Neil Findlay and Tommy Kane argue for a ‘real’ Labour response to the referendum result

Nearly a week on from the referendum, a picture based on fact, not myth, wishful thinking or conjecture, is emerging. Of course, the most salient fact we knew only a few hours after the polls closed, when in the early hours of 19 September, it became clear that Scotland had decisively rejected the version of independence offered in the Scottish Government’s White paper. 

Never has the popular sovereign been spoken with such authority. From a hugely impressive turnout of c85%, over 2m, 55.3% voted ‘No’ against 1.6m and 44.7% voting ‘Yes’. There has been much soul searching on all sides since. But the long and short is that insufficient numbers were persuaded that independence was in their interest, their families and their wider community.

Despite the resounding result, we’ve witnessed reactions by many seeking to lay the ‘blame’ upon others (the BBC, businesses, Labour, Asda, unions who voted ‘no’) rather than acknowledge the failure of the ‘yes’ campaign to persuade enough people of the merits of their case. Yet the more noise about fixes, rigged polls, of brainwashed, stupid, spineless and cowardly citizens or of the scared or selfish elderly the more those who voted ‘no’ feel vindicated.

So just who did vote ‘no’? Initially, it was said the young voted ‘yes’ and the old ‘no’. But we now know that only one group, the 25s-39s, voted by a majority for ‘yes’. We know that from North to South and East to West, the majority was for ‘no’, with only four of 32 local authorities voting ‘yes’. Women voted ‘no’, as did the young voted and 22% of SNP voters voted ‘no’ (with 27% of Labour voters voting ‘yes’). Another strong but simplistic narrative suggested the poorest voted ‘yes’ and the better off ‘no’. Well yes, the 4 local authority areas who voted ‘yes’ are amongst the poorest but it is simply wrong to suggest that only the affluent voted ‘no’. Consider the working population and their average earnings and it really does expose this as fanciful. With a working population of just under 2m, 90% of Scots earn less than £44.5k, with 60% earning £25.3k or less. This puts paid to the notion that it was millionaires and bankers that voted ‘no’ and the working class ‘yes’. Those who voted ‘no’ were in the main ordinary working people.

In this debate the usual rules did not apply. On one side, two of the richest men in Scotland – McColl and Souter – voted ‘yes’ along with the SWP whilst the Communist Party and the UKIP voted No. The reality is the debate saw political enemies, take similar positions for very different reasons. But whilst people voted ‘no’ for many reasons, there were some central issues that ultimately cost the ‘yes’ vote dearly.

On the currency, people rejected the proposed currency union, not accepting the central bank of the very country Scotland was seeking to separate from would be given the final say over taxation, spending, regulation, interest rates etc. This was a strange version of independence as it would have seen rUK’s chancellor sign off these critical decisions without any political input or scrutiny from Scottish MPs (who would no longer sit at Westminster). This was policy that reeked of focus groups, not political principle. Indeed, Yes Scotland chair, Dennis Canavan and the Greens, SSP and Jim Sillars all rejected it but did all they could to keep quiet about it. The electorate also understood that creating a Scottish currency and building up our own reserves would have involved significant long term pain – something many were not prepared to countenance.

Neither did they want the low wage, low tax economics proposed by the SNP. For all their social democratic talk, the only redistributive policy proposed in the White Paper was a shift of cash from the poor to the rich in the shape of a 3% corporate tax gift. The repeated references to Scotland following Scandinavian models of social democracy simply did not stand up to scrutiny.

But, of course, nor did people want the status quo – I hope we can all agree the referendum was a vote for change! In the almost 100 meetings, school talks, debates and events that I took part in during the campaign I articulated a ‘Vote No’ for change message. This is where the common ground between many in the Yes and No camps lies. People have rejected the slavish obedience to the free market and the low taxed, deregulated economy. Social justice and how to create a fairer more just economy and society became one of the key themes. It is my view that a combination of the proposed currency union, EU deficit rules for new states, the need to build credibility with the markets and lenders and the economic uncertainty independence would have created would have created the conditions where turbo charged austerity would have been the first thing to hit Scotland had there been a ‘ye’’ vote.

Throughout the campaign it was repeatedly ‘it’s not about the SNP’ – a position that completely ignores that the only published blueprint for independence was the SNP’s and that it would have been that party that would have dominated independence negotiations and writing a new constitution. Salmond stated people were ‘voting on the White Paper’. So had it been approved, the nationalists with huge momentum going into the 2016 election would have continued to push the politics of nation, not class, and this would have dominated Scottish politics for the foreseeable future. 

Another campaign feature was the abandonment by the pro-independence left of its capacity to critically analysis the SNP, its record in government and its ‘independence’ offer. Strangely, the SNP gained a reputation for being good at government but this has taken a hit recently, with the referendum result, arguably, being judgment on that as good government is not centralising or undemocratic government. Yet this Scottish Government has curbed and diminished local government, epitomised by the underfunded council tax freeze (that has contributed to 40,000 job losses and puts the most money into the hands of those with the most expensive houses). Moreover, the SNP has centralised the police and cut thousands of civilian support posts. We now see the routine arming of officers and stop and search at rates higher than those of the Metropolitan Police. We have the Offensive Behaviour at Football Bill which in the main criminalises working class young men and there are plans to end corroboration – a key feature is Scots law. In our colleges, 130,000 places have been cut, disproportionately affecting working class young women, the disabled and adult learners. The NHS is teetering on the brink with a crisis in social care, with waiting times increasing, use of the private sector growing and staff under more pressure than ever. And, we see no progressive policy initiatives to redistribute cash from the rich to the poor. On these issues the pro-independence left has stayed silent. Will it now find its voice? Or will it continue to expend its energies on crying ‘freedom’ whilst freedom is being trampled on under their very nose? 

If we examine the last 100 or so years it has been the UK labour and union movement that has been the vehicle for progressive change, providing the impetus that has transformed the material circumstances of working people. Independence was a trap that would have divided workers and diminished our ability to fight and challenge the power of capital in an economy the Scottish government wanted to make ‘the most competitive in Europe’. For competitive, read low pay, deregulation, zero hours etc. The majority of Scottish people critiqued the prospectus on offer, weighed up the evidence and didn’t like what they saw. 

So there is now an overwhelming consensus that politics in Scotland has to move on but how is this going to happen? Whilst the referendum did a tremendous job in developing political discourse and interest, the nationalism running through the ‘Yes’ side also brought with division, intolerance and unwillingness to contemplate alternative viewpoints. I can only hope that those ‘yes’ campaigners who were motivated by social justice return to the politics of class and work for the removal of the Tories next year and for more progressive, redistributive politics and that the recent political sectarianism directed towards Labour is put to one side with as much effort put in next year to get rid of Cameron and Clegg.

From a Labour perspective, the message received and next steps appear obvious. 1.6m were prepared to jump over the cliff in the hope there would be a safe landing. That’s quite an indictment on dissatisfaction with the status quo. Political parties can be under no illusion that this was aimed at all of them. Labour must do several things. We must always be the party that represents working people. We must have an organisational response, yes, but more importantly a political response that puts tackling poverty and inequality through redistribution at the heart of our manifesto and core beliefs. We must reject market orthodoxy, develop new public ownership models (most obviously on the railways), invest in public services, commit to full employment and be the party of education and the NHS. We cannot continue to run away from the question of progressive taxation.

In short, Labour must reclaim the bold radical traditions that created the NHS, welfare state, national minimum wage and Scottish parliament. So while we must ensure sufficient constitutional change occurs, such change has to have a purpose – to serve the interests of our class. Only then will be able to credibly tell those ‘no’ voters that a ‘no’ vote was a vote for change and in so doing regain the trust of some of those who voted ‘yes’. 

Neil Findlay is a Labour MSP for Lothian and Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Well –being. Tommy Kane is parliamentary researcher to Neil. Both are members of the Red Paper Collective.