It’s now around 13 years since we last had a Labour
Government. People in their twenties will barely remember it. In Scotland too
we have had SNP Government since 2007. The days when Labour and the Lib Dems
were in coalition are a distant memory even for those of us who do remember.
Change is coming in both the UK and in Scotland.
I’m a free marketeer. I believe in lowering public
spending, lowering taxes and being left alone. The state should interfere in
our lives as little as possible. It should provide free healthcare, but not in
the way that it does now. It should provide help for those who are unemployed
or ill. But it should not try to micromanage our lives, nor should it tell us
what to think and say about social issues.
I am a Thatcherite Conservative, but I have become
like those independence supporters who are so disillusioned with the SNP that
they now vote for someone else. Voting Conservative is no more a route to
Thatcherite Conservatism than voting SNP is a route to Scottish independence. This
is why the next General Election, and the subsequent Holyrood election will be
about obtaining change.
The biggest problem with Labour is that it gets the
fundamentals wrong. People join the Labour Party because they believe in
socialism. But socialism doesn’t work. Human beings are not motivated by
achieving equality with other people. They are motivated by profit for
themselves and their families. The attempt to change that invariably leads to
tyranny, laziness and decline.
But the ideological difference between Labour and the
Conservatives is now minimal. Starmer’s Labour would be moderate. The far left
is still there but it lacks power and influence. If we were fortunate a Labour
Government might just bring the economic success of the early Blair years
before Brown blew up the economy. That would certainly be better than the last
13 years of Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak.
Labour disastrously gave us devolution, but Cameron
even more disastrously gave us an independence referendum which fuelled
Scottish nationalism still further. Each party is guilty of trying to appease
Scottish nationalism and failing.
The only major achievement since 2010 Brexit was
obtained despite the Conservative Government’s opposition. The advantages it
might have brought to the UK were wasted first treacherously by May and
secondly incompetently by Johnson.
Lockdown was contrary to basic Conservative principles
of freedom that leave people to make their own choices. It obviously now cost
more lives than it saved.
Britain feels like it is in a worse place now than it
was in 2010. The NHS is in chaos. Debt has increased. The deficit is still
huge. We are importing one million people a year legally and can do absolutely
nothing to stop those arriving illegally.
Labour may make it worse. We may have more and weirder
forms of woke. But there is no need to be hopeless. Labour may be more
competent that the Conservatives.
There is a bigger prize too.
Imagine if Labour in Scotland approaches or even
surpasses the SNP’s share of the vote. The latest poll puts Scottish Labour on
26 seats with the SNP on 22 with an equal sharer of the vote at 34%. This will
happen only because former SNP voters in the Central Belt will return to
Labour. It is rational for them to do so.
The SNP’s independence project is on hold despite the
marching, which has more to do with morale than reality. If you are a
moderately left-wing Scot, who doesn’t think there is much chance of
independence happening any time soon, it makes more sense to vote Labour than
the SNP. You are more likely that way to get some of what you want.
What have SNP MPs achieved in Westminster? I can’t
think of a single thing. They even failed to obtain a softer Brexit when they
had the chance, hoping instead to stop it altogether. But this was particularly
stupid for a party that relies on the result of an independence referendum
being fulfilled.
If Scottish Labour MPs are the difference between
Labour having a majority and not having a majority, they will have a great deal
more influence than any number of SNP MPs. Being part of the Government gives
influence, being the difference between majority and minority gives still more.
The prize for Pro UK Scots is not so much a
by-election in Rutherglen, nor indeed a Labour Government in Westminster. Both
of these however may be crucial to a tantalising possibility unimaginable even
a year ago. Anas Sarwar may replace Humza Yousaf as First Minister.
If SNP support falls to the extent that it loses
Rutherglen, it will be still clearer that independence is not happening. If the
SNP can’t win there, how can it expect to win a referendum? But this will cause
still more independence supporters to rationally choose to vote for an
obtainable some of what they want Labour, rather than an unobtainable all of
what they want SNP.
If more Scots vote Labour than SNP at the General Election,
then the SNP argument about Scotland not getting the Government it votes for
would be gone.
The SNP will have been in power for 19 years by 2026.
Who knows what further scandals may be revealed? Who knows what further
incompetence may arise? If the General Election next year is a change election
the Holyrood election may be one too.
Imagine if Sarwar in coalition with the Lib Dems and
with a Pro UK majority in the Scottish Parliament were able to initiate a
forensic audit into the SNP Government’s activities during the previous 19
years. They may be able to hide now, but they would be unable to hide then.
Of course, none of these things may happen. But if the
SNP were to lose its independence supporting majority, it would be possible to
expose it for what it is and to destroy it. Independence would then be a dead
issue.
I will probably still vote Conservative. Where I live
the Conservatives have the best chance of defeating the SNP. But we must all
focus on the real prize. It begins with defeating the SNP in Rutherglen. It
ends with the SNP completely routed with the battle won decisively.
If you liked this article, then cross my PayPal with
silver and soon there will be a new one. See below.
