ACCORDING to the polling expert Professor John Curtice, the Labour Party have implicitly conceded defeat in Scotland, and are focused on winning back the seats in the North and Midlands of England which they lost to the Conservatives in the December 2019 General Election. The Conservatives’ gaining of these seats was instrumental in delivering the 80-seat majority which Johnson won in that General Election.
Johnson's effective majority is now 78, following the defection of Bury South Tory MP Christian Wakeford to Labour in January, and the loss of the North Shropshire seat to the LibDems in a by-election. The seat was formerly held for the Conservatives by Owen Paterson, who resigned after being sanctioned by the Commons authorities for his alleged role in lobbying for a company he was employed by.
Starmer's route to 10 Downing Street lies in regaining these English seats. For all Labour's talk about how important Scotland is to them, the simple arithmetic of Westminster means that Scottish seats are rarely crucial to determining the outcome of a General Election. If there is a conflict between policies which will attract votes for Labour in Scotland's strongly remain-supporting areas, and policies which will appeal in the equally strongly Brexit-supporting Midlands and North of England, which are critical for a Labour election victory, it's the pro-Brexit policies that Labour are going to adopt, if they are to have a realistic chance of winning a UK General Election.
Scotland's needs and interests will be sacrificed on the altar of Brexit by the Labour Party, just as they have been sacrificed by the Conservatives. Earlier this week, in a clear bid to bolster Labour support in Leave-voting areas, Starmer said that there "was no case for rejoining the EU".
In order to boost the chance of winning seats in the English regions, Labour have now reached a deal with the LibDems. The deal means that in a future General Election, the Labour campaign will "largely ignore" seats where the contest is between the LibDems and the Conservatives, and vice versa. This deal is largely irrelevant in Scotland, where the only seat in which both the LibDems and the Tories are in serious contention is the LibDem stronghold of the Northern Isles.
The deal is an attempt to recreate the circumstances which led to Labour's landslide victory in 1997, when there was significant tactical voting for the LibDems in Conservative-LibDem marginals.
Scotland is sidelined and ignored yet again. We already know that the Conservatives have effectively abandoned Scotland, and now we see Labour doing the same thing. It raises an important and, indeed, existential question, for this so-called Union. How exactly does it benefit Scotland to remain in a parliamentary union, with a parliament that can only be won by parties which exclude and marginalise Scotland's interests?
Labour might have made themselves a route back into power in Downing Street, but they have doomed themselves in Scotland, and with that, only made it more likely that Scotland will opt for independence.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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