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Scottish Politics

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droodzilla

pfm Member
I've been meaning to start this thread for a while.

My specific interest is in the Labour Party's strategy in Scotland. It's hard to see Labour ever forming a majority government without making some inroads, but I see no evidence of a strategy to win back Scottish seats and many of Labour's recent pronouncements (essentially hardening the pro-union position) will further alienate Scottish voters. So what gives?

However, there's no reason the thread shouldn't range more widely, as I'm sure it will anyway. For example, on indeendence, and the SNP surge, I think this article is a good read:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politi...otland-s-dreaming-why-snp-appears-unstoppable

Maybe the author overstates the degree to which the indendence vote is driven by emotion, but he makes some interesting points.

Anyway, let the carnage begin!
 
I don't see how Labour has a chance whilst there is a party that appeals to the civic nationalists and the less savoury nationalists with exactly the same messages. Many of which have a whiff of populism about them, unintended possibly. But it's impossible to get away from it if breaking free is part of the strategy. Breaking free from what exactly? Expect a different answer from the different type of nationalist.

They've not even needed to sack John Winney. It's win win for them until independence comes, I suspect.
 
Labour is doomed in Scotland for two reasons. Their traditional political ground was taken by the SNP and what’s left of the party is seen as part of the problem- they became indistinguishable from Westminster Tories when both shared an anti- independence platform at the 2014 referendum. The next year Labour lost 40 of their 41 seats to the SNP when the SNP took 56 of the 59 seats Scotland has at Westminster, what does that tell you?
The only way back for Labour in Scotland is as a separate party supporting independence.
Edit: Their stance on Brexit put the final nail in their coffin- the six seats they won in 2017 were wiped out when Johnson called the 2019 GE.
 
Labour is doomed in Scotland for two reasons. Their traditional political ground was taken by the SNP and what’s left of the party is seen as part of the problem- they became indistinguishable from Westminster Tories when both shared an anti- independence platform at the 2014 referendum. The next year Labour lost 40 of their 41 seats to the SNP when the SNP took 56 of the 59 seats Scotland has at Westminster, what does that tell you?
The only way back for Labour in Scotland is as a separate party supporting independence.
Edit: Their stance on Brexit put the final nail in their coffin- the six seats they won in 2017 were wiped out when Johnson called the 2019 GE.

Yet these 56 seats were delivered on just 50% of the vote. Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats got just one representative each for the other 46.7%
Source: https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk...ublications/the-2015-general-election-report/

and
Source: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/81199/1/democraticaudit.com-The First-Past-the-Post electoral system is breaking up the UK.pdf
and
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/first-past-the-post-ge2019/

What it tells most people is it is part of the issue with FPTP.

With the right policies, a sensible challenge of SNP propaganda and false promises/lies, it should be possible for Labour to make some headway.

Edit: Surely Corbyn and anti-semitism was also a nail in the coffin? That was the message from gassor, for example.
 
Drood

You are either very brave or very stupid - light the blue touch paper and stand back.

Only a similar discussion around politics in NI could be more inflammatory.
 
Agree with TD's post. Labour Scotland don't currently have a credible role to play in the binary debates of independence and Brexit. Labour also lack talent (as the article mentions), which is relevant as SNP leadership doesn't present as a group of Nationalist nutters - and speaking of nutters, the nuttier Boris/Cons become, the higher the likelihood of wavering voters moving over to the SNP. Tricky times for Labour (and the Cons) north of the border.
 
Agree with TD's post. Labour Scotland don't currently have a credible role to play in the binary debates of independence and Brexit. Labour also lacks talent (as the article mentions), which is relevant as SNP leadership doesn't present as a group of Nationalist nutters - and speaking of nutters, the nuttier Boris/Cons become, the higher the likelihood of wavering voters moving over to the SNP. Tricky times for Labour (and the Cons) north of the border.
That’s my view- Boris Johnson is going to do all the work.
 
As Dec noted up-thread, Labour and Scottish Labour need to properly split in order for the latter to challenge the SNP. I also think a lot of damage was done around the time of the gulf war as Tony Blair took the country to war and didn't give two hoots about the public's obvious protestations. I know other stuff happened after that but the electorate up here didn't forget.
 
Scottish politics, brave person who dives into this. Let's face it, there has to be something "fishy" about the SNP, just look at the surnames of the last two of its leaders for a start.
 
Scottish politics, brave person who dives into this. Let's face it, there has to be something "fishy" about the SNP, just look at the surnames of the last two of its leaders for a start.

Perhaps the Tories should put Amber Rudd in charge up there.
 
Drood,is anyone in the party brave enough to float the idea of a separate Scottish Labour Party standing at Westminster?
I don't know enough about it to be honest. My impression is that the Scottish Labour Party is more pro-unionist than the party as a whole. I also seem to remember John McDonnell being open-minded about a second independence referedum, but getting shot down for it. Meanwhile, what little that's been said under Starmer has strongly reinforced the unionist line. All in all, the prospect look bloody awful.
 
It's hard to see Labour ever forming a majority government without making some inroads, but I see no evidence of a strategy to win back Scottish seats and many of Labour's recent pronouncements (essentially hardening the pro-union position) will further alienate Scottish voters. So what gives?
Worth remembering that in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 General Elections, Labour would still have won without Scotland.
 
It's all too easy to put the SNP's popularity down purely to them being pro-independence however, while that is of course a factor, it's at least as big a factor that the other main parties have proved themselves completely incompetent in an Scottish context. With the Tories that'll be down to them never having been interested in Scotland, but in Labours case it's down to the UK party only appearing interesting in the political situation in England and abandoning their core support up here (a key example being Brexit, however the decline started well before that was a factor). The LibDems of course are just as dead in Scotland as they are elsewhere, and it'll be a while before they recover from betraying everyone for the whiff of a ministerial car or two.

Given the Stalinist approach to dissent that Labour has taken in recent years it would have been difficult for anyone in the Scottish party who wanted to keep their job to do anything other than toe the party line, so it is difficult to tell whether the few elected officials they still have in Scotland are so pro-unionist because that's how they really feel, or whether it was to appease their masters in Westminster.
 
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