Uniting the Left to Fight for an Ecosocialist United Ireland

Written by Cian McMahon and first published at Irish Broad Left

After December’s Westminster general election, which returned a majority of nationalist MPs in the North for the first time ever, it’s clear that the entire Brexit debacle has dealt a potentially fatal blow to political unionism.

As DUP MLA Edwin Poots commented, reflecting on the historic and symbolic loss of DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds’s seat to Sinn Féin’s John Finucane in North Belfast – the cradle of the Northern Irish statelet and a unionist stronghold going back to Edward Carson – “Ultimately, if we are going to protect the union, enhance the union and secure the union, then we’re going to have to have people voting unionist.”

The lingering threat of a hard Brexit and a harder border has nonetheless reignited the political debate surrounding Irish reunification. Indeed, there appears to be a growing consensus right across civil society that, for better or for worse, a united Ireland is now in the offing.

It seems only prudent then to start planning for the eventuality. 

Guarded comments to this effect from the former leader of the DUP and former First Minister of Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson, have been well publicised. As have recent, credible opinion polls indicating that, again for the first time, a majority of Northern Irish voters favour reunification in the event of a border poll. History may have needed a push, but the winds of economic, political, social, and demographic change have been blowing in the direction of Irish unity for some time.

This conjuncture has also witnessed a marked shift in attitudes south of the border, with a majority now polling in favour of a referendum on Irish reunification within the next five years. Even the traditionally partitionist southern political establishment are increasingly anxious not to be left behind by the course of events.

Absent an effective political strategy for Irish left-wing revival, however, Seán Byers of the insightful Brexit, Europe and the Left blog has argued that, “increasingly it looks like this united Ireland will be delivered by bourgeois and civic nationalism in cooperation with liberal Unionism”.

That is to say, without a shift towards left cooperation and a shared vision of a socialist united Ireland, any conceivable ‘new departure’ will be guided by the forces of neoliberal continuity, North and South, Orange and Green.

If the Irish Left is to assert itself in this debate, then the articulation and planned implementation of a socialist programme of all-Ireland economic integration will be paramount. This holds especially true against the backdrop of deepening economic stagnation and financial instability in the global economy, quite aside from the economic impact of Brexit in and of itself.

Establishment split over reunification

The rift in the Irish establishment caused by the Brexit crisis is perhaps best exemplified by the recent, rather public disagreement between high-profile economists at the state-sponsored (and, hence, generally conservative) Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), regarding the economic implications of a united Ireland.

On one side of the debate, former ESRI Director Professor John Fitzgerald argues against Irish reunification, for the foreseeable future at least, on the basis that any conceivable adjustment would be too costly (economically, socially, politically) for both North and South. This analysis assumes a narrow set of policy options, however, whereby the transition is taken to be relatively immediate, and where there is a convergence, rather than a co-transformation, of economic structures – all within the bounds of what economic orthodoxy considers “sound finance” (i.e. balanced state budgets) and “necessary structural reform” (i.e. privatisation and deregulation).

 

On the other side of the debate, ESRI Research Professor Seamus McGuinness believes that a united Ireland is workable in the nearer term, once the combined effects of a sensible transition period and a transformational, all-Ireland industrial policy are factored in.

As McGuinness concludes in his thinly-veiled rebuke to Fitzgerald: “There is little to be achieved through a static analysis of Irish unification whereby the estimated current costs of administering Northern Ireland, which are themselves highly debatable, are simply superimposed on the current tax and welfare systems of the Republic. Such a scenario would never seriously be proposed, or ratified, in any border poll.

“Responsible debate on the economics of Irish unification should be based on facts that have been established through rigorous research that fully accounts for the likely dynamics associated with any unification process.”

‘Cost’ of unity is overstated

McGuinness is backed in this view by the current ESRI Director Prof Alan Barrett, who has likewise called for a more sober economic analysis ahead of the very real possibility that a border poll may be triggered sooner rather than later under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Yet, as McGuinness alludes to, even at the level of crude accounting there is a case to be made that the economic costs of subsuming the North into the southern statelet are frequently overstated.

Former Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI) Director Tom Healy points to the so-called “non-identifiable expenditure” component of the UK subvention to the North, which is primarily composed of the North’s contribution towards servicing the UK federal debt and UK military costs.

When such expenditures are excluded, as in a negotiated united Ireland scenario, the North’s fiscal deficit (the difference between government expenditure and revenues) falls from around £9-10 billion to more in the region of £5-6bn (i.e. “identifiable expenditure” relating directly to the North’s public services). Even accounting for the additional spending needed to align living standards in the North with those of the South, it’s likely that the shortfall could be covered by a solidarity tax amounting to around two per cent of current Irish GDP.

This figure would be less again if, as Sinn Féin Finance Spokesperson Pearse Doherty advocates, the £3-4bn of identifiable expenditure attributed to pensions were to remain the responsibility of the British state, to which the North’s workers have been paying their pension contributions. Taking all of this together, the economic costs of Irish reunification start to look like much less of an insurmountable barrier.

Transformation must go beyond green Keynesianism

This is before we have even considered the potential economic benefits of a progressive, pro-worker structural transformation of the all-Ireland economy, as advocated by the trade union-backed NERI¹.

SIPTU economist and researcher Michael Taft highlights that this will require more than simply increasing taxation on high-income and wealthy households and corporations to help fund better public services, necessary and all as that may be. He calls for a greater focus on increasing social insurance contributions (particularly from employers), alongside a state-led industrial policy to develop Ireland’s historically weak indigenous enterprise base.

Indeed, some of the policies that were developed by the British Labour Party under former leader Jeremy Corbyn indicate how the latter might be achieved in the face of technological advance and globalisation – all the while privileging democratic worker and community ownership and control across both state and private enterprise². The Thinktank for Action on Social Change (TASC) has advanced complementary ideas regarding the future of work in an Irish context.

Still, a Left Keynesian programme, however ‘greened’ and ‘worker controlled’, will ultimately prove insufficient, and even counterproductive, given the nature and seriousness of today’s environmental crisis.

The esteemed Canadian journalist, author, and activist Naomi Klein warns against such ‘climate Keynesianism’ in her latest book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal. She writes that: “Any credible Green New Deal needs a concrete plan for ensuring that the salaries from all the good green jobs it creates aren’t immediately poured into high-consumer lifestyles that inadvertently end up increasing emissions – a scenario where everyone has a good job and lots of disposable income and it all gets spent on throwaway crap…

“What we need are transitions that recognize the hard limits on extraction and that simultaneously create new opportunities for people to improve quality of life and derive pleasure outside the endless consumption cycle.”

This speaks to a more general issue concerning the fetishisation of Nordic social democracy within the Irish and international labour movements. While boasting impressive scores on most indices of national human development, the Nordic economic model has only been able to achieve this relative success through the super-exploitation of the environment as well as workers in the global south.

Dr Jason Hickel of the London School of Economics (LSE) shows how, even allowing that the Nordic countries regularly top human development rankings (based as they are on purely economic and social criteria), they fall way down towards the bottom of the list once environmental impacts are factored into the analysis.

The Cuban model

Rather than attempting to replicate a flagrantly unsustainable social-ecological model, people and planet would be better served by turning instead to socialist Cuba for inspiration. Cuba tops Hickel’s Sustainable Development Index (SDI) as the only country in the world to have achieved such high levels of human development combined with such low levels of environmental impact.

By contrast, though southern Ireland ranks third place on the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI), it falls well down the list to 128th place in the SDI. The state is also a noted climate action laggard amongst its European peers – the most environmentally active of whom are still implicated in outsourcing their carbon emissions to the global south. And the UK, which presently includes the six-county Northern Irish statelet for statistical purposes, comes in at 131st place via the SDI – well below its corresponding HDI ranking of 15th place.

An organic farm in Alamar, Cuba. Photo: Melanie Lukesh Reed/Flickr 

Without ignoring the unique historical circumstances in which Cuban socialism arose, and the continuing challenges and shortcomings of that experience, sustainable development has been demonstrably achieved through state-led economic, social, and environmental planning. This is in spite of the devastation wrought by an aggressive and illegal six-decade long economic blockade by Cuba’s nearest and largest potential major trading partner, the United States3.

As an initial thought experiment at least, one then wonders what could be achieved by participatory and decentralised (within reason) socialist planning in the overdeveloped (as opposed to overexploited) national economies of the global north – and, in particular, within a united Ireland. No doubt, this still seems far ahead; yet the carbon bomb is ticking, and material conditions are changing rapidly. 

The political divergence of the past decade, tracing back to the 2008 global financial crisis and intensified by Brexit and environmental degradation, can be expected to sharpen further in response to continuing financial instabilities in the global economy. Recently the Financial Times reported that the pre-2008 neoliberal financial deregulation agenda is back with a vengeance – just in time to accentuate the next downturn. 

As its finance editor Patrick Jenkins wrote, well before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, “President Trump’s bellicose trade policies and a domestic Chinese slowdown are hurting global growth. And in financial markets, asset bubbles remain ripe for puncture, as quantitative easing and ultra-low interest rates have inflated the value of everything from house prices to private equity targets.” 

A programme for an ecosocialist republic 

If the Irish Left is to outflank the neoliberal and far Right in response, who together offer only a sordid path to what Klein terms “eco-fascism” and “climate barbarism”, then a worker-led popular front of our parliamentary and extra-parliamentary forces will be necessary – united in diversity. 

The present historical juncture calls for a Green New Departure towards a 32-county, ecosocialist workers’ republic, drawing on Ireland’s rich heritage of national liberation struggles for popular democracy and environmental stewardship. 

The raw materials for such a programme already exist, in the combined output of progressive left researchers and activists across the island. Professor Kathleen Lynch and her colleagues at the University College Dublin Equality Studies Centre and UCD School of Social Justice, for example, have studiously documented and critiqued the economic and social inequalities that blight contemporary Irish society. 

Likewise, left-leaning (some further than others) research and advocacy organisations such as TASC, Social Justice Ireland, NERI, Trademark Belfast, Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance, and Development Trust Northern Ireland, amongst others, have produced valuable policy analysis that can begin to cohere and form the basis of an all-Ireland manifesto. 

Lessons can also be learned from the successes and shortcomings of the left-wing Right2Change political initiative. In future alliances, can such a policy platform be devised on an all-Ireland basis? Take, for example, the potential for a detailed policy proposal around an all-Ireland universal public health service to mobilise cross-class and cross-community support, particularly in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. 

That said, the implementation of a transformative economic, social, and environmental programme in a united Ireland will also very likely require breaking with the neoliberal straightjacket of the Eurozone and EU institutions. But that isn’t to say either that the strategic terms of disengagement is a straightforward matter for the Left, as UCD’s Dr Andy Storey argues with some authority. Trade Unionists for a New and United Ireland could potentially play an important role in coordinating the necessary debate and policy development in all of this. 

Left must reject neoliberal prescriptions for unity 

It is unfortunate that, to date, economic arguments in favour of Irish unity have tended to be couched in the language and theoretical assumptions of mainstream, ‘orthodox’ economics, which knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. 

A prominent example is the oft-cited Modeling Irish Unification report, written by consultants and academics based in Canada. The dynamic analysis therein argues that the all-Ireland economy could reap the benefit of “significant long-term improvement” through a programme of economic liberalisation (particularly benefitting the North) – low-tax harmonisation; the removal of barriers to trade and foreign investment; and all-Ireland membership of the Eurozone. 

While the assumed parameters of the model are certainly open to question, the broader concerns are twofold: (1) these so-called ‘general equilibrium’ models, by definition, generate fairweather projections that are blind to even the very possibility of the kind of systemic economic and financial instability and crisis that befell the Irish and global economies in 2008 (recall, a consequence of economic and financial liberalisation in the years prior); (2) even a relatively resurgent neoliberal economic structure cannot create the broader conditions for sustainable social and environmental development, as the southern Irish political economy currently attests. 

Breaking out of our silos 

Left economics requires not only the development of progressive, pro-worker policies and models; but also a strong sense of, and connection with, the class-based political movement that can make them a lived reality. 

This kind of radical political economy approach can be distilled from the rich traditions of non-mainstream, ‘heterodox’ economics – the class struggle emphasis of Marxist economics; the monetary and financial focus of left Keynesian economics; the institutional economics concern with social structure; the feminist economics study of unwaged and caring labour; and the social-ecological economics study of the metabolic relation between human society and non-human nature. 

Both in theory and practice, we need to stop working away in our own little silos, and instead be prepared to play a small part in something much bigger. 

A Tory Brexit, modelled on Trump’s ‘national neoliberalism‘, is unlikely to set about the conditions for a revival of the UK’s forlorn political economy. As Duncan Weldon, a rare left-wing economics correspondent with The Economist, writes: it is likely that “Brexit will not generate a new model for the UK, but simply an inferior version of the existing one. . . . The results are likely to be messy.” 

England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity. 

Dr Cian McMahon is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the International Centre for Co-operative Management (ICCM) at Saint Mary’s University (SMU) in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

Footnotes: 

1) Tom Healy, An Ireland Worth Working For: Towards a New Democratic Programme, New Island Books, 2019. 

2) Joe Guinan and Martin O’Neill, The Case for Community Wealth Building, Polity, 2020. 

3) Helen Yaffe, We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World, Yale University Press, 2020.

Exclusive - Interview – Views from the Revolution in Rojava

This interview is with the Rojava Internationalist Commune and Plan C Kurdistan Cluster in the UK, where indicated.

Tell me a little about how the Rojava automatous region was formed?

  

Commune: “Rojava” in Kurmanci means West, because it’s the West of Kurdistan, in the North of Syria. With the so-called Arab Spring in 2012, that shook the existing power structures in many countries in the Middle East, also in Syria people started to protest against the Assad Regime. But even before that, the Kurdish population was organizing itself, on the basis of the ideas of Abduallah Öcalan in the Region of Rojava. Since any political activity of the Kurdish population was forbidden and many activists were put in jail, these organizations were working illegally.

With the uprising of the people in Syria, also Kurds stood up in 2012, pushing out the regime troops and bureaucrats and starting the process of building structures of self-defence and self-administration. That was the first step in the process of forming the  Democratic Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria as we know it today, and that includes way more than just the areas of Syria in which the Kurdish population is the majority. In the resistance against the so-called Islamic State, the forces of self-defence, liberated large parts of Syria so that today this Democratic Federation includes cities like Raqqa and Deir Ezzor.

How is government carried out in Rojava?

Commune: The general system is based on the idea of the self-administration of the people, on the social values and strong participation of everyone. In this sense the political power comes from the local level like neighbourhood and village councils. These councils are forming bigger entities of coordination between each other, and committees for the different aspects of social life, like healthcare, self-defence of the neighbourhood, economy or ecology. In these committees the direct work is done, fulfilling the needs of the people and solving problems of society.

  

It is important not to see it just as a political structure, but also a mindset which this self-administration is built on. Without a political and moral society, there will be no way to build structures of self-administration. To be a political society means the will to participate, to take an active role in shaping your one reality. And to be a moral society means, that there are values in the society and on that basis people make decisions and judge things as right or wrong.

Can you give some examples of where women’s representation in governance has made positive improvements for women?

Commune: Because of the representative function of the governance of the Democratic Federation of North-East Syria, the improvements for women are made in their daily lives, pushed by various women’s organization under the umbrella of Kongreya Star (Star Congress, a confederation of women's organizations) rather than a top down process. 

It is fundamental to the women’s movement to build women’s institutions in every area of life, so that women can free themselves intellectually, economically, emotionally, and spiritually from the authority and violence of patriarchal domination. In every institution of the society, dual leadership – what is called “hevserok” – applies everywhere in Rojava, from the local neighbourhood commune to the executive committee of the federation.

And for all the general institutions a gender quota applies, so that in every council, commission, leadership position or court, women must make up at least 40 percent. Today this quota has been far exceeded in many institutions. Important achievements of the revolution include the establishment of women's cooperatives through which women gain economic independence from their husbands and families. 

And in the Federation, marriages are only allowed from full age, without force, and polygamous marriages are forbidden. But most important is the change in the mentality of the society and the view of women and their growing self-confidence. Women play an active role in all areas of society and also in the military defence of the revolution.

You are running a campaign called ‘Make Rojava Green Again’, tell me more about this?

Commune: The “Make Rojava Green Again” campaign was launched in early 2018 by the Internationalist Commune of Rojava, in cooperation with Committees of self-administration in Rojava, with the aim of supporting and developing a democratic-ecological society in north eastern Syria. The campaign functions like a bridge between Rojava and ecological movements, activists and scientists around the world in term of technical knowledge, ideological discussions and protests on the streets.

In the framework of the campaign, different practical works are done in Rojava, the building of a tree nursery to planting of trees in the Internationalist Academy and in the city of Derik, building a system for reprocessing and developing a project for wind energy. Besides these practical works, with the published book “Make Rojava Green Again”, the campaign functions as a framework for ideological discussion connecting the experiences and realities of different struggles.

In the end we can say, that the campaign is an invitation to participate in our work: to be part of building an ecological society in Rojava and bringing international solidarity to life.

I know that you take inspiration from the writings of Murray Bookchin on Social Ecology. Have you heard of Ecosocialism which is a very similar political philosophy?

Commune: Yes, we have heard of Ecosocialism and we see it in the same line with our search to overcome the ecological crises of capitalist modernity in building a democratic, ecological society on the basis of the liberation of women. It is true, that Öcalan’s writing and also our ecological works take inspiration from the works of Murray Bookchin, who put the ecological question at the centre of his analyses and revolutionary perspective, not seeing it as a contradiction that will be automatically solved by overcoming class society. Significant for us is the historical perspective he empathizes on, analyzing the relationship and interdependence of humankind and nature, identifying the ecological crises as crises of society.

Central for our approach is to overcome the orientalist view on the question of development and progress, acknowledging the values of former societies as reference for our future perspective of a society in balance with nature. And in this sense also challenging the positivist mentality and logic of capitalist indefinite growth and expansion. 

Furthermore, ideas like those formulated in the framework of social ecology or Ecosocialism, are creating for us a positive perspective of humankind, without which any struggle seams meaningless. We believe that people can make life better with their creative power, their understanding of justice, and their will to change. And that in such times as these and in the face of the crises of capitalist modernity, so much seems lost and irrevocable.

With ISIS now in retreat in Syria, will you be able to concentrate your energy on projects other than military operations?

Commune: Even though ISIS is militarily defeated, still there are many cells of armed ISIS fighters, ready to destabilize the region with attacks and assassinations. And against these cells there is still the need for military operations and self-defence. And with the end of ISIS, also the imperialist powers like the US, Russia and regional powers like Turkey and Iran are increasing their attempts to control the area and the revolutionary dynamic in Syria.

For years the fascist regime of AKP-MHP, the two main Turkish political parties, (under the leadership of Erdogan) has openly stated that they do not accept the revolution in Syria, and threaten further invasion with the help of Islamist gangs like former ISIS fighters, as happened last year in the canton of Afrin. As long as different political and military powers are trying destroy this revolution, there is the need for a strong self-defence. And we have seen, that a war that is started by Turkey, will be an even bigger war than against ISIS. So if we are honest, the bigger war is standing in front of us.

But of course also the civil projects are growing massively in the Democratic Federation of North East Syria. Just to look to the rebuilding processes in cities like Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, the massive reforestation efforts made by local municipalities and the investments and energy put into social institutions and projects.

Plan C Kurdistan Cluster: Like our comrades at the Internationalist Commune say, in many ways it’s now that the struggle really begins: the peace may prove far more difficult to win than the war. Of course the fight against ISIS, the so-called Islamic State or Daesh, was long, hard and by no means certain, but the type of enemy meant that some aspects were relatively secure, and the hegemonic powers more or less onside (even if they didn’t and will never support the revolution in any meaningful sense).

We saw some of the dangers of this moment even before the war against Daesh was finished, with the Turkish state and AKP-MHP regime’s fascist and imperialist invasion of Efrin – and, most importantly, the near total silence of global powers then still relying on the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) and YPG/YPJ (People's Protection Units - Women's Protection Units), as well as the absence of so many “friends” who mobilised during the Kobani resistance. Compared to those demonstrations in 2015/16 the Efrin mobilisation was tiny. 

So from our perspective it’s not so much that the end of open military operations (though not the threat, as the Daesh insurgency has begun properly now with attacks and field burnings) provides an opportunity for different projects, but that this is the crucial moment to strengthen our efforts to build widespread practical solidarity.

And this is where internationalist support becomes absolutely essential. There’s a long and rich tradition of revolutionary internationalism, and the Rojava Revolution has produced beautiful examples like the International Freedom Battalion, as well as martyrs like Anna Campbell, the match of any other moment in revolutionary history. But the scale is far, far smaller, for clear material reasons, but this is something that must be recognised and addressed.

Revolutionaries, and especially dedicated revolutionary organisations, must do the necessary work of raising awareness, providing political education, and building practical solidarity campaigns – by which we mean not merely doing a post on social media, but really working hand in hand to provide forms of material support.

You have an international campaign also, called ‘RiseUp4Rojava – Smash Turkish fascism’, what is happening with this around the world and especially in the UK?

Commune: For a long time now we’ve been discussing with different organizations and initiatives in different countries about the possibilities and the necessity to form a global network, uniting in a campaign against the Turkish fascism and in the defence of the Revolution in Rojava. And from these discussions the campaign “RiseUp4Rojava” was built, following the aim to build an international front against Turkish fascism. Of course, this includes exposing and answering the hypocritical policies of the imperialist countries.

Plan C Kurdistan Cluster: RiseUp4Rojava is both an exciting development and an absolutely necessary one. Lacking the mass internationalist movements and organizations of the past, we need to build our own from the bottom up – which is long work, but also provides the opportunity to address some of the mistakes of the past. So it’s really exciting to be building concrete connections across borders, and making plans to not only defend, but to rise up for the revolution – this is the real meaning of solidarity, not when you simply do something for ‘them over there’, but when you really, deeply see them as you and you as them.

In a UK context the campaign gives the opportunity to build this solidarity in the relatively strong anti-arms trade movement that exists here. Of course, this movement is nowhere near as strong as it needs to be, especially since the UK is one of the largest war profiteers in the world, not least selling to the Turkish state, as well as Saudi Arabia. 

Similarly, the anti-war movement is quite liberal, many dedicated campaigners don’t question capitalism or the nation state, some involved don’t even include non-lethal weaponry and technology in their analysis – it’s often simply about not selling to the “bad guys”.

So RiseUp4Rojava provides not only the opportunity to build solidarity with Rojava and the Kurdish Freedom Movement in the UK anti-arms trade movement, but also the opportunity to bring the revolution’s politics to that movement, and help it overcome its current limitations. 

To this end we and other comrades, particularly the local groups federated in the Kurdistan Solidarity Network, will participate in the mobilisation against the DSEI arms fair that happens in London every year, not only in the demonstrations and actions themselves, but also providing literature and workshops about the movement’s theory and practice.

How do you see the future of Rojava in the medium to long term?

Commune: Rojava is the uprising of the people against the system of nation-states, Islamic fundamentalism, and imperialism, on the basis of the ideas of a radical democratic self-government of the people. In this sense the Rojava revolution is the revolution of the 21st century. It would be wrong to hope or to prognosticate the stabilization of this revolution, without general changes of powers structures in the Middle East, first of all in Turkey.

This revolution has to grow, to expand in ideological terms, lighting the fire of resistance and revolution in all the people from Syria, the Middle East, until Europe. If this does not happen, if the ideas of the revolution, their fight for rights and dignity is cut down, curbed in military crackdowns, then the revolution in Rojava has a difficult future. Even if many things have been achieved, it is still a daily fight for a socialist line in the revolution itself.

The biggest threat to this revolution is Turkish fascism. Its imperialist policy, the attempts of cultural genocides against the Kurdish population and other minorities in the Middle East and its geographical expansion in Rojava but also in Iraqi Kurdistan, will only be stopped by a change in the system in Turkey itself.

Links

https://internationalistcommune.com/

https://www.facebook.com/CommuneInt/

https://twitter.com/CommuneInt

https://www.weareplanc.org/

https://riseup4rojava.org/

The Tories are now an Exclusively English Nationalist Party

If any further evidence were needed of the direction of the contemporary Tory party, a YouGov survey of party members published last week has provided it. Sixty-three per cent of members said they would be prepared to accept Scottish independence to get Brexit, while 59 per cent said the same about a united Ireland. Just 29 and 28 per cent were opposed, respectively.

The drift towards this has been apparent for some time, with until the 2017 general election, the Tories being an endangered species in Scotland. The 2017 general election saw a recovery for the party, winning thirteen seats in Scotland. But that election was unusual in breaking the trend of the last forty years which had seen the both Labour and the Tories losing their share vote all across the UK. It looks increasing as though that election was a blip, in the trend though, rather than a sea change.

The figures quoted above are truly astonishing in many ways. The full name of the party is the Conservative and Unionist party, which refers to the union of England and Scotland, and should not to be confused with the Unionists of Northern Ireland, although these Unionists can usually be relied to support Tories, should they be needed. The union is now expendable, it seems, disregarded for their greater passion of Tory members, for Brexit.

Theresa May, the outgoing Tory prime minister, made a point of principle of not taking risks with the union with Scotland and Northern Ireland, but she is clearly in a minority in her party these days. Her stance almost certainly contributed to her downfall. The Tory party is a very different animal in 2019, to the one which May joined in the 1970s.     

Which brings us to the current bore-fest, that is the contest to replace May as leader of the party and prime minister. I have yet to hear any of the contenders express the kind of view indicated by the YouGov survey. The future of the union with Scotland and Northern Ireland has not been a topic discussed very much at all as far I can remember, especially by the most hardline Brexiteer candidates. It would be contentious of course, but the possible break-up of the union is surely a relevant issue, in contest to become the prime minister of the United Kingdom?

The contenders were trying to win support from MPs from across the party in the first stage of the election, and Tory MPs maybe not be so gung-ho about ditching the union, but this issue will not go away when a successor is chosen. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union in 2016 referendum, and that sentiment seems if anything to have strengthened. A border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, is very unpopular with both Irish neighbours, and a hardline, no deal Brexit is very unpopular in Scotland.

Looming over the Tory leadership contest is Nigel Farage and his Brexit electoral vehicle, which is not really a party in the traditional sense, with no members and no internal democracy. I doubt Farage will shy away from splitting the union in pursuit of a pure Brexit, because he has little support in Scotland or Northern Ireland. The Brexit ‘party’ is largely an English party, with even the support it has in Wales, coming from people who live in Wales, but self-identify as English.

So, the next Tory leader will, if they want to win a future general election, either have to run the risk of splitting the union or see their party replaced (as the English national party) by Farage’s Brexit party. It would likely lead to Labour winning the next election as the right would be divided, in the winner takes all electoral system in the UK. It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if there was some kind of electoral alliance between the Tories and the Brexit party at the next election, even a merger.

It would be the beginning of the end of the union though, which many in all of the nations of the UK might well welcome, but it would signal the end of the Tory party from its historical role of defenders of the union.

Who would have thought that the English Tory party would be the catalyst to an end of over 300 years of union between England and Scotland and the admittedly overdue uniting of the island of Ireland into one independent country? The arrogant English vote is all that is left for the Tories, and they only have themselves to blame.  

The New Brexit Battle – Europe Wants Our Fish

Something fishy is going on with the Brexit negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the UK. News came yesterday that the transitional deal, whereby the UK stays effectively within the EU after we officially leave the organisation in March next year, will see the country adhering to all EU rules, but without having any say in what those rules are.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that this is the case, as the EU has said as much all along, but this has sparked controversy all the same. Yes, the fact that EU nationals settling in the UK during the transition will have the same rights as those already here has caused a stir, but it seems to be issue of fishing that has most animated the most argent Brexiters the most.

The UK joined the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 2007 as part of the Treaty of Lisbon, and it came into force in 2009. Basically, the CFP allows all member states to fish in each others waters. It has always been controversial in the British fishing industry and did contribute towards dwindling stocks of fish like cod in UK coastal waters. However, part of the CPF deals with conservation and stocks of cod have now recovered to some extent, enough to be declared ‘sustainable’ again.

Coastal towns in the UK, including those particularly associated with the fishing industry, were areas that voted strongly for leaving the EU, so they surely had in mind ‘taking back control’ of fishing in British coastal waters, many of them Labour held constituencies.

As I say, it was to be expected that the transitional deal on offer from the EU would be one of maintaining the status quo, with Britain losing any influence over any changes to EU policies. But last week, the EU revealed its draft arrangements for the EU/UK relationship when the transition period ends, and EU access to British coastal waters was specified as a price of a free trade deal in manufacturing goods, which again caused controversy amongst Brexiters.

It is kind of ironic that Norway, not in the EU, but in the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), has control of its fish stocks (and farming), but is of course in the single market and customs union for other goods and services, and free movement of people. It looks as though the UK’s terms will be worse in some regards than Norway’s.

It’s not just Brexiters that are unhappy with not getting back control of fisheries. The 13 Scottish Tory MPs, all remainers, have been quick to lay claim to ‘Scottish fish’ and it is my understanding that the Scottish National Party (SNP), also pro-remain, wants this issue devolved to the Scottish government.

The Labour party, or its leave supporters anyway, is also taking a belated look at fisheries. Brendan Chilton, general secretary of Labour Leave, writing on Labour List, extolls the virtues of regaining control over fisheries, as a way of making big electoral gains in Scotland from the SNP, and holding onto English coastal towns that were heavily in favour of Brexit.

Chilton says this is an, ‘opportunity for Labour to appeal to its core vote, which strongly supported leave, and to go on the attack against the Tories and the SNP, particularly in Scotland and along the east coast of England.’

He concludes his piece by saying, ‘The party should also guarantee that the next Labour government will restore the integrity of those territorial waters for the British fishing industry and work to ensure their sustainability for the long term.‘

The UK does of course have substantial coastal waters, being (the mainland) an island, whereas most of continental Europe doesn’t have so much in the way territorial waters, so you can see why they want access to our fish, especially the Spanish, who are partial to a bit of cod.

Personally, I’m not interested in trade deals with the US, Australia etc, and of all the leave the EU options, the Norway model is by far the best. Control of fisheries and farming, single market and customs union members, but still no influence over EU policies. Norway of course accepts free movement, but that has never bothered me anyway.

All the talk surrounding Brexit has been of free trade deals, but it is beginning to look like fisheries could well be the major sticking point. The UK may pursue what may be termed a ‘dolphin policy’ here casting the EU as the dolphins, named after the passage in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where the dolphins depart planet earth. ‘So long and thanks for all the fish.’ 

After the Phase 1 Hype it’s back to Brexit Delusions

  

Tory ministers and MPs were falling over themselves to congratulate the prime minister, Theresa May, on getting past the first phase of Brexit negotiations with the European Union (EU). The prime minister herself was quick to claim the moment as a triumph for her negotiating skills too.

In reality, the agreement on the preliminary issues of EU/UK nationals status after Brexit and payment of the UK’s financial commitments, was basically a cave in to the EU demands. Why it took a year and a half to concede on these issues is hard to fathom, they could have been dealt with much earlier, especially as we ended up doing exactly what the EU wanted us to do. 

It has been a complete waste of precious negotiating time for the British government to hold out for so long, not to mention the opportunity spurned to get off to a start on the negotiations with a measure goodwill between the EU and UK intact.

It also has to be said, that the third preliminary issue in phase 1 of the negotiations, the land border in Ireland between north and south, has not been fully resolved, more like fudged. This particular can has been kicked down the road.

But this issue can’t be fudged forever, there will either be a hard border between north and south or there will not be. Drawing the border in the Irish Sea has been ruled out by the Democratic Unionist Party who the government relies on for a working Parliamentary majority, might have worked. So unless something changes, with the British government saying that it will leave the EU customs union and single market, finding a solution to the Irish border looks to be mission impossible.

It does fit into a general pattern though, played out in the week or so since the phase 1 agreement was agreed, of a return to the delusional thinking that has characterised the British government's approach to Brexit so far. It looked last week as though reality had finally dawned that Britain wasn’t going to get everything they wanted from the EU, but things soon returned to normal.

David Davis, the minister in charge of Brexit, who by his own admission is not very clever, was on the Sunday TV politics shows to describe phase 1 deal as only a ‘statement of intent,’ and Britain might not honour it, which drew a swift riposte from the EU that they would indeed hold Britain to the agreement, and any offer of a potential future trade deal could be withdrawn.   

The ‘Brexit Cabinet’ at long last met today to talk about what the UK actually wants out of any trade deal. The upshot apparently, is that Britain wants an ambitious ‘bespoke’ agreement. This has effectively been ruled out by Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator. He argued that it is important not to set a precedent of “cherry-picking” sectors. 

He said leaving the EU would mean City firms automatically losing the financial passports allowing them to trade freely in Europe.   

What Britain seems to think it can get, is a deal similar the CETA agreement between Canada and the EU, but with add ons for trade in services (a financial passport for British financial institutions) and fisheries, farming and aviation. It is likely that some agreement on aviation can be achieved and possibly fisheries and farming, although far from certain. But financial passports will be off limits if we leave the single market, as Barnier says.

So, we are pretty much back to square one, with realistically only about six months left to negotiate this seemingly impossible deal.

What the British government doesn’t appear to get, is that the EU will not allow us to have a better deal than we have at moment, not especially for economic reasons, as the EU have accepted that they will take a hit from Brexit, but for political reasons. Britain of course will take a much bigger hit to its economy than the EU if no deal can be made.

The EU has always been a political construction first and foremost, and the calculation will be that if Britain gets something better than what we have by being a full member of the EU, other countries will be encouraged to try get something similar, and whole union will start to unravel. That is the calculation the EU has made, and they will stick to it, whatever the economic costs to the EU are.

The sooner the British government wakes up to this state of affairs the better. Delusions are easier to sell to the Tory party of course, but the cold chill of reality can’t be put off indefinitely.   

           

Catalunya: Together We Build the Republic

Written by Bayla Ostrach and first published at Solidarity US

The liberty of an oppressed nation can never depend on the form of government that dominates it; it depends solely and exclusively on the will of the people to achieve it. - Lluis Companys i Jover (1882-1940)

Lluis Companys was the last democratically elected Catalan president to face (illegal) arrest and extradition by Spain. Companys was taken back to Barcelona in 1940, with assistance from Hitler and Mussolini, and killed upon Franco's orders. Since the October 1st self-determination referendum in Catalunya, various Spanish politicians warned that the current democratically elected President of autonomous Catalunya, and now-leader of the Republic of Catalunya declared on October 27th, Carles Puigdemont, may meet the same fate when he comes back or is forced to come back from Brussels. Puigdemont traveled to the capital of Europe, with several Cabinet ministers to seek assistance defending the human rights of European citizens in Catalunya, when European and other world leaders did not come swiftly to Catalunya's aid in the first days of the Spanish coup.

From graffiti in the streets of Barcelona, to signs at independentist and anti-austerity protests, locals from across the political spectrum display and explain the widespread understanding that was one of my first lessons as an anthropologist living and working in the region: "THIS IS NOT SPAIN." For context, participants and research collaborators with whom I carry out fieldwork, including those who've become political comrades, taught me that there was a Catalunya before there was a Spain. At least as early as the 1100s, Catalunya existed as a nation on the Iberian Peninsula--an independent, autonomous, historically recognized Catalunya, later conquered by two European kingdoms that became Spain, more than three hundred years ago.

For decades, a growing politically and culturally diverse grassroots movement in Catalunya has been struggling to reassert that freedom, drawing on an older, deep-seated cultural sense of autonomy but also inspired by the history of Catalan resistance to fascism and a commitment to inclusion and protection of migrants, defense of workers, and struggles for gender equality.

This background – Catalan history, culture, and past and current commitments – has not been covered by the mainstream press, in Spain, Europe, or the U.S. In fact most Spaniards have been prevented from ever learning it; it’s not taught in Spanish schools. As a result, many, including Leftists here and there, ignore the situation, react with skepticism, or downplay further Spanish repression since the recent October 1st referendum (when Spanish military police beat bloody almost 900 peaceful self-determination voters, and prevented or stole the votes of 770,000). Many appear to have been captured by the false narrative, promoted even by NPR, that Catalunya is trying to 'leave Spain' for narrow, exclusionary, nationalist reasons, or to keep wealth generated in Catalunya, solely for Catalans. The reality is that Catalan independentists have long organized in reaction to a history of lived experience with historical and financial occupation by Spain, political repression, and growing, reactionary right-wing, and creeping fascism – all coming from Spain's government.

The starting point for this understanding of Catalan independentism, and of the current Spanish coup in Catalunya, have been my conversations over the past five years with Catalans, immigrants who've come to live in Catalunya and want to become part of the new Catalan Republic, and people who support Catalan independentism. They tell me they are asking for and demanding recognition of what Catalunya has already been –what was repressed for hundreds of years following the 1714 War of Succession, and especially under Franco, as well as the anti-fascist and communitarian organizing for which Catalunya has been known since its first Republic, under Companys' leadership. The 1978 Spanish constitution recognized Catalan’s autonomy, but the Spanish central government prevented full implementation of the ensuing articles of autonomy. When the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) gained a sweeping majority in the early 2000s, they did so in part by promising the sizeable number of Catalan voters who supported them they would rectify this -- but they did not fulfill that commitment in the seven years that followed. (Now, the Socialists have partnered with Spain's far-right Partido Popular to oppose Catalan self-determination, and have failed to speak out against the Spanish violence of October 1st, or the coup.)

Resistance to Austerity

Since 2012, and in the context of the economic crisis and resulting austerity accepted by Spain as a condition of Germany's bail-out, in turn shoved upon Catalunya by Spain in an attempt to make Catalunya disproportionately pay for Spain's financial rescue, the recent austerity measures, overlaid on the long history of autonomous identity and memory, fueled the groundswell of interest in full separation and increasing desire to demand recognition of the ways that Catalunya is different from Spain. A key driver of independentism, along with history, has been a recognition of the suffering caused under austerity, its effects on everyone in Catalunya, and a commitment to safeguard aspects of the Catalan nation that the Spanish government continually threatens to roll back: continuation of publicly funded healthcare including for unregistered migrants; guarantee of fully legal abortions; public multilingual education, and welcoming refugees including with subsidized housing.

An Inclusive Nationalism

All of these are characteristic of what makes Catalunya, and Catalan independentism, representative of what my colleague Nina Kammerer and I have termed an inclusive nationalism, as described by many Catalans, immigrants who've made Catalunya home, and by people who are recently arrived, but welcomed and included in the definition of what it is to be Catalan. They tell me, "This is what makes Catalunya different from Spain; this is what we are trying to protect, and build, by becoming fully independent." Independentism is a rejection of far-right nationalism, a rejection of Spanish fascism, falangism, and neo-nazism. These movements have increased in Spain in recent years, as elsewhere in Europe, especially so around the Catalan self-determination referendum, and now in the ugly brew of the Spanish coup.

Catalan politicians and elected officials, including political prisoners imprisoned without bail for over a month for simply having listened to the people, have not been the ones leading the movement. They responded to calls by the people. The independentist movement has also become a more Left, more grassroots, and more open movement over time. The main body that has been guiding the independentist movement, the Assemblea Nacional de Catalunya, the national assembly, is a grassroots movement, with neighborhood-level representatives. Because of this, they have relationships with labor coalitions, with neighborhood associations, with civic organizations and cultural groups, women's groups, immigrant organizations, and so on-- which range widely in terms of how progressive and radical they are. It includes some of the more anarchist unions and even the farthest-left Catalan party often described as an anarchist party, the CUP, but also includes some labor coalitions and parties that, by U.S. leftist standards might seem progressive, but which are, in the Catalan, multi-party, pluralist, parliamentary context, far from the most progressive.

What I have seen in Catalunya, doing extended fieldwork there beginning in 2012, but first visiting and observing the independentist movement going back to 2009, is a collectivist understanding of historical lived experience that nevertheless makes space for the needs and experiences of newcomers. This understanding is reflected in the independentist movement which represents a wide diversity of people who are talking about what they want Catalunya to be, and for whom, and deciding together in this very communitarian way how they want to get there. The limits on the possibilities of what it can be, how radical and revolutionary it can be, are largely based on how violently Spain is responding, and will respond going forward -- and how negligently and willfully the rest of the world is going to allow Spain to do as it likes.

Creativity and Collectivity

The limit is not on the creativity or the power of what Catalunya can do. In the few days before the referendum, parents, teachers, neighbors, and neighborhood self-defense committees organized to occupy and defend schools, civic centers, and other spaces to ensure not only that those who wanted to vote on self-determination could, but also that there would be neutral respite sites where people could seek medical care, food, rest, meet up with loved ones, and take their children if (when) things got ugly. People worked together to communicate securely, in real time, about where the Spanish military police tanks and trucks were advancing through towns across Catalunya, to redistribute protection guards to different polling places, and to get volunteer units of medics to care for those who'd been beaten. All the while, volunteers did art projects with the kids, Castellers (human tower builders) and dancers and musicians kept things lively, creative, festive, and inspired people's bravery and fortitude, so that the movement would have the energy to keep going.

For me as a scholar, and for the comrades I hear from on a near-constant basis, the looming threat to Catalunya’s creative spirit of resistance and organizing brings back memories of the Catalan revolution of the 1930s that preceded the Spanish Civil War, the war itself, and Franco's long occupation of Catalunya after the war ostensibly ended. The First Catalan Republic had agrarian collectives, worker-owned cooperatives, legal abortion, legal divorce (long before the U.S.), and many other measures of greater equality, in comparison to other parts of Europe at that time. It was Franco that destroyed it, and the world let him. What will powerful nations now do about Spain's coup in Catalunya? Watching NATO and EU members, the answer appears to be, very little. As Pau Casals, a world-famous Catalan cellist and composer said before the United Nations in the 1970s, upon receiving a Medal of Peace:

"Our only weapon is our solidarity and our people. . . . We need your help now more than ever…The struggle of the Catalans should also be the struggle of all. Help Catalunya."

In the context of the current Spanish coup in Catalunya, young Catalans, including some who arrived in the region as refugee children from Srebrenica and other areas from which Catalunya welcomed thousands of displaced persons, re-enacted Casals' full speech and asked that their video be sent around the world to call attention to the current repression.

Even in recent weeks, there are new developments in the post-referendum process: several of the Catalan government ministers-turned political prisoners arrested by Spain and held without bail were released in the first week of December; the arrest warrant for President Puigdemont has been dropped (at least for now – how long Brussels will host him remains to be seen); voters in Catalunya await news of the status of potential Parliamentary candidates whose parties should appear on the December 21st ballots but who, if they are still in jail without bail, may not be allowed to serve if elected; more than 60,000 people marched in Brussels on December 7th to demand the release of all political prisoners, to show support for President Puigdemont and his ministers, and to draw attention to the upcoming election.

Last but not least, supporters of Catalan self-determination in the United States attended a snowy solidarity protest on December 9th in New York City.

Bayla Ostrach is an applied medical anthropologist and member of American Ecosocialist party Solidarity US