I commented on the referendum in Scotland and so will comment on its aftermath despite the fact that I am not, of course, anywhere near Scotland.
There seem to me to be three key issues. The first is that the election has galvanised Scottish politics. By membership the SNP is the third largest UK political party and the Scottish Greens are doing well too whilst the Conservatives remain non-entities in Scotland and the Lib Dems there are sharing their UK wide prospect of a political abyss. In contrast to the SNP Labour has collapsed into intercinine quibbling, is having one of the leadership elections it always handles so badly and which always seem to be outright gifts to its opponents, and is suffering a potential political collapse which could help, yet again, change the face of UK politics.
The Independent put the latest opinion poll predictions like this when compared with the 2010 election outcome:
That is a staggering suggestion, and we are seven months from the 2015 election.The chance that this will change dramatically by then is now low. Scotland is angry with Labour, who the Scottish electorate thinks sold it a deliberate misrepresentation engineered by Cameron and the Tories in the referendum as a result of which failure by Labour Scotland will now unambiguously take second place in the Union and will lose out as a result. The Scots are willing to punish Labour as a result.
I am unsurprised. Many, I think, voted No with clothes pegs in their noses. Now they can smell the stench of the neoliberal conspiracy that has exposed its true colours to them. In the aftermath of that fact and Labour's obvious inability to work out what was really happening in the Conservative campaign of which they were a part Labour is being punished, and rightly so.
The SNP reacted to its loss by moving left and by choosing a new and impressive leader, not that I suspect Alex Salmond will leave the scene. Indeed, expect him back in Westminster next year, I suggest.
Labour has in contrast been recriminatory and is moving right when it is very clear Scotland has no time for that at all. Jim Murphy is considered the leading contender to be its new leader. He has no Holyrood seat and on current opinion poll ratings little chance of getting one. But the real issue is that as a right wing, Blairite neoliberal wedded to austerity and without proven flair in any ministerial position he has ever held Jim Murphy is hardly the man for the moment. His unpreparedness and lack of awareness are all too apparent from his comments reported in the Guardian today where it is noted that he said:
I'm not interested in left-wing Labour or right-wing Labour, or old Labour or new Labour. I'm interested in losing Labour.
I want to end that period of losing Labour here in Scotland, starting with the UK general election in 2015, where I'm confident we can hold all the seats we currently have but pick up one or two on top, and also win that election in 2016 for the Scottish parliament.
Heaven help Labour then. Being led by a man who can say that sort of thing will be like being the proverbial lamb on the way to slaughter.
First that's because Jim Murphy does very much care about left and right Labour. He has been closely associated with Progress, which has been the torch bearer for Blairism ever since the man departed the scene. Being right-wing Labour matters very much to him indeed.
But much more damning is the claim that all he really cares about is Labour winning. The people of Scotland suspected Labour took them for granted for a long time. Now they won't endure that again. Being simply treated by a new Labour leader as Westminster fodder, as this comment implies, would be enough to annoy me intensely.
No wonder the Labour vote in Scotland has collapsed. And with it goes any chance of a UK Labour government. Scotland will have its comeuppance in 2015 if this anger persists, and in a now deeply politicised society I can't see that anger dissipating.
This does not mean we get a Conservative government, of course. They and the Lib Dems might also lose from this, and the result is no one could rule Westminster without explicit Scottish support. That takes us back to the Irish position of the late nineteenth century, which is almost forgotten. What it guarantees is awkward coalition or minority government.
But it does more, because it sends a signal to Labour that it is refusing to listen to. People are fed up with right-wing, neoliberal Labour. Labour may not have noticed but its chance of being elected on being Tory-lite are fading fast because that denies anyone hope to most people, and if there is a core product at the heart of politics then hope is it. Labour has almost no way it seems capable of finding that hope within itself, let alone of tapping it to sell to the electorate now.
The chance that Labour will remain relevant in debate for much longer seems low as a consequence and the political remapping of Britain, to match the UKIP split on the right, seems ever more likely. I have never felt the end of two party politics more likely, but we are quite unprepared for the the consequences.
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Excellent comment and analysis, as usual.Think Labour`s first miatake was to fall for the Tory con trick over deficit reduction:
http://paperblogwriter49.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/labour-still-doesnt-get-it-pt-1-deficit.html
Correct Richard, Labour’s spineless acquiesence to the coalition’s austerity agenda and their arrogance in taking Scottish voters for granted is now being punished. When the referendum result came out I happened to see copies of the Mail and the Mirror, and the hostility towards Salmond, from both papers, was breathtaking. Personally, I find him far more impressive than Cameron, Clegg or Milliband.
The fact that Labour was as terrified of the SNP as the Lib Dems and the Tories and participated in what we now see to be a disingenuous offer by the government to devolve more power to Scotland in return for a No vote, speaks volumes. If Labour can’t offer an alternative to austerity, and aren’t prepared to talk about economic and social justice why don’t they just pack up their bags and go home?
Miliband talks about inequality all the time – about how this country works for a tiny minority of people. People simply aren’t listening or are buying into the Right wing media’s propaganda against him.
As a politically active tax and finance (and CA) lecturer in Scotland (pro indy) I think you are spot on. Re the tax agenda you put forward more generally… a yes vote was a chance for Scotland, over time, to reform and make more progressive our tax system. We are where we are now, in the hands of Westminster, as to what powers we are ‘allowed’. It’s a shame. But Labour in Scotland refuse to see the progressive opportunities open to them by not seeking for their Scotland branch (or their country) to be independent. The tax agenda stays in Westminster.
Depressingly true
Thanks
Yep, you’re right Rachel. The only reason they opposed Independence was self preservation. However, there is a double irony as they were used as patsys by Westminster Scottish MP’s. As a consequence many of their MP’s and MSP’s will lose their jobs.
Now, I suspect Murphy will be elected. A gift for the SNP and Greens. That will lead to Labour in Scotland ceasing to exist as a large political party. There will be perceived harmony between London and Holyrood as Murphy will fully endorse London’s neo-Liberal agenda,which the electorate will reject. The MSP’s in Edinburgh? They will not rebel as they don’t have a backbone between them!
Jim Murphy is part of the “in the black Labour,” a Thatcherite group who are deluded with the idea that cutting the deficit requires shrinking the state instead of taxing the parasitic banks, private health, care and service companies.
Seamus Milne has interpreted Milibands acceptance of the Right correctly I think, as he has accepted Progress Party candidates like Murphy without question, and yet came down hard on the left candidates for Falkirk, which Tom Watson criticised and stated was wrong.
Seamus Milne states:-
“after losing 4 million working-class votes between 1997 and 2010, it would be a suicidal Labour leadership that didn’t learn the lessons. Without its core vote, at the heart of an alliance of working-class and middle-class voters, Labour can’t win.
But the lesson drawn by Douglas Alexander, Labour’s election strategist, from the political establishment’s near-death experience north of the border is not so much to woo working-class voters but to appease the kind of corporate giants that frightened Scots into the no camp with threats of closures and job losses.
Along with Ed Balls and Chuka Umunna, Alexander has formed a kind of corporate praetorian guard around Miliband to pacify the City and CBI and rein in the Labour leader’s instincts for building a new economic model in a post-crash world”.
Murphy is probably Progress’s choice. It makes no sense to choose someone who the Scots would revile – so why do it? There is a lot of criticism of him in the Guardian today – some from Scots. Is it to undermine the leadership?
In the black Labour is deeply pernicious
As Howard Reed would put it they’re LINO – Labour In Name Only
I’d say your analysis is pretty much spot on, across the board here, Richard, including your very final point. And Jim Murphy – dear oh, dear! But then again, perhaps in truth they can’t get anyone else to do the job, given that it’s quite clear they’ll now be in charge of a doomed campaign. Perhaps most startling in all this is the speed with which the political environment of Britain has changed since the referendum, and how events and the “agenda” appear to be almost completely out of the control and/or influence of the three main parties. One result – already evident over the past week – is that the Tories’ (and Tory media’s) innate ability to lie and misrepresent anything just as long as it might keep them in power, will be ratcheted up, and up. And I think arm in arm with that will be one of the dirtiest elections campaigns in modern times.
If the referendum is anything to go by, Ivan, even you will be unpleasantly surprised.
Putting an amoral, thuggish machine hack like Murphy in is sending the Yes vote an early xmas present.
I am in the unhappy position of liking and respecting my MP, Sheila Gilmore, but she won’t get anywhere while the likes of alexander and ummuna are around.
Looks like I’ll be voting for anti unionist candidate in 2015.
Social media rules … This is where most now find the stories that get conveniently ommited by the BBC and newspapers .. I think more of us now engage the older generation that isn’t on the internet .. I know when I speak of latest info I get a look of surprise as to where I get my info that they have no knowledge of .. I think the referendum has made more poeple want to be engaged in the politics of the uk and Scotland ..how long will it last ? .. I would say at least for two or three more years ..for some ..and a lifetime for most. :-). We are possibly 52% and rising .. Not bad for a defeated movement ! .. If the unionists keep on saying it they think they can make it a reality .. It’s called denial ! Something they have been trying to tag to the SNP since the referendum result .. They are sailing a rudderless holed ship and there are rocks ahead .. And jim murphy is supposed to be the one to bail them out ! I don’t think irn bru crates work aswell as a bucket ? Maybe they are really just to allow him to keep his head ” ego ” above the rest of us lesser beings ..
“… At this pivotal moment in the history of our country the Labour Party in Britain recognises the right of the Scottish People to self-determination. As a fundamental right it goes beyond Parliament, beyond Westminster, and most of all, it goes beyond Party Politics.
For that reason, and that reason alone, it is the decision of the Labour Party that we will not make this a Party Political issue and will instead offer our MP’S and Party members the opportunity to campaign in accordance with their conscience and their beliefs about what is best for Scotland and the Scottish People.
It is my fervent hope that Scotland will choose to remain within the Union and be part of a future Labour Government that will build a better, fairer, more equitable society for all our citizens. I believe that, together we can build a Labour Party, a Union, a society that is more inclusive and reflective of our diversity and our capabilities, and that is ready to take on, and where necessary, confront, the challenges that present themselves in a modern, global economy.
But that is an issue that Scotland must decide for itself, without interference or manipulation from Westminster. It is my strongly held belief that in a modern, technological, and often uncertain world, we are better together.
But, as leader of the Labour Party, I will make this solemn promise. If the people of Scotland decide that they are better on their own, a future Labour Government would work hard to ensure that Scotland’s transition to independence will be carried out in a spirit of harmony and cooperation to ensure that as neighbours we can maintain the closeness that has made Britain great for six hundred years…”
(excerpt taken from ‘The greatest speeches Ed Miliband never gave ‘
The level of ineptitude displayed by the PLP in its bungled handling of the Scottish referendum, its apparent inability to challenge the austerity rhetoric and put forward an argument for ‘the courageous state’, and now the suggestion that the singularly uninspiring Jim Murphy is the antidote to the terminal decline of the Scottish Labour Party looks increasingly like a ‘fifth columnist’ attempt to ensure Britain never again sees a socialist government.
In debate after debate, vox pop after vox pop, the Scottish People made plain what they wanted. Social Justice. What are they offered in Jim Murphy? Yet another ‘progressive’ Labour careerist that is ‘intensely relaxed’ about the opposite.
#nohope
Thanks Martin
Great speech
Ahh, that’s nothing… You should hear the one he didn’t give on ‘Britain and the failure of free market economics -Why the Labour Party is turning its back on Neo-liberal thinking’
Give us a peak
I’ll pst the whole thing if you like