https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/04/pers-a04.html

The SEP support for Scottish Independence politician and former head of the Scottish Government has nothing to do with support for Scottish national independence. In contrast, when Catalonia as a whole defied the Spanish government and held a referendum election on independence, the SEP sided with abstention rather than the socialist position in favor of the independence of smaller nations from imperialist states. The UK, as an imperialist state, should have national independence movements for Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. These independence movements, while they pose a risk of a violent clash with supporters of a world revolution, actually deserve the support of the revolutionary working class. National politicians who run on a bourgeois platform, such as that of the Alba Party in support of the EU-aligned EFTA, deserve criticism and exposure as uncommitted to socialist revolution and uncommitted to national independence. As Marx and Engels explained in Revolution and Counter-revolution, bourgeois representatives in bourgeois institutions will always back down when confronted by the imperialist state rather than turn to the people, arm the people, and lead them in a revolutionary national independence struggle. Only a true to commitment to the best interests of the people can end national oppression and the capitalist system that it exists to maintain.

Therefore, the SEP should withdraw support for former UK ambassador Craig Murray, former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond, the Alba Party, and every other bourgeois political organization while maintaining their support for Scottish Independence and telling the people the truth: only a socialist revolution led by a revolutionary party can provide for the revolutionary struggle to end national oppression. This must unite the cause of Scottish workers with the workers of the UK as a whole, as well as the European and international working class, against their imperialist states and their leaders of reformism and compromise along the lines of the ALBA party. If Alex Salmond’s fall came as a result of internal conflicts with the SNP and lead to the rise of the new First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, this has not harmed but helped the causes of socialism and the independence of Scotland. Above all, it has shown the weakness and division within bourgeois politics and its dependence on sexual violence combined with the intimidation of witnesses on one side and on the other identity politics which demotes Marxist class politics to the bottom of the barrel. This weakness, rather than giving cause for outreach to save bourgeois political careers, should inspire the SEP with renewed energy to lead the Scottish independence struggle along with the struggle for socialist internationalism throughout the UK, Europe, and the entire world. Only a world federation of workers’ states can protect smaller nations while guaranteeing them access to their share of world production and distribution.