The Royal Family have had a lot of negative press this year – and rightly so. Amongst the backlash, a new campaign emerged called ‘Our Republic’. Front and centre on their website, is their blue and white pyramid logo, and the group’s credo.
‘Our Republic is the Scottish cross-party campaign for a republic. We believe that all power should be democratically accountable. The people of Scotland deserve to vote for our head of state.’
This reads much better than some other parts of the site. For example, ‘Frequently Asked Question: But I like the Queen/William. Answer: That’s okay!’. Clearly, republicanism without socialism has substantial limitations.
Our Republic do not seem to understand the difference between popular sovereignty and parliamentary or presidential sovereignty. The nation is proclaimed as sovereign! But only so far as it votes in politicians, and perhaps also occasionally casts them out. The people must reign supreme! But simultaneously, an elected ceremonial head-of-state – ‘a unifying candidate… a single figure elected not on ideological grounds, as they will have no power to implement that ideology’ – is required to be their embodiment.
Iceland, Germany, and the Republic of Ireland are cited as model states for Scotland to emulate. Irish President Michael D. Higgins’s photo is fondly displayed is fondly displayed as an example of the type of person – a human rights campaigner – we need to in place of the queen.
The Republic of Ireland is an interesting case in point. Over the decades, there have been nine Irish presidents. Some conservative like Éamon de Valera. Others more progressive like Higgins and his predecessor Mary McAleese. Regardless, over that same period, and even longer, only two parties have ruled in Ireland – both conservative parties. The existence of a ceremonial head-of-state in Ireland has done little to promote equality there in the profound way in which ‘Our Republic’ say that it would in Scotland.
Article critique: ‘Scotland’s Claim of Right’ by Tristan Gray
It was good to see attention paid to the mystical question of how devolution came to be achieved in Scotland. This article introduces the 1989 Claim of Right document which proclaimed ‘the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs’.
However, the article is contradictory. On one hand, it reiterates the above affirmation of popular sovereignty. But rather than viewing this declaration as just one manifestation of a mass movement from below against Thatcher, it is presented in a rather top-down fashion, with emphasis on the all-important 160 signatories (church ministers, academics, trade union officials, Labour and Lib Dem MPs).
The article goes on to outline Scotland’s ‘constitutional tradition of the sovereignty of the people’, with the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath as its origin. Its signatories asserted Scottish independence and expressed a proto-republican sentiment of conditional support for Robert the Bruce. Like its English equivalent, the 1215 Magna Carta, the document was a lords' charter representing an intra-ruling-class conflict. The author seems to acknowledge this. Nonetheless, it is argued that the conditional character of the signatories’ support for King Robert, and their conception of contract were ground-breaking.
The article’s claim that the Declaration of Arbroath ‘set a precedent… that power was not given by birth right or divine provenance, but by contract’ is an unusual interpretation. Bruce’s daughter married into the Stuarts in 1371. From then onwards, the Stuarts would continue to claim the Scottish crown for 425 years. Those medieval seeds of republicanism evidently failed to grow!
The article’s narrative of the ‘constitutional tradition of the sovereignty of the people’ jumps from the 14th century Declaration of Arbroath to the 17th century. Regrettably, no attention is given to that periods proto-republican Covenanters who are most worthy of our attention, despite that this mass movement forced the transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy.
So, what does the article say about the 17th century? It celebrates the 1689 ‘Claim of Right Act’ passed by the Scottish Parliament. It is disappointing that rather than cover the proto-republican Covenanter movement from below, the author chose to celebrate a bourgeois parliamentary document.
The author describes the document as ‘an assertion that ultimate power rests with the ‘Nation’, of which Parliament is but the representative’. Again, this is disappointing. The ‘nation’ in question referred to Lowland Protestants, including the Ulster Scots diaspora, and excluded the Gaelic identities of Scotland and Ireland.
To clarify, the 1689 Claim of Right Act was a triumphal embrace of the new victorious monarch William of Orange following a bloody civil war. British capitalists had invited William from Holland to oppose and replace his father-in-law James Stuart. Many Gaels fell fighting against King Billy, which is still celebrated by loyalist fascists every July. Gaelic rebels, having been sucked into a proxy war, fought in the royalist ranks against the Covenanters. This has been called a ‘sub-Jacobite outlaw culture’ (Allan Armstrong, 2003, Beyond Broadswords and Bayonets). It was a dignified avenue of resistance, which should not to be sneered at retrospectively. Further reading: Recovering repressed memories from Scotland’s formative period.
The author’s cultural oversight was probably not deliberate. He probably just wanted to outline the historical precedent of monarchs being deposed in Scotland – even if only to be replaced by other monarchs, and for power to remain concentrated in the hands of a few.
Throughout the article, there is an air of Scottish exceptionalism. Even though the author is English living in Scotland. For example, it is suggested that the 14th century Declaration of Arbroath may have influenced 18th and 19th century revolutions in other parts of the world.
The author speaks of a ‘clash of constitutional values between England and Scotland’, with England recognising the ‘sovereignty of Parliament, bestowed upon it by the Crown’ and Scotland ‘sovereignty of the people, with parliament as their representative’. Perhaps England is being conflated with Westminster. The truth is, unlike most countries in Europe, including England, Scotland has never been a republican state.
But how helpful is the 17th English radical tradition to the here and now? Considering Scotland’s vibrant national movement and more progressive political situation, there is perhaps some truth to the author’s suggestion that Scotland is more fertile grounds for republicanism than England. But this being the case, it is baffling that Our Republic ‘take no stance on Scottish independence’. This is the confused approach which can come from single issue campaigns.
Ultimately, to quote the 1871 Paris Communards, we need a ‘universal republic’, not a republican Scotland poised against stuffy olde England.
While there is much to be learnt from contemplating the history of society’s development, proclaiming the sovereignty of the people in the here and now is not dependent on archaic documents from centuries ago. Especially not documents of Protestant supremacy and privilege like the 1689 Claim of Rights.
Towards the end of the article, the author expresses a similar sentiment. ‘Although we can look to history, learn from it, draw inspiration from it and build upon it, we should never be limited to and by our past. The Claim of Right, and the sovereignty of the people, are the foundations we can build on as we imagine and fight for a Scotland fit for our future’.
The article’s historical omissions were disappointing. Much stronger historical foundations are available than the Claim of Rights. The kind of ‘future’ that the author is imagining is also underwhelming. OR’s sole objective is to replace the Scottish monarch with an elected president, but otherwise to leave things pretty much the same. They refuse to enter the independence debate and are content for the rest of the UK to remain a monarchy. So much for internationalism.
Even when, in another article, the author correctly identifies the Crown Powers, rather than the royal family, as the main problem, he naïvely suggests that an elected president could fix this. The author is so fixated upon the head-of-state and the high culture of parliaments, that while lip service is paid to the idea of the sovereignty of the people, paying any attention to the ‘lowly’ people has been severely neglected.
No republicanism without socialism, no socialism without republicanism!
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