations. TTIP is wrong for Scotland just as it is wrong for working people on both sides of the Atlantic. We pledge our opposition to TTIP in Scotland. Scotland's National Health Service will remain in public hands, where it should be.
