Scottish left 'must make broad links'

Published in the Morning Star
(Monday 03 March 2008)

by MALCOLM BURNS in Glasgow

WAY AHEAD: Ian Davidson MP, Lynn Henderson, Pauline Bryan and John McAllion.

LEFT campaigners told the Morning Star's Spring conference in Glasgow on Sunday that the Scottish left could link activists and campaigns across parties with a clear socialist narrative.

Shop stewards, community activists, union leaders and parliamentarians were among the participants in the Winning Left Policies conference held at the STUC centre.

"We need a dialogue on how we can win left policies," argued Scottish Labour Campaign for Socialism convener Pauline Bryan.

"A fundamental shift has taken place and business as usual is no longer possible.

"The Campaign for Socialism is now working with the Labour Representation Committee to involve people who are both inside and outside the Labour Party. LRC is hoping to attract affiliation from the left alliances in larger unions over the next year," she added.

Former Labour MSP John McAllion, now the Scottish Socialist Party parliamentary candidate in Dundee, called for a "linking narrative which explains what we are trying to achieve in building socialism."

Referring to Naomi Klein's recent book on "disaster capitalism," he said: "We should not pin our stripes on 'disaster socialism,' always proclaiming impending economic and social ruin. We have to get a programme that does sound like common sense to ordinary workers.

"I'm delighted with this conference," Mr McAllion added. "Let's hope it is really a new beginning, just like the Morning Star in Scotland tomorrow."

Ian Davidson, Labour MP for Glasgow South West, said that he came at the issue from the perspective not just of theory but what he described as "retail politics, on a day-to-day basis."

He questioned whether the left might spend too long trying to build a unifying narrative and not enough trying to mobilise people on issues that concern them.

"Politics is in flux, with so many of the old certainties gone," he argued.

"Things are much more fractured now. There ought to be a much greater emphasis on alliances in action. The vast majority of people in this country are not involved in anything that they see as politics.

"There is a real opportunity to get more people involved in politics and create the sort of society that we want to see."

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