Democracy, but only for your enemies

I'm watching the British media coverage of the Hong Kong democracy protests with some fascination. I'm supportive of the protesters: China is in no way a socialist or communist state, merely an autocracy or kleptocracy which has retained the branding of communism. Any decent communist should be fervently wishing for a complete collapse of the now satirically-titled 'People's Republic'.

So that's the cause dealt with: three cheers for Occupy Central and its allies. But cursed with a little historical knowledge, I view the UK's political and media support for Occupy with a jaundiced eye. The British took Hong Kong by force in 1841 in reprisal for the Chinese forcing British drug dealers to destroy their stock (opium, in this case). They then negotiated additions to the territory at various points, with a lease that expired in 1997.

So that's 156 years without a single election for the premier, and elections to vague and useless 'advisory councils' only started in 1984, after the return of HK to Chinese rule was negotiated. It's hard not to see this late and tokenistic democratic gesture as little more than a satirical gesture designed to establish some tiny distinction between the 'free' West and 'tyrannical' China. For 156 years, decisions about Hong Kong were made 6000 miles away in London and executed by a man dressed like this:

I think this extends to the UK media coverage of Hong Kong's protests. I haven't seen a single word about the colony's political history: the silent implication is that denying HK democracy is typical Chinese or Communist behaviour. The British like to pose as democrats to the fingertips, but they've always preferred to drop it on their enemies rather than extend it to their subjects or (in postcolonial times) business partners. Yes, Saudi Arabia, I'm looking at you. When Tony Blair announced that Britain had to invade Iraq for 'democracy', I congratulated my New Labour MP and asked when the invasion of Saudi Arabia would begin. His reply was a rather huffy 'that's different'. Of course it is: Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a vile dictatorship of terror, while Saudia Arabia is a vile terroristic dictatorship which buys a lot more weapons, beheads a lot more people and makes women's lives a living hell.

I guess I'm still a political adolescent, caring about principle over realpolitik. But back to Hong Kong: let's all support the protestors not because we enjoy annoying China but because democracy is a good thing per se, while examining our own national consciences a little more closely. I can't help thinking that if the democracy protests had occurred under British rule, we'd have had a lot of furrowed-brow commentators interviewing bank CEOs worried about 'stability' and the economy, just as we have with the Scottish independence referendum.



Here, for example, is a staged ambush performed for the Pathé cameras by the British Army in Ireland, 1920 (sorry I can't embed it) and here's another in which those debonair Black and Tans keep proper British order in a devastated Ireland wrecked by rebels. Meanwhile the same arguments against Scottish Independence were being raised against Irish Home Rule in the Irish Times:

…today’s Irish Times… claimed that the cold reality of the mistake that was Home Rome was now beginning to dawn on nationalists as they looked at the detail of what was proposed.
The paper said that ‘fantastic assurances can no longer deceive intelligent nationalists. They are beginning to realize the hideous barrenness of the Promised Land.’ The paper concluded: ‘They begin to perceive that the Bill for which they have sacrificed so much spells national bankruptcy for Ireland - increased taxation, the starvation of all schemes of material improvement and social reform.'
'The Irish Parliament must find the money for all these things, and will be powerless to find it.’

There's always a framework within which the media operate - you just have to look for it. So don't expect support for the HK democracy movement to last beyond what's politically expedient. States and parties don't work like that - but we can.

"Everybody's looking for their Brigadoon'

How is everyone today? Relieved that the progressive union of the UK has been saved? Or depressed that the progressive instincts of the Scots have been thwarted by Project Fear?

Though my feelings about the independence vote were hopelessly muddled and inconsistent, I always thought that No would win, though I predicted a 53-47% gap, narrower than the final result.

I'm exhausted today. I went to a friend's house for a Scottish all-nighter, despite none of us being Scots. We cooked haggis, tatties and neeps, consumed Scotch eggs and drank Scottish beer, Irn Bru (a revelation) and whisky. One of the beers is called Bitter and Twisted, which was guaranteed to match the mood of at least one of the camps by morning.

We decided that it would be impossible to sit and watch the live TV coverage: the BBC had a stream of crypto-Tory senior reporters, Tory politicians, Tory business types, neo-Tory Labour types, UKIPians and a scattering of cliché-wielding nationalists. So we decided to construct a collage of Scottish media. We lined up the sole surviving episode of Scotch on the Rocks (the racist Douglas Hurd adaptation mentioned previously), Gregory's Girl, the MacAdder episode of Blackadder and various other delights.



Music provided by Altered Images





and Arab Strap for added skag-fuelled self-loathing.





In the end, we stuck to flipping between the news and Brigadoon, which turned out to be enormously enjoyable as well as far more interesting than I'd ever have thought (and as convincing a construction of Scotland as the Yes and No camps' versions).



It's a musical, which would normally have me running for the hills. Brigadoon is a village saved from a plague of witches by a preacher who made a deal with God: in exchange for his life, the village would be removed from time: it would appear for one day every hundred years. The inhabitants know all about it, and for them only a couple of days have passed when the action starts. Their survival depends on none of them 'crossing the bridge' out of the village: if one person does, they all die.

Into Brigadoon wander two Americans: one young, with 'commitment issues' (played by Gene Kelly) and the other a jaded, misogynistic, bitter, atheistical and cynical older man.



There's a very entertaining homoerotic and homosocial subtext to their relationship despite Gene Kelly's burgeoning relationship with Fiona (Cyd Charisse) and Meg's spirited and – for its time – explicit sexual fixation on grumpy Jeff (played by Van Johnson, whose real-life homosexuality was disguised by a 'lavender marriage' arranged by MGM, according to his ex-wife).

The set is appalling: every shot is filmed in a studio. The actors' voices bounce off the scenery even when they're meant to be out on the moors. The accents are many and varied, none of them Scottish and none as convincing as Groundskeeper Willie,



or Scotty,



The clothes are a garish hell of implausible tartans and the endless bloody songs are beyond awful even by the standards of musicals.



And yet… the various sexualities are barely concealed and always add tension. The counterpoint of the isolated village sets up some interesting dynamics. For outsiders and a few insiders it's a refuge from modernity (and therefore a conservative modernist construction). For others it's a living hell, a prison of conformity and familiarity: this is what leads Harry Beaton to attempt to kill them all by crossing the bridge.



For our American heroes, it provides relief from Yankee cynicism and spiritual exhaustion – the villagers are tartan versions of Avatar's natives, or the Native Americans in Dances With Wolves: spiritual, pure, untainted etc. etc.

Were Yes voters pining – as the wise old man says in the film – for their own Brigadoon? Perhaps so: romantic nationalism functions, amongst other things, as a way of simplifying a complex and fluid existence. The film ends with our Americans heading home: damaged Jeff persuades Tommy that such a pure, unexpected love can only be a fantasy, but after a few months in his empty relationship with an urban young woman Tommy returns and such is the strength of his love that Brigadoon miraculously reappears, out of schedule, a testament to the power of desire (and conservatism).

Just like the referendum result, eh readers?

Scotland the Brave?

Literally none of you have begged me for enlightenment about the Scottish Independence Referendum. In the face of this overwhelming public demand, here's my two cents in a random and confusing fashion.

Obviously not being Scottish I neither have a vote nor quite such a pressing interest, but my views are shaped by my deeply-held socialist views, by my Irish background and by my post-colonial and post-Enlightenment ideology. All this pulls me both ways.

It's like this: I think that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has been one of the most pernicious states on the planet. Pick up any globe from before about 1945 and you'll see a massive area of the globe under British domination. Despite the propaganda of Empire Loyalists, it was a ruthless killing machine designed to extract commodities, labour and obeisance from Wales, Scotland and Ireland to the South Sandwich Isles and everywhere in between. Civilisations were crushed, economies wrecked, development stalled, languages made extinct, borders artificially imposed – much of the current world's problems were caused by the foundation and dismantling of the Empire.

So a small part of me wants to see the final disarmament of a state that's never come to terms with its crimes against humanity. Sundered, the English, Welsh and Scots won't be able to exert this kind of dominion, or even influence, ever again. I also think it's a good opportunity for the constituent nations of the UK to rediscover some of what it lost in the process, including the Celtic languages. It's weird: I find myself for once agreeing with that repulsive old racist Nick Griffin of the British Nationalist Party:

I might be a cricket-loving, Marmite-slurpiing, real ale-drinking fully paid-up member of the bourgeoisie, but I'm definitely a Marxist Fenian at heart. Nick uses the term like it's a bad thing! As for why 'British Nationalists' aren't working hard: they're too fixated on racial purity to make an argument about a union which is at least in part successfully multi-cultural.

One of the arguments against Scottish independence that does weigh heavily on me is the old socialist rallying cry of solidarity between the workers in all nations: that what binds the proletariat together around the world is stronger than the bonds between classes in any particular state or nation. Certainly I don't see the Scottish establishment having much love or concern for the unemployed of Glasgow: Salmond's disgracefully close to the likes of Murdoch and Trump who want independence because bite-size countries are easier to digest. On the other hand, it's hard to promote socialism in all countries when the Labour party isn't at all interested in socialism in any country, and in a global economy which depends on slavery (yes it does: where do you think the minerals in your iPhone come from, and who puts them together? How much was the person who made your clothes or fished for your dinner paid?).

The idea of a small, nimble, green and egalitarian state really appeals: the radical independence campaign paints a seductive image of a Republican, small-scale country at ease with itself – a McScandinavia if you will, though it's an image which requires us to discount the tensions underlying social conditions in many of those nations. I also think it rather overlooks the tensions within Scotland: there's the conservative (not Conservative) Catholic working-class, the ultra-loyalist Protestant working-class (will Rangers fans become a revanchist, Union-flag waving bunch or transfer allegiance to independent Scotland?), and the much posher Protestant elite, let alone the cultures of the Highlands and Islands and the multicultural communities of the big cities. If the social and political elites get their feet under the table, supported by the banking and oil industries, Scotland might be a much less comfortable place for the poor and minorities.

I don't think states are or should be permanent (and in my syndicalist fantasies, the state is reduced as altruistic people aid each other and lose the need for oppressive structures of control – this is what makes me an optimist and not a Tory). The UK is fairly recent: the last big change was Irish independence in 1922. It's an instructive model which hasn't been explored enough in the current debate. Ireland fought a short and bloody war in 1916, followed by a vicious Civil War in 1922, the social and political consequences of which are still being felt. Nevertheless, independence was negotiated with the British. A currency agreement was struck: the Irish punt was pegged to the UK pound until 1979, yet nobody claimed that Ireland wasn't properly independent or in charge of its own economy. The Free State gradually became the Republic without further tensions with the UK other than over the Six Counties. When TV came, people in the East and near the North picked up BBC programming and now everybody receives it. If Ireland could succeed after its bloody imperial entanglements, Scotland definitely can.

The obvious rejoinder to the Irish model proclaimed by Salmond when he thought the Celtic Tiger was real (which should call into question his judgement) is that Ireland was a poverty-stricken, repressive, misogynist, priest-ridden and massively corrupt rotten state for much of the twentieth-century, only to become a greedy, credit-junkie, sexually-corrupt cowboy state which helped crash the global economy in the 21st. All true of course: but in a sense, so what? The economic argument is in a sense beside the point of independence. If you think that a nation is more than its economy, you should vote yes even if it means getting poorer.

I like small states (but big government). They do run the risk of becoming crony oligarchies, but they do make for more responsive governments and I suspect more peaceful ones. In Scotland's case, I'd vote yes partly on moral principles: I'm a long-term supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Scotland will expel the British nuclear fleet. On the other hand, I do agree that larger blocs are more influential and when we're facing environmental and economic collapse, we should be working together.

What will happen to the rest of the UK? For purely selfish reasons, I'm hoping Scotland votes no. I don't want Wales and nationalist Northern Ireland, the British working-classes and Northern England to be trapped in an abusive relationship with the Tory and UKIP-voting bigots of the south. UK politics will be dragged to the right: goodbye to the Human Rights Act, farewell to EU membership, what remains of worker protection and to environmental politics. Hello to a dystopia of golf course fascism, ever-reducing wages, isolationism and reactionary culture.

I would think that Welsh nationalism would become ascendant, even if an independent Scotland didn't thrive, because England would be so utterly dominant and so rightwing: I can't see the feeble milk-sop Labour party we have now holding back the tide of leftwing Plaid nationalism or the Old Labour strands of Welsh socialism – the valleys might decide that they can build socialism in one small country. I have no idea what would happen to NI. Its unionist population is so invested in the British monarchy, but its core cultural and religious identity is Scottish - it's hard for me to work out how these tensions would play out there. The English and Northern Irish have little in common and little understanding of each other. Perhaps Northern Ireland would vote for union with Scotland? Or maybe a successful independent Scotland would persuade Northern Irish unionists that life in a Federal Republic of Ireland would be bearable after all.

So ultimately my heart says yes, my head says maybe for the Scots. The rest of us have a lot to fear, I think: though the unionist establishment will be wounded, the combined forces of the landed elites, the financial oligarchs and the reactionary right will bear down on the rump UK's progressive forces more heavily than ever.

My utopia would be a world socialist state with responsive local units elected by proportional representation, fully representative of nationalisation of core activities, a steady-state green economy and industrial sector, strong trades unions, ingrained respect for all cultures, languages and ethnicities and largely disarmed. No dependency on oil, or on the vile countries which produce it. State-funded healthcare, childcare and education. Total political transparency, and no more monarch, lobbyists, state religions or Lords. With a moon colony for Mr Farage. Unless the UK is feeling really vindictive. It could lobby the EU nations to refuse Scotland entry to the EU. Then Nigel would feel compelled to emigrate to Scotland to live in a European-free paradise. Sorry Scotland!

I don't know if an independent Scotland would be a richer, poorer, nicer or nastier place. If your imagined nation is based on shared culture then I don't think these things even matter so much. But at least its people get a chance – for the very first time – to decide the shape of their state. Their ancestors didn't vote for Union, after all.

So vote for me. Or wake up one day in a Vole Re-education Camp.

And it Burns, Burns, Burns…

I see that unpleasant student politician Jim Murphy, now an unpleasant rightwing Labour MP, is calling on Labour to rally round the Union Flag in the referendum on Scottish independence.



Sorry Jim: it's a little more complicated than that. I'd have thought that a Scottish MP with an Irish background would have understood that. Scotland's a complex place: you've got urban v. rural, Catholic and Protestant sectarianism, huge economic inequalities, a separate legal system from England and Wales, a dying language, a very thorny relationship with Ireland, a very different class and social structure, and a long history of independence.

Labour's vote is drawn from urban communities in Scotland, but it's split between the quite distinct Protestant and Catholic (often Irish, poorer) groups, and rivalries between them have often been intense. The Irish - symbolised by Celtic football club - have often looked back to Ireland for cultural values and a degree of protection: one of my ancestors even ran the Irish Party in Scotland in the early years of the twentieth-century. So there's an Irish nationalist strand in the Labour Party, but also a pro-Union one which partly derives from Catholic distrust of the Tory Scottish aristocracy and Establishment, which can be viciously sectarian. The other strand of unionism derives from a traditional socialist distrust of all nationalism: it holds that ethnic division is an artificial imposition on human communities, whereas class solidarity should cross borders. In Ireland, for instance, nationalism hoovered up rebel energy, with the result that the British rulers were replaced with narrow-minded, reactionary leaders for 100 years after independence.

However, I think we should challenge the Labour leadership's assumption that Labour values must always be pro-Union. There's nothing socialist or democratic about insisting on Britishness above Scots, Welsh or Irish independence. After the 1968 New Left, it's perfectly possible to have a progressive, leftwing nationalist movement (indeed, Ireland almost got one in the 19th-century). Plaid Cymru and the SNP are inclusive movements, though it should be admitted that some of their voters would be Tories in England. As Labour moves further right, the nationalist parties have come to seem the repositories of liberationist, pro-state, progressive leftwing policy. Many of Labour's voters and activists are descendants of people forced to leave their conquered and denuded homelands to seek menial work in the Mother of Empire: affection for the Union Flag is much shallower than you might expect.

In the 1930s, Soviet Russia moved from a policy of World Revolution to Socialism In One Country. I wouldn't want to saddle any party with echoes of Stalin, but the phrase is one I think we can usefully recycle. Labour shouldn't take a stand on Scottish independence. Scottish voters should be asked whether they would prefer. The economic arguments should be left out of it - it's about which 'imagined community' the Scots feel is most important. Socialism can be built in Edinburgh or London, regardless of passport. Labour supported Irish independence as a matter of principle, rather than claiming that imperialism would be OK if the Irish voted for socialist London governments.

The pragmatic problem for Labour is this: Scotland is virtually a Tory-free zone. Labour needs those 40 MPs if it hopes ever to get into UK government again. But this is a selfish and self-serving argument. The Scots shouldn't be blackmailed by English politicians. Labour can fight and win elections in independent Wales and Scotland: why should the Scots be compelled to stay in a Union simply to help a party which has decided to support the UK for reasons of electoral strategy?

Unless, of course, Labour isn't being cynical. Perhaps the leadership does care passionately about the UK. If so, I'd suggest that it grows up. Just because the Mail waves the flag constantly, doesn't mean Labour has to. If Celtic nationalism is unsavoury, then so is UK nationalism. Cling to the glories of Empire (and they were only glorious if you were sitting in a bloody big mansion paid for by the proceeds of slave-grown sugar or whatever) is pathetic. Britain's (or England's, Wales's and Scotland's) future lies in Scandinavia: post-imperial small nations which have decided that they don't need to invade America's latest enemy, to wave nuclear weapons at anyone, to 'punch above their weight' on the world stage. It's time to relax, make some friends abroad, accept that this is a small country (or countries) and concentrate on diplomacy and domestic quality of life.

I do think that the socialist case for Union is perfectly honourable, as long as it's part of a discourse which leads to the abolition of all nation-states (difficult to imagine give the unresolved and bloody process by which the UK emerged and is gradually dissolving), but I also think there's a huge gap between socialist values and Labour policy (I know, it's hard to believe). Labour Unionism isn't principled socialism derived from proletarian solidarity: it's British exceptionalism which depends on some of the same chauvinism which dominates the Tory Party and the public sphere. It would take a brave party to move on from that - but perhaps now's the time.

Lots of British people have done wonderful things. Britain as an entity has done a few great things - but there's an awful lot of which to be ashamed. Why cling to a Union that's past its sell-by date? Time for Labour to leave the nostalgia to the Tories and accept the will of the people. An independent Scotland (Wales, England) might become a Danish-style powerhouse, a version of bankrupt Ireland, or an inward-looking, dour Puritan backwater. Fine: it's up to them. Just don't take Unionism as a political principle when it's actually a political calculation.

Everyone has his price: politicians are cheap

Here's the shocking story of how the alcohol merchants got together with untrustworthy researchers and lobbyists to stop the Scottish government putting a minimum price and alcohol, despite the research showing that higher prices = lower consumption.

In case the politicians weren't sure they'd been bought and sold, SAB Miller rubbed it in by sending every opposition MP a gift:

When unit pricing was taken out of the bill, all the opposition MPs received a free crate of beer from SAB Miller.

I hope - but doubt - that they had the grace to feel insulted. But I bet they cracked open every can without a qualm.

“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us / To see oursel's as others see us!

Tonight, of course, is Burns Night, the annual celebration of Rabbie Burns, poet, rebel, loyalist, romantic, contradiction and all-round Super Scot.

The traditional celebration involves whisky (well, duh) and haggis, the king of foods. Congratulations American readers: haggis is now legal for import, after 21 years of paranoia. Here's one of his lesser-known poems:

Heart, lungs, liver and lights
A Haggis wi' neeps every Scot delights.
Oats, pepper, whisky too,
All washed down wi' Irn-Bru!
And after a snifter o' skag and Buckie
Patriotic Scots sneak off for a…

I'm not a Scot, but Burns is a fantastic poet and haggis is just wonderful. As long as it's homemade or from MacSween. Even their (ahem) vegetarian haggis is lovely. As an after-dinner treat, why not have that traditional Scottish Deep-Fried Battered Mars Bar (I kid you not)?

Mmmm vinyl

I've just received the Holy Grail of Scottish nerd sex pop: a triple vinyl remastered copy of everything The Vaselines ever did, with a posh booklet, MP3 version included, and all on the delightful Sub Pop records. Shame the lead singer looks exactly like my unlamented ex-boss.

And now I've stupidly downloaded several Pastels albums even though I have them on vinyl.