Dear All
The results are in from the European
Election 2019, the biggest winner was The Brexit Party who won 29 seats, the
Lib Dems came second with 16, the Labour Party both sides of the border had a disastrous
night winning only 10, the Greens gained seven, the Conservatives only four,
the SNP three and Plaid Cymru one.
In Scotland, the SNP took 3 seats out of 6,
but the real upset is that the Brexit Party in Scotland came second in the
polls and won their first ever seat. No Scottish Labour MEP was returned which
is a continuation of what I said that the Scottish Labour Party needs a new
campaigning model. Scottish Labour also suffered from the national position of
sitting on the fence, well, they sat and they got left on the fence. Scottish
Labour has no MEP in Scotland which when you look at the fact that the
Conservatives managed to return their lead candidate, makes their night even
worse.
At the start of this election, I was a
member of Pollok CLP, I didn’t campaign for the Labour Party, instead I was
head hunted the Brexit Party to do their campaign. As some people know, I have
a track record in campaigning in elections stretching into double digits, plus
two referendums won under my belt. In this election, I was one of the lead campaigners
in as well as travelling around the West and South of Scotland taking the
Brexit message to the people. You might have picked up online that distain that
others held the Brexit Party in, posting pictures of their stalls and saying no
one was interested.
The Brexit Party came second in the
European Election in Scotland.
As to the Glasgow Brexit Party vote, this
was around 15,000; it could have been higher if the Glasgow Brexit Group had
solely remained in Glasgow. They were
also tasked with travelling around to places such as Ayr, Largs, Paisley,
Gretna and Dumfries to spread the message that they had a serious campaign
running.
And it paid off!
The Brexit Party were hampered by the fact
that they had no long campaign, little time, resources and people since
effectively there is no party structure in Scotland at present. They could also
have benefited from a more Scottish message and Scottish presentation but that
is something which they will no doubt take into account as they move forward to
other elections.
This campaign for me was a doddle, although
I never expected to be thrust forward as a lead campaigner but you do what you
have to do in order to get the job done. It is nice to be in a winning campaign
but you can also learn a lot by losing because losing does focus the mind.
In the aftermath of defeat, it is only
natural that some people express their anger, and it seems that some Scottish
Labour MPs want to slam the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn saying party may ‘never
recover’ from ‘worst ever’ result. The result for the Scottish Labour Party
couldn’t have been worse that is true, and the tactics used were questionable.
When you try and appeal to everyone, you
end up appealing to no one!
This is why the Scottish Labour Party
crashed into fifth place in Scotland, despite attempting to gotv, ‘get out the
vote’; their core vote didn’t respond in the numbers they hoped to even get one
MEP. Ian Murray and Martin Whitfield said Scottish voters had “delivered an
utterly damning verdict” on the party.
Quick question, would you bet on the
Scottish Labour Party to be the next Government at Holyrood in the 2021
election?
David Martin had been the UK’s
longest-serving MEP, having spent 35 years in Brussels, before being voted out
of office. He rightly blames Labour’s failure to take a clear stand on the
crucial issue of Brexit for the result.
Mr Martin tweeted:
“We lost not because of lack of effort but
lack of clear message.”
I agree with him that there was a lack of a
clear message but as to effort, there is a lack of members willing to be
activists in the Scottish Labour Party, an issue that the people at HQ and at
CLP level seem unable to turn around.
Activists win elections!
The two unhappy Labour MPs insisted:
“The blame for the worst result in Scottish
Labour’s history lies squarely with our party’s leadership”.
That is a tad unkind as everything wasn’t
rosy in the garden prior to this election, nor the 2017 or 2015 Westminster
elections, in fact Scottish Labour hasn’t really addressed looming problems
since circa 2006. The blame cannot all be laid at the feet of Jeremy Corbyn,
but he has a share of it.
Do you remember me blogging that Jeremy
Corbyn is better at domestic issues and not foreign issues?
George Laird right again.
Scottish Labour and the wider party should
have taken a principled position to support the democratic result of the 2016
referendum. The party is wrongly moving towards a people’s vote which is a
democratic sham in the hope of passing the buck, and that the people overturn
the earlier result. Remember what happened in Ireland, the political class
betrayed the people.
I don’t support the Labour position of a
people’s vote, if they believe that ‘fixes’ their problem, they are kidding
themselves on, is the logic that since they can’t win over everyone, they
figure that it is better to have pro remain Labour voters? Do they then hope
for a return to normal politics and everyone else just wanders back?
If that is their strategy someone should
give them a wake up call.
Finally, the Brexit Party success coming
second is rather good considering that they operated in a hostile environment
during this election. The Labour ad calling for the stopping of the ‘far right’
was a stupid video to make and put out. The Brexit Party lead candidate in
Scotland who won a seat is Louis Stedman-Bryce; he is a black lgbt man. This
video was about pandering and scaremongering, nicely done in terms of video
production values but the wrong message to send out. Labour came sixth in the Edinburgh City
Council area, which rather drives home a message for the party.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow
University
4 comments:
Perhaps the Brexit party should have a crack at Holyrood as well as Westminster once they've constructed a proper base foundation and layout of the party.
Well done, George!
Excellent report.....the only bit you missed out was quoting the percentages.....yes, the SNP got 37% on the night but that is only 15% of the electorate which amounts to 11% of population...hardly a resounding victory yet not one broadcaster/journalist/reporter has pointed this out.....regards Tina Wilson
A Big THANK YOU to you and your colleagues. Regards Stafford 1069.
Given the low turnout for this election, with under 15% of the eligible voters choosing SNP, what can we read into this re WM. & HR electoral prospect. I assume no Indyref2 as SNP won't call one at this level of support.
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