Yet another opinion poll has confirmed what is now an indisputable pattern. The Labour vote in Scotland is imploding. Just a few short months ago, Labour MSPs were triumphantly striding about the corridors of Holyrood liked they owned the place, arrogantly expecting that come the next Scottish elections they would repeat their win in the Westminster election and almost sweep the board in the constituency vote, returning to Holyrood with close to an absolute majority and boasting that “Scotland had returned to Labour.”
But to paraphrase the immortal words of the bard, the best laid plans of mice and Anas Sarwar aft gang agley.
According to a new poll published by The Herald newspaper, support for the Labour party in Scotland is in freefall. Support for Labour on the list vote is the lowest it has been for three years. The poll also found that if a Westminster election were to be held tomorrow, it would see an almost a complete reversal of last year’s result, with the SNP easily winning most seats in Scotland. the SNP would have31 seats in the Commons, Labour 11, the Lib Dems six and the Tories five. Of course a Westminster general election is not on the cards, irrespective of the fond imaginings of Elon Musk, the fascist enabling Lord Beaverbrook de nos jours
Scotland has not returned to traditional Labour values, Scotland has always clung fast to the ideals of the original Labour party, but the modern Labour party has gone away somewhere else, on a journey of right wing disrepute all of its own. Scotland is still in the same place when it comes to fundamental values, it’s the Labour party which has moved on.
One of those values is honesty. Labour’s implosion is in no small measure due to the party’s barefaced lies. One by one the promises Labour made while in opposition in order to secure the support of ordinary working class Scots have been traduced and Starmer-splained away. It’s all very reasonable to blame Tory mismanagement for the massive black hole in government finances -even though Labour was warned about this shortfall prior to the general election and chose to dismiss the warnings by the SNP and others as scaremongering – but it is totally unreasonable to pose as the party of “change” while continuing the vile performative cruelty of the previous Conservative administration and forcing the poor and the vulnerable to pick up the tab for the greed of the rich.
There is already a long list of betrayals, from the farce of the publicly owned energy company which won’t produce or sell any energy or own any energy infrastructure and which will be “headquartered” in Aberdeen despite its actual head remaining based in Manchester, through the shocking perfidy of campaigning on a promise to reduce energy bills but almost immediately axing the universal winter fuel payment for pensioners, effectively raising fuel bills for pensioners by £200-£300 per year at a stroke.
The disabled and the long term sick are next in the sights of a Chancellor who told us last week that she was “listening to the concerns of the non-dom community,” as she watered down Labour’s commitment to the abolition of non-dom status because the obscenely wealthy had told her that they might not continue to pile up cash quite as quickly as they might have liked to. But she turns a deaf ear to the concerns of the poor or the disabled who genuinely fear that they are facing destitution.
There are now reports that the long-term sick could be forced to find jobs or have their benefits slashed in sweeping benefit system reforms ostensibly designed to get more people back into work, but demanding that the long term sick and the disabled must search for work or face cuts to their meagre income doesn’t magically make them healthy. It doesn’t magically create jobs that they can do.
Personally I am acutely aware of that, as a disabled person myself who has significant and life-long disabilities, there are very few jobs which I am physically capable of doing.
Support for Labour in Scotland may be plummeting but there is every indication that it will fall even further before the Scottish election comes around. Starmer’s government seems hell bent on pissing off every traditionally Labour supporting demographic. It’s one of the few things that this government excels at. I knew Starmer would be bad, but I am shocked by just how bad his government is.
The Herald’s poll agrees with other recent opinion polls in strongly suggesting that Nigel Farage’s English nationalist fan club, a private company masquerading as a political party, is on track to secure a bloc of seats in the next Scottish Parliament, apparently picking up support from both traditional Tory voters in Scotland as well as that section of Labour supporters who unconditionally backs Scotland remaining a part of the UK and doesn’t care what sort of UK Scotland stays a part of – in which respect they are not at all dissimilar to the bulk of the anti-independence media in Scotland.
However it seems that it’s the Tories who have most to fear from the rise of Reform UK. Farage has made no secret of his desire to replace the Conservatives as the main right wing party in British opposition politics, as opposed to the main right wing party which is currently the British Government.
Reform UK has very little ground organisation in Scotland and no real Scotland specific policies to speak of. The party’s rise in popularity in this country is almost entirely due to the disproportionate publicity it receives in the UK media due to its activities in England and its constant platforming by the BBC. In a very real sense Reform UK is an illegal migrant in the Scottish political landscape, a foreign party with foreign priorities imported into Scotland by British media smuggling gangs.
The Herald’s poll also shows that the SNP is on track to remain the largest party by far in the next Scottish Parliament, albeit with fewer seats than it currently has. However the Greens look set to increase their support and this poll also suggests that Alba will return a small but significant bloc of MSPs. However previous polling which shows Alba picking up seats have never seen that apparent support translate into actual votes. The jury is still out on that point.
On this poll’s showing, the SNP and the Greens together hold a pro-independence majority in Holyrood, with Alba’s possible MSPs added, the pro-independence majority is substantial.
But that majority will mean nothing unless the pro-independence parties are willing to use the mandate given to them by the people of Scotland to directly confront and face down Keir Starmer and his contempt for Scottish democracy. As I previously wrote, the next election must focus on asking the people of Scotland for mandate for independence itself, not a mandate to ask for another referendum which will surely be rebuffed.
Crucially the SNP, and the other pro-independence parties – must motivate independence supporters to turn out and vote. Apathy and a sense of powerlessness are the biggest enemies of increasing the pro-independence vote. Labour’s self-inflicted implosion and the rise of hard right English nationalism provide us with an opportunity if the pro-independence parties are brave enough to seize it.
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