NEWS
A RIGHT ROYAL WASTE OF MONEY by Bill Bonnar HOW should socialists mark the royal wedding? The temptation, on the day, will be to stay in bed, pull the duvet over your head and wake up when the nightmare is over. Or perhaps try to get out of the country on holiday; preferably to a republic somewhere. As attractive as both options are what we should do is use the opportunity to protest against this obscenity and campaign for our vision of a republic. For the establishment, the royal wedding represents a number of things. It is a celebration of their system of hierarchy and inherited privilege and the god given right to flaunt their wealth and status. It is showing that the concerns of ordinary people about growing poverty, cuts to vital social services and unemployment are not their concerns. For the government and media it is a welcome diversion from depressing headlines; an upmarket soap opera played out on the pages of Hello and OK Magazine along with the latest news on Madonna or Jennifer Anniston. Sadly millions of ordinary working people will be taken in by it all. The good news is that millions won’t including the majority of people in Scotland whose reaction to the wedding ranges from anger to irritation to just plain indifference. For the Left, those not staying under the duvet or jetting off to Republican France, it represents a great opportunity to argue the case for Republicanism and in
WILLS AND KATE: the Royal Wedding hype is enough to make you boak! particular, for a Scottish Socialist Republic. At its heart, Republicanism represents both a set of political ideals and a model for government. First and foremost it is about democracy; that government represents the people, reflect the interests and concerns of the people and is directly accountable to the people. Second, the idea of citizenship; that we are all citizens rather than subjects with rights and responsibilities as part of a collective society. Republicanism is also about modernity; a political system for the modern world and not a throwback to medievalism. In Britain, the abolition of the monarchy and House of Lords and its replacement with republican institutions is a reform already overdue more than a century ago. That they both still survive is testimony to the key role they play in propping up the current social and economic system. Some may argue that the demand for a republic, while welcome in its itself, is not a
priority for the Left and point to the many examples like the United States; one of the oldest republics in the world. What the experience of the United States actually demonstrates is that the ideals of republicanism are incompatible with capitalism and that the latter will always corrupt the former. The American Constitution is one of the most revolutionary documents ever written yet the political system remains the preserve of a rich elite. In Scotland the SSP argues for the creation of a Scottish Socialist Republic. In this context what do we mean by republic? Do we simply mean the absence of monarchy? Our vision would involve a political system based on the maximum democracy at all levels of society from local communities to national government. Democracy would extend into the workplace and to all areas of decision making. We would re-establish in practice the true meaning of democracy as power to the people by giving people the
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means to control the things which have hitherto controlled their lives. We would create a society based on active citizenship with the rights and responsibilities this entails and give people a sense of ownership and control of the political system; something completely lacking in the socalled capitalist democracies. Of course one cannot separate a political system from the economic base that it sits on. An economic system based on social ownership and collective provision and a political system based on republican democracy are at the centre of our vision for a Scottish Socialist Republic. The SSP will be marking the royal wedding with activities around in and around the day itself. We will also be involved in further actions to mark another royal wedding in Edinburgh in July. In October it will play host to the Republican Socialist Convention as a follow up to a successful similar event held two years ago. Viva la Republic!