scotland

Scottish politics

The New Statesman has a look at Scottish politics where most importantly to me Chris Deerin suggests that neither of the likely candidates to become leader of the SNP can unite the party and effectively lead Scotland and that the rapid collapse of the SNP vote is likely.

In my article, Labour & Devolution, I argued that in order to win seats in Scotland, Labour needs to address “the constitutional question” with sensitivity; it seems from this, that this may not be so. Although Andrew Marr, again in the Statesman, seems to agree with me.

It is a commonly held belief that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.

Starmer and Sarwar seem to be ready to give nothing other than Union to the Scottish people and they may get away with it. …

Labour and Devolution

Scottish Labour met last weekend, its motion on the Constitutional question welcomes the Brown Commission report entitled, “A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy. Report of the Commission on the UK’s Future”, on the UK constitution and wealth, which I reviewed last month.

I have concluded that if one wants a single labour market, and single monetary & fiscal policies, there’s little more devolve. The Brown Commission came up with the job centres, skills and workers’ rights, the minimum wage and a suggestion that Scotland should adopt directly elected mayors. It’s clear to me that the reason the Commission found difficulty in finding more powers to devolve as its authors are committed to that single labour market and monetary & fiscal policy. While they look at tax raising powers for the Scottish Parliament, they note that these, albeit requiring Treasury permission, have never been requested. If one is committed to these common policies, either on the grounds of a superior welfare economics solution or through political commitment, then there are few powers left to give Scotland with the final say.

In the full blog article, overleaf, there is an analysis of the Brown Commission recommendations for Scotland, and a further analysis of why there’s no more to devolve, and thus why co-operation between Westminster and the nations of the UK is necessary. Use the “Read More” button to view the complete article. …

More Masonry

Paul Mason comments on the Labour Together report; the article examines how to reassemble a majority voting coalition, he argues it’s not just policy, it’s campaigning culture and this I agree about; he also argues that we must be ready to go into coalition with the SNP as we cannot win sufficient Scottish seats while Scottish Labour holds a unionist position. I think he maybe right about economism being sufficient but is too hopeful about Momentum, certainly the election campaigns to its national committee itself suggests that neither its leadership nor its challengers are ready to learn the lessons on political culture that he advocates. The Left needs to recognise why Corbyn’s coalition has fractured and learn how to rebuild a new one otherwise it’s in a minority in the Party and country. …

Congratulations Scotland

The British Parliament must keep the promises its leadership made in the last week of the Scottish referendum on independence. However, it would seem, that no matter which way you voted, it’ll cause problems for the Tories. Some are now saying they want to guarantee English votes for English laws; let’s see how far that goes. Some say they want to solve the West Lothian question which they allege becomes more acute if Holyrood gets more devolved powers. Some talk of an English parliament which is a crude attempt to entrench their majority, and this is the party that sank House Lords reform. Some may also seek to hold devo-max hostage to some sort of ‘English’ revolution. …

Independence is not on offer

Yesterday, Betfair announced that they were paying out to the “No” bets on their sportsbook, and the exchange is offering odds implying a 75% probability that the “No” vote will win. Many people seem to be ready to offer the voters in Scotland their advice, so I thought I’d join in, although in my case it’s all a bit late, it would seem. More so if you consider the views of Mona Chalabi at 538 Blog who points out that many postal ballots have already been cast and at the time they were cast, the No vote had a lead in the polls. …