Since about 1960 the true bedrock of the United Kingdom has been the Labour Party. This is true in the sense that only Labour has sufficient support in all three UK countries to hold them together. (Ireland, which was divided in the last territorial loss from the UK has a separate party system.) We have reached the extraordinary point where the UK prime minister cannot have a public meeting in Scotland, partly because he knows the reception he’ll get but also because he knows his special line in condescension is a sure-fire vote-loser. In the current referendum campaign, a No vote always depended on the mass loyalty of the traditional Labour vote. But Labour has completely failed to mobilise it. Why?
One answer is probably complacency, though there have been signs for years that it is flaky, with seats fraying to the Nationalists. Moreover there was no proper debate before Labour adopted its knee-jerk No stance; and, fatally British Labour determined the Scottish Labour position. Another is the embittered, carping, negativity radiated by the Scottish Labour hierarchy, relentlessly talking down and seeking to debase each step taken by the SNP government. But what is really striking is that Labour has no answer to a critique, urged with the authority of a successful government, from its Left. The mindless repetition of ‘what is your Plan B?’ was believed to be a deadly weapon against the Yes campaign. How effective was it against an opponent who had actually demonstrated over many years that Scotland could be governed from left of centre? When Britain’s two major parties actually agree on ‘anti-austerity’ spending plans from now until 2020, no wonder Scots are flocking in the opposite direction. Labour’s inability to mobilise its traditional mass vote is a direct consequence of its evolution into New Labour.
New Labour’s right wing stance is the Achilles Heel of the Union and the wound there will be fatal.
There is too much knee-jerk opposition to nationalism on the Left. English socialists should embrace the Scottish independence cause. (I won’t discuss Wales here, except to predict First Minister Carwyn James will face some awkward questions back home as to why he thought it appropriate to go to Scotland and plead for the Union.)
- It will be a shattering blow to the complacent and largely unanimous political establishment of the UK which threw everything at the Yes campaign and lost. These are the same people who have been telling us for the last six years that there is no alternative to the ‘anti-austerity’ programme. Cameron will be the first prime minister since Lloyd George to lose part of the UK. What will authority will remain to him? Ed Miliband will be confronted by the stark reality that there is no right-wing path back to power for Labour. Clegg, an irrelevance in this campaign, is history.
- It will force a re-examination of the constitution of the shrunken UK. The reality of London-based government will be laid bare in a smaller country. Real re-balancing – economic and constitutional – must follow Scottish secession.
- It opens up new vistas in international relations. Someone is bound to ask why the shrunken UK should retain its UN Security Council seat. And hopefully everyone will ask why the new state is retaining nuclear weapons – another subject on which there has been no debate.
- British prime ministers from Blair to Cameron love to strut the world stage, dreaming of past glories. Perhaps we can anticipate a little more modesty in future, starting with an end to Cameron’s ludicrous sabre-rattling in the Ukraine. Meanwhile the slavish subservience of the UK – militarily, diplomatically, culturally – to the United States has been an international embarrassment. At last it will be questioned here at home.
- Free at last of the imperialist mentality England in particular can rediscover itself. It is too easily accepted that this is a conservative country naturally inclining to market forces. It is also the country of Wat Tyler and John Ball, of the mother of modern revolutions, of Tom Paine and the first trade union movement. England can rediscover its own radical self. It will be a shock for the Faragists when it does. Some in the Scots Yes campaign argue that it is impossible for Labour to win. Not so. But Labour does need to become a very different party if it is to return to power.
In the wake of the Scotland vote, new vistas open up for the English Left. Labour can be part of it but only by turning away from the consensual politics of the last 30 years.
MARTIN UPHAM 