A number of crises and disagreements have left many pro-independence socialists and activists feeling alienated from the wider Yes movement in recent months. But while many hesitate to wave saltires at nationalist-led rallies, Allan Armstrong argues the left needs to put aside reservations and engage with the All Under One Banner demonstrators. In this long read, he charts the winding fortunes of the Yes movement, the circumstances in which it has been maintained and evaluates how we reached this point...

In May, an estimated 35,000 people marched in Glasgow in support of independence – some anecdotal reports put the figure closer to 60,000. Tens of thousands have joined rallies in Inverness, Dumfries and Dundee in subsequent months, signalling that All Under One Banner (AUOB) represents something significant in Scottish politics. However, it requires an extensive examination of a wider politics going back to 2014 to appreciate the nature of this phenomenon. Only then can we reflect on where the movement is and how we should focus our energies.



The legacy of the first independence referendum was one of a democratic revolution, with 85% voting following a registration drive which drew in 97% of the potential electorate. This was something unprecedented in UK politics. After being defeated, a significant section of the Yes movement joined the SNP, making it by far the largest party in Scotland and now the second largest in the UK. This was followed by the SNP's unprecedented success at the 2015 general elections as they secured 56 out of 59 Scottish seats at Westminster. (Even Sinn Fein could only manage 73 out of 105 Irish seats in the 1918 election.)



This momentum clearly hasn't been maintained. During the referendum, the dominant politics was fought out between the liberal unionism of the official Better Together campaign and the constitutional nationalism of the official Yes Scotland campaign. Although the Scottish Greens and SSP were involved, the campaign was naturally dominated by the SNP. It's forgotten by many now but the SNP leadership initially intended to conduct a limited and conservative campaign. To indicate their willingness to meet the needs of the great and powerful, the SNP's October 2012 AGM ditched party opposition to NATO – many members and two MSPs resigned. It was moves like this which created the political space for the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) to launch the following month. The conference was attended by 800 people. At its best, RIC constituted the republican and Scottish internationalist wing of the 'Yes' movement.



Reactionary unionism was kept at arm's length by the official 'No' campaign and UKIP made virtually no impact. Better Together didn't endorse the 20,000 strong Orange Order march in Edinburgh the week before the referendum vote. The loyalist rampage in Glasgow's George Square – the 'Tahrir Square' of the Yes campaign – on September 15 was an embarrassment to organisers. Nevertheless, despite David Cameron getting his No vote, sections of the British ruling class and unionist political establishment had been profoundly shaken. This coincided with mainstream political parties, as in the other states of the EU (and beyond), experiencing a growing crisis of political legitimacy due to their inability to deal with the legacy of the 2008 Crash.



Cameron wanted to reopen negotiations with Europe and seek further concessions to stop the UK's continued decline in world rankings. Such thinking is central to a British ruling class that once dominated the world and is imperialist to its very marrow. The UK's continuing relationship with the EU became the hot political issue and panic had set in for the British ruling class, still reeling from the close independence vote, about the future of the state. It was time to batten down the hatches on the good ship 'Britannia plc'. Having beaten the left with Project Fear during the independence referendum, he used the same tactics to try and stave off the Europhobic right.



The impact of Cameron's attempt to pander to reactionary unionists, whom he hoped to defeat, was illustrated in the contrast between the franchises for the independence and EU referenda. EU residents and 16-18 year olds were included in the former but excluded in the latter. This reactionary group, until until now largely represented by Farage's right populist UKIP (after seeing off the BNP), saw their chance. They fronted their long standing anti-immigrant politics with a patriotic demand: 'Take Back Control'. The Eurosceptic right seized upon this and operated quite independently of Cameron. But these were were not petty bourgeois outsiders or latter-day Enoch Powell-type marginal figures; they were past/present cabinet ministers. And they had much of the press on their side.



For a growing element of the British establishment, taking back control means reinforcing the UK state's most reactionary elements with anti-democratic crown powers. It means abandoning liberal unionist promises made in the Scottish independence debate and reining in concessions made under Blair's post-1998 devolution-all-round settlement. Whereas the 2014 debate pitted constitutional nationalists against liberal unionists, the EU referendum was liberal unionists versus reactionary unionists; from Project Hope v Project Fear to Project Fear v Project Hate.



Project Hate has come to dominate UK politics. Prime Minister Theresa May, who is responsible for the hostile environment policy and the Windrush Scandal, is propped up only by the Democratic Unionist Party, ultra-conservative loyalists. This sharp shift in UK politics to the right has rolled back any democratic revolution and stalled the Yes movement. More than that: just as the British ruling class took fright at the Yes campaign's impact in 2014, the SNP leadership has become worried by the development of a grassroots campaign beyond their control.



Let's not forget that the SNP's independence-lite proposals would have left the UK with crown powers, the British High Command control over the armed forces, membership of NATO intact, and the City of London's control of the currency untouched. The mass movement spawned by the referendum hasn't gone away, but its structure has evolved. RIC's third annual conference, for example, was the biggest yet with 3,000 people in attendance. An already concerned SNP leadership attempted to limit its appeal by organising the party's own conference next door on the same day.



The job was to 'hoover up' as many activists as possible from the wider Yes movement into the ranks of the SNP. Here, Yes supporters' more radical ambitions could be contained and smothered within the party's formidable centralised and top-down management structure.