Fanning the flames of disaster: Scottish Labour conference want to focus on second independence referendum at their Scottish Conference in Perth, this is the equivalent of turning up at a house fire with petrol, if you want to kill Scottish independence stone dead, you don’t talk about it, only Nicola Sturgeon needs the oxygen of publicity

Dear All

You couldn’t make this up but the Scottish Labour conference is to focus on a second independence referendum as a main theme which they see is a key battleground in May’s local elections.

And to show that the word ‘stronger’ isn’t confined to the SNP, they have come up with a catchy slogan:

“Together We’re Stronger”.

This may seem ironic as many Labour activists including myself have ditched the party for various reasons, Mike Dailly left because he didn’t believe that Scottish Labour could deliver for the people of Scotland. A guy called Joe McCauley ditched Scottish Labour to take up a post as Volunteer Co-ordinator at Scotland in Union, and myself, well I just walked off after being discriminated against.

I have no time for small minded people not even the time to humour them anymore.  

Think back to Westminster 2015 election, Jim Murphy is the Labour leader, so what does Jim do, he starts a campaign against repeal of the Fitba Act, when this is nothing to do with Westminster; it is a devolved issue.

2017, local elections, what possible benefit is there in raking over a dead issue, a non issue, a referendum which might not even take place this side of 2020. I say there is no possible benefit but certainly scope for loss, loss of more Labour voters who support the Union to jump off to other parties and independents.

Clearly Kezia Dugdale hasn’t learned from her disastrous election failure of 2016 at the Holyrood election. Things are bad enough for the party sitting on 15% of the vote to waste time on a meaningless issue which just burns up time.

Local elections should focus on local matters and touch on the key ingredient which they need to function from Holyrood which is their budget or lack of it due to cuts by the SNP.

Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale said the phrase “Together We’re Stronger” would convey her party’s opposition to a second referendum. Given this is plastered all over the media, does it really need to be hashed over in a Conference, who the hell thought that this tripe was worth speaking about?

Who exactly is Kezia Dugdale speaking to?

The SNP want people to keep talking about a second independence referendum because without that oxygen their support will die, it is already dropping and going backwards, why fan the flames yapping about indyref 2? And if she feels the need to speak instead of grandstanding then there are a host of issues in local government which need addressed.

It is a simple dynamic, what is your plan to reform local government?

How do you plan to deliver services?

What services do you feel need investment or curtailment?

How can public services make money and what is needed to make this happen?

Attending the three day gig in Perth will be UK leader Jeremy Corbyn, his deputy Tom Watson and London mayor Sadiq Khan. It must be becoming clear to UK Labour that the Scottish end has collapsed and with it any chance of a future Labour Government. Things maybe bad for Labour south of the border but in Scotland, the party has seen voters leave, activists leave and donors not supporting the party, a pretty toxic cocktail. People by enlarge don’t support a sinking ship, this ship however was mostly scuttled from the inside rather than being torpedoed by the enemy.

Kezia Dugdale said:

“People need a strong Scottish Labour Party focused on growing our economy, investing in public services and giving everybody a fair chance in life. Our country is divided enough, which is why Scottish Labour will firmly oppose the SNP’s reckless plans for a second independence referendum. Together, our country can be stronger.”

She is right people need a strong Scottish Labour Party, so this begs the question, why isn’t she able to produce it? And let’s also ask the question, since she brought it up; why didn’t the Scottish Labour not give everybody a fair chance in life? Maybe she still thinks that soundbytes still fire up people’s imagination, and can hold sway over people forgetting the party’s failure to deliver.

Why did so many Labour MPs and MSPs get kicked out at the Westminster and Holyrood elections?

Because a tipping point was reached where the good where brought down by the crap, those who thought that as Labour held a majority that they didn’t have to serve the public properly, many of the Labour MPs and MSPs thoroughly deserved to lose their seats in 2015 and 2016.

If someone wants to keep their elected position in a FPTP post now, they are needing to face up to the reality that they must work and fight to keep it, Scottish Labour has lost a lot of good will, it didn’t happen over a short period of time, this built up over decades.     

Scottish Labour has haemorrhaged a huge amount of its traditional supporters in Scotland and is ste to continue to do so because of the Blair faction which runs the party. These people held most of the MP and MSP seats until they were forcibly removed by the electorate, a job that Scottish Labour would not do, so it was left to the public.

Jeremy Corbyn is going to going on a theme that only a Labour government would hand back wealth and control to people and communities, fix the "rigged economy", and tax the rich appropriately.

That is all good stuff but it is increasingly unlikely that we shall see a Corbyn government in Westminster, not only has Corbyn an uphill fight with the Tories who are cruising on a 12 to 14 point lead, he has a bitter civil war in his own party to content with that cannot be glossed over.

Corbyn added:

“And only a Labour Government would end the race to the bottom in the jobs market and guarantee education and employment rights for all.”

The question is to what level?

Yes, as always the devil is in the detail, when I was younger, I thought that political parties were really big, they aren’t, I thought the ‘best of the best’ was selected to stand to serve the people, this isn’t true either.

Kezia Dugdale can go ahead with her theme of talking about a second independence referendum if she so chose but while she is doing that she is wasting time, showing that she is out of touch, and not address the issues of local elections.

If she does a sop and throws in a bit about localism, it will come across a weak and ineffective, it won’t play well. Scottish independence is the past, it may come round again, but not in the near future, talking about indyref 2 only helps the SNP.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University