AS I wait patiently for the results of the Holyrood election, I have to be satisfied with the usual barrage of English “ local election” results and of course the Hartlepool by-election.
Even before this is concluded, it is clear that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is in dire straights. The English Tories are extending their “red wall” as traditional Labour voters turn their backs on their party and opt to support Johnson’s Tories.
As this Tory government entrenches itself into the psyche of English voters and clearly will for a long time retain an unassailable grip on the Westminster Parliament with no effective opposition, what will be the consequences for not only English politics but for Labour in Scotland?
READ MORE: Hartlepool: Tory Jill Mortimer defeats Labour by huge margin
For England, it merely confirms they are taking a completely different political direction than Scotland. It will epitomise a country firmly in the grip of a right-wing reactionary government ready, as it has done, to use “gunboat diplomacy “ not seen since the Palmerston days of the 19th century.
It will be increasingly insular, adopting an aggressive Unionism which the Scots have already endured since 2019. This approach will now be accelerated as they bask in this latest drubbing of the Labour Party in England.
What for Anas Sarwar here in Scotland ? As Keir Starmer’s party down south looks for solutions and a way back, it is clear, his Scottish branch will be the least of his worries and I have a feeling that Labour in Scotland will have to fundamentally reassess their purpose and direction.
As this right-wing-dominated England sails off towards its post-Brexit Eutopia, Scotland pursues its outward looking social democracy, ready to take its place in Europe and the rest of the world. I am afraid if Labour are to survive in Scotland as a political force, they will have to support independence mantle and completely disconnect from a Labour Party in England, which is clearly on the slide into the same abyss which happened to Labour in Scotland from 1999 onwards. An Independent Labour Party of Scotland is their only solution.
What for Scotland itself? Well, as the Tories continue to increase their stranglehold on England, this does not bode well for Scottish aspirations of Independence. In fact it just got harder! Johnson and his cabal of Unionists will ratchet up and become even more entrenched in their desire to deny a referendum.
Clearly as Scotland with its Independence majority in Holyrood moves forward it must take clear cognisance that a Tory-dominated England has no mandate in a Scotland where its party remains on the fringe of Scottish politics.
READ MORE: Jeremy Corbyn to blame for Labour's Hartlepool vote loss, Peter Mandelson says
An independence supporting Scottish Labour Party added to the SNP, Greens, Alba will make Independence inevitable. Unionism will wither on the vine. The alternative does not bear thinking.
Dan Wood
Kirriemuir
What did David Cameron say in 2014? “If you are fed up with the effing Tories give them a kick and then maybe we will think again”
But what happens when England can’t get enough of the effing Tories? What happens when England turns a blind eye to their corruption and sleaze and embraces Brexit chaos and their own sense of exceptionalism?
What happens when an emboldened right-wing majority Government in London decides that “devolution has been a disaster”? It’s beyond time we went our own way, the way that people in Scotland want to go, not the way that folk in England force us to go. David Cameron was wrong in 2014, and not for the first or last time either.
Thom Muir
via thenational.scot
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