2014: Registering Defeat

I am writing this week’s newsletter from the STUC conference. There are huge, and it has to be said excellently designed, banners hanging from the stage rigging. These are to celebrate 125 years of the Scottish Trade Union Congress. The slogan reads '“proud of our past, organising for the future.”

I thought about that for a moment. The two ideas appear to flow. “Our past” reflects on a tradition which in itself feels like a necessary preamble to the struggles to come. Learning from history, and maintaining long-held principles, is vital if victories are to be won in the future.

Of course, tradition and routine can also bring about conservative impulses too. We have always done it this way, and we still exist. Why should we change? The reason we use the word “struggle” is because it is just that. Yes, the history of the trade union movement includes victories, but it is also scarred by defeat too.

Much has been written about the nature of those defeats and the long-term impact on working class organisation. In a sense, the defeat of the miners’ strike is like a star. It is dying, but the light still shines impacting the space around it. The major defeats inflicted upon the workers movement are not localised ones either, but have been part of an international process.

In this sense it is interesting, and sometimes revealing, to think about how defeat is interpreted and understood. I think this has a huge bearing on how organisations and movements develop. Defeats should raise questions. How did we lose? How did our opponents win? What were our weaknesses? How do we move forward?

If a defeat is epoch defining, like the victory of Thatcher over the miners was, easy answers to any of these questions don’t exist. With that in mind, perhaps it is better to simply memorialise the struggle itself into some form of stoic remembrance. The defeat then remains a distinctive part of the culture, but with a resonance that in time might establish the foundations for new forms of resistance.

Movements with a long history carry all of these kinds of dynamics. As we move through generations, the memories of struggle change too, and with them the degree to which they hold the capacity to inspire, or educate. Young workers joining the trade union movement today, for example, may come to learn about the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in. This “memory of the class” might remind the movement of the possibilities of union organisation and solidarity.

But that is not enough, for an obvious reason. The world has changed substantially since then. Today, highly organised and militant actions do not exist in the same way. The nature of work has changed. New forms of organisation are emerging around workers with zero-hours contracts, or as part of the “gig economy.” for example. The terrain of the struggle has changed and the general political atmosphere doesn’t remain at a constant.

These are a few of the variables around which organisation and strategy develop. What forces are available? Is there the confidence to fight? Is there the means to resist? What are the weak points of the establishment? These questions can never be reduced to abstraction. Experiments in organising will be required. Mistakes will be made. New debates will emerge too. This, emphatically, isn’t an academic exercise. The workers who have recently managed, against the odds, to unionise Amazon in New York might provide a recent example.

But the starting point for taking action is absolutely critical. Get that wrong, and the organisational efforts that follow are in vain.

The independence movement must register defeat

Part of the inspiration behind Independence Captured was to have a thorough, detailed and honest clearing of the decks. For too long we have been living off the fumes of 2014, without real clarity about the actuality of the situation as it stands today.

As I say, where you start is important. Today, I think what’s left of the independence movement is largely starting from the wrong place because, among other reasons, it has failed to accept that the last referendum was a defeat with long-term consequences for the independence cause. This is not about breeding a council of despair. Instead it is about being able to get to a place where definitive and positive steps can be taken to move forward. It should be a liberating practice.

The hegemonic position of the SNP after 2014 fuelled the notion that the referendum loss was simply a pause, or a stepping stone, on the way to independence. The SNP leadership never really looked at it in this way. Their priority was to focus on sustaining electoral dominance, and to dislocate themselves from being accountable to the independence movement writ large. Brexit also added extra mileage to the idea of an imminent Scottish rupture with the Union.

Perhaps this potential did exist, but the moment passed. In truth, it is now far more difficult for Scotland to re-join the EU, despite how reliant the mainstream argument for independence has become on Europe. You need an independently controlled central bank, and to come to terms with a hard border with England. Again, I’ve written about this in more detail, but the point here is to say that such events have prolonged the suspended animation of the independence movement.

Critical thinking about the reality of things is slowly entering into the discussion, but lots of this had been previously written off as a form of treachery or disloyalty. That kind of response has only stunted the development of the movement. We are in a strange phase now. The First Minister keeps claiming there will be a referendum next year. Yet only the most loyal actually believe this to be a statement of fact. I have written an extensive piece on the unlikelihood of this scenario, and recent events only underline this hypothesis.

We may be getting, slowly, to a point where instead of attempting to re-create 2014 (with the same slogans, the same organisations and the same strategy) reality might finally hit. Frankly, the phrase “getting the band back together” should be discarded. It’s not fit for purpose. To be even more provocative, I would consider dropping reference to the “Yes” movement as the basis for public intervention. “Yes” today is quite a diffuse term unless you have some fairly direct experience of 2014. It is doubly problematic since we don’t know for sure what the question might be in a distant referendum.

Maybe you disagree. But the general thrust here is this: attempts to re-enact the movement of the last referendum, despite the obvious and drastic material changes in the political environment, don’t advance the situation today.

Social movements: decline and revival

This is not a phenomenon that only the independence movement suffers from. All movements which experience defeat go through various attempts to manage the situation. I’ve been on countless May Day marches, for example, that have performed a ritualistic function, but at the same time have been devoid of any meaningful political impact.

The once insurgent character of a movement can very easily devolve into a self-referential and inward looking community if it suffers defeat. A community which over time becomes a support group, instead of a dynamic and interventionist force that alters the society in which it operates.

In one sense these, ultimately conservative, instincts are understandable. Lot’s of us put a huge amount of work into the last referendum. Many felt political agency for the first time in their lives. It can be difficult to let go of. But this is a real weakness and a waste of precious time and resources. I think it is also an abdication of leadership. Yes, learn from the past. But don’t live in it.

Instead of conducting a serious appraisal of the balance of forces and the evidently new dilemmas we must face, some rely on a kind of political faith. There is a plan somewhere. If we just keep believing, it will happen. But belief is not an ever lasting reservoir and it can run out. That won’t automatically lead to radicalisation or self-organisation. It can easily collapse into demoralisation and passivity. Meanwhile those who keep the faith will do so in a largely performative sense.

Many of us on the socialist left argued that the drive towards independence was in some sense a displaced form of class consciousness, where the defeats of yesteryear could be overcome with the break up of the British state. A good case can be made for this. But it is also a mistake to reinforce the cycle of false dawns. In the end this will further demobilise the movement and undermine the independence cause itself.

Radicalism in this context has to be based on truth. Or to put it in more scientific terms, based on a material analysis of how things really are. This will involve telling people things they don’t want to hear. It means making hard arguments that many don’t want to face up to. But that is infinitely more productive than spinning a yarn about the glorious day coming around the corner, if only we can hold on a little longer.

There are extensive studies into the rise and fall of movements which seek to map the barriers they encounter and the strategies employed to overcome these obstacles. One such theorist is Bill Moyer, a trainer and strategist who experienced first hand some of the landmark movement cycles of the 1960s and ’70s.

He went on to develop an theoretical framework for analysing social movements and their travails. His 8 stage model known as the Movement Action Plan was an attempt to try to deal with the uneven development of agitational campaigns. It has many useful insights, but if read in a mechanical way might lead activists to conclude that in the eventual analysis there is an inevitability to success.

As Mark Engler points out:

“While everyone likes to be told that they are winning, blasé reassurances are no substitute for real analysis. It is possible to misinterpret Moyer’s model as a guarantee that, if you feel that your movement is faltering, you simply need to wait a little longer and things will work out. This is a comforting idea, and also a false one.”

The process of unravelling the real contradictions of the political moment, as I say, should be a liberating process. It should lead towards new conclusions about the period which can then be tested in the field.

Such a discussion, rooted in a concrete analysis of the conditions of the day, would also allow us to break with the stale paralysis that has come to typify Scottish politics. Learn from the past, of course. That is not an optional extra. Be inspired by it too. But register fully the gravity of losing in 2014, and the many other difficulties which exist now, as a basis for building into the future.

There is no shame in defeat, but there is no dignity in denial.