A new tomorrow

These are remarkable times in UK and Scottish politics. David Cameron’s Downing Street insult, to 3,619,915 voters on 19 September, has reignited the whole debate. There are now higher expectations in Scotland about what the new constitutional deal should be, and likely to go well beyond what the Unionist parties are offering. Many Scots feel incensed and let down by the political and constitutional mess now unfolding at Westminster and there is now a political battle in Scotland for the political soul of the nation. 

Scots are finding their voice and are less tolerant of tired old ways. The referendum legacy of democratic engagement is making its mark as political activism grows, political party membership expands, civic politics demands to be heard, rallies are being held, new political parties may be in the offing, the Government party is in transition, electors are less deferential and they are unwilling to accept the disconnected politics of the past. 

Political parties will now have to fight much harder to win trust and votes. Labour, in particular, faces challenges in Scotland and the UK and its voice is conspicuous by its absence in the current debate. It must rethink and learn lessons. For a decade, it has ignored the wake-up calls while insisting that it is the party of devolution, of Keir Hardie and home rule, and delivered the 1998 Scotland Act. But many Scots don’t buy that as Labour looks at further devolution through the suffocating prism of Westminster, appears grudging in its concessions after the referendum and seems bitterly divided between Westminster and Holyrood as to what the next steps might be. 

Scotland is changing fast and its electors are unwilling to vote the same way as previous generations. The electoral and political power of Labour in Scotland is diminishing and that will continue. Amongst many others problems, there are four significant challenges facing Labour in the run-up to the General Election.

First, at Westminster, Labour should push for a UK Convention to consider the political and constitutional issues now engulfing the UK. Westminster has to open up because it is incapable of escaping its ludicrous obsession with absolute sovereignty. Few people have any faith in the institution to put the good governance of the UK before partisan politics. 

Second, Labour should fight against the cheap political opportunism of the Prime Minister and have nothing to do with ‘English votes for English laws’ as it represents a short-term political fix for the Tories and UKIP, will destroy the credibility of the House of Commons and accelerate the demise of the Union. The West Lothian question is more relevant now than it has ever been, but the solution can only be found in federalism or independence and not at Westminster.

Third, Labour needs a vision for the political and constitutional future of Scotland and the UK. We have had more powers in 1998, 2012 and can expect further powers in 2015, How long can this continue before we run out of Westminster powers to be devolved? This is the burning question facing the Unionist parties, especially Labour. The current process is bankrupt of any vision or idea of where all of this will end up. The SNP know where they are going, they continue to drive the agenda and Labour in particular merely responds with a few more powers and some concessions on tax. 

The Scottish people are further ahead in their constitutional thinking than Labour. This process of timidity and ambivalence may keep Westminster intact but will eventually destroy the Union as Scotland is pushed further out on a limb until the branch breaks and it is on its own. We need a vision for Scotland and a strategy based on what Scotland needs rather than what Westminster is willing to concede: that is a very robust form of home rule or federalism and a new constitutional configuration for the rest of the UK. Too much of an effort for Westminster? Then independence will arrive much sooner than people think. Westminster is becoming the institution that destroyed the UK and David Cameron may be close to scuppering it. The referendum showed that independence doesn’t need to be about nationalism; for many Scots, it was a cry for a new country and a better life.

Fourth, Labour in Scotland has to embrace the new politics of the referendum campaign. This could decelerate the seriously flawed devolution timeline that the Smith Commission has been forced to adopt. We cannot leave Scotland’s future to Westminster and the Unionist parties. Ownership of what happens next must be retained in Scotland and Labour must inject some sanity into the process.

The democratic engagement achieved in the referendum matters. Civic Scotland, civic politics, the trades unions, Holyrood, all have a right to be heard. Labour should spearhead getting it right, not getting it rushed. There has been much quoting of the Bible and Abraham Lincoln in recent debates at Westminster. Labour in Scotland should note Proverbs 29-18. “where there is no vision, the people perish”; and from Abraham Lincoln’s ‘House Divided’ speech in July 1858 when he said: “If we could first know where we are and wither we are tending, we could then better judge what we do and how we do it.” 

Labour can ill afford to ignore the sentiment of the past and the harsh lessons of recent events.