Editorial
Scrap tuition fees and PFI
As expected the elections to the Scottish Parliament left no party with an overall majority. The failure of Labour to win a majority in Wales was more surprising, showing the extent of the backlash against the failure of the Labour government to deliver any improvements to depressed Wales and the resentment at the virtual imposition of Alun Michael on the Welsh Labour Party and voters.
After the results were declared, the horse-trading was in the open. Michael set his mind against any coalition in Wales - this may be because the Assembly, unlike the Scottish Parliament, cannot pass legislation rather than for principled reasons.
Negotiations between Donald Dewar and the Scottish Liberal Democrats began well before polling day. It looked briefly as if they might flounder on the Liberal Democrats opposition to student tuition fees. However, for the sake of having a couple of ministers the Liberals have caved in and accepted an independent review which will be binding on the coalition.
The irony of this is this that if the Liberal Democrats were really concerned to scrap tuition fees, they could have ensured they were voted down in the Parliament, given that all the parties except Labour committed themselves to abolishing them. Such is the price of principle.
Socialists are opposed in principle to workers’ parties forming coalitions with bourgeois parties. While the Labour Party remains based on the unions it is still a workers’ party, even with its current rotten policies and despite Blair’s wishes.
The fact that elements of the Liberal Democrats election manifesto were to the left of Labour’s does not alter the fact that it is a bourgeois party, and while Labour is liable to pressure from the unions and the working class, the Liberals are not.
Some on the left, including in the Labour Party, looked to a Lib-Lab coalition in the hope that it would carry out policies to the left of Blair.
The Liberal Democrats collapse over tuition fees shows this is not to be, that a more direct fight is necessary, linking up with those campaigning in the labour movement, colleges and on the streets for policies in the interests of the working class.
The fight against coalitionism has to be linked to a fight for socialist policies which could enthuse the Scottish working class and win an absolute majority if the other parties brought down a minority administration.
Within the Scottish Labour Party and even among Labour Members of the Scottish Parliament, there is significant opposition to the policies of Blairism, whether tuition fees or the Private Finance Initiative.
The massive vote for Dennis Canavan, expelled by the Labour Party for standing as an independent after he was declared not up to being a Party candidate, showed that significant sections of the electorate agree with the left, and certainly saw him as a perfectly good candidate to represent them in the new parliament.
Tommy Sheridan of the Scottish Socialist Party was also elected as an explicitly socialist candidate. The demand has already been raised within the Labour Party for Dennis Canavan to have his membership restored.
This must be supported, but activists should go beyond this to call on Labour to break the coalition with the Liberals and form a minority administration on radical policies.
Tommy Sheridan and other activists outside the Labour Party should add their weight to this call, with Sheridan spelling out the policies a Labour administration would need to carry out to win his support.
Such calls will also strengthen the hand of the Scottish Socialist Party in the lead up to June’s European elections, where they should be supported by all socialists.