READING Tom Gordon’s report of the Scottish Left Review article by Kenneth MacAskill, I was reminded of Robert Michels’s Iron Law of Oligarchy (‘MacAskill: SNP is ‘at a crossroads’ over independence, The Herald, June 28)
Michels argued that modern political parties, even 100 years ago, needed competent leadership, centralized authority, and a division of tasks normal for any large professional bureaucracy.
In turn, this gives rise to a leadership class with superior knowledge, skills, and status which, combined with their hierarchical control of organizational resources such as internal communication and training, allows them not only to dominate the broader membership, which looks to them for guidance, but also to curb dissenting groups.
READ MORE: Kenneth MacAskill: SNP is ‘at a crossroads’ over independence
While MacAskill is right that we should let “debate begin for time is short”, Michels offers a different perspective on at least some of his criticism.
This is particularly clear when MacAskill writes of “Nicola Sturgeon’s closed inner circle”. As Gordon notes in the online version of his article, MacAskill was Alex Salmond’s justice secretary for seven years.
Michels’s argument suggests we could also have spoken at that time of “Alex Salmond’s closed inner circle”, of which MacAskill was no doubt part, and thus some of his problem may be no longer being part of that “closed inner circle”.
There are also contextual differences. “MacAskill’s referendum” was born in the victory of the 2011 election without distractions such as the utter chaos of Brexit and its associated uncertainty. Nor was there need to justify a referendum which everyone agreed upon, unlike the situation today as Unionist opponents question it at every turn, however much hypocrisy it involves.
One might think, too, that the route to the 2014 referendum was without either dispute or error.
To suggest for instance that, post-independence, there would be a “currency union” was right from the start a suggestion teed up to be |booted out the park, since any definition of “union” implies at least two parties, and of course in this case the “other party” (namely, the rest of the UK) was only too happy to say “oh no we won’t”, irrespective of what they might have done had it come to it.
Too often, policy suggestions about independence had to avoid frightening the voters, such as Salmond’s “Six Unions” speech. Nothing much would change, which rather undercut the argument for independence.
As well as contemporary errors, we can and should learn from historic ones.
Another of these, which points to MacAskill’s own party involvement, is his suggestion that a debate on SNP policy and strategy “is urgently needed”.
However correct, he errs in his failure to recognise, as does the First Minister, that while the SNP is easily the largest part of the independence movement, it is not the movement in its entirety.
The SNP urgently needs to rise above its own dominance to reach out to the wider independence movement to maximise, without preconditions, its own inclusivity in strategy development and, as MacAskill writes, let “debate begin for time is short”.
Perhaps it can show that the Iron Law might not be as “Iron” as Michels suggests.
Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton
A real beef with the E.U.
THE recent deal signed between the European Commission and the Mercosur countries of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay opens the door to millions of tons of beef flowing from South America to our local supermarkets.
No-one knows how many millions of acres of rainforest will be cut down for these countries to supply this larger market, or the true impact it will bring to our local cattle farmers.
The unelected Commission initiated this deal. It will automatically pass into UK law. The UK cannot stop this from happening: E.U. Regulations take precedence over UK law and no mechanism within the UK can ever repeal an E.U. Regulation.
Did those who supported remaining in the E.U. understand what they were voting for?
Tom Walker, Loanhead
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