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In Scotland and Wales the electorate continue to be offered the "choice" of voting for their respective ruling classes (or would-be ruling classes!) in the form of the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. Both parties have presented themselves as the centre-left alternative to Labour and would like to win the traditional working-class vote in Scotland and Wales. In the past 25 years or so they have advanced from being essentially "fringe" parties to major players, particularly at a local government level. Much of their appeal stems from popular resentment on the part of large sections of the Scottish and Welsh populations to remote rule from Westminster by people who have no idea of their specific culture. This resentment has been exploited by the nationalists, who increasingly use the language of socialism whilst pursuing policies which are wholly capitalist in content. The advent of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh National Assembly has been an attempt to head off their influence whilst preserving the form of the U.K., still ultimately controlled from London.

The "Tartan Tories"

The Scottish National Party (SNP) was formed in 1934, from the unification of a number of groups and tiny "parties" who held simiar views on the need for a "national renewal" and Home Rule. Unlike their Irish counterparts, the SNP was far from "revolutionary", and although it has since its foundation had a militant and republican fringe it has always been a strictly constitutional nationalist party. What also united the nationalists was a well-founded belief that the Labour Party, despite a paper commitment to Home Rule, was as Unionist as the Tories.

The original leadership of the SNP were a mixed bunch, including many Gaelic revivalist intellectuals and Scottish cultural figures such as the poet Lewis Spence. The early SNP made little or no attempt to present itself as a working-class party, and even if it had it's doubtful whether it could have made any inroads into workers' support for the Labour or Communist parties. Neither was (or is) the party republican, and its rhetoric was strongly anti-English rather than anti-British imperialist per se. From the beginning, however, the party was very much geared towards fighting elections even if its small size prevented widespread electoral activity.

The SNP's first parliamentary success, however, didn't come until 1945, when they captured (but promptly lost) a seat in the Motherwell constituency. Ten years later the SNP was still only winning about 0.5% of the vote and its rise did not begin until the late 1960s. (It has had continuous representation at Westminster since 1967.) Its electoral high point was in 1974 when the Party took 30.4% of the vote and gained 11 MPs. Much of this popularity surrounded the Party's "It's Scotland's Oil" campaign, where it mobilised around the issue of ownership of this potentially lucrative North Sea resource off Scotland's coasts. Labour's response was to resurrect their commitment to "Home Rule", so sweeping the carpet from beneath the feet of the nationalists. The 1979 referendum, which saw the Scottish electorate narrowly vote in favour of a Scottish Assembly, was a response to this upsurge in Scottish Nationalism. When the British Parliament overturned the decision the response wasn't the mass (peaceful, democratic, constitutional, etc.) rebellion the SNP would have liked, but a dull resignation and subsequent massive drop in support for them.

The SNP have deservedly been tagged the "Tartan Tories" by their opponents, despite their claim to be a "moderate left of centre" party. This has been due to the class background of their leadership and the bulk of their supporters, particularly in rural areas of Northern Scotland. Since the early 80s they have, however, attempted to present themselves as the left alternative to Labour. They now have a Trade Union Group which competes in a turgid struggle with the Scottish Left, particularly the various Communist Party and ex-CP union hacks. Although most class conscious Scottish workers have viewed this with the contempt it deserves, with the advent of New Labour the SNP has begun to look increasingly like Old Labour draped in a saltire.

Prior to the referendum on devolution, the SNP campaigned on the same "Yes" platform as Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Their aim at the time was to show how well the Scottish Parliament could work, thus making the population of Scotland demand full independence. Since devolution, however, they have taken the easy road of trying to show up the parliament's limited powers. Their manifesto for the elections to the Scottish Parliament played down independence and concentrated on what they would do if they won power, using lots of business-friendly words such as "enterprise", "high growth", "competition" - more of the same old shit, then?

The majority of the Party's support continues to be in traditional conservative territory and the middle classes, and they enjoy particular support from a number of student-based organisations. Howevere, due to their perceived image of being to the left of Labour, they do have some support amongst the young working-class; older workers, on the other hand, are proving harder to peel away from their traditional Labour loyalties, or are being pulled in by the Scottish Socialist Party.

The Nationalists' whole attitude towards internal structure is to promote and push forward young, "dynamic" professionals. In this respect the SNP have become progressively more and more Blairite. Outgoing leader Alex Salmond was long a master of the art of empty phrasemongery and sound bites, and in stepping down he will be passing the torch onto his younger cadres. The SNP are extremely image-conscious and never miss a photo opportunity, and have consistently relied upon Salmond's popularity to promote themselves on campaign walkabouts.

As for policy, they have quietly dropped their commitment to renationalise the railways, and SNP-controlled councils have come under fire at conferences for pushing through PFI (Private Finance Initiative) schemes. They talk of investing in "those high growth industries which can generate new jobs and wealth" (SNP Manifesto for the Scottish Parliamentary Elections, 1999). These would presumably include call centres, notorious for paying low wages, having long hours and stressful conditions, and which are rapidly increasing in number, not only in Scotland but across the UK as a whole. Corporation tax would be slashed as a way of encouraging more "high value added operations". All of this leads them to predict that, under independence, Scotland would be the seventh most prosperous nation in the world. But as usual, this prosperity would only be for the elite ruling class and not for the workers.

The fact of this was proved at their 1999 conference in Inverness, which saw exhibition stalls from some of the country's largest businesses: FirstBus, Virgin Trains, Tesco, Scottish Gas, BT and British Energy. Also present were Railtrack - feeling confident of their safety in the SNP's hands - who had a few invited delegates around for tea and scones. And as if the Nats' reactionary streak weren't clear enough, anti-abortion group SPUC were also present, with conference stewards assisting in the handing out of leaflets.

Two elections in 1999 had varying implications for the Party's prospects. In the European Parliament the SNP again ended up with 2 seats, but received over 200,000 less votes than in 1994. But in the Scottish Parliament, which took office in July, they became the second largest party after Labour with 35 seats. (No party has a majority.) Devolution has allowed the SNP to become a much more prominent force in Scottish politics: it has also thrust their programme into the public eye. Curiously enough, the leadership has seemed less keen to press the independence message since devolution, and this is creating some dissension within the Party. For his part Alex Salmond has appeared to be of the view that that the electors need to go through the stage of limited autonomy that the parliament represents before they will be ready to go for outright independence. The question naturally arises, how long will this "stage" last?

Plaid Cymru

Plaid Cymru ("Party of Wales") has a very similar history to that of the SNP. Formed in 1925 by individuals of similar ilk to those of the SNP (including the writer and dramatist Saunders Lewis) Plaid Cymru, however, had to wait 41 years for an electoral victory. Today they have a total of 4 MPs from 38 seats in Wales and claim 10,000 members across the country and beyond.

With the advent of the Welsh Assembly (voted for by only 25% of the electorate, with only 46% participating at all), Plaid Cymru has 15 assembly Members (AMs) out of a possible 60 seats, having made inroads into the traditional Labour areas of the valleys, i.e. Rhondda and Islwyn.

Like other AMs their role is extremely limited and the Assembly is regarded as a talking-shop by the majority in Wales. Due to the fact that it has no powers of primary legislation nor tax variation, the conventional separation of powers between legislature and executive was deemed unnecessary. The annual block grant is already allocated by central government, not to mention a rather unique pro-capitalist fail-safe clause built into its legislative structure with big business having a veto on every single decision made by AMs! (Not that anything vaguely "socialist" has a chance since all the AMs are procapitalist/reactionary.)

Plaid Cymru make a big fuss of being "socialist", but in reality they stand for nationalism with a pseudo-socialist tinge, i.e. "national socialist" which attracts a proportion of bigoted anti-English racists. They hope to achieve independence for Wales, albeit within the EU. (Although they deny they are for independence!) Their immediate goal is to turn the Welsh Assembly into a parliament along similar lines to that which exists in Scotland.

The stated aims of the party are:
"To secure self-government for Wales and a democratic Welsh state based on socialist principles", and to "Safeguard the culture, language, traditions, environment and economic life of Wales, through decentralist socialist policies."

Plaid's socialism amounts to stodgy social democratic reformism. Dafydd Wigley (the party leader), in his speech to the 1995 Annual Conference, claimed "It is Plaid Cymru, not the Labour Party, that inherits the vision of Keynes." This may be true, seeing that the Labour Party have discovered the "social market", but it is hardly socialism! Wigley went on to outline his "socialist" vision. Plaid Cymru would be campaigning "to help the people of Wales establish business ventures...and to help those small businesses to develop successfully."

The Party of Wales promises to defend small local bosses against big foreign bosses. Wigley again: "We take the side of small business against the ravages of big industrial corporations. We will back the small man and woman in their fight against faceless bureaucracy." Plaid Cymru would not oppose foreign investment in their self-governing Wales: their "socialist" Wales will be an enterprise Wales.

Any Objective One funding from the EU will go to business, with workers still fulfilling their traditional role of wealth creators for the ruling class. There is no difference between an English or Welsh boss, we are still exploited through the system of wage-labour.

Wales has been hard hit by the crisis of British capitalism and is one of the poorest regions in the whole of Western Europe. It has marked social deprivation and ill-health is on the increase as "New" Labour follow the neo-liberal doctrine of a global capitalist economy. Especially since the defeat of the miners there has been a programme of cuts in welfare, public and social services on a yearly basis.

The working-class of Wales have tended not to support the siren call of Welsh nationalism. Neither, however, have they been won over to anarchist-communism - as yet!