Solidarity with Scotland: Vote No since We are all Better Together

This beautiful illustration by the 19th Century socialist artist, Walter Crane, is about international Labour solidarity (not the UK Labour Party). However it symbolises to me why I believe that it will be a defeat for working people and wider progressive politics, if Scotland votes for separation. Nationalism is incompatible with such solidarity in my view. No matter how well intentioned

To be clear, this will not be the end of the world for Scotland or the rest of the UK if there is a Yes Vote today. While I would be personally heart broken if it happens, I will get over it and life will move on. Despite the myths, the Labour Party can win general elections without the Scottish vote (only twice in 100 years have they been needed). Neither will Scotland become immediately bankrupt nor descend into some rabid extreme nationalist state. This will not happen.

Yet these are some of my fears: -

I do think that the biggest beneficiaries of separation will be big business who will use our internal divisions for a race to the bottom and further drive down fair taxation, decent wages and employment rights.

I don't actually believe that any country can really be independent if it has no meaningful control or influence over its currency.

Jobs in the Scottish financial services industry will be hard hit. Tonight by co-incidence I was at a London Pension committee and three of our fund managers/advisers had flown in from Scotland to give presentations. I wonder how many we will see if there is independence and relocation to England?

I suspect that if there was independence, that the SNP will fall apart since they are a messy coalition who would have achieved their raison d'etre.  The Scottish Tories could then gradually reclaim their political dominance in Scotland. Read your history books. It is no coincidence in my view that the Tories use to have majority support in Scotland before the rise of the SNP.

As someone who has lived in Scotland and experienced middle class "Morningside Edinburgh", I don't think that the Scottish Establishment will be that much better than London if they have full powers.

You are not going to do very much about getting rid of nuclear weapons either if they (and I have my doubts this would happen in practice) are simply relocated to Northern England or Wales.

Being Scots/Welsh I am deeply worried that the genie of English nationalism will be let loose and 54 million English will dominate the 5.3 million in Scotland and the 3.1 million in Wales without the checks and balances of an union.

Finally, I think this quote is important even though he has decided not to participate in this referendum. "I grew up in the shipyards and docks and have always remembered that I have much more in common with a welder from Liverpool than I do with an agricultural guy from the highlands.... I have never been a nationalist" Billy Connolly.  Nuff said?

The Great Nuclear Debate

This should be interesting (double click picture to bring up details).

11/01/2010

Chair of the CND Dr. Kate Hudson will be debating against a professional from the Nuclear Industry Association on the pros and cons for nuclear power.

Joining Kate Hudson will be Chris Baugh, assistant general secretary for the PCS union and active in the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group.

Alongside the Nuclear Industry Association expert will be the GMB union convenor from Selafield - the worlds first commercial nuclear power station.

How do trade unionists and green campaigners work together to agree on policy for nuclear power? Where is there common ground? When issues become contentious how do we move forward?

The Vestas dispute solidified the issue of climate change as a trade union issue, but how do we now move forward when faced with issues surrounding clean coal or nuclear power.

This debate hopes to raise these issues and work out strategy for moving forward.

Check out Battersea and Wandsworth TUC site.

Letters of the very Last Resort

On the way home from work tonight I listened to “The Human Button” on Radio 4. It was a fascinating programme.

It was not necessarily a report into the pros or cons of the British Nuclear deterrent but a short history of those who job was (and still is) to carry out nuclear Armageddon if ordered and the politicians who would have had to make the final decision.

One of the first tasks that Gordon Brown would have carried out when he became Prime Minister would have been to have written in long hand letters to the commanders of the 4 British nuclear armed submarines.

In these letters (called "last resort")he would have ordered them what to do if he was dead and the country had been destroyed by an enemy nuclear strike. These letters are secret and destroyed when a new Prime Minister is appointed.

The programme carried interviews the only two British politicians who have indicated how they would have responded. Denis Healey made it clear that he would have not had ordered nuclear retaliation since deterrence had obviously failed and the deaths of 20 million Russians would have changed nothing. While Jim Callaghan indicated he would have probably done it but never forgive himself for doing so.

You might have thought that the famously aggressively minded Healey would have been the one to support retribution rather than “Sunny Jim”. Maybe we also ought to be cautious about politician's memoirs? But I suspect that with Denis it was always bluster and that he would not have done it. Jim would have because he would have thought it was his duty to have done so? Who really knows? I do wonder what Gordon Brown has written?

The modern day Royal Navy Commander of HMS Vanguard the Trident armed submarine on patrol in the North Sea as we blog made it perfectly clear that he would follow orders and launch an immediate strike if properly ordered to do so.

Here is also a visual slide show with excerpts from the programme. The programme is repeated on Sunday and available on the “listen again” facility for the next 7 days.

Tackling Climate Change

The second guest speaker at GC was the Labour MP for Llanelli, Nia Griffiths, on the very topical subject of “Energy policy”. Nia is the PPS to Phil Woolas, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Nia pointed out the huge challenge that the government has to face. It has agreed to reduce present day emissions by 60% in 2050 when at the same time it is estimated that unless something is done there will be a 130% rise in C02 by 2050.

Internationally, despite being a very dirty fuel “Coal is still King” and is likely to be so for the next 20-25 years. So there will have to more work on Carbon, Capture and Storage (CCS). This is where the carbon waste from burning fossil fuels is stopped from being released into the environment and stored. The new Energy bill is split into four main parts – CCS, Nuclear waste, Renewable Obligations Certificates (ROC) which will see a shift of emphasis away from wind to other renewables and finally Gas infrastructure.

Nia said that the emotive subject of Bio-fuels is complicated. There is good and bad issues. It is the sustainability of sources that is key. Using waste wood that would otherwise be dumped to burn alongside coal in power stations is one thing. While displacing food crops is wrong and a serious moral issue.

She also pointed out that the public subsidies (up to 50%) for solar panels and wind turbines are being exploited by the “better off”. Those who suffer most from fuel poverty have little or no chance of putting up solar panels on their roof.

Since the collapse of high energy prices in the early 1980’s there had been a lack of interest in alternative energy, which has only now ended with the new hikes in prices. There has been decades of research to make up for as well as the massive underinvestment in power stations by the privatised utilities.

At the end, there was a question about Nuclear energy. Nia said that the decision has to be taken by the electric companies whether or not to bid to build nuclear power stations. The government had made it clear that for the first time these bids would have to include the cost of dealing with waste and dismantling the stations at the end of their working lives. They may well decide not to bid. In Sweden, where they are embarking on a nuclear programme, the new power station they are building has run into serious problems with delays and cost overruns.

After Nia, we even had a Parliamentary report from our local MP, Lyn Brown.