We have another guest post today, this from Yousuf Hamid, formerly star Labour blogger under the handle Yapping Yousuf. It’s just coincidence that we’ve had two Labour guests in a row, promise.
There’s now less than 7 months until the most important election of my lifetime, the biggest test for devolution and an equally large test for progressive unionist parties.
At risk of falling foul of Malc’s unremittingly positive brief, I don’t think that even the staunchest nationalists would deny that the SNP have run out of steam in the last few months, but I don’t believe that this will be enough to deliver a Labour victory, this will be an election about the future far more than a referendum on the past.
I should say at the outset that I call it a great test of devolution not because of the importance of localism (as nice as it is) but because it is a chance to rectify the iniquity of having Conservative policies imposed on a left wing Scotland whist keeping the relative financial prosperity of the union.
I would argue that over the last 10 years we have had a government that people in Scotland, if not quite loved, broadly agreed with and certainly voted for, but now that is no longer the case and this is a serious problem that unionists should never ignore.
I say unionists but it’s not a phrase I’m terribly comfortable with: unionists and nationalists are the politics of the SNP, ours should always be between progressives and conservatives, and that is why we should never ignore the constitutional question.
The cuts which are coming are Tory cuts but they are also cuts only happening because of votes in the South of England. Scotland does not believe in their necessity and it shouldn’t have to deal with the full severity of them.
We didn’t vote for the Tories (let us ignore the Liberal Democrat votes as no Liberal Democrat voter knew they were voting for savage cuts) and the institution of the Scottish Parliament means we don’t have to have them in their entirety.
With Calman we will have more powers than ever on borrowing and tax to stop them.
Yes, we know that Alex Salmond will use every excuse to pick a fight with Westminster but that doesn’t mean that we have to be uber-unionists. In a fight between the compassionate left wing conscience of the Scottish people and the wishes of a right wing Government, I know where my backing goes.
Scottish Labour has a fantastic record on home rule for Scotland. Keir Hardie fought for it in 1888, Donald Dewar delivered it in 1999 and Wendy Alexander started the process of strengthening it in 2007.
The truth is that we are the only party to have delivered home rule to Scotland and we have a great case to make that we will be the ones who can make it work in these difficult times.
This election will be about who can protect Scotland from Tory Westminster cuts. The case for independence is now as close to dead as I can ever remember but those of us who want to make sure that in 2011 we wake up to a Labour Scottish Government need to be on the right side of the constitutional question.
We recently marked the 10th anniversary of Donald Dewar’s death and it is easy to get swept up in the romanticism of past heroes of the party, but all the great socialist heroes of this country (from Hardie to Wheatley to Maxton) all understood the importance of the constitution in delivering their socialist utopias.
There was a day when Labour politicians were warned of falling into the ‘comfort zone’ of far left politics, in Scotland the comfort zone of uber-unionism in the face of widely different voting patterns in Scotland and England is a far greater threat to electoral success.
It’s not actually a comfort zone for most Scottish Labour party members but it is a corner we mustn’t back into.
#1 by DougtheDug on October 20, 2010 - 1:22 pm
There’s now less than 7 months until the most important election of my lifetime, the biggest test for devolution and an equally large test for progressive unionist parties.
But further down Yusuf you say you don’t like the term unionist. When you say, “unionist parties”, are you grouping Labour along with the Lib-Dems and the Tories?
At risk of falling foul of Malc’s unremittingly positive brief, I don’t think that even the staunchest nationalists would deny that the SNP have run out of steam in the last few months, but I don’t believe that this will be enough to deliver a Labour victory, this will be an election about the future far more than a referendum on the past.
But Labour is a party that is desperate not to have a referendum on the future of Scotland.
I should say at the outset that I call it a great test of devolution not because of the importance of localism (as nice as it is) but because it is a chance to rectify the iniquity of having Conservative policies imposed on a left wing Scotland whist keeping the relative financial prosperity of the union.
How will a Labour government in Holyrood stop Conservative policies being imposed on Scotland? If the Conservatives cut spending on social programmes in England that cut will also be applied in Scotland as Scotland’s grant is cut in proportion. It won’t matter who runs Holyrood, the money remains the same and the cuts are coming because the Union is not financially prosperous.
I would argue that over the last 10 years we have had a government that people in Scotland, if not quite loved, broadly agreed with and certainly voted for, but now that is no longer the case and this is a serious problem that unionists should never ignore. I say unionists but it’s not a phrase I’m terribly comfortable with: unionists and nationalists are the politics of the SNP, ours should always be between progressives and conservatives, and that is why we should never ignore the constitutional question.
But you called yourself a progressive unionist at the top Yusuf and if you’re not ignoring the constitutional question how can you remove an independent Scotland from that question?
The cuts which are coming are Tory cuts but they are also cuts only happening because of votes in the South of England. Scotland does not believe in their necessity and it shouldn’t have to deal with the full severity of them.
So how are you going to stop the Tory cuts? Is this a coded message that Labour is going to use the 3p in the pound income tax power as well as bump up Council Tax if they win the next election because there is no other way to fill the hole in the block grant the Tories are going to impose.
We didn’t vote for the Tories (let us ignore the Liberal Democrat votes as no Liberal Democrat voter knew they were voting for savage cuts) and the institution of the Scottish Parliament means we don’t have to have them in their entirety.
Labour did Yusuf. The Labour voters voted for rule from Westminster. A vote for Labour was a confirmation that they wanted to be ruled from Westminster. You campaigned for Westminster rule and now you’ve got it and in the next election Yusuf, you’re going to be campaigning to keep the David Cameron as Tory Prime Minister of Scotland for the next four years at least. Labour will be fighting to keep David Cameron and his Tories running Scotland while the SNP will be trying to ditch them and the Union.
“…we don’t have to have them in their entirety.”
Again is this a coded message for Council and income tax increases in Scotland to try and fill the hole the Conservative Government are going to leave in Scotland’s Block Grant. A Conservative Government that Labour are going to be fighting for tooth and nail at the next election to keep as the Government of Scotland.
With Calman we will have more powers than ever on borrowing and tax to stop them.
Yup. There’s no doubt Labour is going for an income tax increase to try and stop the cuts coming from Westminster. And it’s instructive to look just at what Calman gives Scotland. The 3p in the pound extra income tax power limit gets bumped up to 10p in the pound and borrowing is restricted to managing cash flow and for capital projects, subject to the ability of the Parliament in Holyrood to repay the debt. Borrowing to fund day to day services is not allowed. Remember, even if Calman was in place now the amount of money coming to Scotland would be exactly the same as Westminster will only fund Scotland up to the Barnett formula level, Calman or no Calman. Calman is just smoke and mirrors.
Yes, we know that Alex Salmond will use every excuse to pick a fight with Westminster but that doesn’t mean that we have to be uber-unionists. In a fight between the compassionate left wing conscience of the Scottish people and the wishes of a right wing Government, I know where my backing goes.
Again Yusuf you identify yourself as a unionist just not an uber-unionist. Where does your backing go? You fought for Westminster rule in the 2010 Westminster election and you’ve got it. Labour got what they wanted in Scotland. What’s the problem? And as I said before you’re going to be fighting tooth and nail against the SNP to keep the Conservatives as the controlling Government of Scotland at the next Scottish elections.
Scottish Labour has a fantastic record on home rule for Scotland. Keir Hardie fought for it in 1888, Donald Dewar delivered it in 1999 and Wendy Alexander started the process of strengthening it in 2007.
The gap between Keir Hardie and Donald Dewar is 111 years which is not particularly speedy and as I point out above Calman is a joke and gives Scotland no more control over its own economy than it has now.
The truth is that we are the only party to have delivered home rule to Scotland and we have a great case to make that we will be the ones who can make it work in these difficult times.
And how will you make it work? You will be given a block grant by Westminster and then you can try and fill the hole by hitting everyone with a council tax increase and an income tax increase, taking money out of the economy when it needs to be encouraged not depressed.
This election will be about who can protect Scotland from Tory Westminster cuts. The case for independence is now as close to dead as I can ever remember but those of us who want to make sure that in 2011 we wake up to a Labour Scottish Government need to be on the right side of the constitutional question.
How Yusuf? How can Labour protect Scotland from Tory Westminster cuts? Labour got 41 MP’s in Scotland at the last General Election. Did they save Kinloss? Will they save Lossiemouth? And the only reason the carriers are still being built is because the Tories couldn’t get out of the contracts. It was nothing to do with Scotlands feeble forty one. The idea that Scotland’s, “Pocket Money Parliament”, can protect Scotland from the Conservative Government in Westminster is laughable.
There was a day when Labour politicians were warned of falling into the ‘comfort zone’ of far left politics, in Scotland the comfort zone of uber-unionism in the face of widely different voting patterns in Scotland and England is a far greater threat to electoral success. It’s not actually a comfort zone for most Scottish Labour party members but it is a corner we mustn’t back into.
Labour want the Union. They currently want to be run from Westminster and will fight to be run from Westminster at the next Scottish election even though it is controlled by the Tories. Labour are already in the Uber-Unionist corner.
#2 by Nconway on October 20, 2010 - 1:39 pm
A few major points that you miss It was the Labour government that created the financial mess were in today and if it wasnt for the SNP growing in strength (and now has the most members) the Labour party wouldnt have agreed to hold a referendum on devolution.If it wasnt for the SNP the unionist partys wouldnt have produced Callum .
#3 by Rolf on October 20, 2010 - 2:35 pm
The case for independence has never been stronger (in my lifetime), and for entirely positive reasons. It’s that positivity that saw me re-join the SNP. I want better for Scotland and the only party that is seriously trying to make the country better is the SNP. Labour in Scotland are entirely hamstrung by their devotion to the bankrupt union – lose Scotland and they lose any hope of a Westminster majority for the foreseeable. But why should the people of Scotland be held down by the London-centric ambitions of the Labour party’s political “elite”?
#4 by Chris on October 20, 2010 - 3:03 pm
There is more than a touch of revisionism in Nconway’s post. IE that Labour were forced to hold a referendum on Devolution due to the strength of the SNP. One reads that so often that it sounds like a mantra.
It is, of course, a useful trick for dismissing the fact that it took a Labour government to deliver a parliament. I’d really like to challenge this. First as a party member at the time, as well as a member of the CSA and SLA I am very aware that most Labour members were strongly in favour of devoution: the voices who were opposed to were in a very small and slightly eccentric minority. If there was a discussion about supporting devolution simply to thwart independence (rather than as a hoped for by-product) I missed it during all the conference and party debates about the Claim of Right, accpeting that sovereignty lay with the Scottish people (not the crown) or embedding powers in Scotland.
A party that simply wanted to kill off independence would not have embedded powers in the way the Scotland Act was created, it would not have chosen AMS to ensure legitimacy and would not have sought cross party support from the SNP and LibDems for the referendum.
Secondly I would suggest that the real change from the 1970s to the 1990s was a growth is Scottish confidence and a greater divergence from a crumbling UK consensus. This was reflected in all sorts of ways, including growth in support for independence and growth in support for devolution. If you supported independence you voted SNP, if you supported devolution you supported Labour or Liberal/Lib Dem and if you supported direct rule you voted Tory.
I am sure this subject has filled many a 2nd Year Politics Essay. But the apparently lazy comment above does need challenging.
#5 by James Kelly on October 20, 2010 - 5:36 pm
I don’t think that even the staunchest nationalists would deny that the SNP have run out of steam in the last few months
Yousuf, I deny that the SNP have run out of steam. One of the few instances when, simply by asserting something, I can definitively prove you wrong!
Leaving your views on the SNP aside, I think you have broadly the right prescription for Labour. It’s all very well believing that the unionist/nationalist axis is unhealthy, but Labour will never transcend it until they proactively start pressing for a significantly bolstered devolved settlement.
#6 by Scotsfox on October 20, 2010 - 7:12 pm
Any chance of an article from a Labour representative simply apologising for the unholy mess they’ve left? Any representative will do.
#7 by Alasdair on October 20, 2010 - 7:15 pm
I have to say I find it immensely amusing that Labour folk continue to peddle this nonsense, spin aside though.
Discussion of Tory policies being ‘imposed’ on Scotland entirely misses the point of a representative democracy. As soon as you get into the realm of talking about this or that being imposed by Westminster you are accepting the case (by dint of implication) for Scottish independence.
The government runs the country, all of it, end of discussion. It’s not about England, Wales or Scotland (or even NI), if we start saying that it’s imposing it’s policies on particular areas then you might as well say it’s imposing them on individual constituencies regardless of where they happen to lie.
And to suggest that Labour have devlivered home rule, pah, you call the half-baked ‘parliament’ we’ve got in holyrood home rule? If we did have home rule, you wouldn’t be talking about policies being imposed on Scotland, or anywhere else for that matter.
I’m sorry Yousuf, but there’s a lot of nonsense in your post … no offence intended you understand ;^)
#8 by Allan on October 20, 2010 - 8:58 pm
“I should say at the outset that I call it a great test of devolution not because of the importance of localism (as nice as it is) but because it is a chance to rectify the iniquity of having Conservative policies imposed on a left wing Scotland whist keeping the relative financial prosperity of the union.”
Of course the next Holyrood election is importaint, as we face a return to Municipalist Labour. However Yousuf with the point about Tory policies foisted on Scotland seems to have forgotten about the policies propagated by the greatest leader the Tories never had… Tony Blair.
Yousuf has forgotten about Light Touch regulation which has led directly to the cuts today, he has forgotten about the spread of PFI which has saddled our local authorities with billions of pounds of debt, and he has forgotton about the scandal of “Hands off” companies set up by Glasgow City Council.
If this election was all about who can protect Scotland from the big bad Tories, then WTF was the Westminster election all about, when Labour offered even less?
#9 by Indy on October 20, 2010 - 10:42 pm
This is a deeply confused article.
If you believe, as you say, that it is iniquitous to have Tory/Lib Dem policies imposed on Scotland then you are a nationalist.
#10 by Math Campbell on October 20, 2010 - 10:49 pm
I have to agree with Alasdair (who as proof as to how small a world it really is, apparently was my partner’s childhood neighbour!).
By the acceptance that the Tries are “imposing” things on an electorate that didn’t vote for them, you are accepting that the electorate is an independent one to the English, therefore tacit acceptance of independence.
But, I think a lot of them are coming to realise that it IS going to happen, it is the natural conclusion to the devolution process. Be it in the next parliament, the one after, or 20 years down the road, sooner or later, we will get there.
I suspect sooner. When the economic collapse first started, I thought “well shit, there goes our referendum plans”, and sure enough we’ve had to hedge for now. But my thoughts about it “killing” independence off for another 10-15 years were in error. It won’t.
More and more people are starting to accept what I’ve thought for a long time – independence is needed not for the good times, but for the bad. When times are good, the theory went, people would feel better about the country and might vote for independence. But when times are bad, people get scared and say “no”. At least so said the theory.
But I think people are starting to realise what Alex was talking about at conference – the “union dividend”, if there ever was one, is wiped out if times are’ve rosy, because London politicians, particularly an english-first party like the tories, will protect the south-east of that place first and foremost, and Scotland is left out in the cold.
We need independence for those air-bases in Moray (which would form the backbone of the Scottish Air Force), for the naval yards on the Clyde (which would no longer glow, if you know what I mean), and for the restoration of the Regiments, which would need to happen in the Scottish Army.
We need it because Scotland operates in a surplus, yet is being asked to take cuts to pay for English follies. We need it because we need to conclude a better deal on behalf of our fishermen with Europe and others (like the Faroe Islands), which we’re unable to do when London controls our fisheries treaties. We need it because we need to reform the way local government occurs in this country, to remove as Allan said, the dubious and downright dishonest hands-off con-jobs the crooked, corrupt Councillors of Glasgow have cooked up when they’re not too busy shovelling cocaine into their nasal cavities or defrauding the people…
We need independence, in short, because the country’s on it’s way to hell in a handbasket, and the London lobby will do sod all, and care sod all, about Scotland when they’re busy trying to rescue the mess Labour left them in, and without the powers of a true legislature, try as we might, even with the miracle workers like John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond at the helm, there’s just some things you cannot do, unless you have the powers…
#11 by Lost Highlander on October 20, 2010 - 11:03 pm
Im sorry Yousuf but there is little that the Scottish Parliament can do to stop the cuts. It is the very simple fact that the purse strings are held by westminster and we only spend the “pocket money” we are given. Calman is a distraction it will not work as like the Tartan tax it will not be used. What it gives is a zero sum game and cannot let us grow our economy or even borrow to tide over shortages in taxes knowing we will get better ones later in the financial year.
You state that you are a progressive but so do the Conservative Unionist party. It is just there idea of progressive is totally different from yours. Actually Labour is more the conservative party. Labour seems to think that taxing people suffering increased pension contributions, Job worries, no pay rises will work. Labour have to get real and be prepared to look at Scotland and realise that the Union they crow for as it is set up hurts Scotland. Calman is a waste of time and only Scotland able to control its own finances will ever allow Scotlands people the right to have the society they want.
The simple fact is that we have a democratic deficiency. The Scottish Parliament is powerless when Westminster pulls the financial strings. Westminster elections are decided in the South of England and when it comes to choices what is best for Scotland will always become second to what is best for the South of England.
#12 by cynicalHighlander on October 20, 2010 - 11:22 pm
Well well Yousaf still peddling the Scottish branch of the London Labour party, what was the message last GE vote Labour to keep the Tories out. Simple maths seems to defy your party as even 53 Scottish Labour MPs out of 646 leaves a very large deficit something the last chancellor left the country with.
“Out of steam” no the elastic band is just starting to get wound up ready to release those phantom aircraft on those aircraft carriers being built on the Clyde to send that flawed Calman commision back to the drawing board for correction.
Rather than reading the fairytale story of Labour,s achievements in Scotland on devolution try reading ‘The Realm of Scotland’ which clearly shows that the UN steered the path for devolution otherwise the UK would of lost its seat on the council.
Labour has only one achievement in Scotland and that is the increase in poverty by its centralising of power.