Why a democratic federal republic?

Submitted by Matthew on 8 October, 2014 - 11:06 Author: Martin Thomas

Matt Cooper (Solidarity 338) objects to our calls for a democratic federal republic and a constituent assembly on three grounds:

One, that to call for a constituent assembly is “abstract propaganda”, or would “give those views that dominate current political debate... political form”.

Two, that a federal system is impossible “where one unit (England) is far bigger than all the others put together”.

Three, that devolution (the status quo? or Cameron’s increased devolution?) is the “good approximate answer”.

His third point seems to contradict his opening lines, that we were right to “outline what a new democratic settlement would look like”. If the good approximation is the status quo, or the already-promised amendments to it, then there is not much point Solidarity pursuing the question.

Our ideas on “a new democratic settlement” are not “realistic” in the sense of being what might win consensus in the current balance of forces? But as revolutionary socialists we also build forces and opinion for the future.

A constituent assembly would, of course, be shaped by current public opinion. But we seek to transform public opinion through opening out democracy, not to sidestep it by having arrangements imposed from above.

A federal system does not require units roughly equal in size. It would be easier that way, but neatness is not indispensable.

The federal republic which our movement set up in 1922 — the USSR of Lenin’s time — had one unit (the RFSFR) bigger than the others combined. With the Stalinist counter-revolution, its democratic provisions soon became null, but until now none of us thought that the federal set-up should have been opposed outright because of the RFSFR being so big.

The federal united Ireland which we in AWL have proposed since the late 1960s would have one unit much bigger than the other. The Protestant-majority area in the north-east counts only 1.5 million of Ireland’s 6.5 million people if we measure it as four counties, and not much over a million if we take out the Catholic-majority border areas of south Armagh and Derry City.

Germany’s Weimar Republic came to a bad end, but we’ve never thought that was because its federal system was made unworkable by one federal unit (Prussia) having over 60% of the total population.

If one unit is much bigger than the others, then the decisions of the federal authority will be heavily influenced by that unit. That may be difficult. But between England and Scotland, long closely integrated, it could be workable.

Small areas within a state — like, say, the French-speaking area and the German-speaking area of Italy — can be accommodated by autonomy without federal structures, essentially special expanded local government powers.

Is Scotland small enough, and is the agitation about Scotland’s status small enough, for that to be sufficient? I think not. Solidarity and Workers’ Liberty started to revive Engels’s call for a democratic federal republic in Britain 12 or 13 years ago, when agitation for Scottish independence mounted in the activist left, notably in the then-strong Scottish Socialist Party. Now Cameron has been forced to offer more radical devolution, and the SNP is well-placed to hold him to it.

That is bound to open new questions.

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