Tommy Sheppard and Dorothy Grace Elder explain why they can no longer bring themselves to vote for their old parties

I joined the Labour Party in 1979 just before my 21st birthday. Politically active for four or more years previously, the decision was a considered choice, eschewing the myriad of alternative left organisations on the political menu at that time. I wasn’t born to the party, nor was I attracted by their policies. The Callaghan government, after all, had been less than a source of inspiration for a young radical, and I had spent much of the late 70s campaigning against their pro-nuclear energy policies.

The decision was really a straightforward realisation that to change the world – however incrementally – it was necessary to build a popular majority for change (well a majority at least of those that could be bothered) and to get elected to government. Having settled for a left social democracy as my political credo, it was transparent that the only political organisation capable of mobilising the great mass of the population and of achieving governmental power was Labour. So I joined, warts and all, and for more than 20 years I was a loyal member.

Now, 24 years later, I’ve finally got round to cancelling the direct debit, and I can no longer bring myself to vote Labour. My outlook has barely changed, but clearly the Labour Party has. I cannot believe any longer that the Labour Party is likely to change the world very much, or at least not in a direction I would like. Indeed, the argument that the Labour government, cemented as it now is into the archaic British political structure, is as likely to be an impediment as a catalyst to change, seems increasingly plausible.

It has been a while coming, and it is hard to say at exactly what moment Labour gave up its historic role. And anyway, this is not an exact science. It is a matter of judgement which each individual has to make for themselves: for some the end of Clause Four spelled the end of a socialist party, and there are many others for whom the end has not yet come and who long for a bright new tomorrow. But for me the party is over. Simply put I cannot see any way in which people who want socialist change are likely to achieve it within the Labour Party. The opportunity to influence policy is at an all time low, and there is simply no space left in which to operate. This too may pass, but for now socialists and social democrats can have at least as much influence in smaller parties, and if and when a fairer voting system is established, the prospect of considerably more.

This is a view of the changing strategic role of the Labour Party rather than an upset at any particular policy. I’ve often suppressed concern – even opposition – to individual policies, believing the overall effect of a Labour advance would be to shift the balance of power in society towards those that lack it. That just doesn’t hold true any more.

Policies aren’t unimportant of course. And on every level the actions and expressed beliefs of the government create a range of negative emotions; sometimes merely irritation; more often disgust and contempt.

The world is changing dramatically. Capitalism continues its expansion into all corners of the globe, finding new markets and new labour forces. Invading countries so impoverished they can muster little in the way of government regulation to temper the worst excesses. Upheaval on a massive scale displaces millions and kills as many through war, starvation and disease. The military might of the US – now into gear for a truly awesome slaughter of innocents in Iraq – is actively deployed to ensure that the shake down results in regimes which defer to America.

The Labour government’s continuing love affair with a right wing Republican administration in the White House is the most depressing and demeaning spectacle. That alone would be enough to make anyone think seriously about their membership. Never mind the fact the current US administration armed Baghdad; these people are the living embodiment of everything I was against twenty years ago. They sabotaged Allende, supported apartheid, funded Israeli aggression, brought terror to Central America, and on, and on, and on.

Blair’s active support for American foreign policy is a terrible thing. It is sickening to behold the British prime minister play Robin to Bush’s Batman, gallivanting throughout the world from one imperial crusade to the next. But it is the lost opportunity that is all the more heart rending. We could have spent these past years actively engaged in building a modern European politics, creating new progressive alliances with the peoples of Germany and France. We could be seriously thinking in ten to fifteen years of Europe as an aligned set of modern countries forming a bloc built on social democratic traditions, where the well being and happiness of the people take precedence over the drive for profit. Such a Europe could present an ideological, cultural, economic and military counterweight to the US on the world stage; engaging with Africa and Asia, respecting the Islamic world, supporting secular and progressive movements throughout the world.

Labour has also failed at home. It started well, but devolution quickly became an end in itself rather than a start of a process of democratisation and self-government. The Labour Party seems quite content that the Scottish parliament should be a subservient tier of administration rather than an expression of the collective destiny of the Scottish people.

You’d have thought by now that the parliament might have been in a position to seek further powers and to institute changes in the relations with Westminster that would make it function even more effectively. It beggars belief that the Scotland Act got everything right and shouldn’t be reviewed. I must conclude that the administration simply aren’t that bothered.

The Labour Government has made too little of a benign economic situation which has provided more cash for public services. There has been growth – but little compared to what is needed to take our health spending to European levels. Particularly disappointing is that Labour has spent so much of our cash in funding partnerships with the private sector. The bottom line is that if someone is taking a profit out of an operation there’ll be less to invest in the future. Why has it become an extremist position to argue that public services should not be run for profit?

And again there’s the question of paying for our public services. Labour has continued the shift from direct to indirect taxation and introduced tax cuts which mean the rich get richer and the poor get (relatively) poorer. This is absurd. Why are people who earn less than £150 a week required to pay tax? Why is it wrong to suggest that people who earn vast sums completely unrelated to any civilised notion of a reward system shouldn’t pay a lot more for society’s infrastructure? I can’t just pretend that this is okay anymore, and I choose to withdraw my consent.

I’m not sure who I will vote for but it won’t be Labour and it won’t be Tory. I know that it’s not just me. I know many, many people are moving through disillusion to concern. We may yet come to take action once again. With goodwill, tolerance and a quest for unity we may yet come to forge a political force comprised of people with the vision to see beyond their next expenses claim.

Tommy Sheppard was Assistant General Secretary of the Scottish Labour Party from 1995 to 1997

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I couldn’t possibly vote SNP under the present leadership. There are some good individual SNP MSPs but, with a lack of behind the scenes justice or basic compassion, today’s front bench are not people I would wish to get their hands on the justice system or the health service. After 26 years in a party this is a sad thing to have to say, but it is my experience of New SNP. What is upfront in the claimed left of centre SNP conceals a rigidly right wing aura behind the scenes. Right now, only the war situation is papering over the cracks for disillusioned activists who have lost all control over their party. It’s not just that there is an obvious policy lurch to the right since John Swinney took over, it looks like the leadership is bedding down under the devolution duvet and sending independence to a landfill site.

The SNP MSPs who were targeted for harm in the Group were all left of centre, such as Margo MacDonald, Lloyd Quinan and myself. The in fighting levels are even worse than in Labour. So is the ludicrous, strutting arrogance. The left was cut out of everything possible. Over £354,000 of taxpayers money is spent by the SNP group. They double their Short Money of £179,000 a year – the official hand out for running an opposition – by demanding every SNP MSP signs over another £5,000 each from their constituency allowances for Group research and ‘leadership help’. That money is meant to help the public, often the needy and the desperate, at the grassroots. Heisting it was condemned in the Senior Salaries Review Body, but the practice continues. Labour demands about £1,700 each. They use it to help their backbenchers only. Yet SNP backbenchers, who’re mainly left wing, were deprived of Group research help but ordered to pay the same sum. And I mean ordered. I work on things which often need heavy research; for example a Glasgow pollution case for which every point of European law had to be researched personally. I’m rather proud I finally won that case – the first to be won in Brussels by an MSP – in January this year, as an Independent.

While publicly being fervently pro-unions, the SNP Parliamentary officials haven’t been hot over recognition of the union representing their staff. The National Union of Journalists is still working hard after two years to get full negotiating rights with the politburo running today’s SNP despite signing up many of the MSPs’ staff. The NUJ say things are very complicated as employment rests mainly with individual MSPs, but the same is true for Labour and the SSP and they have no recognition problems. There is no freedom of speech or writing in the SNP Group. Margo’s columns were “monitored” and she had to be “careful”.

Some of the worst elements of New Labour were copied instantly. Not just the over-schmoozing of business; New SNP lives by The McMandelson Dirty Tricks Brigade – vicious spinning against colleagues who’d struggled together through the bad days. For decades, the SNP condemned the ‘unionist media’, but from the moment power – even shadow power – went to some heads, the same unionist media was manipulated in whispering campaigns against the SNP Left. All were “mavericks” and “dissidents”. If female, you were also “eccentric”. The attitude to women made me uneasy. Tommy Sheridan once challenged an old hack who was pally with the SNP hierarchy to instance what proof the spinners spoon fed to him over my eccentricity. The hack told Tommy: “They say she wears bright coloured jackets”

What chilled me overall was the lack of a disciplined approach – the SNP Group became a playground for the nasty kids on the block. Cronies escaped discipline no matter what they did. In June 2000, Margo got two years discipline for missing a vote one day when she was ill. Contrastingly, when the volatile Kenny Gibson was plastered over the Sun after throwing a screaming tantrum at a young woman Parliament security officer, there was no discipline for him. So a missed vote by an SNP woman Lefty (Margo) counted for more than abusive verbal conduct against a woman Parliament worker. I was the only SNP MSP to ask for a Party investigation into that incident. “Oh dear, things will get worse for you, Dorothy” warned a friendly Group member. Things did. But you’ve got to eyeball that mirror in the mornings.

Let me give you an example of these issues coming together. In May 2, 2002, I resigned from the Party and became an Independent – that became the only way to protect a campaign I run for 550,000 pain patients (back pain, cancer pain and so on). Just as three years of work to hoist this neglected issue up from the bottom of the health agenda was gaining some success I was ordered to leave the Parliament’s health committee, a couple of weeks before a vote on my campaign was due to see if we could get more pain clinics for people suffering pure hell. The “instructions” – the term used – came second-hand from Whip Kay Ullrich. There was to be “no discussion”. I was told “the instructions” were from Swinney and SNP health spokeswoman Nicola Sturgeon. My work was praised, but the tale was that Swinney and Sturgeon “thought Glasgow was over-represented on health”. Britain’s sickest city? Sturgeon wanted only one Glasgow SNP MSP on the committee. Herself. No-one would speak to me or discuss the fate of the pain campaign and the imminent vote. Because of the huge number of sufferers involved it had become the most popular campaign in the four years of the Parliament, backed by 130,000 Parliament web site hits from the public. Some 17 countries had praised the Parliament; even Prince Charles had sent an encouraging message to the pain patients. I’d had problems in the SNP group at every stage of the campaign. Sturgeon wouldn’t even sign my motion on “The Plight of Scotland’s Chronic Pain Patients”. The (then) business manager Tricia Marwick had offered me the worst debate date in three years: the night before the June 2001 General Election. The group officials had kept these poor patients waiting 18 months for that debate. Ahead of 550,000 in pain, they put up subjects like shinty! Oh, how sad and revolting it all was.

I appealed to be allowed to remain on the Committee for the vote on what was a heartfelt cause for me. No, I had to go immediately said Ullrich. “These are instructions – you can’t refuse” she stated. I did refuse. I wasn’t going to obey cowardly clones who wouldn’t even face me and had no thought for all those patients. Nor would I downgrade my city, Glasgow. The health committee backed me with member after member standing up to be counted (except of course Nicola and her deputy Shona Robison). Backing also came from the vast majority of the Parliament. People were sickened when the truth got out. It was Blairism at its most crude. Blair had tried to interfere in the non Party committee system in Westminster to remove left wingers – and he was rebuffed. Swinney and Sturgeon got the same egg on their faces from our Parliament, and deserved to. A couple of weeks later, I was still on the Health Committee when the vote went through to ask for “funding for comprehensive chronic pain services throughout Scotland”. Labour, Lib Dem and Tory members hugged me. “We know how much this means after what you’ve been through” said the Tory health spokeswoman Mary Scanlon. There were tears in her eyes. Yes, a kindly Tory. If there’s no heart in politics, then there’s danger.

Dorothy-Grace Elder was an SNP MSP