Monday, January 6, 2020

Happy New Year, 2020, a time of reflection for pro UK parties about how to balance the books, the Scottish Labour Party disaster at the December election, yet again clearly shows the need for a comprehensive overhaul of personnel, policy and the campaigning model, it will take Scottish Labour a long time to recover, so it’s time to admit there are systemic problems, and bring in people with talent and merit, and not those who tick a diversity box



















Dear All

Happy New Year!

First blog post of the New Year but before we get into looking forward, I thought it would be a good idea to look back at the last election and review it. 

The winner by a large margin was the Conservative Party, who literally destroyed the Labour Party.

This election was the Brexit Election and the Labour Party, yet again, was on the wrong side of the argument and of the people. In the run up to this election, I repeatedly said that in order to get a level playing field, the Labour Party needed to be pro Brexit. 

Stupidity won out over commonsense, the results speak for themselves.

In Scotland, the SNP won 48 seats, and I have to say that I was wrong in my analysis, so hands up to that one. You could say I took my eye off the ball, but most of last year, I was struggling to see, in effective, two eyes off the ball. Because I wasn’t up on my reading, I lost my feel, and to add to that car crash, I was also being told things which on paper looked good but in reality translated into defeat. I underestimated just how damaged the Labour Party had become under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.


The factors which destroyed the Labour Party in Scotland were;

1/ Jeremy Corbyn, the man and his history
2/ Corbyn-ism, as practiced by the Momentum crowd
3/ The Anti Semitism issue
4/ Brexit
5/ The manifesto which was too overloaded and hence didn’t seem credible.
6/ Scottish Labour candidates
7/ Scottish Labour Party campaigning model
8/ Woefully undertrained activists
9/ Putting up paper candidates in order to comply with Labour’s 50/50 rule
10/ Lack of work ethic in the long campaign
11/ Lack of co-ordination in campaigning
12/ A failure of some Labour Cllrs to be active enough in their areas

Some of these issues are more serious than others, particularly issues surrounding the message and the delivery of the message. People come and go campaigning however, the quality of campaigning needs to be addressed at the very top of the Scottish Labour Party. If not then, then they better get used to losing for a very long time. In my blog, I highlighted these issues for a long time, the message is clear but Scottish Labour has chose not to read it, consider it or learn from it.

In Glasgow, there were three seats which Scottish Labour should have done much better, in fact, they were seats which Labour could have won, but didn’t. Those seats are Glasgow North East, Glasgow South West and Glasgow East. Given the problems listed above, these seats turned out to be unwinnable and to add insult to injury; they did even worse than the 2017 result. 

Each seat had the same Labour candidate, but they couldn’t overcome the deep rooted problems in policy, personalities and campaigning. In Glasgow North East, Paul Sweeney, the Labour candidate was fully funded, he had a good turn out of bodies, given his record in Parliament and in the area; you would have thought he was a walk in, with an increase of at least 2,500, on his majority. He lost 274 votes from 2017, the systemic problems of policy and campaigning played an alarming part in his demise. This shock defeat will no doubt give Paul Sweeney food for thought, especially regards organization, deployment of people and what activities they undertake.

As to Glasgow East, Kate Watson also didn’t have a good time of it, we once had a discussion on the difference between someone running a campaign and someone who is a campaigner. I used the analogy of Lord King& BA, I said to her, Lord King runs British Airways, but one thing he doesn’t get to do is fly the aircraft. Personally, I thought she would have understood where I was coming from, but I am sure she will have a lot of thinking to do for next time.

Glasgow South West, during the campaigning, struggling with health problems, I was repeatedly asked to go to this campaign, out of the three seats I have listed, Glasgow South West did the worse. I was even phoned up the Labour Party in Hull which surprised me but as I explained to the guy, once we got ‘I’m not a punter’ out of the way, ergo don’t talk nonsense to me, we had a frank discussion about this CLP and its problems.

Team Kerr lost by 4,900 votes.

2020 sees me regain my eyesight, always handy to have 2020 vision in 2020, but although my operations were done quick; the fix the Labour Party needs will take a considerable time longer.  You could add other items to the list above, but in the main, the Scottish Labour Party isn’t in a position to campaign. 

For a start, there needs to be more accountability of elected members doing activism and campaigning, verified accountability, same with MSPs and MPs. When it comes to campaigning, everyone is supposed to be an activist first and foremost, sadly, it doesn’t seem that way. Scottish Labour did a cull of cllrs in 2012; they need to do a cull right through the elected ranks. If a cull doesn't take place, then don't expect a turn around because, like football, Scottish Labour needs new players to breathe life into the squad. 

Finally, I am sorry for being off the pace, I take pride in the blog being right and ahead of the curve, but this time, illness, injury and bad info made me get it wrong, and for that I apologise.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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