Back to main newsToeing corporate lines - political posturing in Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi's conviction
Thu 10 Sep 2009
Author: John FosterThe waving of the saltire in Tripoli resulted in some strange political posturing in Scotland.
Forget the doubts over Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi's conviction, which has already been questioned by the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission two years ago.
Leave aside the issue of legal process - 23 other terminally ill Scottish prisoners have been released on the same basis over the past three years.
What is strange is that Labour leaders in Scotland should have taken up a cry started by the US-owned media, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.
It is strange because everyone now knows that the new Labour government at Westminster had been preparing the way for Megrahi's return ever since Blair signed the prisoner exchange deal with Libya in 2007.
Britain's corporate interest in Libya's oil and gas is no secret, nor is BP's massive contract for gas exploration.
Libya's proximity to Europe, and its relatively stable and secular regime, make the country's vast hydrocarbon reserves of great interest to strategic planners in both Europe and the US.
Forty other energy companies are now operating in Libya.
There can be no doubt that, had Megrahi died in a Scottish jail, British interests would have lost out to these other companies.
Why, then, should Iain Gray and Jack McConnell find it necessary to fall in behind Annabel Goldie, Tavish Scott and the Murdoch and Gannett press?
Genuine outrage? Perhaps. But it is far more likely to be a response to a somewhat different configuration of economic interests in Scotland - a phenomenon that can be predicted to have lasting consequences.
Within hours of the Tripoli celebration, David Watt, leader of the Institute of Directors in Scotland, had expressed great "concern" at the waving of the saltire.
His remarks were echoed by the CBI in Scotland, whose spokesperson commented that it was "as yet impossible to quantify the scale of risk."
While US investment in Britain as a whole is large (in fact the largest in Europe), it is proportionately dwarfed by the scale of US holdings within the much smaller Scottish economy.
Around 100,000 Scots are directly employed in US companies - against 75,000 employed in the entire Scottish civil service, devolved bodies, fire and police.
Many more Scots are employed in firms whose dominant shareholders are US investment companies - the biggest shareholders in Diageo, for instance, are the US companies Fidelity, World Capital and Janus Capital. The US is also the biggest single market for Scottish exports of goods and services.
Whether opportunistically or not, Scottish politicians play to a somewhat different gallery of business interests.
The resulting tensions are likely to continue.
As the dollar slowly unwinds its global dominance, creditor countries in the Middle East and elsewhere are looking to diversify their holdings and British big business is seeking to do deals.
Just last month, Shell sold its Brent pipeline to an Abu Dhabi company which now operates the biggest civil engineering structure in the North Sea. Tactical, local conflicts with US interests are likely.
But in Scotland the options are much narrower.
With the wreck of the country's banking sector, US capital is now a dominant if largely unseen presence and Scotland's business representatives seem to be settling into a subservient comprador role - all of a tremble at the least discomfort to their transatlantic partners.
While it is important not to exaggerate the differences (US bankers dominate the City of London), these trends are not just a matter of academic interest.
They also constitute a warning for the Scottish trade union movement.
Across the Atlantic, the very same corporate interests are savaging Obama's health and welfare proposals. In Scotland a climate of opinion is being created for a massive assault on the public sector.
The Gannett-owned Herald wants a wholesale merger of local authorities. John Kay, a member of Salmond's Council of Economic Advisers, announces there is "no alternative" to a five-year cull of Scotland's "inflated public sector." Ernst and Young estimates that 6,000 jobs will have to go in the first year alone.
Again, it is important not to overstate the difference with England.
The drive for cuts also exists south of the border - Cameron's Conservatives do not conceal their Thatcherite ambitions. And the European Central Bank in its July report laid out in detail its policies for massive retrenchment across the EU to 2015.
"0.5 per cent GDP per annum in all countries ... and in countries with high deficit and debt ratios [such as Britain] the annual structural adjustment should reach at least 1 per cent of GDP."
In terms of public expenditure, this comes near to 3 per cent cuts cumulatively each year.
What is certain, however, is that the Scottish government is now coming under immense pressure from press and business lobbies to make cuts.
The local government settlement for the coming year is already forcing local authorities to plan staff reductions.
Only opposition on the ground can stop it and this is what makes a united movement in Scotland for the People's Charter ever more urgent.
The importance of the People's Charter is that it is not simply a defensive response to the crisis. It provides a coherent alternative that matches Scotland's strategic needs and directly challenges the right-wing consensus.
This month, Labour MSP Elaine Smith is tabling a pro-Charter motion in the Scottish Parliament. It will be followed by an autumn campaign, including lobbies of the Scottish Parliament and party conferences, activity through local trades union councils and will culminate in meetings in Edinburgh and Glasgow on October 10 and 11.
Only a campaign that can unite the trade union movement, as much as possible of the Labour Party and the left of the SNP, and genuinely root itself in local communities, will be able to challenge the "solve all problems by shrinking the public sector" consensus that currently dominates the press and policy forums.
A major section of the Scottish trade union movement now supports this - UNISON as well as PCS, FBU, UCU, RMT and the NUJ.
Their arguments are unanswerable.
Public-sector cuts are crazy in the middle of a recession. More strategically, Scotland's future depends on massive investment in carbon neutral housing, effective public transport, maximising renewable energy and becoming a leader in developing the appropriate technologies. The Edinburgh banks can't fund this and a US- dominated corporate sector certainly won't.
The People's Charter flag must be waved in Edinburgh this autumn - even though the Scottish CBI will no doubt be signalling through to New York "as yet impossible to quantify the scale of risk."
John Foster is international secretary of the Communist Party of Britain
Back to main news
