Pro-independence left has fatal flaws

First, they see the state in essentially territorial terms.

These days much of what we can call the British state is mediated by the EU. But RIC supporters fail to see the EU at the core of capital's attack on working people, and to understand that practically all of what they want for an independent Scotland would only be possible outside the EU.

Second, they fail to present a sober assessment of class forces - ie that the left of Scottish Labour is very weak, and those forces to its left are off the electoral radar.

Their "independence" in the EU would inevitably mean a pro-EU and pro-austerity Scottish government, which would have no traction on the 82 per cent of corporate capital in Scotland owned outside Scotland other than luring it here by reduced corporation tax.

Third, RIC is just another face of reformism. Reformists believe in the working class getting what it wants through an accommodation with capital, with no need for a head-on conflict between the capitalist state and a fully class conscious labour movement.

RIC supporters, finding a labour movement with its current level of class consciousness, think they can move the goalposts, change the rule book, and simply shimmy round the capitalist state to reach the goal, with class consciousness waiting for them once the goal is scored.

The whole thing is a non-existent shortcut to revolution.

Richard Shillcock

Edinburgh