What a year! First Fianna Fail in Ireland, now Labour in Scotland. If only all elections were this entertaining and satisfying. At long last the anti-Labour vote was organised properly. Indeed, the SNP have won a lop-sided victory of the type Labour have been accustomed to winning in Scotland, taking more than 70% of the constituency seats on 45% of the vote. This included a victory in Edinburgh South achieved with fewer than 30% of the votes. First Past the Post for the win, eh?
Labour spent much of the night complaining that there was a ball and the Liberal Democrats ran away with it and gave it to the SNP and that wisnae fair. Too bad. The collapse of the Lib Dem vote was greater than I anticipated but entirely deserved after a campaign in which they offered no good reason to vote for them. One lesson of this election is that trying to run away from your own record in government is not a recipe for electoral success. some Lib Dem voters also chose to stay at home. Nevertheless, when offered the choice between Alex Salmond and Iain Gray Liberals and Tories alike appreciated that Eck was the better choice.
Nothing illustrated Labour’s troubles more than when Douglas Alexander was replaced by Johann Lamont on the BBC’s panel of politicians. The gaping gulf between Labour’s A and B teams was revealed. This is worth remembering before everyone gets carried away by Alex Salmond’s brilliance. Who has he beaten? Jack McConnell and Iain Gray, that’s who. Though shallower than it once was, Labour’s bench at Westminster still has the likes of Brown, Darling, Alexander, Harris and so on. Even before last night’s shellacking their Holyrood team was not, shall we say, so amply stocked with talent.
Still, one is almost tempted to suggest that Salmond has won a few too many seats. Now he might have to try and introduce his local income tax (which, being set nationally, is not actually a local income tax at all). Perhaps he will find a way of avoiding this. He might be wise to. Similarly he will have to try and have his independence referendum even though he must know that the odds are stacked against him. There’s an argument that the Scottish parliament lacks standing to authorise such a plebiscite but while this may be a matter of fine legal distinction there’s little chance, politically speaking, that the referendum can be refused on those grounds.
In any case, what’s to fear? A Unionism that’s scared of a referendum is a Unionism that lacks faith in its ability to stand any kind of test. If it’s that kind of Unionism it scarcely deserves to prevail. Bring it on, as a lassie once said. This is why, unlike some London-based right-of-centre Scots, I’m relaxed on the constitutional question. The alternative logic is that incompetent Labour government in Scotland is preferable to relatively competent nationalist government. I don’t find that a compelling argument. (For that matter, it may well be that only independence can stimulate a right-of-centre revival in Scotland.)
It is also worth observing that the turnout yesterday was not vastly more than 50% and thus rather lower than that for Westminster elections which are, in any case, very different beasts indeed. SNP supporters were manifestly more enthused and thus likely to vote than were their opponents. That too might not be the case in an independence referendum. Just as the long, weary, years of Labour dominance obscured the fact that Labour never commanded majority support, benefiting instead from a fragmented opposition so the SNP, despite their stunning triumph, are not quite the force the headline figures seem to suggest.
Nevertheless, there are grounds for supposing that in the Holyrood context the nationalists are now a truly national party, breaking out from their north-eastern stronghold. Again, this is a question of cultural or identity politics. Labour or the Tories for Westminster; the SNP for Holyrood. Part of that reflects Salmond’s ability to present himself as all things to all men and part of it is a logical sense that if there’s to be a Scottish parliament and if its purpose is to differentiate itself, and Scotland, from Westminster it is sensible for it to be run by a party that has no chance of ever being in government in London. Here too the Catalan and Quebecois examples are pertinent.
Furthermore, the SNP was the beneficiary of Labour and Liberal Democrat blunders. The latter, as I say, ran against their own party; the former oddly suggested that the Tories were the real enemy. That was a testament to Labour’s arrogance and complacency, a product of their belief that 2007, close as it was, had been an aberration. A Tory-led government at Westminster would concentrate Scottish minds. Well it did and so did the thought of endorsing a Labour party that ran a relentlessly dreary, negative, campaign offering no good or positive or uplifting reason to vote Labour.
Salmond and the SNP, by contrast, argued that even if you disagree with the nationalists in given policy areas they could be counted upon to do what they think is best for Scotland qua Scotland, not what’s most likely to stymie the Conservatives. Never mind the details, concentrate upon the bigger picture. This too proved effective.
Again, I think these results are best understood as an expression of confidence in Scotland and her future. I suspect that future still lies within the Union but this is something that, frankly, deserves to be tested too. The new Scotland Bill will provide more powers for Edinburgh and it is plain to see that the electorate prefers those to be administered by the SNP’s A team than Labour’s B team. This too seems a sage judgement, especially in awkward economic times.
Still, to govern is to choose and the nationalists’ commitment to, for example, “free” university education means that money must be found from other parts of the Scottish budget. There will be plenty of “tough choices” ahead and many of them are bound to prove unpopular. That being so and remarkable as this victory is, it may prove to be the SNP’s best possible result from which the party can only decline, not a springboard to further success.
All the same and before we get carried away with nationalistic fervour it’s worth recalling that this triumph is built upon the promise to hold a referendum on independence. That referendum “lock” is what gave Unionists license to vote SNP. A nationalist majority in Edinburgh, remarkable given the fate of incumbents across europe at present, may seem to “endanger” the Union but that’s a superficial reading of these results since the Union is protected by the referendum. To save the Union, you see, you might need to risk it. And anyway, as I say, I don’t understand why Unionists are so afraid of making their case. If it is strong enough it will prevail, if it is not it does not deserve to.
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