EU: in or out for the left? The real issues of identity and sovereignty

What's the most progressive position to take on the EU referendum?

As a febrile media pump out more trite 'context' - 'control of migrants', the 'drain' on welfare benefits, and faux questions about 'sovereignty' - many left-minded people seem deeply conflicted about where to stand: stay with the 'safety' of nominally-won EU social rights and legal protections, or abandon a rapaciously neoliberal institution; remain and embrace a new leftist Euro movement politics, or leave and show that radical progress is better realised through more devolved forms of action.

Tainted associations

The dilemma seems even more acute as leftists on both sides glance queasily at who they'll be seen 'standing alongside': Cameron, Osborne, May, Blair and most big City corporations; or Johnson, Farage, Gove, Duncan Smith, the bulk of small Toryism and the Henry Jackson Society.

Of course, valid leftist positions can be taken without adopting any such forces or individuals. They should rest on their own merits. George Galloway choosing to share a Grassroots Out platform with Nigel Farage doesn't endear him to UKIP. Yet, if Galloway is really concerned with promoting a genuine left for leaving argument, why engage such Tory/UKIP-based campaigns at all? (As Yes leftists will recall, Galloway also co-platformed Blairite and Iraq war-supporting Brian Wilson during his 'Just Say Naw' to Scottish independence tour.)

Galloway may have had due reason to berate the BBC's Jo Coburn for hijacking him on such associations, rather than dealing with the EU issue. But courting Farage and his GO friends with Churchillian language - "left-right, left-right, forward march to victory" - only obfuscates the real issues of power and identity in this already loaded 'debate'.

In arguing that it's all about 'pitching together' for direct democracy, and not ceding to Brussels, Galloway can, of course, cite Tony Benn's 1975 case for leaving Europe. And, yes, Benn's case for ditching the old Common Market was honourably made back in the day, just as if he were here now making the same case for exiting.

Yet, what kind of real 'sovereignty' do either of these rigged institutions offer? Benn was correct in rejecting the EU and its unelected Commissioners. But, in seeking to 'reclaim parliamentary sovereignty', he also spent a political lifetime challenging an undemocratic Westminster system. Recall, too, that despite being on the 'same side' as Enoch Powell in 1975, Benn refused to share a platform with him.

Benn's son has no comparable standing in such matters. Apparently, Hilary Benn won't share a platform with Cameron on the EU issue. Yet he had no moral objection to collaborating with him when it came to bombing Syria. Here we see the real hypocrisy of platform politics.

Brooding Brexiters and the elite crisis

Platform trumpeting of 'national identity' is allowing the big stage players to call the EU tune. We hear a loud, simplified sound on how 'lost identity' is synonymous with 'lost sovereignty', all orchestrated, as standard, by the Daily Mail chorus.

More studious observers like John Harris are keen to understand, rather than dismiss, the brooding discontent of Brexiters in locales like Peterborough and Great Yarmouth, where resentment festers over immigrant workers. Harris sees the EU issue mainly as: 

an English political event: an attempt to resolve English tensions within an essentially English party, which will see the leave side speaking to a group of people who increasingly self-identify as English, and who feel that an antipathy to authority is now part of their national identity.

All useful sociology. But if, as Harris says, national identity is being shaped by fear of 'invading migrants' and economic anger, it's still telling us little about the higher interests and circumstances driving that identity issue.

At its heart, it's an elite identity issue, indeed, identity crisis, as the main establishment forces fight-off a kind of internal class insurgency.

The elite pro-EU cabal is all-too familiar, the same essential line up that undertook the emergency halting of Scottish independence: Cameron and his circle, big capital and the main City players, supported by the agencies of continuity - the civil service, the monarchy, the military, and, beyond its standard claims of 'neutrality', the higher echelons of the BBC. As with the Scottish indyref, the modus operandi is Project Fear.

Against this, the Brexit insurgents, standing, basically, for the same free market things, but driven by a more doctrinaire libertarianism, smaller business sector grievances, and the base prejudices of shire-minded Toryism. The ideological engine of the Brexit network comprises groups such as The Freedom Association, backer of Better Off Out, providing platforms for right-wing business figures and academics such as Tim Congdon, Ruth Lea, Ian Milne, and Patrick Minford, alongside more zealot neo-cons like Douglas Murray. All broadly argue that the 'EU’s regulatory burden' is placing UK business at a severe disadvantage.

But while the view from inside the City is not entirely Euro-friendly, actual support for remaining with the EU is remarkably solid. Why? Basically, because the City and its political protectorate see the present framework as largely doing what's required of it: maintaining a business regime conducive to capital movement and corporate freedom within and beyond the EU bloc. Crucially, it also values the restraining role of the Euro financial elite and European Central Bank in keeping 'radical-minded' states in check. Greece is the obvious example. But, as we witnessed over the 'threat' of Scottish independence, big capital generally disfavours any kind of break with political unions long-moulded to serve its interests.

Lloyds of London's chief risk officer actually rejects the claim that Brexit would create a "regulatory nirvana" for the City, echoing the view of many other big finance houses. He might well say that, of course - whether in or out, the parasitic benefits enjoyed by this elite are well assured. But such comments confirm that the City is already thriving as a pampered enclave, dutifully protected both by the UK and EU. Why would that City elite be remotely willing to jeopardise such coveted freedoms and privileges?

This was the much less-highlighted part of Cameron's excursion to Brussels: to reaffirm City sovereignty. Almost nothing of this central issue is being amplified by the media. Instead, we're assailed by the 'migrant crisis', in truth a humanitarian calamity for refugees in hellish places like the 'Jungle'. Of course, no such dark labelling is ever applied to the wild jungle of City capitalism.  

Similar fascination prevails over the Bullingdon boys' face-off. Despite showing no prior desire for Brexit, Johnson, or 'Boris' to his swooning media flock, has made the base calculation that since grassroots Toryism appears to be overwhelmingly in favour of leaving, his main chance of succeeding Cameron, whatever the outcome, is best-served by placating that mood constituency. Craven opportunism, in short. That much is obvious, even to most media scribes. Yet, the Johnson-Cameron show is somehow assumed as a defining 'choice' in the EU debate, one almost as narrow and unquestioned as that between Trump's giant con and Clinton's crazed warmongering. Such is the way in which the parameters of political debate and 'credible options' are routinely presented.

Left identity

In the same sense, much liberal positioning on the EU has been conditioned by a narrowly-defined 'borders-identity-rights' context, rather than radical evaluation of how that establishment narrative is being foisted upon us. For almost the entire centre-left, the question of whether to stay or go is predicated on securing some 'good as it gets' rights and dispensations, rather than a will to resist the EU's dominant neoliberal character.

Most trade unions have adopted this cautious line in defence of EU working directives. But just how secure and EU-based are such rights? Remember that John Major secured an opt-out from the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Agreement, Blair set aside the 48 hour week directive, and what's often hailed as 'EU protection' is really little more than rights already established or sporadically applied.

Jeremy Corbyn, by inclination, is not ideologically disposed to the EU, but has come to a similar default, rather than conviction, position. This sits uncomfortably with many Corbyn supporters. Labour In claims to be championing a 'social Europe' very distinct from the Cameron/Farage mindset. But, led by centre-right Alan Johnson, Labour's stay campaign offers no serious agenda for challenging EU neoliberal orthodoxy. Predictably, the Guardian is urging-on Johnson and his 'leadership', while uttering vacuities like "making best use of Europe’s collective strength in the world."

Contrary to the Guardian view, the one ironic consolation for Labour is that Corbyn's muted case for remaining is likely to damage him and his party much less than the coming train wreck for Cameron and the Tories.

Left calculations in Scotland

The in or out question has a crucially additional dimension in Scotland, given the still live issue of independence. Yet, while many will correctly approach it in such tactical terms, it's not completely clear to some around the Yes movement that the EU referendum can, or should, be viewed solely through the prism of a potential second independence referendum.

A popular call for indyref2 will likely come in the event of a split vote between Scotland and rUK. And it would be most welcome. It may well even be enough to re-tilt the 55-45 indyref vote. But for much of the Yes left, the EU stands as a political question in its own right. It's also, for those same Yes proponents, central to the kind of progressive state they want an independent Scotland to be: not one still directed by an EU banking class, tempered by nominal social rights, but one in which they are able, this time around, to assert real choices on currency and macro-economic policy.

Now, it's true that, being outside the Eurozone, the UK's and Scotland's place in Europe makes it a much less troubling concern than that faced by Greece, Spain and other Troika-punished states. And this may be sufficient assurance for some leftists pondering a stay vote.

Yet, the treatment of these states should be a stark warning to the kind of abusive relationship we're already party to. As Gerry Hassan asserts, while Scotland still sees itself as a European nation, "what the EU stands for is no longer an unproblematic good, with austerity, neo-liberalism, and a virtual European coup against Greece’s government; where does that place Scotland and what do we do about it?"

Nor do the SNP leadership simply regard Yes to EU as an opportunity for indyref2. At heart, they uphold the essence of Europe's 'liberal social market', while approving, more quietly, prevailing EU 'neoliberal realities', including some version of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

A predatory EU

Herein lies the kind of unresolved problem of left identity with an EU that, while granting token benefits, has become a predatory power. The EU is not just a supra-economic bloc entrenching neoliberal doctrine and corporate interests. It is also in voluntary arm-lock with militarist-extending Nato. Beyond the standard media cries of 'Putin the aggressor', consider how an expansionist EU acted in concert with the US and Nato in promoting a fascist coup in Ukraine, and raising the new cold war ante.

While the US rewards Israel with even greater aid for its deepening oppression of the Palestinians, a complicit EU has stood idly by, continuing special trade deals and maintaining military supplies, issuing lame pleas for 'peace talks' rather than giving serious political support to a brutalised people. For Omar Barghouti:

Seeing how swiftly the EU adopted sanctions against Russia for alleged violations of international law in Ukraine that pale in comparison to Israel’s crimes in its decades-old occupation of Palestinian territory, one cannot but accuse Europe of hypocrisy for failing to adopt the evidently more justified sanctions against Israel.

Here, as with the EU's gross failure to prevent mass deaths of desperate humans in the Mediterranean, we see the true priorities of both a US-serving alliance and a Fortress Europe. Little wonder that Obama, the G20 and other global elites are all calling for a stay vote. Whatever its 'founding' post-war ideals, notions of the EU as an insurance policy for peace and stability look increasingly hollow.  

Lesser evil or radical break?

Many on the liberal left acknowledge the EU's democratic and social deficits, but see the 'greater good' of what it delivers. SNP MP Stewart Macdonald, for example, claims that, while imperfect, the EU has fostered a new 'free-movement-styled Euro identity', a kind of 'Easy Jet generation', which he closely identifies with. It's a lofty view couched in social democratic language about "opportunities for cooperation and mutual prosperity", alongside meaningful concern for refugees. But it flies all too safely above the real issues of neoliberal power and Western geopolitics.

Also lamenting the EU's stark democratic failures and neoliberal priorities, the Scottish Socialist Party's Colin Fox offers a more persuasive case for staying as an act of Euro class unity:

We weighed up both referendum options before concluding the choice was not for or against the anti-democratic bosses club in Brussels, but rather how best to advance the interests of working people across Europe.

Fox argues for "the lesser of two evils", believing that: 

‘abandonment’ would not improve the situation. A ‘leave vote’ would be a victory for UKIP and the Tory right not working people. It is they after all who have pressed for this referendum. The choice is not between a corporate EU and an anti-capitalist or progressive UK. It is between ‘EU PLC’ and ‘UK PLC’. And working people should have no faith in either of them. But a ‘Leave’ victory would unleash a ‘carnival of reaction’. It would be a victory for the bigots and isolationist ‘Little Englanders’.  

Fox insists that UKIP and the Tories would then tear up all EU legal, employment and equality rights. Brexit is also opposed by Sinn Fein as playing to the same rightist Tory agenda.

John Wight offers a similar leftist defence for staying, insisting that:

despite the attempt by a section of the left to assert that Brexit would make the prospect of implementing progressive and socialist ideas easier - specifically when it comes to taking key industries and services into public ownership - the reality is that the beneficiaries of Brexit would be the right and far right.

And, he warns, "for anyone on the left to oppose Corbyn over the EU now is tantamount to sectarianism of the worst kind."

This is a regrettable claim. Valid as his argument is for staying, such language takes the same narrow 'socialist duty' line peddled by Wight and other left Unionists in 2014.

The 'radical' alternative to leaving has been more ambitiously advanced by Yanis Varoufakis in launching the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25):

The manifesto is a pledge for a new Europe. Not a European cartel of trade and banking, but a European union of people, united by the bold idea of true democracy as the foundation of prosperity. According to Varoufakis, the EU is coming apart at the seams. Rising unemployment, crippling austerity, far-right neofascist movements, and an unaccountable body of technocrats at the top, are all part of the same broken European machine. But rather than give in to a new wave of inward-looking nationalism, Europeans must come together and build a truly democratic movement.

It's a view now adopted by Owen Jones, and loosely embraced in Scotland by much of Rise.

Yet, there's been damning left criticism of Varoufakis and his Euro reform package:

Varoufakis’s talk of democracy will disgust millions of embittered workers in Greece and throughout Europe. Rarely was the working class betrayed so shamelessly by such an overblown political scoundrel. Varoufakis knows very well that the EU is an instrument through which the European and international financial aristocracy exercises its power and dictatorship. It can no more be democratized than the boards of Deutsche Bank or the European Central Bank. In Greece, the core of his policy was the subordination of the country to the EU, and it remains so today. His pretentious chatter about democracy and civil rights serves to cover up his defence of the EU and his hostility to the working class.

If less toxic in tone, the Communist Party and Morning Star take much the same line. While the CP lamentably erred in opposing Scottish independence, they are on firmer ground here in denouncing the EU as a fundamentally neoliberal and distant institution. Still, why, we may ask, their refusal to countenance 'staying together in solidarity' this time around?

In a fine 7-point leftist riposte to the 'stay and fight' line, Chris Bambery also argues for an outright rejection of the EU:

The simple fact is that internal change is an impossibility within the EU. The task of creating genuine unity in Europe based on solidarity and respect is one which requires starting all over again. Britain and other member states quitting can help develop the debate about what sort of Europe we need, one which is democratic unlike the current EU where democracy is virtually absent.

Bambery further emphasises the naivety of believing there can be any serious mass left party alignment across 28 EU nations.

Other voices around the Scottish left are rejecting both the 'lesser evil' or 'reform from within' lines. Most notably, Jim Sillars makes the case for a decisive break from the EU's economic stranglehold in pursuit of a serious left Scottish independence, reminding us that an establishment-complicit Commission showed no sympathy for an independent Scotland during the 2014 referendum.

Waverers should also take time to read an outstanding Leave analysis by Neil Davidson, spelling out the core issues for leftists.

Taking apart the 'lesser evil' and 'social Europe' arguments, Davidson details the stark absence of democracy at the apex of the EU, and sole powers of inter-state Commissioners. He charts the particular vindictiveness of the Commission and European Central Bank in its ruthless purging of Greece, and the rigid neoliberal convergence rules that apply to all EU members, serving to deter and lock-in 'deviant' states - including any proto-independent Scottish state applying, post-Brexit.

He further criticises the "EU’s embrace [of TTIP as] far more enthusiastic than Washington’s", the ways in which the EU is "designed to maintain the structure of existing inequalities between European nation-states", how it is set up to purge, rather than assist, refugees, how the EU is "structurally racist" in its exclusion of foreign others, and deeply bonded with Nato.

He also highlights the vital role of the Guardian commentariat, and "the fantasy of 'European values' beloved by the likes of Polly Toynbee, Will Hutton and Martin Kettle (whose support for the EU is matched only by their opposition to Scottish independence)" in making common cause with the main establishment forces. While the Brexit right need to be resisted, he argues, it's this set of Remain class forces that represent, by far, the greatest enemy of progressive change.   

Davidson warns that, rather than accepting the EU's 'lesser evil', succumbing to blackmail for short term 'gain', and pretending that workers' unity and movement politics can only be forged within these constraining conditions, leftists will be better served in the long run carving out their own radical positions and internal struggles. Otherwise, the left will be seen by the very people it claims to serve as having "no positive position of its own or that its position is simply incoherent - as illustrated by the spectacle of usually credible left commentators like Owen Jones and George Monbiot explaining just how completely undemocratic and neoliberal the EU is…only to then call for a vote to Remain."  

All of which information and argument may make it even harder for many on the principled left to come to a decision on how to vote. But, if this EU 'debate' is being led by establishment propaganda, serious left discussion, one hopes, is helping to generate more critical light on the real power relationships and class forces underlying it.

This referendum is not about citizen democracy, or reclaiming national identity. It's about the sovereignty of big capital and the contending interests of political elites. Neither Brussels or Westminster offer anything worth identifying with. Both serve the same basic agenda: the protection of corporate capitalism, and the projection of wider Western power. As an elite turf war rages, we're encouraged to see the whole set of arguments through narrow, media-framed identities and binary labels: Europhile or Europhobe, Eurosceptic or Euro-safe. It's a giant diversion from what's really being fought for: greater class power and deeper social control. However leftists decide to vote, whatever the outcome, all these forces and issues remain to be confronted.

Removal of Herald journalists highlights need for real corporate-free media

The Herald newspaper group has been subject to widespread criticism after its editor-in-chief, Magnus Llewellin, 'lost' one of its most notable journalists and sacked a recently-arrived other.

The removal (or technical resignation) of prominent sports writer Graham Spiers followed a threat of litigation by Rangers Football Club after Spiers had written a Herald column alleging ongoing bigotry at the Glasgow club, and that one of its directors had approved the singing of a notoriously sectarian song.

Angela Haggerty, editor at the online forum CommonSpace, and a recently-appointed columnist at the Sunday Herald, was fired after tweeting a message of support for Spiers:

Solidarity with @GrahamSpiers, again being targeted by the mob for telling some harsh truths http://www.therst.co.uk/news/rst-welcomes-rangers-action-on-graham-spiers/#.VqileJL-MAN.twitter …

Haggerty's subsequent thoughts on the issue were freely published at the Bella Caledonia site.

Attracting wider attention, the Guardian's Roy Greenslade provided further insight on the story, citing defensive comment from Llewellin on the Herald's position.

In short, Llewellin asks us to believe that, facing an 'indefensible' defamation, crippling legal costs and potential job losses, he was in a legal bind and forced to sacrifice the two journalists.

The first question here is why Llewellin didn't have enough faith in the long-experienced Spiers to defend his account of the issue. Greenslade also asks why any defamation costs would have been borne by the Herald's editorial budget rather than Newsquest/Gannett, its corporate owners.

Secondly, why was it then necessary to sack Haggerty, either for expressing support for Spiers, or for insisting that there's continued bigotry at Rangers? Whether true or not, that's Haggerty's view. Why was her particular opinion deemed beyond the pale? Why was her statement and journalistic reading of the affair seen as an 'undermining of Llewellin', a failure "to act within the spirit of [the Herald's] apology" to Rangers?

A letter to the Herald from Common Weal (which hosts CommonSpace) charts the disturbing history of how Haggerty has been pursued by forces around Rangers, condemns her dismissal and warns that it sends out a "chilling message" to other journalists.

In another probing commentary, political writer Gerry Hassan notes how "[m]ore fundamentally it touched upon the legacy of the Herald as one of the traditional bastions of unionist establishment Scotland, and the continued toxic issue of Rangers FC."

Alongside Haggerty's honourable backing of Spiers, and Bella's solid support for Haggerty, due appreciation should also be given to Sunday Herald editor Neil Mackay for his laudable intervention in trying to keep Haggerty at the paper, and for his own tweeted message distancing himself from the decision:

Important: the decision to remove @AngelaHaggerty as Sunday Herald columnist was not taken by me but by the editor-in-chief Magnus Llewellin.

Following former Sunday Herald editor Richard Walker, Mackay has sought to build the paper's pro-independence and 'leftist' profile. Of course, the extent of that 'radicalism' shouldn't be overstated - it still, after all, has militarist-approving Trevor Royle as a senior correspondent. But, with Mackay at the helm, pushing the Yes agenda, the Sunday Herald is viewed with deep disfavour by a range of establishment and Unionist forces.     

In the wake of so much 'succulent lamb journalism', this latest imbroglio reminds us of the cloying relationships, intimidations and pacifications that still shape much of the media environment in Scotland.

The Herald's "cowardice", says CommonSpace writer James McEnaney, has only "emboldened those who would employ intimidatory tactics". One hopes that Llewellin's lamentable bowing to such elements helps illuminate that truth even more.

But there's a more fundamental problem here: corporate control.

As Haggerty states in her Bella article:

And that’s the key thing here, you have to ask who the winner out of this is. In this episode, it’s Rangers Football Club, but on a wider level it exposes the influence of corporate interests in our media. In the current financial landscape, that influence is ever more prominent. Take a look at the alleged influence of HSBC bank on the Telegraph’s editorial content, for example. [Italics added.] 

True. Yet, consider, as a sharper example, given its claim as a 'leading liberal voice', not the Telegraph, but the Guardian's kowtowing to HSBC, its collaboration with Unilever, its pandering to Apple, and much other cloaked subservience to corporate demands (h/t Media Lens).

Wherever the paper, however left-liberal its face, whatever the permitted editorial remit, the imperatives of corporate compliance still prevail: profit-seeking, placation of major advertisers, careful cultivation of high business interests. 

Recently founded, The National, also formerly edited by Richard Walker, stands rather bravely as Scotland's sole daily pro-independence newspaper. But, while a most valued presence amid a hostile Unionist press, who would safely claim that its same Newquest owners have anything other than a primary commercial motive here? With the surge in SNP support after the independence referendum, Newsquest "sensed an earner", a 'sure thing'. Owned, in turn, by US media giant Gannett, it funded The National at minimal cost and with limited commitment. Kept afloat by dedicated staff and readers, it continues as a thankful check on a virulent establishment press. Yet, while free to publish much welcome pro-indy and progressive comment, The National's editors and journalists are no more assured of true ultimate control over the paper's existence and development than any other corporate-owned title.

In an open exchange at The National over the Herald-Haggerty issue, one of its writers, Michael Gray (also writing at CommonSpace) asserts: 

A starting point is to admit that corporate media is in crisis. There isn’t a free press. And there isn’t equality before the law. In the short-term, this is likely to get worse not better. We can’t continue the hypocrisy of claiming we have a free media system to defend. It is a self-serving mythology. Journalism often lacks freedom and the resources to scrutinise those with real power. That those with heavy wallets can force pressure down, so that protecting stories, journalists and media integrity becomes “complicated”, is a disgrace. What will we, as citizens of a new Scotland, do about it? We can support this paper and the many good journalists across the industry. We can support many online alternatives. We can support defamation reform, the rights of journalists and freedom of expression in wider society. [Italics added.]

Responding to Gray, editor Callum Baird accepts the reality that there's no such thing as a free press, pointing out the many constraints on journalists and editors, most notably, as in this case, the need for papers to protect themselves from legal action over stories that can't be defended with real evidence.

This is a laudable exchange of views, and credit is due to Baird for running it. Yet even this kind of open discussion elides the deeper truth that corporate media - including The National - can never act as a truly disinterested platform for challenging and exposing that very same corporate media. Thus, alongside his guarded mitigations on Llewellin's actions, the vital part of Gray's comment asserting that the "corporate media is in crisis" isn't up for further examination by the editor. Core boundaries still have to be observed.

That doesn't mean deserting The National or Sunday Herald, still valued repositories of Yes-progressive politics - indeed, CommonSpace are now working even closer with The National on key stories. But there's a need to understand the inherent limitations of such papers, and the reinforcing impressions of 'unbound media' their presence helps convey.

While defending The National, Gray makes the case for creating more alternative media - with the seeming approval of Sunday Herald environment editor Rob Edwards. While the debate here is still cursory, it's a promising indication of how the new tension between corporate and social media is being appraised. Hopefully this issue and its fallout will encourage more journalists, editors and wider observers to see with clearer eyes not just the industry-defined constraints on 'free journalism' but the major structural controls.
 
So, while the removal of Spiers and Haggerty by the Herald hierarchy takes us again to a particular dark side of Scottish media culture, the bigger context here is still the need for real corporate-free media. That wouldn't change the likelihood of wealthy elites using the courts to threaten writers and purge alternative media platforms. But, as with Haggerty's freedom to relate her full account of this issue at Bella, it suggests a much more liberating space, seriously protective of critical journalists. However, true progression of such alternatives involves not just a more palatable version of liberal corporate media, but conscious resistance to corporate forces at large.  

Making welcome sense of the Scottish 'blog war'

As many observers of the Scottish independence scene will know, a small 'war of words' has broken out on social media between some of its key sites.

Yet, while many will regard this as an unfortunate deterioration of Yes politics, it can be seen, more readily, as a healthy outpouring and illuminating debate.

Readers can get up to speed with the issues and arguments via these pieces:

GA Ponsonby, Newsnet: Battle for the ‘list’ vote: why backing RISE won’t help independence

Stuart Campbell, Wings Over Scotland: AMS for lazy people

Mike Small, Bella Caledonia: Shsh for Indy

James Kelly, Scot Goes Pop: EXCLUSIVE: Read the article on "tactical voting" that Bella Caledonia refused to publish

Mike Small: A reply to James Kelly

James Kelly: Response to Mike Small's Facebook post  

Angela Haggerty, CommonSpace: Why a hectoring online fringe is putting the achievements of the Yes movement at risk

After a short lull, Mike Small has also now restated his case in this Sunday Herald piece: Shouting down those who don't share your narrow vision is about as far from the spirit of the Yes movement as you can get
 
Small laments an apparent shift from the "joyous chaos" of referendum engagement to a now more censorious party politics and stifling containment:  

What seemed best about the Yes movement's openness, diversity and free thinking now seems to be being corralled into a stupefying dead certainty. An air of negativity hangs over much of the remnant movement.

Valid observation. But the fact that we're having this very debate highlights the still considerable capacity within the broad Yes movement for mature self-examination.   

Hard as it is, amid the hubris and rancour on display here, it helps to distil all these issues and exchanges down to three relatively distinct questions.

1. Should Yes movement people be taking a quiet line with regard to SNP policies and positions - should we be prepared to 'Shsh for Indy'?

Surely not. We shouldn't be keeping quiet or acting passively at this vital point. On the contrary, this should be viewed as a most crucial time for open, constructive and challenging discussion, a new flowering of views. The 'let's get to indy first' argument, advanced by GA Ponsonby and others, is neither practical nor desirable in promoting a still-maturing indy project. The beauty and inspiration of the independence movement is still about real civil participation, not quiescent parties and dormant politics.        
 
It's also misguided to think this in any way harms the SNP. The key point of such criticism is to encourage more progressive thinking and leftist policy within the SNP as the leading indy party. That, in every sense, is a work in progress, just as independence is a process, not an ending. It's not just about saying it's better to travel than to arrive. It's about living and learning from the journey itself, in better anticipation of what's to come.

One needn't adopt particular defences of the respective sites in these exchanges. There's merit in all the arguments, giving that same vital food for independent thought. Nor should we indulge the 'oh, let's all just stop this divisive spat and concentrate on indy and the real enemy' line. There's a great big valid discussion to be had here, even if it would be enhanced by a serious curtailing of some ugly invective.

As a blog with distinct positions on these matters, Bella are within their rights to pitch their own perspectives, and even to exclude that which conflicts with those core views. Bella editor Mike Small had no obligation, in this regard, to publish James Kelly's response piece. However, Bella can't, at the same time, claim to be some completely open forum. For all his efforts in mediating the Bella case for hosting diverse voices, Mike Small erred in his editorial handling of the proposed Kelly piece for Bella. Either say up-front that you won't publish such material in honest protection of your own space, or publish it without qualification (allowing for reasonable presentation) as part of an agreed format for dialogue. Again, though, this should be treated as part of the same generous learning curve rather than the subject of rival recrimination.

Likewise, while GA Ponsonby and Wings Over Scotland have a similar right to protect their own blogs from questioning commentary, they've chosen to attack Bella and Rise in an over-barbed manner. The impressive James Kelly blog has also resorted to some caustic denunciations of Bella and Rise in the course of his otherwise laudable argument over the problems of tactical voting.

It's a lamentable irony that the very social media we hope to see as a growing and serious alternative to ego-driven corporate media should be acting in such hostile and territorial ways. While the actual debate around all these issues has been energising, any endeavour towards a true alternative media comes with the need for more humble acceptance of one's own 'status' and positioning.

2. Is it desirable to have other left/green indy-promoting parties sharing the Holyrood parliamentary space?

Yes. So long as there's a working SNP majority to spearhead and advance the indy project, there should be nothing to fear from the participation of other left, indy-supporting voices. They/we are a core part of the movement, and were vital in helping to build the '45'. In this regard, Bella are making a legitimate case in promoting Rise as part of that same dynamic politics. Whatever people think about the standing and viability of such parties - Rise, Greens or Solidarity - there's no persuasive evidence that the presence of any other progressive-minded, indy-supporting MSPs would be detrimental to the SNP, the Yes cause or political atmosphere at large. For left-thinking SNP supporters, it should be a welcome enhancement of their own political agenda.

3. On the coming Holyrood election, is voting SNP (constituency) and left/Green (list) a rational tactic or an irrational gamble?

This is by far the hardest question to address. The above two answers favouring fair criticism/encouragement of the SNP, and the case for other left/Green representation, should lead naturally to support for a 'split' vote.  However, both James Kelly and Stuart Campbell have made impressive cases showing that there is, indeed, a substantial element of risk under d'Hondt, or the Additional Member System (AMS) for Scottish elections.

Various exchanges between Kelly and Rise have ensued, with Rise's Craig Paterson outlining the party's case via Bella. Taking-up Stuart Campbell's repeated warnings on the gamble of a 'tactical' vote, further useful debate can be viewed here. Angela Haggerty and James Kelly also engage the issues in good constructive manner in this Bateman Broadcasting podcast.

All that can be said with reasonable certainty is that there is no certain formulation to adopt here.  So, on this particular question, voters will have to think very carefully about their options.

Paul Kavanagh, aka Wee Ginger Dug, resolves his dilemma, to a certain extent, by returning to the case for voting according to conscience and localised factors. I'm broadly with that view. But, in the final analysis, people will have to weigh a number of speculative issues relating to the strength and worthiness of candidates, together with their assessment of how well the SNP are likely to fare at given constituency levels, whether they think this might deliver or threaten a safe enough SNP majority, and whether such numbers call for 'safety first' or offer room for an alternative choice on the list. Hopefully, closer statistical projections will become available as the election approaches, helping to shed further light on how best to proceed. Good luck to voters with all of those deliberations.

But, whatever the difficulties, none of this should be seen as an unwelcome task. Unlike the archaic Westminster system and blatantly undemocratic FPTP, we, at least, have scope here for a more imaginative use of the franchise. Like the need to embrace reasoned criticism and common left-indy participation, any 'calculation' here, however flawed, should be regarded as an educational experience.

Media Lens expose Kuennsberg, Daily Politics and more deep BBC bias

"Nobody with a questioning mind seriously expects impartiality from BBC News."

That may seem an outlandish assertion to many who still cling to the BBC's self-proclaimed values of 'impartiality' and 'objectivity'. But this opening line from the latest Media Lens Alert - ‘Our Only Fear Was That He Might Pull His Punches’ – BBC Caught Manipulating The News - relates a fundamental truth about the now blatant bias of British state media. 

Media Lens detail how the BBC's chief political editor Laura Kuenssberg, along with producers and other presenters at the Daily Politics show, sought to stage-manage the resignation of a front-bench Labour MP as part of a sustained effort to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and his new left politics. 

It also assesses why an unusually frank BBC blog piece detailing these orchestrations at the Daily Politics was swiftly deleted by BBC managers, and subsequently declared fit only for "internal" purpose. 

Please read and share this timely indictment from Media Lens.      

For a little more evidence of the BBC's particular capacity for institutional denial and lofty dismissal of a questioning public, here's my own complaint, and the BBC's response:

(8 January 2016) 

I wish to complain about the biased conduct of presenters and producers at the Daily Politics in contriving to have Labour MP Stephen Doughty resign on their show over the Corbyn cabinet reshuffle. In particular, I would like the conduct of presenters Andrew Neil and Laura Kuenssberg and producer Andrew Alexander to be investigated. Is it the job of the Daily Politics and BBC to influence the news rather than report the news? Please see the following:

https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/bbc-producer-deletes-blog-where-he-admits-political-manipulation-before-pm-questions/
 
This is a clear breach of BBC guidelines on impartiality. It's also part of a more consistent bias in reports and presentations by Laura Kuenssberg and Andrew Neil against Corbyn.
 
Also, I would like a specific answer as to why producer Andrew Alexander's BBC blog article relating details of this affair was removed.
 
Regards
John Hilley

The BBC's template reply:

(13 January 2016) 

Dear Mr  Hilley  

Thank you for contacting us about the resignation of Stephen Doughty MP from the front bench of the Labour Party on BBC Two’s ‘Daily Politics’, and a subsequent blog written about the matter on the BBC Academy website.

As you may be aware, the BBC’s editor of Live Political Programmes, Robbie Gibb, has responded to the Labour Party about this matter. We believe Mr Gibb’s response below addresses the number of issues being raised. That said, we have received a wide range of feedback about this subject and are sorry in advance if this reply doesn’t address your specific concerns. Robbie Gibb’s email response to Seumas Milne, Director of Strategy and Communications at the Labour Party, was as follows:

“Dear Mr Milne

Many thanks for your email of the 8th January following the Daily Politics on the 6th January.

I would like to reassure you that we are committed to producing impartial journalism and programme content that treats all political parties fairly. I would like to respond to the specific concerns raised in your email.

Firstly, I reject your suggestion that we orchestrated and stage-managed the resignation of Stephen Doughty. As he himself confirmed on Friday, Mr Doughty had decided to resign his front-bench position on Wednesday morning, before speaking to any journalists. He subsequently spoke to Laura Kuenssberg who asked if he would explain his reasons in an interview on the Daily Politics later that morning. Neither the programme production team, nor Laura, played any part in his decision to resign.

As you know it is a long standing tradition that political programmes on the BBC, along with all other news outlets, seek to break stories. It is true that we seek to make maximum impact with our journalism which is entirely consistent with the BBC's Editorial Guidelines and values.

Your letter suggests that our decision to interview Mr Doughty in the run up to Prime Minister's Questions was designed to "promote a particular political narrative". This is simply not the case. The Daily Politics does not come on air until 11:30am on Wednesdays and the BBC's Political Editor always appears live on the programme in the build up to the start of PMQs. As the confirmation of Mr Doughty’s resignation was Laura Kuenssberg's story, we felt it appropriate for her to introduce the item. Again I do not accept, in anyway, the programme has breached its duty of impartiality and independence.

The programme this week provided a balanced account of the shadow cabinet reshuffle. Lisa Nandy was interviewed at length on Wednesday while Cat Smith discussed the issue in detail the day before.

You also made reference in your email to the deleted blog. It might be helpful for me to explain the background to this. Following the media reaction to Mr Doughty's resignation and appearance on the programme the BBC's training department, the BBC Academy, contacted me asking for an article explaining what goes on behind the scenes when a politician resigns live on air. I had assumed (wrongly) that the article was for internal purposes only. When it became apparent that it had been published more widely, we decided to delete it as the piece was written in a tone that was only suitable for an internal audience. No other inference should be drawn from our decision to delete the blog.

I would just like to finish by underlining our commitment to ensuring our coverage of the Labour Party is fair, accurate and impartial.

I hope we can look forward to working constructively together over the coming months.”

We hope this addresses your concerns, thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards
BBC Complaints www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

Here, again, we see the BBC in classic damage limitation mode. And, as the Media Lens take-down shows, the Daily Politics manipulations are only part of the BBC's continuing efforts to smear and damage Corbyn - all in the face of mounting approval of his policies and positions among party members.

Of the deleted blog, the BBC say:

When it became apparent that it had been published more widely, we decided to delete it as the piece was written in a tone that was only suitable for an internal audience. No other inference should be drawn from our decision to delete the blog.

'Internal audience' and 'suitable tone'. Doesn't that say it all about the BBC's coveted club, its self-selecting language, and the kind of information it considers appropriate for the 'know your limitations' rest of us?

As intimated in the first line of the Media Lens article, it's likely that increasing numbers of questioning readers will be drawing more specific inferences here: of patronising dismissal and feeble mitigation, of a hasty, embarrassed cover-up, and another damningly exposed claim of BBC impartiality.

American gun law and the real Wild West

Imagine walking down your street or into your local bar and seeing shoppers, neighbours and random others carrying real live guns in side holsters. The stuff of fanciful Hollywood Westerns? Not if you live in Texas, where, for the first time since 1871, the open wearing of holstered pistols will now be permitted.

The ruling comes as Obama ponders unilateral measures to bring about "common sense gun laws". Reportedly frustrated by his inability to deal with routine mass shootings, Obama:

said he would seek to use his executive powers as president because the US Congress had failed to address the problem. Analysts say there will be a backlash from gun activists and Republicans. But Mr Obama told Americans that he had received too many letters from parents, and teachers, and children, to sit around and do nothing. "We know that we can't stop every act of violence," the president said. "But what if we tried to stop even one? What if Congress did something - anything - to protect our kids from gun violence?"

Images come to mind here of Obama as the impossibly-tasked black Sheriff Bart trying to bring law and order in the comedy Western Blazing Saddles. Incredibly, though, this is America 2016, and its latest 'serious' efforts at gun law, not 1874 and the rollicking fiction of Rock Ridge.


This is a country where the National Rifle Association  - "Freedom's safest place" - and Republican-backed gun lobby still effectively define the law at political gunpoint.

As the NRA load up for another 'right to bear arms' brawl with Obama, it all evokes romanticised notions of saloon bar duels, blazing guns and lawless frontier life.

Yet, as historical research shows, this is "a widely shared misunderstanding of the Wild West":

Frontier towns - places like Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge - actually had the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. In fact, many of those same cities have far less burdensome gun control today then they did back in the 1800s. [...] A visitor arriving in Wichita, Kansas in 1873, the heart of the Wild West era, would have seen signs declaring, "Leave Your Revolvers At Police Headquarters, and Get a Check." [...] When Dodge City residents organized their municipal government, do you know what the very first law they passed was? A gun control law. They declared that "any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law." Many frontier towns, including Tombstone, Arizona - the site of the infamous "Shootout at the OK Corral" - also barred the carrying of guns openly.

Today in Tombstone, you don't even need a permit to carry around a firearm. Gun rights advocates are pushing lawmakers in state after state to do away with nearly all limits on the ability of people to have guns in public.

In response, much of the liberal media are hyping Obama's 'executive intervention' as a 'High Noon' moment. Yet his 'last stance at the Congressional corral' looks more like a fairground shot at improving background checks on gun ownership:

A source familiar with the administration’s efforts said Obama is expected to take executive action next week that would set a “reasonable threshold” for when sellers have to seek a background check [...] Going into his final year in office, Obama said his New Year’s resolution is to move forward on unfinished business.

While a service media report all this as Obama's 'great showdown', and attempt at a 'last hero legacy', there's no discussion of what might constitute any “reasonable threshold” regarding America's own suitability to wield arms, both at home and around the world. There's few serious "background checks" here on what Obama and prior administrations have done in the name of protecting their own or any other townspeople.

As ever, like those matinee Westerns, the propaganda posters keep us straight on the good guys and the bad guys, who gets to do the shooting, who gets to be taken, dead or alive.

While US authorities and media were in a rush to display the recent killings in San Bernardino as another jihadist terror attack, the actions of right wing "sovereign citizens", like the organised militia attack in Oregon, are treated as some wayward resistance to federal government. Rather than terrorist subversion, this was reported as 'gun-bearing invocation of the constitution'. As Bonnie Greer tweeted:

Can we please get 1 Muslim to join the right-wing terrorist militia in Oregon so our media can cover it?

But the problems of citizen guns and enforcement links much deeper into America's culture of violence. The causal connection between guns on US streets and higher US homicide rates, as set against other countries, has been ably mapped. Yet this is rarely viewed in relation to the extensive list of global US militarism, invasion and violence.

While Obama gets to be cast as the exasperated marshal trying to clean up the town, domestic gun culture is a reflection of America's wider self-proclaimed right to wield arms. Founded on Wild West violence against its indigenous people, the US acts as Top Gun and leading sharpshooter in spreading the West's own wild violence around the globe. And, as we see in Syria, Britain and France stand dutifully alongside as deputy marshals, a righteous Western posse enforcing their own violent law and disorder on Muslim lands. 

Where do we find 'mainstream' reporting or political discussion of US domestic gun violence framed as an issue of American exceptionalism, the state's 'exclusive right' to violence at home and abroad?

Obama has spoken in the past of the need for restrained violence in foreign policy:

"our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.  Instead [...] our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."

Yet, America's dark record of mass murder has continued with Obama's own unrestrained killing of foreign others. While he promises to curb gun violence on the streets of US cities, he presides over a drone policy which has seen around 2500 people (January 2015) cut down in streets and villages across the Middle East:

And the covert Obama strikes, the first of which hit Pakistan just three days after his inauguration, have killed almost six times more people and twice as many civilians than those ordered in the Bush years, the data shows.

Though there's nominal reporting of this 'controversial policy', the deep extent of Obama's assassination program has been poorly disseminated to the public. Now, a new whistleblowing source has provided vital insights to The Intercept as part of its Drone Papers series:

The source said he decided to provide these documents to The Intercept because he believes the public has a right to understand the process by which people are placed on kill lists and ultimately assassinated on orders from the highest echelons of the U.S. government. “This outrageous explosion of watchlisting — of monitoring people and racking and stacking them on lists, assigning them numbers, assigning them ‘baseball cards,’ assigning them death sentences without notice, on a worldwide battlefield — it was, from the very first instance, wrong,” the source said.

While Obama weeps for the families of domestic gun victims, the families of those slaughtered by US ordnance in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and other places of American "restraint" have received no such empathy. To the American public, it's all presented as 'proactive security' in preventing 'terrorist Deadwood'. For foreign others, it's Tombstone exported.

As holstered and bolstered Texans walk the' tumbleweed' streets of 1871 again, imagine if the media were to talk about Obama's 'executive interventions' and his call for "common sense gun laws" in these more searching and damning terms.