There’s good news and not so good news from recent opinion polling. The good news is that the SNP should easily remain the largest party in Holyrood by quite some margin on current showing, while support for Labour in Scotland is in freefall, the not so good news is that the SNP needs to pick up the support of many more of those disaffected Labour voters than it currently is if it is to be assured of forming the next Scottish Government and to ensure that there is a pro-independence majority in the next Scottish Parliament. Given Labour’s humiliating climb down on the Scottish budget vote due next month, it is almost certain that the SNP has nearly sixteen months left in which to make an appealing pitch to that crucial segment of the electorate.
What is alarming is that a significant number of disaffected Labour voters are attracted to the simplistic anti-immigrant snake oil of Reform UK, a party which espouses the kind of tax cutting and austerity promoting economic policies that even Liz Truss baulked at. If Labour voters are turned off from Keir Starmer’s party because they felt that they were scammed, they are going to be even more disappointed by Nigel Farage. That’s like rejecting the romantic overtures of Charles Ponzi for the fond embrace of Jack the Ripper.
Reform are a party owned by and operating in the interests of the wealthy. Just like Trump’s Republicans, the entire party is a scam based on persuading working class voters to vote against their own interests by demonising migrants, trans people, and minorities. It’s a simple message that is relentlessly pounded into people’s heads by an extremely well funded eco system of far right populist media backed by the likes of Elon Musk. Scotland is not immune to it.
The SNP’s apparent recovery is being fuelled by two factors, the Scottish Government’s budget was well received and contained popular measures such as the reintroduction of a winter fuel payment for pensioners and steps to mitigate the two child cap on benefits. Welcome as they are, and they are unquestionably the right thing to do, these measures would by themselves probably not be sufficient to turn around the fortunes of the SNP following a torrid period over the past two years. It is a testament to the resilience and tenacity of the party and its members that the SNP remains on track to be the largest party by far in Holyrood despite all the travails that it has endured.
However the single most important factor in the turning around of the SNP’s fortunes is the self-inflicted implosion of the Labour party as a credible vehicle for the hopes and aspirations of working class Scotland. Since becoming Prime Minister in July, Keir Starmer has demonstrated that he is spectacularly bad at the most important aspect of politics, political optics.
Labour in government is displaying an appalling arrogance and contempt for voters who put their hopes in Labour as agents of change. It doesn’t help when folk like me say, I told you so, but I told you so.
One of Labour’s first acts in power was increasing the burden of fuel bills on pensioners by axing the universal winter fuel payment despite having loudly proclaimed just weeks before that it would lower fuel bills if it was elected to government.
This was followed not long after by the announcement that the Labour government would not after all pay compensation to Waspi women – women negatively affected by government maladministration of changes to the retirement age for women – despite Labour politicians making a huge play of their support for compensation while they were in opposition.
One of these Labour politicians was a certain Ian Murray, the Secretary of State for the North British Windfarm colony, who deleted the page on his website giving his support to the campaign for compensation within hours of pensions secretary Liz Kendall announcing to the Commons that the Labour government would not after all be paying compensation to Waspi women. Whenever I see or hear from Ian Murray I can’t help but think that somewhere there’s a branch of Farm Foods which is missing its deputy relief manager.
When asked about his party’s plummeting popularity, Murray told journalists in the Scottish Parliament this week: “We have had to make some difficult decisions that are unpopular and no government wants to make unpopular and difficult decisions.”
The Secretary of State for Gaslighting added: “We were honest with the public back in July that it will be tough. Maybe the public don’t like honesty after all.” Maybe tell that to the Waspi women, Ian. Maybe tell it to the pensioners whose fuel bills you promised to reduce. So there you have it, according to Ian Murray, the plummeting fortunes of the Labour party are the fault of the electorate, not Labour. Thanks for clearing that up Ian, that’s really going to help you get back into everyone’s good books.
The problem with Labour’s “difficult” decisions is that they are only ever make things difficult for the poor and the vulnerable. They never make things difficult for the rich.
Another “difficult decision” is apparently coming down the tracks, there are reports that Labour is set to announce cuts to disability benefits when the budget is unveiled this spring. Labour sources have told the press that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to looking for ways to plug that £22 billion black hole in government finances that Labour was warned about before the election but now likes to pretend it knew nothing about. But plenty of things are indeed off the table, things like a wealth tax or increasing taxes on the wealthiest.
The top 1% of the wealthiest own 23% of the total wealth in the UK. According to Oxfam, The richest 1% of in the UK hold more wealth than 70% of the population.
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/media/press-releases/richest-1-grab-nearly-twice-as-much-new-wealth-as-rest-of-the-world-put-together/
Globally The richest 1% have pocketed $26 trillion (£21 trillion) in new wealth since 2020, nearly twice as much as the other 99% of the world’s population, an Oxfam report reveals today. The Labour government is doing nothing at all to reverse this trend, the oligarchifiation of the UK continues apace under Starmer. No doubt when the disabled are targeted by Starmer, Anas Sarwar will tell us he’s opposed to it even as Labour’s Scottish MPs vote for the cuts like the obedient lobby fodder that they are. Then he will demand that the Scottish Government mitigate these new cuts too.
Labour’s unpopularity is the SNP’s opportunity, but the SNP must join the dots for voters and show them that the meaningful change and social and economic justice they want so badly are only possible with independence. That’s how to turn disaffected Labour voters into SNP voters.
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Having abandoned Twitter I will be actively posting on BlueSky from now on. You can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/weegingerdug.bsky.social follow me there and I will generally follow back.
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