continues to suppiy nelcopiers anc light aircraft for 'defence purposes', London plays a tundamental parl maintaining Vorster's apartheid reg".. These so-called 'defensive weapons! are ideallv suited for operation against guerrilla forces in the 'veldt!. Possiblv of even greater importance than arms, however, is the pursue his 'detente' policy of buying financial Dians.
inow. In a Glasgow Herald opinion poll, held earlier this month, it was estimated that the recentiv formed scottish Labou Party (SLP) would be guaranteed 8% of the total Scottish vote in the coming election. This figure (which would give it noseiblv 12 seats) must gratıty yın Sillars who has seen the party grow to 2000 members in only d rew montes. Although leaders of the Labour Party in Scotland have written off the result of the poll as a 'flash in the pan', ine Times noted that their fast-dwindling support has forced them to imitate the SLP by adopting a 'tougher' attitude towards the government's devolution The SLP has, after all, already won a quarter of the total Labour vote that at. 24%, below that of the Tories and the Scottish Nationalist Party).
La mere 'flash in the pan' as Labour leaders suggest. reason why Sillars & Robertson were willing to risk expulsion from the Labour Party by setting up the SLP It was because they realised that unless Labour attach itself rapidly to the nationalist sentiment growing in the Scottish working class, it could easily be reduced to a pitiful rump in The SLP represented, in this sense, a calculated attempt by a section of the 'head oft' the growing support for the SNP which, by all accounts, was estimated to gain over The success of this move can be measured by the very SLP has been able in the past tew months anc Sillars to bank on winning over 5,000 members before the gamble undertaken by Robertson and Sillars is not, however, without its risks. The SLPis nationalist stance could attract layers of Scottish workers who, while clearly alienated trom are still suspicious of the pro - capitalist policies of the SNP. Such layers, as they grow, could bring 'their' pressure to bear on the SLP for it to adopt a clearer class-struggle perspective for their nationThis trend can already be detected in the fact that Sillars has been forced to criticise Labour not only for its antinationalist stance but also for its clear abandonment ot 'socialist principles' The Times, only recently, pointed out that it is this championing of nationalist sentiment within a (at least verbally) socialist framework which has led to its rapid growth in such a short space of time. lt is in this sense that the creation o1 the SLP represents, despite ihe opportunist motives of its leaders, a siel forward. It harbours the potential of providing a "labourl solution for the national aspirations of working people would otherwise be monopolise SNP. Any disagreement with the SLP on a tactical basis ov ine bouratuls (as to whether or not it should have split from the Labour Party) must, at this stage, be of secondary importance.
Error It is their inability to grasp this that explains why the 'marxist left' were so eager to 'join hands' with the Labour bureaucrats in westminster in conaemning the SLP for its adaptation to Inationalism'. Despite the substantial growth of the SLP, as late as las month the IMG ( in an article by D. Waterson and R. Davis) was ramming home the point that nationalism cannot provide '..any solution to the working class in Scottion" vas motivated on the Such opposition grounds that the Inationalist stancel of the SLP would only serve to split the united working class struggle against the government's policies. lt Would De difficult to find a more short - sighted approach, The very fact that Scottish workers feel they are suffering from to quit the Labour Party in droves natonal oppression - ano are r'eauy is adequate proof that such a 'split! alreaay exisis. Healing this split will not come about by denouncing these national aspirations as a idiversion'. result o suggesting that socialism is hostile to the rights of an oppressed people can only be to drive them into the arms of the SNP which is an openly bourgeois party pursuing policies inimical to the interests of the labour movement.
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Inesiment in south Africa by the US and Britain which enables Vorster to