The Republican Socialist analysis in Ireland of Eire Nua's federalist advocacy (that is, the position of the IRSP, when this position was first advanced) was that it was a sop to the loyalist/unionist community of the six counties and was contrary to the realities of contemporary Irish society and potentially harmful to the nationalist communities of the six counties.
By advocating a four province, federal state, Sinn Fein seemed to think, the loyalists might perceive themselves as retaining significant influence within the province of Ulster, even were the province restored to its original nine county status, instead of the abbreviated six counties retained by Britain in order to gerrymander a loyalist majority. Insofar as the loyalists had since the creation of the six county statelet used their dominance to oppress and terrorize the nationalist population, advocacy of anything resembling a continuation of this situation could be called reckless at worst and ill-conceived at best.
While Scotland has experience of the sectarian 'orange and green' divide, it is one that immigated to Scotland along with the Scotish populace formerly resident in Ireland and lacks the geographic concentrations that exist in Ireland. Were there a sectarian community resident in the highlands or islands hostile to the populace of the central belt, for example, one might be able to see why such a proposal was being advanced, but the reality is that to the extent a sectarian divide exists within the Scottish populace, both sides of that sectarian divide are more likely to be found in Glasgow than in any hinterlands of the nation.
An argument could be advanced that the divide between the speakers of Lallans and the speakers of Scot's Gaelig (essentially a lowlands/highlands divide) or the division between the pockets of Scottish Catholicism and the Kirk (essentially a division between small pockets in the islands and the mainland of Scotland) could provide a basis for some form of federalism. However, in the latter instance, there are probably far more Catholics in Glasgow than in the rest of Scotland combined and, in regard to the former, the extent to which the gaelig-speaking communities remaining in Scotland provide a viable base for federal division is clearly open to debate.
When one considers the significant difference that still exist between the highlands and islands and the lowlands, a strong case could be made that the populace of the highlands and islands might benefit from some constitutional protections being erected to secure their interests from being trampled upon by the far larger populace of the central belt and southern lowlands, but this doesn't necessitate the move to federalism to ensure. Scots should bear these legitimate concerns of those living in the highlands and islands when drafting a constitution after winning an independent Scottish workers' republic, however--even within a workers' republic the cultural, geographic, and historic differences between Scotland's highland and lowland populace argue for safeguards that will protect those characteristics most desirable, without preserving the reactionary attributes that have sometimes accompanied them.
More important than consideration of whether or not to adopt a federal approach to Scottish independence is consideration of the class orientation followed towards Scottish independence. Scottish independence must reflect a genuine national liberation for it to have meaning for the masses of the Scottish people and in contemporary times real national liberation is impossible without breaking the fetters of imperialism and globalized capitalism that undermine the national sovereignty of all peoples. For Scottish workers to remain oppressed by foreign imperialists and native capitalists in an independent Scotland is to have won nothing worth having. The imperative of Scottish national liberation is rooted in the reality that it is only through the break up of the archaic British state that the working class of all the nations of the islands or Britain and Ireland will be able to win their liberation as workers and as human beings. That said, the Scottish working class would be fool-hardy to support any two-stage argument that calls upon them to support the creation of an independent capitalist Scotland as an intermediate step towards building socialism.
The central tenet of the republican socialist tendency, that the struggles for national liberation and socialism are inseparablly intertwined remains as true today as it did in the time of James Connolly or John MacLean. The majority of Scotland's people are workers and those Scottish workers must insist that the creation of an independent Scottish republic is also the creation of a workers' republic.
Peter Urban
International Republican Socialist Network
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