Scottish Labour, 13 Years of Operating Badly; Labour MP Ian Murray says; Labour needs a major revival in Scotland to stand any chance of putting Starmer in Downing St, well leaving aside that he is several years late in reaching that conclusion, what does he have in mind, where does he want to start, and why can’t he see that Federalism would kill a Scottish Labour election campaign stone dead in its tracks!

Dear All

The right wing of the Labour Party has attracted the tag ‘Blairities’, and as much as this group harks back to the ‘success’ of the Blair era as their mantra for ruling the party, they are hanging onto a delusion. The delusion is that there can be a return to Blair-ism; sadly their focus is power rather than an examination of what they did wrong. In a sense, domestically and foreign policy wise, the Blair years were a failure, a house of cards which had no foundations. Tony Blair did much that made people turn away from the Labour Party; the bedroom tax and Iraq are only two examples which led to an exodus by the working class. The Blair years were responsibly for many injustices which is why following this doctrine is a road to nowhere; certainly not power.  

Ex-PM David Cameron gets the blame for Brexit, but the foundations for leaving the EU were laid years before in the Blair era. In the Blair years, a social engineering experiment of unfettered immigration was fostered on the British people under the lie of economic reasons. No one voted for this social engineering experiment of unfettered immigration and it didn’t appear in the Labour manifesto. Brexit was a surprise to the elite but not to the poor and disadvantaged who saw that their quality of life was steadfastly suffering. Having such big majorities, Labour MPs thought they were safe, they needn’t listen to complaints from constituents or really stand up for them against the system.

If there should have been a wake-up call, you might have thought that a decade ago plus when the Labour project lost Holyrood should have sent alarms bells ringing, it didn’t. The direction of travel for the party had been set well before Labour lost Holyrood. Holyrood far from bringing wealth and prosperity, a better Scotland was stuffed to the gunnels with people who were third rate politicians in a second rate parliament. In the 20 years of Holyrood, Scotland remains a country were social divides remain between rich and poor, in jobs, social opportunities, social mobility, health and education.

The direction of travel for the poor has been one way under devolution down.

As the fortunes of the working class declined, so did the fortunes of the Scottish Labour Party. It led people to ask the question, why, why vote for people who will not help you?

So, where did the Labour Party vote go? A large part simply moved over to the SNP, and other parts of the vote split between other parties and apathy as people disliked various issues and stances that the party leadership adopted. The voting record tells a story but the numbers don’t tell the full picture of how at key political moments decline was accelerated.

Blair-ism lost the Scottish Labour Party, the vote in Scotland but like the Democrats in America who re-wrote their history, we have seen the blame along with the help of the media laid at the feet of Jeremy Corbyn. Blair-ism lost Scotland, and various incarnations of it and then Corbyn-ism couldn’t get it back.

For a number of years, I have said and written that the Scottish Labour Party needs a major revival in Scotland, it needs a new campaigning model, but fixing what it wrong at an operational level isn’t enough. The problems also extend to people and policies. After several Labour MSPs were repeatedly rejected by the public, they were giving MPs slots at the 2019 elections. If the public won’t vote for them as MSPs, why did anyone think they would vote for them as MPs. The Scottish Labour election of 2019 was a disaster much in the same way at the 2015 and 2017 Westminster Elections were also. The party after 2019 instead of asking what went wrong decided to ask members what they did that was right. I don’t know about you, but the opinions of what others thought was right hasn’t the same currency of what was done wrong or badly. You fix problems not what is right! The Scottish Labour Party as I mentioned previously in other posts is in no fit state to go campaigning.

The party leadership doesn’t grasp that or simply chose to ignore it.

In the wake of Keir Starmer’s win as leader, the right-wing of the Labour Party thinks that this is their time, Corbyn is out, his Gen Sec is out, and were asked to believe that Keir Starmer is the solution to the Scottish problem. Well, the evidence so far doesn’t support this; Starmer’s declaration of interest in federalism shows how much he doesn’t understand the Scottish dynamic. You could say his poster boy in Scotland is anti Corbyn MP Ian Murray who is the sole Labour MP in Scotland… again. Murray also thinks as me that a major revival is needed in Scotland, and if there is no revival then the chances of Keir Starmer becoming PM are effectively zero. As it stands at present, the party would need to win at least 10 but in reality 20 Scottish seats would be more useful if it would ever achieve its largest ever landslide victory to put Keir Starmer into Downing St.

Murray says that in order to get a victory, it should be based on a pledge to reject a second Scottish independence referendum; this reminds me of Jim Murphy’s disastrous 2015 ‘buy a pint at a fitba game’ pledge. Poor people rejected the party and here we have Murray thinking that ‘waving a flag’ is going to get them back. Why are the Scottish Labour Party’s pro-UK credentials so bad, well Kezia Dugdale effectively destroyed them, when she was leader of the party in Scotland. This led to the Scottish Conservative revival in Scotland, at cllr level and at MP level. Federalism isn’t going to bring back the working class Scottish vote; that is a delusion which only exists in the minds of people who don’t understand Scotland and why people turned their back on the party.

So, what is Ian Murray also pitching?

He says;

“Jeremy Corbyn was a “disaster” for Labour in Scotland as evidenced by its performance in the 2019 election”.

Hanging the tag for 2019 on Corbyn is unfair, what he fails to explain that it was the right-wing who buried the Scottish Party by a lack of a work ethic at Holyrood.

“he had offered to “wipe the slate clean” with Richard Leonard, the Corbynite Scottish Labour leader, to help improve the party’s fortunes in Scotland”.

Wipe the slate clean as if that means anything, could it be that Murray knows the right- wing of the party aren’t in a position to remove him, I guess he does.  Begs the question, who started it?

“his party had a “credibility gap” with the public on the economy, which it had to close”.

But he doesn’t say what the credibility gap is, presumably because listing things will make people angry, very angry.

*Labour had to crack on to formulate ahead of the next election a convincing policy of “radical federalism” for the UK, which would involve taking powers from Holyrood and giving them to local communities in Scotland.

On this single issue going to the polls saying they want to introduce Federalism with a people’s mandate is enough to destroy an entire election campaign. Think of this as like pouring oil in a water drinking supply and then see if they are any takers to drink.

*Boris Johnson’s Government was the “worst in history”.

A million Scots voted Brexit, Boris is committed to delivering Brexit, and given the help of people during coronavirus such as financial that claim doesn’t stack up.

*under Sir Keir’s leadership the Tories were in the “fight of their lives”.

How do you respond to that affirmation, well quite simply the Conservatives aren’t in a fight, being wise post event about things that went wrong doesn’t make you smart, and it doesn’t make you seem to have a handle on leadership either. What has Keir Starmer achieved as leader, in short, not a lot, he hasn’t fixed the party, he hasn’t fixed the Scottish problems, he hasn’t placed any policies which inspire the public, so again, what has he done?

Finally, what is needed at the Scottish Labour Party is really change at an organizational and operational levels which will encourage the membership to want to come out and support the party in a variety of ways which at present is not happening. A review of staffing in Scotland is long overdue, a series of policies which make sense, and supporting economic growth is a given, while at the same time, shift the dynamic on social mobility.  I also think that there should be an end to positive discrimination and a return to advancement through merit. Positive discrimination isn’t positive; it is a tool of discrimination given legitimacy by the middle class who run the party in leadership positions. So far, other than telling me what I know and many others know about reform, Ian Murray really isn’t saying very much at all. Scottish votes were taken for granted now they have to be fought for, and who is going to do it unless there is change?

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University