Labour, SNP, Lib Dems, Greens, SLP – assessed
Labour’s Last Chance Saloon – Bob Thomson is a former Chairman and Treasurer of the Scottish Labour Party
Most political commentators don’t seem to have appreciated the scale and significance of New Labour’s losses on May Day. Labour received its lowest vote since 1931, with 400,000 less Scots voting for them than in 1997. New Labour’s pro-war, pro-business agenda was rejected by a majority of Scottish voters. Scotland had moved substantially to the Left, and the seven Green, six SSP and four independent MSPs all stood on platforms significantly more progressive than that of New Labour.
There was a major movement of voters from traditional patterns. The scale of the rejection of New Labour by middle class voters in Strathkelvin Bearsden, Edinburgh Pentlands and Edinburgh South was breathtaking. Voters are learning how to use their two parliamentary votes. The implications for New Labour are profound. In June 2004 there will be elections to the European Parliament under the single transferable vote in a closed party list. Labour currently has three seats in Scotland. If the May Day trend continues, Labour could find itself with only two. Significantly the only part of the UK which performed relatively well was Wales where they are now able to govern without coalition. In Wales, Labour branded itself ‘Classic Labour’, clearly a pseudonym for ‘Old Labour’, and stood on a manifesto committed to abolishing prescription charges, free eye and dental checks and improving pensioners’ concessionary travel. Unlike Jack McConnell, Rhodri Morgan made no public statements supporting the war in Iraq.
Why has Scottish Labour not emulated our comrades in Wales? This is in my view at least partly to do with the close connections of Scottish Ministers and leading MSPs to Cabinet Ministers and subsequent competition between Blairites and Brownites. Why else would the New Labour Leadership in Scotland continue to adhere to policies so obviously at odds with the majority of Labour’s natural supporters?
Labour by its founding and constitution is a democratic socialist party. The New Labour entryists have severely damaged, possibly fatally, Labour’s standing and organisation. Membership is down by over one third and more than half the activists have left the party. Many constituencies and branches are continuously inquorate. Many of those attending are of the ‘got a job’ or ‘gie’s a job’ variety. New Labour is a party for careerists not those with passion and conviction. Unless this rot can be reversed many of the socialists still in the Labour Party will vote with their feet
The most urgent task is to establish a campaign with a detailed, practical, timetabled programme for winning back Scottish Labour to socialist policies. This would give hope to those still with the Party, regain those who have left, and attract new members, especially those involved in campaigning on single issue matters, many of whom would previously have joined Labour. How can such a campaign be implemented and pursued? Fortunately in Scotland we already have such a pressure group. The Campaign for Socialism is relatively small but well organised with its own magazine, the Citizen. The Convener is John McAllion, and there are active members throughout Scotland. However it does not have the resources or clout to fight a successful campaign in the timescale we are likely to have. A partner is needed!
The trade unions formed the Labour Party but with a few exceptions have not seriously challenged New Labour’s agenda of privatisation, PFI, destruction of manufacturing jobs and draconian employment laws. This is now changing and that change is being lead by grass root members. At Labour’s Scottish Conference in Dundee in February, trade unions and constituency parties combined to overwhelmingly defeat the platform and have a debate on the war in Iraq, though inexplicably they failed to carry it through and insist on a vote. UNISON Scotland has started a campaign to dump the contrived and manipulated policy forums and put decision-making back with members and affiliates. New general secretaries have been elected on commitments to progressive policies. On finance it has been made plain that there will no longer be a blank cheque and that unions will be looking for value for money.
Left trade unions must join with the Campaign for Socialism and others to harness the growing desire to challenge New Labour. There should be key demands on economic regeneration, fiscal autonomy, scrapping PFI, reviving public services and tackling poverty. Most importantly, party organisation and decision-making must be taken back into the control of members and affiliates.
Cooperation, Cohabitation, Conflict – the Choices Facing the SNP Bill Ramsay is Chair of the SNP Trade Union Group
The loss of one quarter of its parliamentary strength and the emergence of not one but two pro-independence parties to its left presents the Scottish National Party with some interesting challenges. During the 1999-2003 term the SNP was able to focus its attention on the failings of the Labourled Executive but we now need to look in two directions. On the right front we have the Labour-led Executive. This will remain the principal battleground. Significantly, for the first time in thirty years, inroads were made into urban Labour seats. Three were captured though one, Dundee East, was with the unwitting help of the SSP whose decision to give John McAllion a free ride backfired. Of almost equal significance is that a number of other heretofore safe Labour seats are now Labour-SNP marginals. This will usefully help to shift the SNP’s centre of gravity southwards, though further south still we managed to lose Galloway and Upper Nithsdale to the Tories again. On the left front the picture is quite different. The partial vacuum that emerged on the left during the election as the SNP battled with Labour in the centre ground over whose Scotland would be smarter, gave the SSP plenty of ideological room to maneuver. Moreover the media did not focus upon the SSP’s more revolutionary policies, partly because the SSP leadership had no intention of promoting them.
Notwithstanding these favourable circumstances for the SSP it should be remembered that they were out-polled by the Greens, a party that is virtually organisationally non-existent in many parts of Scotland. Many who voted Green on May 1 did so not because of who they were; rather they voted Green because of who they were not. To achieve what they did on May 1, the Greens needed one quality, or to be more accurate five qualities. They required not to be Pink, Heather, Blue, Yellow or, a point that is sometimes overlooked, they required not to be Red.
What then will be the SNP’s relationship with the smaller parties in the Independence Movement? Will the relationship be characterised as one of co-operation, cohabitation or even outright conflict? The SNP must respond effectively to the intervention of these smaller parties in Parliament. The SNP must not allow these parties to raid its policy cupboard. Proper deployment of existing progressive SNP policies and further development of others can allow the SNP to regain the ideological initiative. The outcome of the 2003 General Election changed Scotland’s political landscape. Whether it was for better or worse will depend as much on how those of us who believe in Independence treat each other as well as on those who would see independence killed stone dead.
Lib Dems: Saving this Marriage of Convenience? Denis Robertson Sullivan is the immediate past Treasurer of the Scottish Liberal Democrats
Tradition will aid the modernisation of Scotland over the next four years of this new parliament. The Liberal Democrats traditions and values will strengthen the drive for inclusiveness and protect against the assault of neo-Thatcherism. New Labour, since it abandoned socialism, has had a problem of clearly identifying a new philosophy. The Third Way, which still has merit, is no longer vigorously advocated – has it too been abandoned even before it has been given a chance to prove itself? Islington New Labour is uncomfortable at the very least with its traditions. It therefore sometimes appears rudderless or simply opportunistic with its policies. When was Foundation Hospitals discussed by the Party?
The new Partnership Government might be seen as an uneasy marriage of convenience of a party that has lost its tradition with one that is proud of its. The challenge to the new Government will be to live up to the tradition of liberalism. The challenge for the Liberal Democrats will be to protect and respect the individual. The last Government’s Inclusiveness Agenda was the great unsung success absent from the election campaign.
Jack McConnell’s instincts are good; however Islington New Labour’s are much more worrying. The main drive of the new Government will be to strengthen the economy of Scotland and maintain the commitment to social inclusion. ‘The disappointed, the disaffected and the disappeared’ need to brought into the mainstream of our society. Much has actually been achieved by the last Scottish Government and even more by the Westminster New Labour – such as the New Deal or the minimum wage. The promise and reality of enabling the excluded has reflected great credit on those who have developed and nurtured the New Deal. Scottish Enterprise and many of the quangoes have not only bought into to inclusion but have genuinely taken ownership of it, personified by Sportscotland’s recent review of Sport 21.
The hope is that vision and genuine commitment will shape the ‘Reform of Public Services’. This appears to be the new plank in the domestic policy agenda but how will that play with the new Scottish government?
The Liberal Democrats will want very firm assurances that reformed public services mean better public services and not cheaper public services. Liberal Democrats want value for money – not cuts. Best value means something to Liberal Democrats since includes quality as a criteria. There must be a worry for all of us who have lived through the Thatcher years where reform always meant cuts. Efficiency meant savings – not reinvestment. Many public organisations were driven to new targets, often on reduced budgets, and the casualty was quality. There is sometimes an alarming similarity in the language or rhetoric when reform of public services has been discussed in recent times and it rings alarm bells with those of us who believe in public services. The Liberal Democrats contribution to the new Government will be to ensure that Jack’s instincts and not Tony’s prevail because of that Liberal tradition.
Greens: a responsibility not to disappoint Patrick Harvie is a Green MSP
So what happened? This election was supposed to be dull. It was designed to be dull. Politics, we were told, is not about big ideas. Politics doesn’t interest young people. Politics, in fact, should be left to politicians. But people didn’t want it that way. The last few months have been an amazing rollercoaster ride for anyone interested in radical politics in Scotland. First there was the February 15 anti-war demo in Glasgow – the largest demonstration Scotland has ever seen. And then came the Schoolkids protestors. And then there was the election. Four weeks of Labour and the SNP having the same old squabbles while the other political voices tried to get four or five seconds of coverage into a half-hour edition of Reporting Scotland. Four weeks during which it almost seemed like the antiwar protests hadn’t happened. No one (especially not me) expected the election result we got on May the 2nd. What had been touted as the dullest election in living memory unexpectedly produced the most exciting result. One in seven of Scotland’s MSPs are from outside the traditional political establishment. The new politics which we were promised with the new parliament have finally arrived.
So why did people vote for the Greens, Socialists and independents? The media’s tame political pundits were wheeled out to say that the voters were ‘punishing’ the big parties. The line seemed to be that normal political service would be resumed shortly. Voters, it seemed, weren’t making a positive choice for something different. In an election where politicians often seemed simply to be going through the motions Robin, Tommy, Margo and the others seemed like real people with real passion.
I think the big mistake many of this pundits were making was to confuse apathy with disappointment. It wasn’t that people didn’t care about politics – a lot of people just didn’t care for the current crop of politicians. The Labour Party in government alone in London and in coalition with the Lib-Dems in Edinburgh has proved to be a huge disappointment. For some people David Blunkett’s attacks on asylum seekers was the final straw. For other it was the Labour-Lib-Dem coalition in Scotland insisting on allowing the planting of potentially dangerous GM crops in the open environment of Scotland. For many people it was Tony Blair slavishly following George Bush’s imperialist agenda. So how did Scotland’s other political parties respond? Mesmerised by the success of the New Labour formula they sought to occupy the same political ground.
However thanks to the partial PR system of the Scottish Parliament people had a choice and many chose the Green Party’s mix of social justice, environmental sustainability and respect for democracy and diversity. I met many people on the doorsteps who said they respected what Robin Harper, as a sole Green MSP, had done and, while they didn’t necessarily agree 100 per cent with our policies they we’re prepared to give us a chance. The result was a raft of Green, Socialist and independent MSPs elected across Scotland. No-one expected this to happen. No-one quite knows what to expect of us. We’ve been given a huge responsibility not to disappoint people with politics again. I’m looking forward to it.
Transforming the SSP William Bonner was an SSP candidate
When the SSP was first formed the party was largely a collection of Left activists with sometimes long political pasts; the leadership consisting mainly of former Labour, Militant, Communist and SNP members. Today the vast of majority of members represent a new generation of Left activists without the experience or baggage of this earlier generation and for whom the sectarian battles which so dogged the Left have little or no place. The Scottish Socialist Party has become in practice what its founders always hoped it would become; a broad-based Party of the Left with a pragmatic programme of Left reform linked to the longer term aim of a Scottish Socialist Republic.
The coming period represents an enormous challenge to the party which needs to develop on a number of fronts and the election of six MSPs will give the party a much greater profile and end the ‘one man band’ label.
The party needs to keep recruiting and to reach out to those on the Left who are not already members, particularly in the Labour Party and SNP, and present itself as a more viable vehicle for their politics. It needs to transform its infrastructure with new offices, more full-time officials and new and better publications turning the party into a much more professional outfit. The party needs to develop its programme and policies. The manifesto presented at the election contained six key policies. These had been properly researched and costed, drawing on expert help in their drafting. It also contained around 200 policies which were no more than a wish list. A lot of work needs to be done to develop these into proper policies. The SSP needs to go into the next election with a manifesto of 20 or 30 key integrated policies which would, in effect, be a programme for government. In particular, more work needs to be done in terms of an Alternative Economic Strategy to counter the free market nonsense put out by all the other main parties.
The SSP also has to keep its eye on what is happening internationally. The party has come about as a result of a major realignment on the Left in Scotland over the past few years. Similar realignments have and are taking place across Europe. With the onset of globalisation the SSP needs to actively build links with others on the European Left as part of the process of building a cohesive European Left alternative to the free-market consensus. Much work has already been done and we are not too far away from a situation whereby the SSP becomes the autonomous Scottish wing of a European wide socialist movement with a presence everywhere from Lisbon to Leningrad.
The task of the Socialist Party, along with others, is to present the ideas of socialism in such a way that they become sensible and reasonable. This has much to do with credibility. When socialists are on the margins of politics it is easy for people to dismiss them as wellmeaning but irrelevant. A vote for them is a wasted vote. With the recent electoral breakthrough this is no longer the case. Supporting or joining the Scottish Socialist Party is now a realistic option for thousands of socialists who want the transform their ideas into action