Lending your vote to Labour would be a catastrophic mistake

Rather than voting FOR something most people are voting AGAINST the Conservatives.

They are motivated by the actions of a Tory government that has steadily become worse, led by a succession of prime ministers in which each is more useless than the last. It started with David Cameron’s fatal miscalculation that a referendum on Europe would see Britain vote to remain.

Theresa May’s inability to unite her party behind her did for her, paving the way for Boris buffoonery that made Britain a global laughing stock. Any optimism that followed his departure was short-lived as Liz Truss wrecked what was left of the British economy.

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This dismal series of events led to the day Rishi Sunak stood outside Number 10 and kickstarted an election campaign that has stumbled from one embarrassing disaster to another.

In the interim, Brexit wreaked havoc with the UK economy, and particularly the Scottish economy, in a way that made a mockery of every empty Tory promise. We know all this. It’s why most of the country is so desperate to be rid of this bunch of idiots it will do anything to see the back of them. Even vote Reform.

Keir Starmer is headed for a predicted landslide victory not because he has put forward a compelling alternative to the Tories. He hasn’t. It’s not because the Labour Party have prepared a manifesto offering an alternative to more grim years of austerity. It hasn’t.

Labour will form the next Westminster government not because of anything they are promising, not because of their vision for the future. They will do so because they are not the Conservative Party and are the only realistic alternative when it comes to forming a government.

The picture has been different in Scotland where the prospect of independence has offered voters an alternative to the endless Labour/Conservative double act. But even here the overarching desire to get rid of the Tories is overpowering every other issue, even independence.

It does not help that the independence message from the SNP is confused. Humza Yousaf said the return of a majority of SNP MPs would signal the start of independence negotiations. John Swinney seemed to roll back on that to suggest it would prompt demands for another independence referendum. It’s not the clearest or most compelling of messages.

Polls suggest the SNP will remain the largest party in Scotland but that Labour will make inroads into that lead. There is a real danger that Scottish voters will be lured into once again accepting the job of saving voters south of the Border from themselves.

They might be so worried that voters in England will not vote Labour in the numbers required to allow it to form a government that they feel a responsibility to swell their numbers.

This would be a catastrophic mistake. It would once again put Scotland at the mercy of a party with a record of taking Scottish voters for granted.

A party with no plans for constitutional change which would give Scotland the powers to make the big decisions on its own future. Scottish votes have only rarely been needed to put Labour in power at Westminster and are more unlikely than ever to be needed to remove the Tories in this election.

It’s true that too many voters south of the Border have been inexplicably seduced by Nigel Farage’s (below) Reform Party, which offers nothing but a return to the discredited values of the past. But even if strong poll predictions for Reform prove to be accurate this will simply reduce the Conservative vote still further and increase the Labour vote.

(Image: PA)

We can vote in the best interests of Scotland free of guilt. Indeed we have a responsibility to do so. That means voting for the party with the most ambitious and best plans for Scotland. There is no evidence to suggest that the party is Labour.

Scottish Labour’s election manifesto, launched this week, boasts that the party offers change but in reality it offers pretty much the same as before dressed up to look prettier.

It is packed with the language of austerity. The same focus on economic growth, the same misplaced faith in a trickle down which never happens, the same belief in a Union which keeps us bound to a failing economic model and a bankrupt morality

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Even if Labour displayed a grasp of the measures Scotland needs to adopt in the years ahead, how could we trust them to deliver, given Starmer’s insistence on London rule and inability to stick to a policy for longer than five minutes?

Indeed, the only Labour policy which has remained consistent since 2014 is their opposition to not just independence but to allowing us even another vote on independence.

So when Anas Sarwar insists that a change is needed at Holyrood as much as at Westminster – a change which, by the way, has no relevance in this election whatsoever – recognise it for what it is: tribalism born of a fury at Scots’ temerity to overturn Labour dominance north of the Border.

Let’s be clear: kicking the Tories out of Westminster will be a great achievement but it is not the end of the story. For me and thousands like me, the happy ending at the end of that story is an independent Scotland. When I cast my vote on July 4, I’ll give my support to the party which is most likely to deliver that independence.

Those who would prefer to downplay or criticise all those achievements which have kept support for independence bubbling around the 50% mark will see that strategy as blind support for a failed project.

And it is true that while the SNP manifesto, also published this week, places independence at its heart, the route to achieving it is no clearer than it has been for years.

This election may give it a mandate for independence but the SNP have had mandates before and they have moved us no closer to the ultimate goal.

(Image: PA)

That’s because the SNP cannot by themselves deliver independence.

That needs the support of the Scottish people, not just by delivering another mandate but by properly pursuing it.

We are not there yet but we will get there with time. When I vote SNP on July 4, I will be thinking of the positive reasons for doing so. I will acknowledge it is the only one of the main parties to stand against austerity, to want the two-child benefit cap eradicated and to resist the privatisation of the NHS.

But I will also be doing so to tell whoever forms the next UK government that independence offers the best future for Scotland and in preparation for the push for an SNP majority at the next Holyrood election. The majority in 2011 made the case for an independence referendum unarguable. That would be just as true in 2026.

Any other vote in July weakens the case and will be interpreted by the mainstream media as a drop in support for independence. It would therefore be an indulgence we cannot afford.