Whatever happened to leadership in the Scottish Labour Party; Scottish Labour considering Special Conference in May to do a possible U-turn on second independence vote, this idea is an act of self harm, the history of the Dugdale era flirting with ‘could vote yes’ should have stopped such a proposal stone cold dead in its tracks, only 511,838 voted for the Party in the disastrous 2019 Westminster election

Dear All

Why did working class people abandon the Scottish Labour Party?

On the face of it, it is a simple question, the Labour Party setup to advance the cause of the working class man and woman, became toxic. Something must have done it, so what was it? The answer like the question is equally simply, Scottish Labour had such a massive majority of the vote share in Scotland that certain elected MPs, MSPs and Cllrs decided not to work. They sat back on their majorities safe in the knowledge that no one was going to hold them to account in the Labour Party.

After awhile, the resentment grew and grew among the population so that they transferred their vote to the SNP. The majority of Scots don’t want to leave the UK, but they weren’t prepared to vote for a party who ignored and refused to help them. Up popped the SNP who capitalised on this during the Westminster expenses scandal, they destroyed the Scottish Labour Party as the natural party of government.

Jack McConnell as First Minister was the poster boy of everything wrong in Scottish Labour at that time, arrogant and stupid; he nipped into the TV studios in 2007, thinking business as usual. His interviews on the BBC and STV changed Scottish history for good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtjiKlaimqE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IY020k1Oks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toQJKa1NP7g

Post 2007 till 2010 didn't break the modus operandi of the elected Scottish Labour MPs, who saw 41 MPs returned in 2010 in comparison to only 6 for the SNP. 

What proved the tipping point was the Scottish Referendum in 2014, this referendum saw an angry working class deliver a verdict on the ‘help’ and services that Scottish Labour provided. Cometh the 2015 election for Westminster, the SNP managed to get 56 MPs. 

The main point is that post 2007 Holyrood, the Scottish Labour Party effectively did nothing as an opposition. You could say the real problem was leadership, a leadership which didn’t want to rock the boat. As long as there was a ‘block vote’ for Labour in the heartlands, the issue of elected people failing to help constituents wasn’t seen as a problem. Here is a partial list of Labour leaders who in their own way either didn’t advance the party or did drive it backwards. McConnell might have lost Holyrood, but what came after him didn’t improve matters.

Jack McConnell (22 November 2001 – 15 August 2007)

Cathy Jamieson (15 August 2007 – 14 September 2007) (Acting)

Wendy Alexander (14 September 2007 – 28 June 2008)

Cathy Jamieson (28 June 2008 – 13 September 2008) (Acting)

Iain Gray (13 September 2008 – 17 December 2011)

Johann Lamont (17 December 2011 – 24 October 2014)

Jackie Baillie (24 October 2014 – 13 December 2014) (Acting)

Kezia Dugdale (13 December 2014 – 13 June 2015 (Deputy Party Leader, Leader in the Parliament)

Iain Gray (13 June 2015 – 15 August 2015) (Acting)

Kezia Dugdale (15 August 2015 – 29 August 2017)

Alex Rowley (29 August 2017 – 15 November 2017) (Acting, as Deputy Party Leader)

Jackie Baillie (15 November 2017 – 18 November 2017) (Acting)

Richard Leonard (18 November 2017 – )

Let’s pick out a few, Wendy Alexander, her main problems other than having all the charm of cold sick was being able to ‘produce a million ideas’, most of which were unworkable. I remember her from my Glasgow University days, a wee self entitled gobby shit.

Iain Gray’s problem was not being a leader and running off to hide in a subway sandwich outlet. He should have stood his ground with the hecklers, instead he ran away and his hecklers followed him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfQmg8VSj0E

The tenure of Johann Lamont was another period of vacuum for the party, incapable of being a leader, having no charisma, and effectively cancelling out Scottish Labour as a force in Scotland was her contribution. From when Johann Lamont took up the post till she left, she achieved nothing of note. She didn’t turn the party around, she didn’t inspire people; she just wasn’t a leader in a meaningful sense.

As part of my blogging, I like to throw in my personal experiences, so here are three incidents which stick with me regarding her. As a constituent, I went to Johann Lamont with a compliant, she did nothing about it. Despite that, in 2016, I did her election campaign, the ex Scottish Labour leader wasn’t swamped with volunteers, quite the opposite in fact. In a lot of the sessions, it was her, me, her election agent and the clp campaign co-coordinator. When I asked who was doing Govan for her, she said no one, so I did most of the Govan ward on the Pollok side by myself, and nearly finished it. Despite being promised a ticket to the Glasgow count by Johann Lamont, she reneged on her promise. 

This told me everything I need to know about the character of Johann Lamont.

Kezia Dugdale’s tenure was hampered by the fact she wasn’t a leader. She didn’t reform the party into a proper campaigning machine, and when it came to pinning your colours to the mast, she was more or less on the wrong side of the argument. Trump, Brexit and Corbyn, she got it all wrong. In fact, her ability to be wrong should be the epitaph on her political career. If you met her face to face, she was quite engaging, and you could easily chat away with her.

This is history, but the problem of leadership, real leadership still haunts the party, which is why, we get, Scottish Labour is opening up to the possibility of backing a second independence referendum according to insider sources. In 2015, Jim Murphy started his disastrous election on two defining issues of stupidity, one get a beer at the football and second, the Fitba act.

My epic rant of Feb 2015 was a great article of how Scottish Labour came with crumbs for the starving Scottish electorate.

https://glasgowunihumanrights.blogspot.com/2015/02/fucking-it-all-up-labour-leader-jim.html

SNP won 56 seats!

Having been put into the wilderness by the Scottish public, changes need to be made by Scottish Labour, they constantly make themselves irrelevant. What I can’t understand is how a party doing so badly and paying people wages can get into this state. It literally beggar’s belief, that a change in position towards indyref 2 will solve their problems.

It won’t.

Scottish Tory chief whip Maurice Golden said the move indicated Labour’s “long and painful surrender to the SNP”.

He said:

“Ever since the independence referendum, they just haven’t been serious about Scotland’s place in the union. Now [Scottish leader] Richard Leonard has confirmed his willingness to break it up altogether. This move is a disgraceful sell out of the two million No voters, many of whom identified as lifelong Labour supporters.”

Apparently, Scottish Labour’s ruling body, the Scottish Executive Committee (SEC), is due to meet on Saturday for a chat, oh to be a fly on the wall, it will discuss plans by Richard Leonard to hold a special conference in May to decide his party’s constitutional stance. He needs a special conference in May to talk about a ‘bad idea’? If you support indy and voted Labour in the past, this gimmick wouldn’t make you switch back. If you are pro UK, you will feel an obvious sense of betrayal here. Yet again, the wrong policy at the wrong time, it doesn’t even have the luxury of short term viability. If Scottish Labour wants to win back votes, as I said in Feb 2015, three months before the Westminster election, pledge to:

“Deliver policies of significant meaning to win back Labour voters, big ideas, real change and real commitment”.

A Scottish Labour source said:

“Richard Leonard’s position is that he is opposed to a referendum. But I think it would be fair to say that if there was a multi-option referendum being proposed, then that would be given more consideration.”

Finally, the Labour Party has failed to win back its working class Yes voters, and now the Labour Party presumably by default is seeking to destroy its pro UK base as well. You would have thought that history of the Dugdale era would have stopped such a proposal stone cold dead in its tracks. But no, the Scottish Labour Party wants a special conference to discuss political suicide, and in May, sun shining and Greggs opened for sausage rolls. Effectively just 1 litre of oil can contaminate 1 million litres of water; it seems someone wants to kill off what is left of the party’s electoral chances. This special conference is an act of self harm.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University