Dear All
Kezia Dugdale is pinning her hopes for Scottish Labour's survival
on a plan to introduce federalism to Scotland . Apparently this new idea
is supposed to be her flagship plan. The Scottish Labour Party has according to
their members lost their core vote in Scotland ;
there are no more Labour heartlands as Scotland remains in political flux.
So, the obvious question is this, does making a federal Scotland solve
Kezia Dugdale’s leadership problems?
I will be blunt no!
The reason the answer is no, is that the working class people
who left Labour for the SNP are gone, and they don’t seem to be wanting to come
back and also those who are Unionist voters who vote Labour will not impressed
by this move. If you remember the reason that Scottish Labour is the third
party of Holyrood was a failure to defend the Union .
If I was to sum up what Scottish Labour’s problem was, it
would be this, Scottish Labour tried to be all things to all people and ended
up being nothing to just about everyone. You can add to it, the arrogance of some
people who were elected who produced such a poor service dealing with
complaints, people asked why should we vote for someone who isn’t going to help
you. Scottish Labour traded off the legacy of political giants like Nye Bevan,
they used up the goodwill of the working class who reached a tipping point in
2014.
Since 2014, the public have fled from Scottish Labour, the
polling is at 14% for them, they have made themselves meaningful to no one,
they haven’t learned from past mistakes, they haven’t evolved; they are still
treating the public with contempt. The entire 2017 Scottish Labour Conference
can be summed up as £240 bribe on Child benefit.
According to Professor John Curtice, poll after poll, shows
Labour losing support right across the board.
Did you vote for federalism?
Did you vote for federalism?
Are people in Scotland talking about federalism?
Is there a desire for federalism?
Kezia Dugdale’s flagship is another top down plan which has
no real support from anyone, and has the potential to lose her further support.
If you are really interested in federalism in the UK , then you go read about it at
the Constitutional Reform Group.
What does Kezia Dugdale use as a slogan, to save time, she
talks about a ‘new Act of Union’, leaving aside the legality of that isn’t
going to happen, it shows that Scottish Labour isn’t just bereft of ideas, it
also has to pinch other people’s slogans.
Brian Wilson, the former Labour minister isn’t
impressed by the new Flagship policy; he remarks that he shared people’s
“confusion” about what a new People’s Constitutional Convention looking at
federalism would achieve in practice. I suspect his confusion centres on that
Kezia Dugdale wants a People’s Constitutional Convention so people agree with
her policy.
Kezia Dugdale makes the fundamental mistake of thinking she
is there to decide want people want, she isn’t, she is supposed to be there to
respond and act on the wishes of the people. Wilson
right makes the point which I have previously blogged on regarding this issue, there
is no appetite for federalism in Scotland .
Could you imagine Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP signing up to
federalism, I can’t, federalism means living within your means, in Scotland
that means the end of the Barnett Formula and no safety net, when that goes the
cuts come in. Scotland
would be devastated and whoever is in charge would get the blame. The SNP aren’t
going to sign up and see their control of power slide away.
The biggest obstacle in the path of Kezia Dugdale’s plan is
that England
doesn’t want federalism. When John Prescott tried to push through Labour’s plan
for regional devolution in 2004 voters rejected a north east regional assembly
four-to-one.
Kezia Dugdale has painted herself in a corner trying to
promise something which no one wants either side of the border, that she can’t
deliver at all and to top it all what chance has she in convincing Jeremy
Corbyn who she failed to back as leader.
To show how unprepared she is to explain her flagship
policy, on BBC Sunday Politics, she struggled to explain how the
convention would deliver UK-wide federalism. She was also forced to concede it
was not UK Labour party policy to carve England
into devolved regions in order to arrive at a federal UK .
Kezia Dugdale has no mandate from the people of Scotland , she has no mandate from the people of England and she
has no mandate from the UK Labour Party, her flagship policy is going down in
flames because she isn’t listening to the people.
And the people have decided that their future isn’t served
by a Scottish Labour Party that isn’t listening.
Kezia Dugdale wrongly thought that £240 bribe on Child
benefit and a policy doomed to failure would revive her and her party’s
fortunes, she really does need to ‘up the ante’ or as it was recently said by
someone, the catastrophic failure to understand the changed nature of UK
politics has sealed Labour’s fate.
When you keep doing the same thing which ends in disaster, a
new course of action is required; Kezia Dugdale cannot keep losing and expect
to remain Scottish Labour leader. When her deputy Alex Rowley gave his closing speech
he failed to mention federalism or the convention, but the point I would like
you to focus in on is huge curtains were used to hide hundreds of empty seats
from view. Not only is Scottish Labour losing the voters, those who currently
run Scottish Labour don’t chime with their own membership.
Kezia Dugdale needs to step back from federalism and think
again with policies that would matter to people, one such policy; pledge to
campaign for total devolvement of the DWP to the Scottish Parliament.
Pledge to something which makes sense!
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
No comments:
Post a Comment