The recent Scottish Labour Leadership contest saw the
election of former deputy leader Johann Lamont to the role. With the
endorsement of most MPs, MSPs and trade unions, she was the clear choice
of the party leadership, and won with 51% of first preference votes.
The recent Scottish Labour Leadership contest saw the
election of former deputy leader Johann Lamont to the role. With the
endorsement of most MPs, MSPs and trade unions, she was the clear choice
of the party leadership, and won with 51% of first preference votes.
Despite
the failure of the party to support many left policies in the years
that she was deputy leader, she went into the election being seen as a
centre-left candidate as was fellow contender Ken McIntosh. The
right-wing candidate, Tom Harris, supported the abolition of free
education for Scottish students (which he announced at the Scottish
Labour Students conference of all places) and a raft of other ‘Blairite’
policies including breaking the trade union link. He favours ending the
right of trade union members to vote at leadership elections. He was
completely rejected, garnering only 7.9% of the vote.
Significantly
Ken McIntosh won 41% of the overall vote and a majority of the party
membership. He described himself openly as a socialist and supported
using the devolutionary powers of the Scottish parliament for leftwing
policies such as public ownership of the railways. It is also important
to note that all of the leadership candidates were present at the
Glasgow rally on the day of the November 30th strike action.
This was conformation of growing pressure
on Labour to respond to large sections of its support either being on
strike or in support of the action. A BBC poll in the run up to the
strike action found that nearly 70% of Scots supported the strike action
and that 80% of 18-24 years olds across Britain did also. (BBC News
28/11/2011) Unlike on the day of action on June 30th, Scottish Labour
openly supported the strike action with its MSPs refusing to cross
picket lines and enter parliament. This stand must be welcomed but must
also be understood in relation to growing pressure on the party
leadership from its membership and trade unionists. This pressure must
continue in the movement particularly as further action or the
acceptance of a potentially disastrous agreement with the government is
set to be hotly debated.
The stand taken by Scottish Labour on
November 30th was in stark contrast to that of the SNP who crossed
picket lines and entered the Scottish parliament that day to ironically
pass a motion against Tory cuts. In reality the SNP will be implementing
these cuts and with a majority government have no cover for doing so.
This follows a deal between Alex Salmond and David Cameron which
deferred budget cuts from this years’ pre-election budget to double them
next financial year.
However, it is not enough to simply
criticise the SNP from opposition without a viable alternative to offer.
In reality Labour as it stands would be implementing the same cuts. At
the Scottish elections in May the SNP at least presented in words a left
sounding opposition to the Tories, promising to defend Scotland from
the cuts. This is already starting to unravel; hidden at the back of
their manifesto was a 5 year public sector pay freeze and corporation
tax cuts. The pay freeze is now being implemented whilst it was
discovered by The Scotsman in the run up to November 30th that the SNP
were contemplating even more drastic cuts to public sector pensions than
the Tories. Scottish Finance Minister John Swinney admitted that the
proposed measures “will have significant and negative implications on the long-term retirement provision of
some of the lowest-paid individuals in our society.” (The Scotsman
website 29/11/2011)
Contrary to how they have presented
themselves then, the SNP are not a left-wing party that will protect
Scotland from the Tories. In reality, through policies around cutting
corporation tax they are willing to put Scottish workers into a
precarious ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of pay and conditions against
workers in the rest of Britain and Europe. This reflects the fact that
the SNP’s ideological vision was torn apart by the onset of economic
crisis in 2008 and the subsequent deepening of that crisis more
recently. Alex Salmond’s previous rhetoric of an independent Scotland
joining a Nordic “arc of prosperity” built upon a financial services
economy open to foreign business, based on the model of Iceland and
Ireland, has fallen flat on its face. Within this a future based on
“independence in Europe” also lies in tatters given there is now even no
guarantee an independent Scotland would be found a place in the EU
never mind the Euro itself!
Alongside this the question of
Scottish independence itself and a referendum have been put into the
long grass. Under the previous minority administration the SNP could
rule out such a measure because of the “unionist majority” in
parliament. However, now, despite the party’s reason d’être being
Scottish independence and having a majority to call a referendum this
has been put off until 2013 at the earliest. This is because Salmond
hopes that as in the 1980s, a government dominated by Tories with minute
levels of support in Scotland implementing unpopular measures will see
rising support for devolution and independence. However, in doing so he
is also running the risk of seeing mounting discontent with his party
which will be passing on cuts from the parliament in Holyrood and in
local authorities across Scotland in the meantime.
Labour has to
seize this opportunity to put forward an openly socialist alternative to
nationalism and austerity measures. As Labour historically did so under
Keir Hardie and as gained popularity in the Scottish labour movement
during the late 1960s and 1970s – following events such as the UCS
work-in which openly challenged and contributed to the ousting of a Tory
government – “home rule” on an openly socialist basis needs to be put
forward. This means, in the language of the debate today, arguing not
for crude unionism or nationalism but what is known as “devolution-max”.
That means the Scottish parliament attaining full economic powers,
including over oil revenues, and using these to implement a socialist
program instead of administering Tory cuts. This can lay the basis for
an appeal to young people and workers in the rest of Britain and across
Europe who are currently looking for an alternative to a capitalist
system in crisis that offers us no future.
