Scotland needs an alternative to both Labour and the SNP

July’s General Election saw the lowest turnout since 1928 and if Reform had not put up so many candidates, splitting the right-wing vote, the Tories would have won up to 180 more seats than they did, wiping out Labour’s majority.

All this means the UK has a government without much in the way of support or stability. Indeed, many have said it is a case of a broad but very shallow mandate.

Added to this is that Starmer’s personal poll ratings have taken a tumble, as has Labour’s lead over the Tories. This could not be more different from the ease of Tony Blair’s ebullient landslide in 1997.

He had the benefit of an expanding economy and the sense that “things could only get better” as the D:Ream song suggested.

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Blair insisted “education, education, education” would create a modern meritocracy and put to bed any outdated notions of class conflict. Starmer will seek to implement a form of “red” austerity as part of his diatribe of “change”, with this being compromised against his so-called tough choices.

But that set aside for a moment and Starmerism is, nonetheless, Blairism for the 2020s, whether because of his kowtowing to big business or due to his authoritarian control of the Labour Party.

What is different isn’t that Starmer is destined to repeat the failure of Blairism but that he will do so in different circumstances. The “tough choices” Starmer – ably assisted by Rachel Reeves – is intent upon making are about reining in public spending because of the level of “public” debt and not about taxing the rich as Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, has repeatedly demanded as an alternative to austerity.

This “red” austerity will lead to disillusionment and alienation, and then further political polarisation of the types represented by Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage, on the one hand, and George Galloway, on the other. Any prospect of misplaced hope in a radical, reforming Labour Government will die a death.

Rachel Reeves' economic plans don't feel like much of an alternative to the Tories

So, in these senses, the rest of the 2020s are more likely to be a replay of the 1974-79 Labour governments.

This will consist of political paralysis, economic and social stagnation and cuts to public services, accompanied by the resistible rise of the fascists and far right as well as the prospect of a return of the Tories at the end of it.

This would be to envisage a one-term Starmer government.

Political parallels from 100 years ago could easily and correctly be drawn between Starmer and Reeves and Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald and his chancellor of the exchequer Philip Snowden. But that might do little to illuminate the issues because of the mists of time.

More enlightening are the Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan governments of 1974-79. Labour won office on some radical pledges but shortly junked most of them because of the unfolding economic situation.

In 1974, chancellor Denis Healey declared he would “squeeze the rich until the pips squeaked” by increasing the top rate of income tax to 98p in the pound.

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Within two years, he was running cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in New York to ask for a financial bailout as the world economy ran into recession. The condition was cuts in public expenditure. Healey duly and copiously complied.

Although there were concerns about runs on the pound and investment strikes by the rich, Labour could have chosen to act differently. Instead, they kept to the script of conventional Treasury thinking about fiscal prudence.

Labour also tried to get their allies in the union movement to play their part by holding down wage increases through the “Social Contract”.

This effort eventually failed in the form of the Winter of Discontent strike wave of 1978-79, and the ushering in of the Thatcherite Tory government in May 1979.

All this is a serious, possible and probable prospect again. While it is right that pressure is placed upon Starmer and Labour to do otherwise, the only long-term solution for the majority of Scotland’s populace is that independence is gained so that it allows a shift to the left.

The case for independence is currently at a low ebb. But if it is to re-flower and grow, and ultimately succeed, it must be upon the basis of offering a progressive, radical political alternative to the neoliberal capitalist consensus that predominates at both Westminster and Holyrood.

Above all, this must mean higher standards of living for the majority and the reduction in economic and social inequalities. The SNP have not, do not and will not offer this. Only a revitalised and renewed left can do so. That is why a socialist party is so badly needed in Scotland.

Professor Gregor Gall is editor of A New Scotland: Building an Equal, Fair and Sustainable Society (Pluto Press, 2022, priced £14.99)