Setting the agenda for political change
In the early 1980s, Scotland was in a state of political turmoil.
It was in this turbulent atmosphere that a collective of political activists... took over the little-known magazine Radical Scotland in 1983, with the aim of uniting sympathisers of all parties and keeping the dream of Scottish self-government alive.
Radical Scotland’s legacy, to our minds, is fourfold. Firstly, its key achievement was that the magazine played a part, and we would contend an important part, in changing the political climate and, crucially, promoting the key mechanism which ensured that Labour felt obliged to deliver on self-government when it eventually won a UK General Election. It both contributed to, but also reflected, the emerging broad political consensus on self-government. Radical Scotland both stimulated and then rode that mood change, while simultaneously helping to keep the mood alive and kicking. The magazine was there in the dark days between 1981 and 1987 keeping the self-government torch glowing, after it had almost been extinguished in what remained of Scottish politics. Jack Brand, the founder of the CSA, was clear that after 1979 that the most important thing was simply to keep the ‘flame alive’, and especially within the Labour Party. (10) He saw the CSA as being a vehicle for that project, so given the close ties Radical Scotland had with the CSA, it played a key role in undertaking this exercise too. It is easy to forget just how much devolution dipped in significance as an issue from 1979 to 1983, and even through to 1987.
Radical Scotland was also important in keeping self-government alive for what was then termed the ‘broad left.’ It created the critical forum for debate and in so doing linked together a diverse range of political activists across the country who could then coalesce around an agreed route forward. The coining of the ‘Doomsday Scenario’ ably depicted the reality of Scotland’s political position at that time, trapped within linked democratic and constitutional deficits. Being unable to address this reality put Labour on the back foot, and so forced it to reappraise its constitutional positioning.
Secondly, after the 1987 General Election, there was an agreed means to plan for the establishment of the Parliament, and again the magazine can take some credit for this. Labour’s involvement bought them breathing space and provided the opportunity to think through the construction of a Parliament with other interested parties. Despite the continuation of the ‘Doomsday Scenario’ following the 1992 General Election, Labour’s commitment to delivering self-government was all but sealed through its active participation in the Constitutional Convention.
Thirdly, Radical Scotland provided a tangible example of the value inherent in seeking to build bridges in politics, something that also proved crucial to actually delivering the Parliament. It showed that political issues and the reform agenda were not the preserve of one single political party, but needed to generate broad support in order to take matters forward. In that respect the magazine was able to link and allow a wide range of individuals and groups to engage in re-thinking our situation and come together as a wider social movement which sought to secure change. For Scotland’s political future this is a lesson that should not be forgotten. During the 2014 independence referendum it quickly became clear that the ‘Yes’ campaign was far more than the SNP, something the SNP did not quite appreciate then, nor perhaps fully understands even today. The Parliament’s current make-up, which partly reflects the compromised nature of the electoral system and, post-2014, the polarised narrowing of party politics, is deeply unhelpful in allowing the further development of this notion of consensus ‘broad left’ politics.
Finally, for a short period Radical Scotland was able to align the ambitions of self-government with an overtly anti-Conservative agenda. The failure was that this did not follow through to the next step: making self-government properly left-wing, and a progressive force, has certainly not yet happened. In the 1980s, radicalism seemed so easy to achieve: you merely articulated your outright opposition to Thatcher. But the world now finds itself in a very different place, with both the Labour Party and the SNP effectively embracing so much of her legacy. It would also be true to say that the magazine neither adequately realised, nor properly acknowledged that the Labour Party in Scotland is a deeply conservative institution, as its obvious lack of policy ideas and ambition when in government exposed. Once the original backlog of reform projects was worked through, their policy cupboard was bare, and Jack McConnell’s administration’s policy mantra of “doing less better” proved to be Labour’s death knell. That exact same criticism equally applies to their political successors, the SNP. While they happily espouse the rhetoric of social justice and community control, their actions reveal a centralising, pro-business, neo-liberal approach, happy to sub-contract policy development to ever-willing paid lobbyists.