IF you are a certain age (call it my age) then you will be familiar with the feeling that as a person of left-of-centre inclination you should vote Labour. Like me, you probably always had reservations, but the feeling persisted.
For many in Scotland that residual feeling of guilt for voting anything else was destroyed by 2015, when Jim Murphy (no relation) and the referendum campaign shattered the myth for many that there was any reason left to vote for Labour in Scotland. The SNP landslide of that year was the consequence.
However, opinion polls in Scotland suggest that Labour now has a chance of recovering some of the seats that it lost in the last decade, so there must be some people who have rediscovered a sense that Labour has something to offer them.
I will politely suggest that they are wrong. At the risk of attracting yet more ire from Labour apparatchiks, let me set out my reasons.
What do Labour have to offer?
First, let me make clear that I have always had a massive dislike for the Tory-led governments that we have suffered since 2010. Their policies have been divisive, increased inequality and prejudice and reduced the well-being of many. They have, without exception, been economically incompetent. Can I be clearer than that?
I have also, over a long period, laid out my objection to the neoliberal, pro-market, pro-austerity, pro-low tax policies that have underpinned those governments, and contributed to the failures that we are now used to. Again, could I have been clearer? I doubt it. I really do wish that we could be rid of this type of government for good. Equality, sustainability, fairness, and even the future of life on Earth, depend upon us doing so. In summary, the stakes could not be higher.
The reason why, in that case, that I am so disillusioned with Labour is that far from offering an alternative to Tory failure they appear to me to be endorsing almost everything that the Tories have done whilst offering more of the same in the future.
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There are a number of good reasons for saying this. The most obvious is that Labour have committed to changing almost nothing about what the Tories have done. Brexit is accepted by them as a fact. The need for electoral reform is denied, even though their members support it. There is no hint of a change to trade union laws. Nor will Labour change the Tories’ draconian approach to protesters. And they have said nothing about rolling back the antidemocratic Henry VIII powers the UK Government gave itself during the Covid crisis. Commitments on nationalisation have also been abandoned.
Labour also refuse to say what they will do on quite critical issues, like the NHS, migration, climate change and more. Even when commitments were made, for example, on climate change, there has now been backtracking. If Labour now have a policy on anything, it is to blow in the wind.
In addition, Labour are already making excuses for continuing austerity. They don't say that. Instead, they say they will have an "ironclad" fiscal rule. It just so happens that this means there can be no borrowing for almost everything that is needed, so we get austerity as a result.
But, there is no such thing as a fiscal rule. They are made up. Chancellors create and discard them on whims. No Chancellor has ever delivered upon a rule that they have created. Usually, they have revised them many times so that they can pretend that they work, but they don't.
At the same time, Labour have committed to creating no new taxes on wealth in the UK, despite the fact that the effective tax rate on those with high income and wealth in the UK is dramatically lower than that on most people on average or below average income.
To me, all of this appears to be contrary to everything that Labour should stand for.
And in Scotland ...
Worse, Labour are also joining with the Tories is seeking to suppress the role of devolved government in this country. When, as anyone who knows them will confirm, Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland are very different places to England, this appears to be deeply insensitive and even offensive.
Added together, this appears to be a Labour package for maintaining the status quo within UK society as it is at present.
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Labour are offering no chance of real reform.
They are ignoring the reality of this being a disUnited Kingdom.
And they accept inequality, prejudice, lack of opportunity and low pay as if they are to be tolerated.
What all this reveals is that Labour have the same profoundly neoliberal mindset that the Tories possess. There is deeply implicit in Labour's policy approach a belief that government is unable to do anything to affect change.
In that case why is anyone in Scotland thinking of voting Labour? I wish I knew, because it is making a dismal offer to the country that no one should accept when there are better options on the table.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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