I am aware that I am an atypical East Anglian without Scottish origin who nonetheless takes a serious interest in Scottish politics. Might I suggest for a moment that everyone else should do so, at least on the issue I note here.
As The National newspaper in Scotland (declaration of interest: I am a paid columnist) notes this morning:
THE UK Government will consider “sanctions” that could be imposed on the Scottish Government for spending money on areas such as independence, a Tory minister has said.
In other words, the Tories are intent on limiting the powers of the Scottish parliament.
This comes only days after it was reported that Starmer will, after this weekend, be cracking down on the Labour Party in both Scotland and Wales, demanding that they follow his line on all issues and have no independent policies of their own.
No doubt the London hierarchies of both the Tories and Labour think this makes sense. To them, no doubt it does.
What I am equally sure of is that on the ground in Scotland and Wales the policy will backfire badly. Even those who are not pro-independence in either of these countries have got very used to devolved power now. To be told that the right to exercise this no longer exists - which is the message coming from the leadership of both Labour and the Tories - will feel like a smack in the face.
There are big assumptions made by many of those who think that Labour will be forming the next government of the UK, including that it can win a considerable number of seats in Scotland and maybe some more in Wales.
Partly that is based upon the confusion created within the SNP by the inactions of the Scottish police in the Sturgeon case.
I think those assumptions are wrong. Just because the SNP is undoubtedly in a bit of a mess right now (and I would add, I have long been a critic, so this mess does not surprise me), I think any Labour or even Tory politician would be very wrong to think they will gain an electoral advantage as a result. Nor is there a LibDem alternative choice that might be acceptable to almost anyone in Scotland when they have performed so badly at Holyrood.
Instead, what I think is going to be discovered is that nationalists will hold their noses and vote SNP in Scotland in the forthcoming general election and, most likely, for Plaid Cymru in Wales precisely because the option of English arrogance is so much worse.
Labour could win in Scotland and Wales but only by respecting their right to be independent-thinking countries. Starmer clearly cannot tolerate that. He may pay a high price for his failure.
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As a fellow East Anglian – Bury St Edmunds! – with Scottish heritage, I completely agree.
It is interesting to note that four months after the SNP leadership election, the SNP ‘collapse’ hasn’t really happened – the SNP are still 2 or 3 points ahead of Labour, and this trend seems to have settled down. A real collapse would be Labour consistently in the lead by several points (and maybe even rising), this hasn’t happened.
Thanks
Instinctively, I think you’re correct Richard. History may prove me wrong, but unless things change considerably in UK politics, I think the UK is heading for break up. And one word tells you why. Westminster.
Dominated by the wretched tory/labour duopoly, kept in place by the rotten FPTP system. The nauseating arrogance and stupidity of tory/labour as you’ve noted above will drive the Scots, then the Welsh away. And ultimately self-defeating for both parties.
I think you’re right that SNP supporters will ‘hold their noses’ and still vote in large enough numbers for it to ensure labour won’t pick up the seats it thinks it will (or is ‘entitled to’) if Starmer is going to behave like this.
After all, as progressives in England are constantly told we’ve got to hold our noses and vote for labour because under FPTP they’re the only way of getting the tories out, people saying this can’t be surprised if the same logic is followed by voters in Scotalnd regarding the SNP.
I don’t think the Labour party is going to do well at all in Scotland. People are wise to them now.
I also think the SNP are going to lose a lot of seats in the GE, but I don’t think those votes will go to labour, I just think a lot of independence supporters will either vote ALBA, spoil their ballots, or just not turn out at all.
An awful lot of us feel betrayed by Sturgeon, and will not vote for a party that still contains people involved in a plot to put an innocent man away, not to mention everything else they DIDN’T do regarding, well, anything else Indy related or positive for Scotland.
Are you implying that the SNP Wellbeing approach under Sturgeon and continued by Yousaf did not help the people of Scotland ie baby boxes; child support payment; free bus transport for elderly and under 24s;
free university tuition; successful wage agreements with doctors, nurses, teachers etc. I could go on but anything other than the disastrous neoliberal free market ideology driving Westminster must be in the interest of Scotland’s people ; this is unfortunately not recognised by many who prefer to run down the SNP Government.
The SNP Government is not perfect – what Government is – but is faced with a Media particularly the BBC which focuses on perceived SNP faults with very rare acknowledgement of positive actions. Unfortunately this seems to influence many supposedly supporters of Scottish independence
Interesting.
My view on this since the Corbyn episode has been that Labour has been more actively fighting amongst itself than on behalf of its members or voters and this fighting is going to go on.
This will lead to a party that will not be concentrating on policy other than replicating/refining what it is inheriting.
So, we’ll have yet another party riven with internal problems ruling over us for god knows how long, whilst valuable time and energy is spent on internal party political matters.
More inward looking party politics when we need inspirational leadership and a way out of our problems.
Useless.
Yes, I agree but when Mark Drakeford steps down, as he said he would do before the next election, (firmly on the left, also possibly retiring..Julie Morgan, Jane Hutt etc..) whoever follows is much more likely to be firmly under the thumb of Starmer and London Labour ( Vaughan Gething for example..)
They’ll either try and fix candidates or go for character assassination to get their puppet in. That’s what they do now, Welsh Labour or not.
(South wales)
You’re absolutely right, Richard. We Scots are thrawn, so the more The Tory government in Westminster tell us we can’t do things, the more we’ll want to do them.
And as regards the police investigation into the SNP, how long will it be before Scot Squad (for those from south of the border, a BBC Scotland spoof comedy programme) find whatever it is they may be looking for?
Thrawn. A word neither Starmer nor Sunak understands. They will become familiar with its effects, soon enough.
The SNP is mostly a means to an end; this is something most nationalists I know and have spoken to believe. All the recent messiness means not much until there is a viable alternative to vote for. They may not have quite as strong a showing as they enjoyed previously but I really wouldn’t expect much to change up here until we are finally freed.
I agree with you
I have very remote Scottish ancestry though my name is quite Scottish, I was born in Jersey which has more independence than Scotland.
I would prefer us to stay together but the key issue is : Are Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales members of a voluntary Union or are they ‘colonies’ and it is up to English to decided whether they can have a say on their future?
I think it has to be the first.
So do I
FWIW, I sympathise, I get the attraction in a sentimental view of the Union. It’s good to see the best we could be. Had it been a voluntary union, there might not be independence movements of any great substance. Had it been a union that made its constituent nations the best they could be, I’d be a unionist rather than a burden on the Exchequer. As it is, we have a “union” gaslighting with GERS, looking down on its periphery and continuing the habits of Empire. Is that a union worth staying in?
While support for the SNP is falling according to all the polling since ‘the incident’, support for Scottish independence has not. My own preference is that I do not care whether I live in the peoples’ republic of Calton, or the United States of Europe, but I care passionately about the foreign and defence policy exercised in my name. The UK fails my test, and has done for 50 years. I am no fan of the SNP, but contrary to the UK media narrative, independence is not the intellectual property of the SNP.
The ‘demographic drift’ is worth .5% per year to the independence vote, 75% of under 35s in favour, 80% of over 75s against. Curiously, the 16-18 year-olds are pro-union, but grow out of it. The age at which more than 50% want independence goes up one year, every year.
I look forwards to voting for a reborn, socialist, Labour Party in an Independent Scotland. The best chance of a properly reformed parliament in the rest of the UK, is that we leave, and our English cousins take the opportunity to think about it.
I did read the Labour Party’s 150 page document – ‘Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy’. It took me less than two seconds. I opened the PDF file, typed CTRL-F for a search, typed ‘proportional’, and it reached the end of the file immediately. So, completely empty then.
I will be voting for SNP until we achieve independence. After that, it will depend on whatever policies are put to the electorate.
The Tory party’s policies, and too many of their MPs and MSPs, are repulsive. The two child benefit cap is the latest scandal but there are, of course, others. Neither the Tories nor Labour would dream of abolishing it citing cost. Here there is no limit on the number of children in an eligible household who can receive the Scottish Child Payment of £25 weekly payable from birth until the age of 16.
There are other benefits, not available in England, paid for by our taxes sent to the UK Treasury which then (disgustingly) sends a much smaller proportion back to us quite often telling us how we must spend their “largesse” (the Barnett formula).
These are all a matter of priorities and political will. Do governments choose to care more about oligarchs, billionaires, millionaires and their money (especially their money) or do they care about their people and, more importantly, their children. I think we know where Westminster stands on that.
As for the Labour party, dearie me, what a fankle. Not quite Tory, but really going all out to emulate them, and nothing like the Labour party of my youth which actually supported workers’ rights. What is the point of them.
The union is over but the Tory and Labour parties are doing their level best to imprison Scotland whose resources – oil, gas, electricity, whisky and other exports – are the only things keeping the United Kingdoms (not an error) afloat.
The coercive behaviour and suppression of democracy in Scotland has become unbearable. It is, undoubtedly, an abusive relationship. Something will give. Hopefully soon.
And Starmer doesn’t support triple lock pensions. The stingiest in Europe.
What an RS!
I’m an Englishman, married to a Scot whose mother was born in Sketty (Swansea) & whose father lived in South Wales in the 1960’s.
While my wife and I married later in life prior to that I was active around PS Waverley a Glasgow based paddle steamer for those unfamiliar with these things.
So what I realised from early on was that Wales & Scotland are significantly different to England and need to be treated accordingly by Westminster or there will be trouble.
The case for The Union wont be won by Westminster BUT they certainly can lose it big time and the way both Labour and The Conservatives are playing it I will be needing my passport soon to board the Waverley on a trip from Clevedon to Tenby
Much to agree with there
Great ship
I think your conclusions are largely correct Richard: there was 74.3% vote in favour of Scottish Parliament in the 1997 referendum on the matter and it remains doggedly around 75% to this day, so any attempt to dismantle it will cause tumult in Scotland. Only the Tories were against it in 1997 and, although they’re happy to attend, collect their salaries and stir up trouble, their share of the vote in Scotland has been eroded by their policies and incompetence as UK Gov’t and is currently sitting around 18%. That 1997 referendum was a Labour initiative, so a Scottish Parliament is still largely supported by Labour voters here.
Likewise the attempts of both Tories and Labour to dictate policy to their Scottish sub-parties will be resented and resisted: Scotland is different from England culturally, politically and historically and unless the Tories and Labour recognise and accommodate that fact, it will lose them significantly more votes than they imagine. I think sickoftaxdodgers is right in saying that the swing to Labour in England will not be replicated here as, like them or not, the SNP are the only party here with the capability of negotiating any secession from the UK and support for independence consistently sits around 50% even before campaigning begins. There is also a growing realisation here in the wake of all the Tory mismanagement of the UK over the last 40-50 years that we have the brains, talent and resources here to be a successful state outside of the UK. John C’s piece at 10:05am above nails that one.
As for the Sturgeon case mentioned by Roy S Grey above, the pro-right wing media (they represent about 98% of the press here and BBC Scotland is similarly aligned) have had a feeding frenzy. It’s all a bit reminiscent of the BBC filming of a police raid on Cliff Richard’s estate: they were all outside Sturgeon’s home before the story hit the news. It all smacks of police or UK Gov prompting. To date no charges have been made against them, but the principles of innocent until proven guilty and the individual’s right to privacy (the grounds for Cliff Richard’s successful case against the BBC) have been routinely ignored by the media. I’ll wait until we see whether the police propose a trial, whether the Crown thinks the evidence is strong enough, and what happens in the court case before I reach a conclusion about it. Let’s not forget the case against Rangers FC and its then management which collapsed and resulted in huge damages being paid to wrongly-accused individuals. The Crown won’t want a repeat of that damaging matter.
The truth of the matter is that the only realistic way for Labour or Tories to gain power in Scotland is for Scotland to become independent and for one of them to win a majority in the first post-Indy Scottish election.
Thanks
“…. the only realistic way for Labour or Tories to gain power in Scotland is for Scotland to become independent and for one of them to win a majority in the first post-Indy Scottish election.”
It is precisely because that is true that Labour and the Conservatives are diehard, unshakable Unionists. It is the only way the two Parties believe they can retain power in Scotland. For clarity, the conservatives have never believed in devolution. The Party in Scotland only supported Devolution after 1997 because politically there was nowher else to go. They do not believe in devolution now, except in their confused support of parochial localism (which regularly explodes in their face, and the right wing press then have a rant about ‘postcode lotteries’; the result of their own hopeless muddle). The gerontocratic membership of the Scottish Conservative Party, right now would ditch Holyrood in a heartbeat; and that is a cast-iron certainty the Party will never admit. The membership never wanted it; but hey, this is politics, and this is Britain; you say anything to survive politically for another wasted day in all our lives; and vote for anyone at all who will say it for you; and leave you to ‘tut tut’ in privacy from behind the safety of a net curtain.
Good points, especially concerning the investigation into Nicola Sturgeon. As far as I’m concerned it’s a case of innocent until proved guilty. To be frank, as an Englishman I’ve got a damn sight more time for her than for the vast majority of English politicians.
There’s another significant reason why Labour’s resurgence in England won’t happen in Scotland: the nuclear submarine base at Faslane and its nearby nuclear arsenal. This is a factor which is rarely mentioned by the UK Media, but about 40% of Scotland’s population live within a 30 mile radius of Faslane with approx. another 32% lying downwind but further afield within a 60 mile radius, so public opposition here to the nuclear presence is very enduring and strong. Labour in government would continue the Tory policy of maintaining the Faslane base regardless of Scottish public opinion, so, depending on wind direction, more than half of Scotland’s people would be in real danger. This will without doubt be a factor in Scotland’s voting at the next UK General Election and will diminish support for Tories and Labour while simultaneously boosting support for independence.
Always worth being reminded about
My tuppenceworth: Tories have openly declared their intentions of gradually weakening devolution in Scotland to the point where they will make the Scottish Parliament pointless. How? By the Internal Market Act giving Westminster power to overrule what ScotGov propose (witness Deposit Return Scheme which ScotGov can only implement if glass is removed from the scheme) and vile use of Levelling Up funds to bypass ScotGov and pay directly to local councils (Tory or Tory/Labour coalitions of course). This is an affront to democracy and the hidden kick in the teeth of reducing the amount of Scots income returned to us via the Barnet formula (I refuse to call it a grant as media usually do).
Labour do not have to do especially well to make significant gains in Scotland. If the 2 Alba MPs stand they may well split the vote to let Labour in and Alba and Green candidates elsewhere could easily do the same – there’s absolutely no chance of Alba or the Greens actually winning any seats at all, but they can damage the prospect of independence with a small percentage of the vote. Additionally, lots of Scottish people will ‘vote Labour to get the Tories out’ and thus let Tories in. Finally, Labour will help the Tories in several rural constituencies at he next GE just as they have for the last decade or so. In any case, the SNP only need to lose a couple of seats to provide the media and the English nationalist parties with a narrative of ‘Scots no longer interested’ .
Wow
How to get so much wrong in one comment
In what sense? Professor Curtice’s view is much the same and he’s pretty well-informed on Scottish voting.
I have lost you
I do not see prior comments when moderating and do not recall all threads
And I do not think John Curtice is all knowing. I doubt he does either.
We may be slightly as cross-purposes; I am just thinking of the next GE. A Labour government that fails to protect and enhance devolution would – IMO – be very vulnerable at the subsequent GE, but I very much doubt that will be something they will bear in mind in the intervening period.
Agreed