Working class politics in Scotland, part two

The First World War marked a collapse in support for the Liberal Party in Scotland and the emergence of the Independent Labour Party (the ILP was a faction of the Labour Party after its adoption of a new constitution in 1918) as "the genuine expression of working-class political aspirations".

The ILP embodied the traditional values of the Scottish radical political tradition of skilled workers: "teetotalism, pacificism, Home Rule and a Christian socialist morality. They were the twentieth century's embodiment of the spirit of the Covenanters, and often referred to themselves as such."

But the electoral breakthrough by Labour coincided with the start of a process of economic and social change which reshaped the values and politics of the labour movement in Scotland. As Knox puts it:

"The radical tradition which had grown out of the artisanal culture of the nineteenth century was dispatched to the historical dustbin as the new and disturbing forces of economic and social change pushed Labour to a more authoritiarian and statist alternative to evangelical socialism."

The ILP sought to preserve the nineteenth century values of respectability. It denounced American jazz as "jungle music". It dismissed cinemas and dancehalls as latter-day "opium dens". And its paper refused to carry adverts from advocates of birth control.

When the Dundee MP Scrymgeour proposed legislation which, if passed, would have imposed a five-year jail term on anyone trafficking in liquor, the bulk of his limited support in Parliament came from the "Red Clydeside" ILP MPs.

But, writes Knox, "the working class remained oblivious to this kind of moralising." The emergence of mass commercial leisure pursuits "made the wholesome activities of the labour movement, with its self-improving ethos, seem oudated. Something corresponding to a homogenous national working class experience began to emerge in this period."

Just as the emergence of a mass culture broke down the previous century's divisions between "respectable" and "rough" working-class cultures, so too economic depression and changes in the workplace weakened (but certainly did not eradicate) divisions between the skilled and the unskilled:

"Almost all workers experienced some loss of control over their labour and were subject to a more intense form of discipline and working rhythm... The social relations of production were increasingly resembling the Marxist idea of class struggle... The distinctions between the skilled and the unskilled were disappearing if wage differentials are any guide."

Religious divisions within the working class also declined. Ireland fell off the political agenda after partition. Labour backed local authority funding for separate Catholic schooling. Catholics, hitherto largely alienated by and excluded from the value system of the labour movement in Scotland, now switched to voting Labour.

The number of purely Scottish trade unions continued to decline. By 1924 60% of Scottish workers were members of Britain-wide trade unions. Class struggle increasingly took an all-British form.

"The growing nationalisation of the labour movement inevitably drew Scottish workers into national disputes. The industrial battles which characterised the period 1921-26 all involved Scottish trade unionists and promoted a greater sense of class consciousness... Worker supported worker in Britain in these epic struggles between labour and capital and the state."

As a result of such developments, "the modern trade union movement in Scotland was created: its chief characteristics being British, bureaucratic in organisation, and amenable to corporatist solutions to social and economic problems."

It was British in the sense that purely Scottish unions were in terminal decline, and in that solutions to working-class problems were sought at an all-British level: "The acceptance of an all-British solution to mass unemployment saw Home Rule become the politics of the 'parish pump' as far as Scottish trade unionists were concerned."

It was bureaucratic because the defeat of the General Strike undermined the residual influence of syndicalism: "The defeat of the General Strike proved crucial as syndicalism became a dead letter and a new spirit of conciliation with capital began to emerge and deepen as the economic situation worsened."

And it was amenable to corporatist solutions because the union bureaucracy, in the context of post-1926 working-class defeat, was free to pursue its own agenda: "The moderation (of the STUC) made it possible for Scottish labour to come to an understanding with business leaders in the 1930s over issues of mutual concern... The move towards a nascent form of corportatism was irreversible."

Developments in the trade unions in Scotland were paralleled by developments in the Labour Party. The latter likewise turned its back on its traditional values, albeit without substituting for them anything better:

"The abandonment of the values of the older political tradition from which Labour had emerged was part of the process of remaking the party; that is, transforming it from a morally eclectic, idealist and almost millenarian organisation into a bland, professional, electoral machine."

By the outbreak of the Second World War, therefore, the trade union and political wings of the Scottish labour movement had both ditched the core concepts of nineteenth century Scottish political radicalism.

Teetotalism had long since been abandoned as the offical policy of the labour movement. Pacifism had largely been abandoned by the left in the face of the rise of fascism, whilst the right had never adhered to it anyway. Home Rule had no place in a movement looking for political solutions at an all-British level. And the inspiration drawn from Christian socialist morality was equally out of place in a bureaucratised movement devoid of political vision.

Knox deals relatively briefly with the evolution of the Scottish working class and its organisations in the decades following 1945. Much of what he writes - in contrast to the rest of his book - tends to be descriptive rather than analytical.

He traces the evolution of the Scottish economy - the ongoing decline of heavy industry and the growth of inward investment. He describes the disappearance of a collectivist working class culture - replaced by an essentially consumerist mentality. And he outlines changes in the trade union movement - the growth of white-collar and female membership.

Knox's conclusions strike a distinctly pessimistic note: "In a relatively short space of time, the Scottish working class went from being one of the most highly organised working classes in the history of industrial capitalism, to a fragmented one as yet barely able to defend its economic and political interests."

Despite the influx of women into the trade unions, the Scottish labour movement remains "largely misogynist". Its "deeply patriarchal ethos" has resulted in a consistent marginalisation of women's issues by "the male-dominated trade unions in Scotland".

In the decades immediately following the war voting patterns in Scotland paralleled those in the rest of Britain: "The distribution of votes between the main parties was consistent and in keeping with the other parts of Britain."

From the 1970s onwards, however, "the predisposition to vote Labour led to the development of significant discontinuities between the electoral behavior of Scottish workers and those in the rest of Britain." According to Knox:

"The divergence in voting patterns is deeply related to the growth of a heightened sense of national identity in Scotland. It is this phenomenon, rather than a greater sense of class consciousness, which provides the key to understanding the developments in working-class political culture in Scotland since 1945."

Knox argues, albeit somewhat tentatively: "The diverse characteristics of Scotland's economic and social development produced a different configuration of political behaviour... Scotland has a more intimate relationship with the state than England and, perhaps, this goes some way to explaining why voting patterns were so divergent in the 1970s and 1980s."

Scotland's "more intimate relationship with the state" manifested itself in a variety of forms: the high proportion of the population reliant on state benefits, the dominance of public sector housing, the dependence of an ailing industrial sector on state subsidies, the significance of the national and local state as an employer, and the corporatist traditions of the Scottish TUC.

The election of a Tory government in 1979 committed to "rolling back the frontiers of the state" was therefore felt more acutely in Scotland than in England. Thatcher's policies were not designed to be anti-Scottish. But, with Scotland "more dependent on the state than other parts of the UK, apart from Northern Ireland", her policies quickly came to perceived as anti-Scottish.

Tory attacks on what they termed the "nanny state" resulted in greater electoral support for Labour in Scotland and, thereby, the emergence of divergent Scottish and English voting patterns. This, in turn, produced a heightened sense of national identity.

For a period the Scottish electorate looked to Labour to ward off the Tory attacks. But the failure of Labour to offer effective resistance to Thatcher and Major provoked disillusionment and a haemorrhaging of support to the SNP. Hence Labour's relatively poor performance in last year's Scottish Parliament elections.

Knox himself recognises that "because of its pioneering nature and the large chronological terrain covered, this book will no doubt appear, at times, faltering in its methodology and interpretations." This is certainly case with his treatment of the post-1945 period, which, one suspects, is not his specialist area of study.

Even so, Industrial Nation gives its readers a real sense of the historical development of our class in Scotland over the last two centuries - its origins, its struggles, and its creation of its own organisations. And it does so free of any mawkish sentimentality about a mythical golden age of "Red Clydeside" socialism. Socialists who wish to indulge themselves in the latter already have an author to hand in the shape of James D Young. But socialists who wish to develop a Marxist analysis of the Scottish working class could do no better than by beginning with Industrial Nation.

Industrial Nation: Work, Culture and Society in Scotland, 1800-Present
William Knox, Edinburgh University Press, 368pp, Ł16.95.

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