Ross Martin has advice for Scottish Labour on the Centre for Scottish Public Policy website. So have I - see my comment on the site (reproduced below).
Ross Martin: The red rose has to go, for starters
MORIDURA’S COMMENT
Scottish Labour's problem is the two iron balls shackled to its ankles - one labelled U and the other K. 'Scottish' Labour has only one purpose - to keep Westminster Labour in power in the UK.
Ross Martin says "The Scottish Labour Party must be all three of these things: Scottish, Labour and a proper political Party." It can be none of these things while Scotland remains in the UK and Labour is a unionist party. There was no "mass civic movement that campaigned for and designed devolution" - it was a Blair/New Labour stitch up designed to draw the teeth of Scottish Nationalism, as George Robertson so clearly stated, and was so badly wrong about.
The Scottish independence movement is committed to a constitutional monarchy, sensible shared arrangements on defence - excluding the obscenity of nuclear weapons and WMDs in Scottish waters - and an intelligent, sophisticated relationship of friendship and trust with the residual United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland - UK Minus.
What ragged standards have Scottish Unionist Labour got left to cling to?
The outmoded and lethal doctrine of nuclear deterrence?
The right of a Westminster Parliament, dominated by a south east power bloc of money, privilege and corruption to decide when the flower of Scottish youth is sent to die in foreign adventures at the dictat of US foreign policy, which at any time could fall back into the suicidal lunacies of the Bush era?
To almost 1000 unelected Lords in a second chamber that is always destined for reform but never will be while the UK lives?
Scottish Labour must indeed do three things to survive and regenerate - embrace Scottish independence, reject the nuclear deterrent and perform an act of public contrition for the egregious crime against humanity that was the Iraq war. Then, and only then, the party might rediscover its values, its identity - and its soul.
POSTSCRIPT - ADDITIONAL COMMENT
Nothing points up Scotland's situation in relation to the UK more than the nature of the present government - a Tory government, when the Tories were decisively rejected in May 2010 by the Scottish electorate, a Coalition deal negotiated by Danny Alexander, a LibDem who would have been thrown out of office had he stood for the Scottish Parliament.
The LibDem have provided two Scottish Secretaries to replace the awful Jim Murphy - Alexander briefly, and now Michael Moore, both representatives of a party that has been humiliatingly rejected by the Scottish people, and would be destroyed at the UK ballot box in a general election if one were called tomorrow.
These latter-day colonial governors had and have no real mandate of any kind, even in their non-role, yet the lugubrious Moore pontificates on matters fundamental to Scotland's economic recovery.
When the great divide between the Scottish electorate's verdict in May 2010 and the rest of the UK became known, worried Westminster media pundits commented that "it made us look as if there were two nations". There are - that's the whole point, and the point will soon be made even more forcibly.
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Peter, the main problem, from the Labour survivalist point of view, with your analysis is that a Scottish Labour Party of the type you describe might as well amalgamate with the SNP. It's a truism that the greatest hatreds and atrocities occur in civil wars when two closely related groups fight over the same territory. That's why the Labour Party are so vehement in their hatred of the SNP: while Labour were sleeping in their hammock of complacency, the one-time-derided "Scottish Tories" stole their colours, and are now stealing their support. Honestly, can you see a place for a separate Labour Party now in Scotland? Their ecological niche has been occupied and they have no place to go - unless to surrender their hatred and cross the floor. In an Independent Scotland, I can see a place for the Conservative (but not Unionist) Party (maybe reborn as the Progressive Party of old). I'm not so sure about the Liberals as, although Labour is a "Broad Church", the SNP has evolved into a broader one with a foot in the door of Liberal economic policy, thus earning the hatred of Tavish and his coterie. THAT's the reason the Liberals wouldn't go into coalition with the SNP, they knew their identity would be absorbed by the upstarts. At least with the Tories they just get snubbed, not eaten alive!
ReplyDeleteIt's arguable that the "Even-Broader-Church" is a much better reflection of traditional Scottish attitudes than the Red Clydeside mythologised Labour view. After all, Scotland loves to laud its successful heroes as much as its struggling fighters - Carnegie and Bell share the top table with John MacLean and Jimmy Maxton. That's why I don't think the great fragmentation forecast by many will come to place in an Independent Scotland. Sure, there will be some breakaways and re-alignments post-Independence, but I think we'll still see a strong and substantial SNP. The Greens will survive, and probably increase their representation until and unless they too are outflanked by a forward-looking National Party. The Red Flag, however, I see becoming more and more tattered and torn till it disappears in the wind.
Well, that has jolted me into a pardigm shift, Bobelix!
ReplyDeleteI was in a mindset, borne of my long years as a Labour supporter, and a socialist of sorts - internationalist, really - that there was a natural constituency of the left in Scotland, as there is clearly a natural constituency of the centre and right. But I had never seriously entertained the thought that perhaps that ground is now occupied by the SNP.
The more I go over your argument, the more it makes sense. The Scottish electorate may well be ready for it, as you say. Whether the great bastion of Labour - the trades union movement, in its institutionalised sense is ready for it is another matter. But given a more active role by the membership, which has been betrayed by political careerists among their full-time officers, it is a clear possibility, one that I have argued for without ever taking it to its logical conclusion.
I need time to come to terms with what, for me, is a very radical idea, but for younger Scots, given the pace of change, may not be.
Thank for the jolt, Bobelix!
Thanks for your generous comment, Peter. I'm still trying to come to terms with myself as a "younger Scot!"
ReplyDeleteI think there has been a general assumption, based on its long and, at least in earlier years, noble history, that the Labour Party in Scotland will continue in some shape or form. There was a time when the Liberal Party had a similar profile - it has survived, certainly, but is highly unlikely to ever form a government again, and, as I write, will probably not persist as a viable political entity in the new Scottish landscape. The Conservative Party was once the consensus party of Scotland; all things pass.
Labour politicians such as Malcolm Chisholm who have been doughty constituency fighters will probably still be there in this brave new world - whether they hang onto the Labour label, go Independent, or cross the floor (Malcolm would, I'm sure, be welcome!) is up to them. The bums-on-seats brigade that we are asked to believe wear the political shoes of Keir Hardie will, on the other hand, fade into deserved oblivion.
By the way, I take your point about the trades union movement. That will probably take some time to shift. However, the reducing income of the Labour Party probably indicates growing disillusion in the ranks. I can only speak for my own professional group, but I find increasing numbers of unionised educationalists are turning to the SNP. In the college in which I am EIS Branch Secretary, I would estimate around 70% support for Alex Salmond & Co. Many of these, in 1999, were Labour supporters. Just before the 2011 election, with discussion of the issues rife, I met very few people socially who had anything good to say about Labour, and, to the best of my knowledge, most of these people are members of a union. I think even that Labour bulwark is crumbling. I wonder which union will be the first to offer its political fund to the SNP?!?
ReplyDeleteDear Bobelix and Peter
ReplyDeleteThank you for this thesis. It is, of course, impossible to predict the future with any certainty never mind an absolute one. However, what you postulate may indeed come to pass if only in broad brush terms with the specific details crystallising post (-imminent ?)-independence.
Cetainly, my own tradition lies firmly in the on-going but not - I hope - stultified legacy of John MacLean (whom I suggest still bears close reading for the relevance - adapted to current conditions - of his analyses and hopes for the people of Scotland today).
However, like him and it would seem the Scottish people today, I am no sectarian "-ismist" but believe in our common humanity first and foremost and that being expressed via the will of the people of Scotland as they find their world today, interpret it and see democratically fit to act on it in their naming of it and re-making it as a better and more human place for all who dwell in it.
Thus, I suspect the old paradigms are in the process of shattering all about us - not only in Scotland but globally - and that the democratic, anti-imperialist/colonialist struggles of the past have found and are in the process of finding their new-found and re-articulated voices; and Scotland is now looking like it will be finding its feet at the forefront of this movement.
The old shop-worn cliches and follies are therefore being cast aside along with their outmoded stereotypes, and I, also, welcome this development: The future is looking very interesting indeed.
Best wishes to you and it.