THE latest figures for the UK Labour Deputy leader race, a misnomer as it should be termed English Deputy leader race, as there is Labour in Wales, Labour in Scotland but not in England! Weird indeed, shows that Scots Labour are a relic. The sole Labour MP from Scotland standing for the post is on 9%, so not much hope there for Labour in Scotland having any influence on Labour policy ever again! It looks like the long slow demise of Labour in Scotland is in the end phase. It is hung between Scotland and the rest of the UK which is “distorting” into an English Tory fiefdom where at Westminster the dribble of unionist MPs from Scotland are mere onlookers as their numbers cannot even function as lobby fodder. With English Votes for English Laws, they are even useless to their respective parties in English matters now.
Labour in Scotland hopes for a change in its party’s fortunes in England to revive UK Labour, a forlorn hope now as there is no likelihood of any Labour government in the next ten years.
At Holyrood, arch Westminsterite-Labour-centrists like Jackie Baillie are frozen in a Labour pastiche which is a relic of a past Labour Party when the duopoly was the norm, albeit, as we can now see looking back, a slowly changing norm and now one which is consigned to the political midden.
The Labour members here are flummoxed and do not know which way to turn, so the “Jackie Baillies” in the party hanker back to so-called Labour founding values which are never spelled out as they never were reality, but they throw in a few names like Keir Hardy as if trying to rekindle something.
It is still in denial over its fall from grace here as it languishes even below the Tories in Scotland, a scenario which ten years ago would have been unthinkable. Somehow it clings to the hope that a Better Together2 will rescue it, yet as a political entity Unionist Labour in itself has nothing “better” about it anymore. Hence, the reactivating of Labour for Indy outwith the deniers in the party is a sign that there is a seismic shift underway there.
One seems to sense that the current English-UK Labour leadership election process is akin to a party shadow boxing “in exile” with itself in a no man’s land. It is a party thrashing about as it tries to keep afloat in its own irrelevance as it declines. It seems to be a party with nothing to say anymore in a UK which is in its post-Rule Britannia phase, isolated in the world and deluded by its myths, archaic practices and faux heritages, and heading for the re-emergence of its constituent nations as independent countries.
The final push in Scotland will come when the Unionist voters, other than the Tories, realise that Westminster is now a Tory closed- shop and that Scotland,a non-Tory country, can only realise its potential by leaving the Union and vote accordingly to make that happen.
It will be Labour no more and LibDem no more with a Unionist flag, but they can have a solid future in an independent Scotland where they are no longer outsiders in their own UK aka English-based parties.
The Tories in an independent Scotland will do in the end as they have always done, try to re-invent themselves as they did over Holyrood with the new franchise, and claim they were really in favour all along when they see benefits. For them it was a leap to accept Holyrood as it will be when they can make the leap to Indy and save the long trek down to London. They are no longer necessary lobby fodder for Johnson.
How the hereditary and life peers from Scotland will fare, they will just fade away but can stand for election In Scotland like the rest of the population.
John Edgar
Kilmaurs
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