Undermining Former Colleagues, Former Scottish Labour General Secretary Brian Roy says Scottish Labour's outright opposition to Indyref2 is 'unsustainable', indy wasn’t why working people left Labour to vote SNP, they left because they couldn’t get an unaccountable entitled elite to do their jobs and represent them, Roy’s observation of the rogue indy of 58% is skewered because of the barren political Scottish landscape, is he touting for SNP business, if he is, that is really is ‘unsustainable’ short term thinking

Dear All 

The decline in the fortunes of Scottish Labour have all been self inflicted, acts of self harm caused by the previous leaderships, bad policies, failing to engage with the public and candidates who when elected refused to stand up for and serve their constituents problems. The downfall of Scottish Labour is a story of outright neglect of voters. So, the simple question is, why would you vote for a party where its representatives will not fight on your behalf? This is the question which eventually Scots asked themselves, and then found an answer. They found that the SNP was the ideal protest vehicle to use to get rid of those Labour MPs and MSPs who didn’t represent them in their time of need. Of course bad representation or no representation doesn’t apply to all who Scottish Labour selected, who then went onto get into public office. 

How did things get so bad for Scottish Labour? They had such a large share of the vote, that an MP or MSP would afford to be lazy; what difference did it make to them when they had an HQ complicit in their disinterest and a backstop. The backstop was Labour majorities that ran into several thousands. In the wake of decline, which preceded the SNP rise, there was no appetite in Scottish Labour to root out bad representation at levels of MP and MSP levels. Nearly a decade ago, I wrote extensively on the need for Scottish Labour to have a cull, although I was focusing on the Glasgow City Council, the cull needed to be also upwards for those at Westminster and Holyrood. 

Prior to the 2012 Council election, London Labour paid a visit to Glasgow and re-vetted serving councillors, in the aftermath of the vetting, 20 people got de-selected. This is what saved the party and allowed them to hang onto the Council. Although I didn’t agree with all their selections, in the main, they got it right. 

It took the voters in 2015 to do the job that the Scottish Labour Party wouldn’t do, you see ‘bad representation’ is no representation at all. You could opine that the SNP did the party a service, but the party didn’t learn. MSPs who would later be kicked out at the next Holyrood election, simply got selected for Westminster. If the public rejected them to be MSPs, you have to ask, ‘what’s the thinking that the public would vote them in as MPs in the same or nearby geographical area’? When you look at some MSPs who continually saw their vote share decline, election after election, why did no alarms bells ring? Was it beyond the wit of someone doing vetting to look up google and analyse not voter percentage but actual votes cast? Was it too big of a hardship to find out what work rate they did for the party in their area? 

The SNP took advantage of Scottish Labour’s decline, since people couldn’t get satisfactory representation, the SNP step in and made them an offer. The election bribe which was most notable in the voter transition to the SNP was the Council Tax Freeze. For years, Glasgow City Council kept upping council tax while at the same time cutting services. Glaswegians rightly started getting angry, you pay the money; you want to live in a better Glasgow. This freeze is what cemented the SNP vote in Glasgow for Holyrood; this was the base which allowed them to capture all the seats both at Westminster and Holyrood level. 

Post 2007 defeat for Scottish Labour at Holyrood, the party would go through a number of temp leaders who would all resign in due course. The critical period of between 2007 and 2011 saw the Holyrood Labour Group cease to be an effective opposition. 

In 2011, the Holyrood election saw the SNP win a majority of seats at the Parliament, but still Scottish Labour failed to look inward, if people won’t buy your product, either the product is bad, or the ‘sales force’ is bad. A review should have flagged up the ‘sales force’ was bad, but no one was interested because it seems the ‘strategy’ was to wait till the SNP became unpopular to ‘win’ seats. 

Although there is quite a bit of talk in Scottish Labour about renewal, it’s all piecemeal stuff. A course here, a course there, action days on specific topic, but what there isn’t is root and branch reform. Every CLP should be reviewed in how it runs, how it campaigns and if skills are lacking, an education programme tailored to lift them up and put them on track as a campaigning force. But it isn’t just physical change that is needed, bad selection policy and organisation needs to be overhauled. 

Did you know that Scottish Labour Party put up a paper candidate at an election in 2019, because the ‘rules’ said it must be a woman? The candidate although qualified didn’t know the area, couldn’t campaign effectively because of disability, and it would be a stretch to call her involvement, even part time. None of this was her fault, the rules had been setup wrongly, a better local candidate, a man wasn’t considered because he, by act of birth, was born a man. Although in Scottish Labour, there are ‘women only’ lists, there aren’t ‘men only’ lists; it seems that a party that preaches equality has a learning curve to understand what the meaning of that word actually means. Equality means a level playing field, and if you aren’t willing to give any and all people that, then you can’t say you are a party of equality. 

So, I ask the question again, where is the ‘men only’ candidate lists in Scottish Labour? 

Since 2014, the Scottish Labour Party has perhaps recognised how in depth the feeling is against voting for them. So, did they look as I suggested inwards at their problems, no, they look outwards. Fifth columnists in Scottish Labour’s ranks made the suggestion that people would come back to the party if it dropped its outright opposition to a second independence referendum. Do you think that people who failed to get representation on critical issues like ‘benefits sanctions’, will suddenly say ‘oh, Scottish Labour backs indy, I will now back Scottish Labour in elections?’ When you leave people in the lurch, you break trust, and when you break trust, it’s sometimes gone forever. 

At present in the Scottish Labour Party, there is a ‘civil war’, the people who are dubbed the ‘Blair faction’ want Richard Leonard, the current leader gone. I say, does Richard Leonard’s removal guarantee a return of Scottish Labour’s fortunes? For those who say yes, I say you’re simple minded, most of the failed leaders of the Scottish Labour Party came from the Blair wing of the party. These are the people who ignored the voters that led to the collapse of the Scottish Labour voter base and the rise of the SNP. People like Wendy Alexander, Kez Dugdale, Jim Murphy, Jack McConnell, Henry McLeish, Donald Dewar, Iain Gray and Johann Lamont, so does someone else cut from the same cloth doing to take Scottish Labour back to the ‘good old days’? Or would you accept my view, that the right wing buried Scottish Labour and the left wing cannot climb out of that hole? I don’t subscript to the idea of the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ because neither side has all the answers. Scottish Labour would function better as a centrist party because that what the bulk of its voters are, although they may not use the term centrists, they are really ‘social conservatives’. 

Brian Roy was previously a Scottish Labour General Secretary, by all accounts; he seemed to be a good one. Brian Roy was appointed by Jim Murphy but regardless who was in charge, he served the leader. His departure from the post of Gen Sec was rumoured to be because it was said there was a coup by the Corbynistas to seize control of the party in Scotland. One thing the ‘Blair’ faction of Scottish Labour did over many years was not to be inclusive when they held the rains of power. This is why ‘the Left’ which has been left to fester became so angry, does that parallel with the treatment dished out to constituents left in the lurch by the ‘Blair faction’? Well, ‘the Left’ has the leadership of Scottish Labour now, 2019 was a bad election for Richard Leonard, but replacing him with anyone from either the left or right wouldn’t have altered the outcome of that election. Do you know why? 

The Scottish Labour Party is in no fit state to go campaigning! 

It should come as no surprise that there are people on the Left of the Scottish Labour Party who want to see the break up of the UK, MSPs, Neil Findlay and Alex Rowley are two of the better known ones. Brian Roy left his post last year to take up new opportunities, so he has a business, Craigview Strategies. His company bio says this: 

“Working with clients in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Craigview Strategies was set up by Brian Roy in 2019 after working in frontline politics for 16 years, the last four as General Secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland.

We bring an extensive knowledge and understanding of a complex and challenging political environment, as well as the experience of running multiple national election and referendum campaigns, allowing us to customise our support to your individual needs and objectives.

Understanding politics and the key decision-makers at every level of representation is Craigview Strategies’ core strength. Combined with a unique insight and understanding of the political system and policy development processes, Craigview Strategies will give you the edge you need.” 

Brian Roy’s view on indyref 2 is that it is “looking increasingly unsustainable” to reject it. Roy says the question is now how and when another vote should take place. You could argue, if Brian Roy had done a better job as Gen Sec in Scottish Labour, the party wouldn’t be in the state it currently is. The reality of politics in Scotland is that there hasn’t been effective opposition for years, even the press have been lacking in doing their job. In this barren landscape, civic Scotland which includes bloggers has been fighting the SNP Party and Government Machines alone. Since the press ignored pro UK bloggers, the political opposition being so weak, the SNP haven’t been challenged as they should have been. The SNP to be blunt have been the only ones doing all the talking! They have better access as well to the majority of people in Scotland, no one is getting right of reply such as on the Nicola Sturgeon, Oarty political broadcasts. Is it any wonder that a rogue poll throws up 58% in support for independence in a skewered and desolate political landscape? 

At present, we live in a Covid world where the SNP have lied, cheated and deceived the public, where the SNP lay blame at the door of Boris Johnson. In Scotland today, there has been 15 covid deaths in past 24 hours with record number of new positive cases. Nicola Sturgeon is now aligning to the UK measures for several reasons;

1/ Refusing to accept responsibility by following the UK measures

2/ Electioneering tactic to blame ‘Tories’ as the prime threat to her is Douglas Ross

3/ Using deaths in Scotland as grievance material for Holyrood and Westminster 

Finally, the only increasingly unsustainable position would be the volume of work to come his way from the Scottish Labour Party given the state of the party at present. I am thinking that perhaps Brian Roy thinks since the SNP has the volume of Scottish seats both at Westminster and Holyrood, he feels the need to make the right noises so he is eligible to jump on their bandwagon. This would be short term thinking, long term thinking would be to completely overhaul Scottish Labour, fix ever CLP to make them effective campaigning units, remove discriminatory rules which came into effect under Dugdale et al and have a cull of people who constantly have been rejected time and time again. All of this take leadership, and part of leadership is also to do unpleasant tasks. It’s time to get rid of the entitlement culture in the Scottish Labour Party and replace it with true equality; you only progress on merit and by deeds, not if you tick a box.

Yours sincerely

George Laird                                                                                                                                The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University