How many of you remember the poll tax? It was what eventually brought down Thatcher. The resistance to it began in Scotland, where it also revived national sentiment and greatly increased support for a Scottish parliament. This time around, in Scotland the conservatives have stepped into a shitstorm because of something called the "rape clause", where rape victims have to fill out 8 pages of paperwork in order to prove that they were actually raped and confirm that they're no longer with the rapist in order to claim benefits. I'm hoping that this also galvanises support for independence in Scotland. So far both the SNP and Scottish Labour have jumped on the anti-tory bandwagon but how can we make this a truly non-hijacked movement while also helping independence?
Bringing down the Tories isn't impossible
SNP shills get out.
First of all, the Tories are hardly being 'resisted' in Scotland given they're quite quickly becoming very popular (recent polling has them on 30% percent in Scotland).
Second of all, even if you were to achieve 'independence' (not that you'd actually be independent of British capital mind you), the split in the SNP (between those who back Independence as a way to reduce taxation and compete with England in terms of regulation, wages, etc. and those that want a basically early 2000s Third Way Social Democracy) means that with those 30% of the population, they'd easily become the largest post-independence political grouping.
Congratulations, you've just given the Tories total control over your new country and can kick back waving your saltire as they demolish what's left of the post-war welfare state even more completely than in the south.
Nationalism, not even once.
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fuck the SNP, they're a bunch of liberal hacks but clearly the difference in how the media treats them/indepdence versus how it treats brexit/ukip shows that they're still a much greater threat to the status quo than brexiters. "tartan toryism" as a meme has gotten very old, and it seems that the Labour party's complete obliteration north of the border hasn't taught them anything.
The Scottish tories aren't gaining any meaningful ground, most polls show them still just hovering around 25%, and that's also mostly the product of Labour implosion and unionist voters consolidating, than any kind of right wing shift.
In any case, the correct left wing action isn't to keep a somewhat vaguely progressive Scotland shackled to an openly reactionary England and hope for a day when glorious comrade Corbyn kicks middle england out of it's bourgeois slumber. The correct thing to do is to successfully win independence, trigger a crisis in the Tory party, disturb capital and bring down one of the world's foremost imperial states in the process.
Britain is currently in full reaction mode over feminism etc. the tory views about the poor are now common and it's still a racist shithole. No matter what you do reactionaries are going to react so just fucking organize all those "revolutionary" pussies and blow the tories and capitalists the fuck up already.
If Brexit didn't cause a crisis in the Torys, then I'm going to guess that the sweaties going their own way won't as well.
Holla Forums is so shit these days
The Poll Tax resistance only began in Scotland because the Poll Tax began in Scotland.
SNPshills need to learn their history.
Then stop bitching and contribute
Kill yourself for commenting on things you know nothing about.
The entirety of their popularity is down to unionism and the collapse of the Labour party. Post-Independence they've got nothing.
I'm pretty sure Scotland being used as a testing ground for retarded Tory policies is half of every SNP campaign leaflet.
PFI was also introduced in Scotland first (Skye Bridge.)
Everyone in bitching about the SNP in this thread should kindly fuck off.
Alba gu bràth!
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This "Scots are leftist" meme needs to stop
They're no different to the rest of the UK. The SNP is an opportunist petty bourgeois party.
What did he mean by this?
(None of the parties in the UK accurately reflect the views of their voters, but Scots themselves are to the left of the UK consensus, not surprising given their political culture is built around protecting the decaying ruins of postwar social democracy - because the middle class and "establishment" in Scotland had far greater investment in it proportionally.)
Aren't the SNP just Nordic Model SocDems?
WTF i hate Scotland now
But seriously that seems like bit of an an anomaly compared to everything else, what gives?
there were some instances of kids in the uk getting bullied into an heroing, maybe one coincided with the timing of the survey? could be anything really.
It's based on a false narrative of English oppression.
Scotland is a liberal shithole
You're not very bright, are you?
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As opposed to the UK, which is… a liberal shit-hole.
The EU is farcical, but the only reason the UK is so strongly anti-EU is decades of press-shilling (and Tory virtue signalling) that failed to make it north of the border (Where the Tories had to moderate themselves, New Labour were unabashed europhiles, and the SNP found political utility in using it as an alternate power to which it could appeal if Westminster tried to repress them.)
If you go into bourgeois politics without a nuanced reading of situations, you're going to have a very bad time.
Pretty much - Thatcher considered it a perfect 'testing ground' because she believed Scotland to be an overly dependent area of Britain then emphasised the 'problems' of the welfare state.
Fuck off with your "muh liberals" shit. Capitalism is shit, but that doesn't mean that there are all forms of capitalism are at the same level of shit. At the end of the day, I would still prefer socdems over conservatives. (You can see what the Tories are doing in the rest of Britain. What the SNP has in mind for Scotland is obviously better, even if it is not socialism.)
This is real-life politics, not your little masturbation fantasy. Until the revolution we have to take what we get. For the majority of Scotland's workers, it DOES make a difference if they are ruled by the Tories or the SNP. Yes, both are capitalist, but even in capitalism there is nuance. Stop being such an autistic faggot.
The same goes for you, retard. Yes, the EU is neoliberal crap, but being a capitalist country within the EU is better than being a capitalist country outside the EU. (And these two are the only options we realistically got right now.) Thinking that leaving the EU will somehow push a country closer towards socialism is completely delusional. At best a Brexit will just maintain the economic status quo, at worst it will lead to even more neoliberal policies. There is no point in supporting Brexit as a socialist.
*Capitalism is shit, but that doesn't mean that all forms of capitalism are at the same level of shit.
This I would generally contest. (The more integrated EU member states are quite fucked by it, i.e. the Euro states.)
That said for Scotland's individual circumstances, retaining membership (properly, or via technically being outside but staying in the single market etc) is certainly preferable. (Mostly because it's the only viable route to independence at this time.)
As long as Scotland continues to pursue left wing governments after independence, I fully support it.
The problem is not the perceived rise of the conservatives in Scotland, but rather how many in favor of independence are now dyed in the wool SNP supporters.
The only hope for Scotland is Patrick Harvie.
Try again sweetie.
Woah there, time traveller. Is it fun living in 1970?
That means less than nothing. Scottish Labour have been knowing nothing about Scottish politics since Dewar died, 17 years ago. Indeed, if anything they've been forgetting things they used to know.
please don't do this to me user
please. ;-;
Would you support a "progressive alliance"?
Theoretically.
In practice it'll never happen. (As we saw with Labour spurning one in 2010 instead of throwing everything they had at a coalition-for-PR. The same could be expected to happen to Corbyn since most of the party are traitors.)
There would be no "progressive alliance", it would be a confidence-supply minority government arrangement. But that race was run in 2015, it doesn't really matter any more, the conservatives will secure a meaty majority for at least a decade. Independence ahoy.