Videos & Photos - Greece Solidarity - German Embassy - London - 15 July

Around two hundred people assembled at the German Embassy in London this evening, to show solidarity with the Greek people in their fight against the vicious and vindictive bail out terms forced on them by their creditors in the EU and IMF.

Many of the speakers said they were not angry with the German people, but their government

Councillor Isidoros Diakides, Haringey London (Labour) Greece Solidarity

Stathis Kouvelakis of Syriza Left Platform

Romayne Phoenix of Green Left

Solidarity with the Greek people from London

The European Dream is Dead: What are we going to vote about in the British Referendum?

The European dream is being destroyed by those who claim to act in defence of that dream. The dream was already beginning to fade but the front of screen and back of screen machinations that have accompanied the “Greek tragedy” played out over the last six months and the eventual   “treaty of reparations” –or otherwise known as the “deal” – has killed the dream for me.

It’s salutary to go back to the beginning. As hardly anyone knows, the current EC grew out what was called the European Coal and Steel Community. It’s here that one can locate the European Dream.

Again as hardly anyone knows, 9 May is known as Europe Day. 9 of May is Europe Day because it was on that date in 1950 that what is known as the Schuman Declaration was launched and which laid out the key features of the European dream. A revisit to this is illuminating in terms of “progress to date”.

• It would mark the birth of a united Europe.

An element of the dream that no longer relates to reality. In treating Greece as an “outsider” we have seen the reemergence of an imperial and colonial mindset. It may yet come to German style “stormtroopers” being the response that explodes in Greece. It’s not just Greece, however, the EU may be united but it is unequal. It’s an EU dominated by Germany with several smaller states simply being vassals. The problem goes even deeper when you consider the impact of EU funds and how they have widened disparity between regions in the EU.

• It would make war between member states impossible.

If you ignore the Balkans and Srebrenica, then this has held up well in terms of old style warfare. However, the Troika, the replacement of the elected government in Italy with an appointed technocratic boss, the bulldozing away of the Greek prime minister when he had the nerve to suggest that it might be appropriate to check out what the Greek people thought about the terms of the bailout being stuffed down the throats of the Greeks by France and Germany, the contempt with which the Cypriots were treated etc has just been warfare through financial markets and financial institutions like the ECB.   

• It would encourage world peace.

It's salutatory to remember that “black lives are worth less”- more African, Asian, Latin American, and Arab, people have died through conflict  since the Second World War than those  who died in the second world war. Europe in fact has exported war and the EU has financed state terror. Follow the money as they say and voila you will find that the EU arms industry is doing very well.

• It would transform Europe in a 'step by step' process leading to the unification of Europe democratically, unifying two political blocks separated by the “Iron Curtain”

There is a huge democratic deficit if the European Institutional framework that has been established. Everyone goes round pointing out what important work the EP undertakes and how it is directly elected by citizens. The EP for its first 30 years simply rubber stamped 83% of what the European Council decided. The EC is the place where our elected leaders wine and dine and talk and make decisions without any accountability. Sure there is “cloak of accountability” provided by the phase “some decisions of the EC have to be ratified by national parliaments”. However, this just conveniently ignores the fact that the EC sits on top of a largely broken and corporate dominated party political system.

There is no democratic accountability for the European Commission. Incredible given the fact that it has the power to initiate legislation. That it has the power to deal with trade and investment matters.

With Nato trashing the 1997 agreements with Russia regarding expansion of Nato and the “soviet bloc”, need I say more given the fact the phrase “cold war” has suddenly come back out of hibernation.

• It would create the world's first supranational institution.

If you ignore the UN then this element of the dream may just hold up. The problem is that over 60% of European citizens have no trust in the supra national institutions that have been created.

• It would create the world's first international anti-cartel agency.

This has turned out to be the exact opposite. The EU has institutionalised corporate democracy. Big business interest rule in Brussels, there is a revolving door mechanism from and to big business and the EU institutions. The expert groups that “advise” the EU institutions are dominated by corporate interests. Key texts produced by the Commission turn out to be just cut and paste versions of submissions made by vested interest groups.

• It would create a common market across the Community.

In terms of capital and goods one could say that the dream has been largely realized but when it comes to labour then it’s a nightmare scenario with deportations now taking place regularly  between member states(e.g. Belgium is routinely deporting EU citizens without work). With the coming restrictions on access to welfare benefits for EU citizens, the free movement of labour will be reduced to one for those who can afford it.

• It would, starting with the coal and steel sector, revitalise the whole European economy by similar community processes.

Steel production has declined. A renaissance in coal is underway with Germany and Poland (or coal land as it is referred to in environmental circles), but this will be very short lived as China moves off coal usage. Growth for the past 15 years has been anemic and globally the EU is in decline with its share of the shrinking global trade set to decline further in the coming decades.  We have rising poverty in Europe. A whole new category of “in work poverty” has been created. We have had youth unemployment levels running at over 14% since 2000. Long term unemployment is growing. Indeed, given the current stagnation the EU has created structural unemployment as feature of the economy.   

• It would improve the world economy and the developing countries, such as those in Africa.

Far from improving the situation in Africa, it has initiated a new rape of continents like Africa through dumping of subsidized farm goods, through displacement of rural labour by the introduction of agri-business style agriculture which produces food for anyone but the Africans. It has fermented civil war through arms sales and bribes. It has participated in destroying countries like Libya and Syria through its so called “wars for democracy”. The saga of the migrants in the Med is just a visible sign of how much damage has been inflicted upon Africa.

So the dream is dead. What will we be voting for next year in our referendum? The issue is no longer just about whether or not any more power can be ceded to the EU institutions. Nor is the issue about what powers need to be repatriated.  It’s not about being pro- or anti-Europe. We need to dismantle what we currently have and re-establish the European project with a new dream. For that we need new dreamers of which there is simply a dearth at this moment in time.

Written by Haroon Saad who is a member of the London Green Party and a supporter of Green Left

Greece’s Treatment is yet another Nail in the Coffin of Democracy

Only a week after the Greek people voted decisively against further austerity measures as the price for a financial bail out package from its European and international creditors, yesterday morning saw the total capitulation of Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, to even harsher measures.

Backed into a corner, largely of his own tactical making, with Greece on the edge of bankruptcy and with the economy about to go into free fall, Tsipras bowed to the inevitable and conceded to what amounts to the financial colonisation of his country. What an unedifying sight this has made, ironically in the land where the idea of democracy was born. Over the last week or so watching events, I’ve been unable to get the image above out of my head. George Orwell’s description of the future in his classic book Nineteen Eighty Four, seems more vivid than ever before.

This vindictive deal calls for more public sector job cuts (including that of the cleaners that the new government reinstated in January), further cuts to pensions, a fire sale of Greek public assets such as ports and airports, sharp rises in sales taxes and reform of employment legislation to curb the influence of trade unions and reduce worker protections, including a law to allow ‘collective sackings’ of unruly workers. All of this will be overseen and supervised by unelected technocrats from Brussels.

The deal is still to be approved by the Greek parliament at the time of writing, and there looks to be a likelihood of opposition from within the Syriza party itself but it will pass with support from the old corrupt and dishonest parties of the opposition. Perhaps Tsipras will need to form a ‘national unity government’ if enough rebels and coalition partners ANEL vote against the plans. Ramsay McTsipras? A general election looks to be not far away, probably in the autumn.

Shocking though this episode has been in its sheer brutality, it is just an extension of a trend that began many years ago. When countries signed up the European Common Market, as it then was called, they necessarily signed away some of their national sovereignty. Subsequent treaties have reinforced and deepened this state of affairs, and on the horizon we have the huge TTIP trade deal with the US which looks as though it will make national law illegal if it gets in the way of corporations making money out of public services, for example.

The formation of the Euro with the straightjacket of requiring low levels of national government debt, whatever the prevailing state of the economy, is a further assault on what governments are able to do, regardless of the wishes of voters in any single country.

Britain of course did not join the Euro, and we have Gordon Brown to thank for that as Tony Blair was very keen indeed to take us into the currency. But this is the same Gordon Brown who was responsible for handing over the control of the nation's interest rates to an unelected body, the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee when he took over as Chancellor in 1997.

These democracy limiting measures are always taken to provide ‘stability’ which is a catch all word for we must do what big business and the money markets want us to do, or else we are punished by these forces with a lack of investment and slow or no growth in the economy and the resultant high levels of unemployment.

Anyone who suggests anything different is immediately labelled as being reckless with our economic welfare. Governments are increasingly disinclined to rock the boat and social democratic governments have all but given up doing anything other than the most piecemeal of tinkering with welfare policies.

 

So, the future looks bleak from a democracy point of view, but at least in theory we still do have the fragments of a democratic system and the people can, if they wish, take matters into their own hands. Even in Greece, the foolish obsession with the concept of staying in the Eurozone at all cost, could change. They will need to revert to a national currency first though, as the EU as we have seen, will have none of it in the Eurozone, although possibly that can change too, if the peoples of Europe want it to change.

 

For Britain too we have an opportunity to leave the EU in a referendum next year, but that would just be the start of enforcing the public will and some may judge that we can change the EU from within, with the support of other nations.

The choice is ours, do we want the crumbs from the rich man’s table or do we want freedom and true democracy? Tony Benn said that Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that democracy inevitably leads to socialism. Of course Hitler wasn’t right about a lot of things, but he could see the power of the collective will to create conditions favourable to the majority of people, rather than remain in bondage to a minority social and political class elite.

It won’t be easy, but we the people have the power, are we courageous enough to use it?                       

Video - Green London Mayoral Candidates Hustings - Birkbeck College 11 July

Question: How can the Green Party improve its credibility and communications?

Question: With council and social housing tenants fighting back against developer led regeneration schemes that will deprive them of their homes, families being shipped out of London and private landlords ripping off tenants, housing is likely to be a big issue in the forthcoming London Mayor and GLA elections.

The candidates were asked for their views, and what should be done to improve the situation.

Hat tip to Martin Francis of Wembley Matters for this footage of the event. 

Six Questions for Ecosocialists

These 6 questions are posed by ecosocialist party Solidarity US. I'm meeting one of their comrades in early August in London.

Here Salvatore Engel-DeMauro, author and chief editor for the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism and co-founder, with Joel Kovel, of Ecosocialist Horizons gives his answers.

1. How does ecosocialist politics differ from traditional socialist and labor politics? To what extent does the kind of ecosocialist orientation we need today reflect a continuity with, and to what extent does it represent a break from, previous ideological and programmatic perspectives of the revolutionary workers' movement?

Ecosocialism presents a variety of perspectives that are not necessarily harmonious with each other, just like socialism has never been unified. My own understanding of ecosocialism is that of the egalitarianistic (therefore anti-statist) variant infused with a conception of society as part of a larger, biospheric reality. Through this viewpoint, ecosystems are not regarded as reducible to social struggles and environmental degradation takes on as central a role as issues of social oppression.

With respect to fighting social oppression, ecosocialism is continuous with other forms of socialism and labor politics, but much more attuned to the totality that is a mode of production. For example, homophobia, racism, and patriarchy are therefore just as serious as class differentiation because they are part of the establishment and reproduction of class differentiation within the capitalist mode of production. I see the struggle therefore as having two fronts, one grappling with biophysical environments and the effects of human impact (constructive or destructive), the other with social struggles for an egalitarian world.

2. What role do science, technology, labor productivity and production play in the transition from capitalism to ecosocialism, also in an ecosocialist society after the transition?

Science, technology, labor productivity and production all play a secondary role to matters of social reproduction in the transition to ecosocialism and in an ecosocialist society. At bottom, the problem is how to reproduce society in ways that are egalitarian and yet do not destroy the ecological basis of our collective existence. Understood this way, science/technology must be reconfigured to assist towards such ends but not to be merely reduced to them either; the process of discovery can occur without any direct relationship to social ends. Concepts of productivity and production per se might not be particularly useful in this regard, since the issue should be reproduction, subsistence, egalitarian distribution according to needs [and so forth].

3. Since the self-emancipation of the working class and other oppressed layers is central in the transition from capitalism to socialism, and therefore to ecosocialism, what do we think will motivate these social forces to see the necessity of ecosocialism? How does the ecological crisis affect the orientation of unions and their place in the class struggle? Beyond traditional kinds of demands and programs, are there other demands and programs that might supplement or perhaps supplant the traditional approach of unions?

If there were an answer to this question, we could account for all, or the majority, of workers’ thoughts, life conditions, and much else. Rather than understand the problem as one of motivation, it might be best to grasp it in terms of favorable conjuncture and the always necessary efforts at discovering or making connections and raising consciousness about such connections and, [on the basis of] such connections, facilitating the coordination of workers worldwide. One can be the issues of breathable and drinkable water.

I expect it would be easier to persuade most workers about the ills of fossil fuel combustion by pointing out how many people die prematurely from air and water pollution where fossil fuel combustion reigns. In this sense, concentrating on global warming is not an effective way of reaching most workers and making them care about environmental degradation. But there is a parallel struggle that involves the problem of most unions themselves.

Most unions are pro-capitalist, so the struggle is two-fold, one to raise workers’ consciousness about how environmental degradation ruins their lives or those of their loved ones, while the other is to transform unions into egalitarian anticapitalist forces. Many workers I have met, in any case, make connections between their lives and environmental degradation spontaneously, especially when the link is self-evident (for example, their tap water stinks or a close relative dies of cancer related to asbestos). The task is to draw the connections between health and environmental degradation to capitalist causes. Where there are workers that already make such connections, the task is to provide support.

4. How, if scaling back production is necessary, will ecosocialist strategy remain committed to meeting human needs? Or can we envision continued expansion and economic growth under ecosocialism, as the working classes and others in the industrialized nations have come to expect? If so, how does this differ from expansion and growth under capitalism? What will enable it to take place without an even greater destruction of the environment? If not, how do we ensure the generalized satisfaction of needs for all, including the equalization of living standards between the industrialized nations and the rest of the world?

The matter must be viewed as one of focusing on subsistence and redistribution and of showing that there is plenty resulting from that, since there is an overwhelming overproduction problem. Expansion at this point is unnecessary and is likely counter-productive both ecologically and for many people’s health. Involving people with the technical skills to treat waste, to deal with nuclear power plants, and much else, will be key. Without devoted ecosocialists with technological sophistication, there will be no revolution or transition, and no ecosocialist future (see also response to question 2).

5. What ideas do ecosocialists raise in the climate change movement? Are James Hansen's proposals (for example, advocacy of a "carbon tax" rather than "cap and trade") in some form useful for ecosocialists as transitional demands, or are they simply an attempt to solve the ecological crisis within the context of capitalism? What is the relationship today between issues that can mobilize traditional kinds of mass struggles, such as hydrofracking or the Keystone XL pipeline, and proposals to promote what some might term "life-style" actions (what others refer to as "prefiguration") such as personally using fewer resources, boycotting GMO foods and buying organic, putting a priority on recycling, creating/promoting urban gardens, food coops, and similar institutions?

In my view ecosocialists have gone about the task incorrectly. We offer largely vague and possibly ineffective ideas, especially because the focus is overwhelmingly on climate change (or actually one version of it, global warming). Climate change involves global averages of decadal regional averages. This is much too abstract relative to the everyday reality of most people. We also need scientifically competent ecosocialists, who are too few!

The most urgent task is to find ways of conveying scientific that connects with everyday problems people face in different circumstances. One thing that will certainly hurt the chances of ecosocialist movement building is to speak in terms of absolutes. GMOs, for example, are largely problematic, but treating them as an evil loses sight of the potential usefulness genetic engineering could have, if research were done properly and societies were not treated as guinea pigs.
It is not that a machine or set of techniques are necessarily the problem. It is the set of social relations that are. In regard to GMOs, for instance, what sets of social relations makes for their production in the first place?

There is also the wider ecological front, where the task becomes even harder. The issue is both prevention (e.g., pre-empting GMOs at the point of production, not just when the GMOs are consumed) and addressing existing devastation (e.g., nuclear power plants, minefields, or the increasing number of droughts in some parts of the world). For such challenges to be met effectively, one must be precise, specific, and able to find connections across the diversity of environmental degradation resulting from the capitalist mode of production.

6. Related to #5: What kinds of cooperatives that can be built today might be able to teach us something about a post-capitalist world? What role, if any, should ecosocialists seek to play in these communities?

There already exist many cooperative communities across the world. Some are not cooperatives, but entire communities, as in the case of some Indigenous Peoples. Ecosocialists should learn from them and be of help by providing connections between them, to specialize in some biophysical science as well as be conversant in social theory and radical leftist perspectives. Ecosocialists should be sure to jettison once and for all the notion that European or European-descendent societies are superior. Our role is to learn about, and from, non-European cultural frameworks. The task is arduous and takes many years, but without transforming oneself according what one wishes to see in the future, it is difficult to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Salvatore Engel-DeMauro is associate Professor in the Geography Department of the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is author of Ecology, Soils, and the Left: An Eco-Social Approach. His recent teaching subjects include physical geography, gender and environment, people-environment relations, and soils. The principal subjects for current research work are soil degradation, urban soils, heavy metals contamination, and society-environment relations, but he has also published on critical geographies, the European Union, gender and ethnopedology, Indigenous Peoples’ struggles, and pedagogy. He is chief editor for the journal >Capitalism Nature Socialism and co-founder, with Joel Kovel, of Ecosocialist Horizons.

As Greece Surrenders – What Now for the European Anti-Austerity Movement?

The Greek government has submitted a last ditch proposal to its creditors in the EU and the IMF, reportedly conceding to an even harsher austerity regime than they have had for the last five years. Reports say that the proposals offer 13 billion Euros in cuts to public sector pay, jobs and pensions with sharp increases in VAT, together with a swathe of privatisation of public assets. The hope is that this can be traded for a ‘modest’ reduction in the amount of debt they are expected to pay. This amounts to accelerating austerity measures (previously 8 billion Euros) which have caused a deep depression in the Greek economy.

Coming less than a week after the Greek people voted in an historic plebiscite against the less bad offer, it is an effective cave in by the Syriza/ANEL government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Even if the deal is accepted by the creditors, it will need the support of the Greek parliament, where some opposition is expected not least from within Syriza, but it should pass with the support of the right wing opposition parties, ND, Potami and Pasok.

That this will be a disaster for the Greek people is in no doubt, although from what I have read in the press even no voters from Sunday’s referendum on the issue, seem resigned to its acceptance, and in the process perhaps buying some more time.

Personally, I think this is a mistake, but that is easy for me to say sitting my house in London. This decision though doesn’t only affect the Greeks but the whole of the anti-austerity movement across Europe, and most particularly in Spain where the Podemos party has made electoral gains with a similar message to that of Syriza.

There has clearly been a determination on the part of the EU creditors to crush any thoughts of this rebellion spreading to other indebted European nations, but this was always predictable. To be fair, Syriza was put into an near impossible position by the intransigence of the creditors and by the Greek people’s insistence on staying inside the Eurozone, at all costs.

But I have to say mistakes were made by Syriza in the negotiations of the last five months, and others can certainly learn from this. After Syriza was humiliated in February’s previous negotiations, the writing should have been on the wall for Tsipras et al. It was clear to me then, and it should have been to Syriza that they would get nowhere arguing from an economic point of view, and should have switched straight away to a political strategy.

The switch to a referendum as a tactic should have come months ago, rather than two days before the money ran out, which is what they did. I was surprised under such circumstances (capital controls, shortages of food and medicines) that they actually won the referendum at all, however meaninglessly this has been regarded by EU creditors.

In my view, a process of educating the people in that staying in the Euro would mean further austerity measures and that a managed move back to the drachma would be necessary, should have started in February. This was never attempted and the last minute referendum ploy was a desperate and ultimately doomed attempt to shore up their position. All the creditors had to do was bide their time, and wait until Greece fell apart economically which it is very close to now without a further bail out.

Should the deal be done, as is looking likely, then it does at least buy some more time. This humiliation of Greece and Syriza will certainly not help the likes of Podemos in other European countries, but a devastating crash out of the Euro would probably have been even worse. A general election has to be held in Spain by the end of the year and if Podemos can gain power in Spain then at least Syriza is not so isolated in Europe and perhaps the issue can be reopened again.

Although the Greeks have been put back into their box again for now, the problems that led to the rise of Syriza will not go away with these austerity policies. The future may yet hold further windows of opportunity. The fight goes on.

A Red & Green Alliance in Scotland for 2016 Election?

Written by Donnie Fraser and first published at Bella Caledonia 

It’s almost clichéd to say that we’re living in exciting times, a political landscape rapidly shifting beneath our feet and unpredictable in its destination. No sooner is one historic election out of the way but another beckons and next year’s Holyrood election could certainly be that. But while we live in exciting times we also live in dark times for ordinary working people bearing the brunt of the Tories form of class war they call ‘Austerity’. However next year’s Holyrood election gives us the opportunity to wipe out Unionism, and by extension the pro-austerity parties, as a political force in Scotland at this time, and also build an effective opposition to the SNP from the radical Green Left.

Before I get started I realise that much of what I say may sit uncomfortably with some in the various left groups, greens and others who understandably have their own particular interests to look out for. 

Believe me it is way out of my own comfort zone. As a Republican I don’t have any rose-tinted view of the Holyrood Assembly, given it can be abolished by Westminster at any time and has no legal right to launch another Indy referendum without Westminster approval it is little more than a Unionist institution set up to preserve the Union rather than further democracy, power devolved is power retained and all that. Furthermore as a socialist with syndicalist sympathies when it comes to fighting elections for “bourgeois parliaments” getting too het up over elections to a wee pretendy parliament, or parish council as Tony Blair described it, seems a distraction from the real job of establishing an independent workers’ republic.

But… now, here, Scotland 2015-16 is not ‘normal’ political times. We’re still riding the wave of activity and enthusiasm unleashed by the referendum and given momentum by the myriad of groups that sprung up as self-organising collectives, organisations such as Women for Indy, National Collective and Radical Independence Campaign (RIC), where grass-roots campaigners could come together and get their voices heard independent of the party machines.

RIC in particular brought together all manner of radical forces from the socialist left, from the environmental movement as well as the left of the SNP and it seems to me self-evident that we were able to achieve far more working together (and working together consensually and harmoniously for a greater good) than would have been the case otherwise.

And that offers an interesting vision for the situation some nine months later. While those involved with the nascent Scottish Left Project (SLP) have done admirable work, building on the positivity of RIC, by actually getting elements of the Left talking to each other getting past the divisions which have scarred us and set back the cause of Socialism by a political generation or more, it is clear that the distrust that still exists means this won’t be achieved overnight and indeed with their own eyes set on the 2020 Holyrood elections rather than 2016 I fear they are in danger of not just selling themselves short but the needs and aspirations of the working-class in Scotland in the face of an unrestricted Tory government pursuing an increasingly aggressive domestic policy. So while the left still struggles to negotiate the legacy of the well bronzed buffer in its tracks the Greens have capitalised more on their role in the wider Yes campaign, yet their target of “at least 8 seats”, while easily achievable, still falls well short of the potential for a unified radical force.

As things currently stand even if the most ambitious projections of the left and greens were achieved it would still leave them around the same total achieved in 2003 when 13 were returned from this bloc. But… a unified Red/ Green or Green/ Red or Anti-Austerity or Radical Indy (call it what you want) Alliance that was able to tap into the positivity and momentum of the Yes campaign, which we played a large role in creating, could realistically aim to take 20-30 MSPs.

This isn’t based on the overly optimistic predictions of some party loyalist but simply through an understanding of the way the regional list system works in the Scottish parliament. It has an inbuilt mechanism designed to prevent any one party gaining outright control, a Unionist mechanism to prevent an SNP victory and the prospects of Independence, that worked well eh! If a party does well in the first past the post constituency section this will be balanced out by distributing seats on the list to other parties based on their support in the regional list vote. Put simply it means that if the SNP maintains its current level of constituency support they will need to poll well in excess of 50% to be in with a chance of winning any seats on the list.

Take as an example the recent TNS poll (1) which puts the SNP on course to win 70 out of 73 constituency seats. It also has the SNP at 50% on the list which they predict would give it only 3 out of 56 list seats across all Scotland, presumably in the 3 regions where they did not win every constituency seat.

Whilst obviously a lot of caveats apply and it takes no account of regional variations which always exist, if the results from this poll were applied across all 8 regions the returns would break down as follows for the 7 seats on each regional list, Labour 3 seats, Tories 2, Greens 1 and the last place going to a 3-way tie between the Lib-Dems, Greens and SNP. TNS predicts this being allocated as 3 SNP, 3 Lib Dem and 2 Green from the eight regions. So despite pro-Indy parties taking 60% of the regional vote the Unionist parties would take a 5-2 majority of seats in 4 lists, and 6-1 in the other 4.

But, in the hypothetical situation where a unified list of the pro-Indy Green/ Left was able to garner support primarily, though not exclusively, from that broad base of the Yes support who want radical change, this situation could be near reversed.

Let me explain. It’s been well documented that since devolution the Scottish electorate has developed relatively sophisticated voting patterns, voting in different way in different elections to achieve different, progressive, outcomes. This situation has certainly not been diminished by the IndyRef and many Yes supporters, and others, will be only too aware that voting SNP on the list may well be a wasted vote that will paradoxically only increase the chances of a Unionist candidate being elected.

If however a unified candidate of the Green Left radical forces was standing as a realistic, credible alternative then they would be well placed to capitalise on this situation.

So using some basic maths if one-third of the SNP support on the list could be persuaded to vote Red/Green (based on the TNS poll with all the caveats etc.) and coupled with the already existing Green support this could lead to regional voting figures of SNP 33%, Red/ Green 27%, Labour 19%, Tory 14%, LD 5% leading to the election of 3 Red/ Greens, 2 Labour and 2 Tories on each list. This would mean 24 Red/Greens in total making them the 2nd largest grouping at Holyrood behind the SNP, who would have already won the election based on their support at constituency level (it’s probably worth noting that it would be in the interests of such a grouping for the SNP to win every constituency seat in Scotland.)

Again if one half of SNP voters supported this new grouping the corresponding figures would be Red Green 35%, SNP 25%, Labour 19%, Tory 14%, LD 5%. This could result in 4 Red/Greens being elected in each region giving 32 seats across Scotland outnumbering the combined total of all the Unionist parties at Holyrood.

Obviously there is no data to support the claim that SNP voters would support a Red/Green alliance but given the positive and committed role that socialists and Greens played in RIC and the wider Yes campaign and, as has been stated, the ‘sophisticated’ nature of voting in Scotland and increased levels of political activity since the referendum, I believe that this could be achievable, but only though a unified force that wasn’t going to be fighting each other for the same votes.

Now basing politics on opinion polls is not generally the sort of politics that I would touch with the proverbial bargepole, it reeks of new Labour focus groups and the selling of your soul for the sake of a handful of votes in a few marginal constituencies, but this is a different situation altogether, and while compromise is inevitable it need not be at the expense of political principle.

We wouldn’t need a huge unified political programme, just agreement around a set of core demands where unity already exists, opposing austerity, stopping fracking, more green energy projects, real radical land reform, ending zero hour contracts, fighting for better workers’ rights, No to NATO, a £10 minimum wage, more social housing built to higher environmental standards as well as support for an independent Republic. There is plenty we have in common as we showed throughout the referendum campaign.

Realistically the left would have to accept its weakened position at this time and probably offer the Greens at least the top spot on every list, even in its Glasgow heartlands, though Patrick Harvie top of the list, a problem? I don’t think so. Given the potential to elect 2/3/4 MSPs from each list perhaps the rest could be decided by some form of regional aggregates, but I digress.

Here in the Highlands the thought of standing in opposition to someone like John Finnie who played such an active role in the RIC campaign and is top of the regional list for the Greens next year is not something which appeals to me and I’m sure that similar situations would be replicated elsewhere.

Is it too late for this to happen? Certainly not. But whether narrow party political advantage will win out over the NEEDS of the marginalised and disadvantaged bearing the brunt of Tory ‘Austerity’ is another matter altogether.

Socialists and Greens managed to put our differences aside, in RIC and elsewhere, to work collectively for a greater good last year, surely the radical forces of Scotland can do the same for the next? Talks did take place between the Greens and the SSP before the 2014 European elections which indicate that there must be willingness, in some quarters at least, to contemplate this scenario.

But this time round the opportunity for such a bloc wouldn’t just mean the election of one MEP, not even replacing the Lib-Dems as the 4th largest party, but on becoming the main opposition to the SNP at Holyrood, pushing them in a more radical direction and making sure they live up to their anti-austerity promises, the prize is potentially that big. Surely that’s something worth aiming for?

1) TNS Poll, 9 June 2015 – Regional list voting intentions for Holyrood: SNP 50%, Labour (19%), the Conservatives (14%), the Greens (10%), Liberal Democrats (5%), UKIP (2%) and others (2%)