How Left Wing is Scotland – part two

How left wing is Scotland? Do we really, as the First Minister claimed, not really mind her economic policies? Well, recently, YouGov did a survey on various Thatcherite policies in the midst of her funeral. The results show that on most things, Scotland leans in the same direction as the rest of the UK, with one notable exception.

The survey gave two statements in each of a variety of policy areas, from nuclear weapons, to the right-to-buy. Respondents were asked to give the answer which mostly closely resembled their point of view – or say don’t know. In all cases, the direction of the majority in Scotland matched the direction of the majority in the rest of the UK. If the rest of UK was right wing, on for instance on supporting failing businesses, so was Scotland. If the rest of the UK was left wing, on for instance whether government should protect jobs and growth over reducing the deficit, or on whether Government should be responsible for resolving social problems – then Scotland was also Left wing.

On the totemic issue of nuclear weapons – more Scots wanted Britain to keep its nuclear weapons than to get rid of them – just as a majority of the rest of the UK did.

The one issue where Scotland differed from the rest of the UK? Trade unions. More people in Scotland thought that a strong Trade Union movement was good for Britain than thought it was bad. In the rest of the UK it was the opposite. Not by much, and some regions of the UK were more evenly split than others (London and the rest of the South were strongly against Trade Unions), while 60% of Labour voters across the country supported a strong Trade Union movement – other parties’ voters had difference views.

So there we have it – polling evidence that shows that Scotland isn’t any different to the rest of the UK on the majority of issues. Doesn’t bode well for that socialist utopian paradise we’re all being promised after independence.

Our Common Endeavour

By the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few.

Those are the words of clause 4 of the Labour constitution, which while many will lament the loss the previous version, the current one still highlights one of the fundamental values, not just of the Labour party, but of the whole Labour movement, especially the trade unions and the co-operative movement.

Contrast that with the fundamental tenets of Scottish Independence. We are better off without the rest of the UK. We are different to them and they do things we don’t want. We didn’t vote for this Government, and we don’t like its policies.

I can’t see anything more diametrically opposed to the fundamental values of the Labour movement than that. It’s an “I’m all right Jack” attitude that is, at best selfish, and at worst dishonest.

There’s also the misguided feeling that somehow we will have a socialist government in charge after independence. Well, not once in its history has there been a majority in Scotland for socialist or left-wing parties, and there definitely isn’t now. I’m not sure what is going to happen to change that, simply by dint of voting for independence. Are we expecting that large numbers of centrist and right-wing Scots will move south? Are we going to have a flood of refugees from the deprived cities of northern England? Of course not!

If anything, Scotland is a conservative country – with a small ‘c’, and we are equally likely – if not more likely – to become a conservative tax haven, with lower top rates of tax and low corporation tax rates than neighbouring countries. The only party to have ever achieved a majority of votes in Scotland was the Conservatives, and it is quite possible that they will recover votes after independence.

By working together, across the UK the Labour movement has made some truly great achievements. The NHS. The Welfare State. The National Minimum Wage. By splitting off, we deny people, north and south of the border the benefits of our work together as a force for good, as we fail to achieve them in our individual countries – its why we as socialists should support working together with colleagues across the EU to bring in policies such as the Working Time Directive.

I don’t like the benefit reforms that the UK Government are bringing in. I’m not convinced that Labour at a UK level has the right response. But that doesn’t mean I want to abandon friends and family living south of an imaginary line to policies that I find deeply abhorrent. Where’s the Socialist Solidarity in that?

Something to Celebrate

I can’t celebrate the fact that someone has died, no matter who they are. Yes, their policies were divisive and selfish, but to revel in death, is ghoulish at best, and sickening at worst. What does it serve? It is not like the death of a dictator, whose ending presages the collapse of their regime. Are people now better off today than they were on Monday?

Margaret Thatcher personalised her policies, in a way that few politicians have done since. When a pit or factory closed – it was closed by Thatcher. When someone bought their council house – it was because of Thatcher. When School Milk was ended, it was ended by Thatcher.

But what she was more than just individual policies. As Ed Miliband has said, she moved the centre ground of politics. Previously there had been the post-war consensus, but she comprehensively smashed that, and her neo-liberal views have been broadly followed since.

Ed Miliband wants to do the same. He wants to break the mould, and deliver a responsible capitalism that delivers for people. In effect, he wants to end Thatcherism.

 And the day that happens, really will be a day to celebrate.

Its time to work the list

Previously, I posted about the electoral performance of the parties of the left, and in passing said that Labour lost more votes on the regional lists compared to their constituency results than other parties. I believe this shows that a new strategy is needed for the regional lists.

How bad is the problem? Well, as we can see from the table below, all parties win fewer votes on the list than in constituencies, but Labour suffers most. Even in 2011, with the highly effective “Alex Salmond for First Minister” campaign, the SNP still lost 1.4% of their vote – almost the same drop as in the 1999 election.

Interestingly enough, 2007 bucked the trend for Labour, but 2011 saw a return to the drop of 5% or more that Labour experiences. Where does that vote go? Well, as we saw, the Greens and the Left parties pick up quite a few votes – which have to come from somewhere, in 2011 this totalled 6.1%, but has reached nearly 15% before.

From that we can conclude there is a substantial leakage to parties which have more radical, left wing policies. What Labour must do is to give its regional MSPs – and the candidates at election time, much more freedom to promote a vote for Labour as a way of ensuring strong left wing voices are in the parliament. Speaking out on Green issues is one way to do this, as well as other more traditional left-wing concerns, such as the work that Neil Findlay has done on overturning convictions of miners during the strike in 1984.

However, policy alone won’t do the job. For several elections, Labour has simply not had a credible strategy for fighting regional list elections. A single booklet, dropped through doors as part of the Royal Mail leaflet drop is not good enough to ensure that Labour voters give us their second vote – or to attract voters from other parties. We need to be giving people the message, loud and clear that in many areas, a second vote for Labour is their chance to have real Labour representation.

By improving our performance on the regional lists, we can not only hold onto our list MSPs when we win constituencies, but also gain MSPs, helping to propel us into power in 2016.

The Bedroom Tax – welfare deformed

The Bedroom Tax is one of the worst pieces of welfare reform in the last 30 years. Not only is it targeting the poorest and most vulnerable in society, it doesn’t have in place the solution which its creators claim is its intention (i.e. a supply of smaller properties for claimants to move to), it could even have a perverse effect on the Housing Benefit budget, as people move to smaller homes in the Private Sector, which are actually more expensive than the larger social housing properties they leave.

In Scotland, Housing is devolved. The Scottish Government could pass legislation stopping evictions due to Bedroom Tax arrears, and Mike Daily, of the Govan Law Centre has petitioned the parliament to do just that. However, despite Scottish Labour pressure, the SNP have decided that it’s not necessary to protect Scots like that.

Instead, they have instructed their councillors to institute a policy which comes close, but which is not quite a “No Eviction” one. Under some circumstances, you can still be evicted from a council house in Dundee, if you have arrears, but don’t want to move. You might not want to move for a host of reasons – needing to be close to friends and family for support, for instance, or not wishing to disrupt education for youngsters. However, if the Director of Housing thinks that unreasonable – you’re out!

Labour run Fife Council, however, is more enlightened. There, the council has set aside over £5m of its own money to deal with the fallout from welfare reforms, and have promised not to evict tenants who let them know they are experiencing problems due to the Bedroom Tax. Unlike SNP councils, they are calling on the Scottish Government to help protect all Fifers who will be hit. Two other Labour councils are set to implement measures to protect tenants that go much further than the SNP spin.

The cost across Scotland of the Bedroom tax is estimated by Shelter Scotland to be £50m, and they too believe the correct response is for Scottish Ministers to provide this. However, the SNP have refused, instead preferring to play politics, like putting down motions they know will fail due to standing orders, simply in order to embarrass Labour councils. However, the Scottish Government can afford to do this. Last year, there was an under spend of £72m. Such things are simply unacceptable at time like these – more so when Scots are under pressure.

However, the politicking gets worse. The Government says that if you voted for an SNP council, you will get protection – if you didn’t, well tough. If you vote for independence, however, come 2016, they’ll get rid of the Bedroom Tax. Appalling given that they can do something now – they just choose not to do so. And just how many people will have been evicted between now and 2016? To coin a phrase, the SNP will have blood on their hands.

How left wing is Scotland?

I’ve touched on this before, but it’s worth looking again at the political make-up of Scotland. Unlike in much of the rest of the UK, Scotland has a proportional system for parliamentary elections, allowing smaller parties a real chance at gaining representation, and helping to implement left-leaning policies. By standing on the regional list for Holyrood elections, parties can gain seats to compensate for the lack of constituency MSPs.

One of the recurring themes of the independence debate is that once we achieve independence, then left wing parties will take the reigns of Government and achieve the socialist utopia that we all want. But, given the chance, do the Scottish public really vote for a true left-wing party? The argument that there is no chance of winning is not true if one considers the regional lists.

The very first election to the Scottish Parliament, in 1999, saw Tommy Sheridan win a list seat in Glasgow, standing on a radical left-wing platform for the Scottish Socialist party. So from the start, it was possible to demonstrate that voting for a socialist candidate was not a wasted vote. Below is a table showing voting patterns on the regional list for the 4 Scottish parliamentary elections.

I’ve amalgamated the results from the various left-wing parties, such as the Scottish Socialists, the Socialist Labour party, and of course Tommy Sheridan’s breakaway Solidarity. Respect are included for the 2011 election which was the only one they contested. Although I’ve recorded the Green party separately, they too could be considered left-wing, as many of their policies will attract left leaning voters.

In terms of the main stream parties, its obvious that the Conservatives are not left wing, and while the Lib Dems have gone into coalition with them, before 2010, they attracted many on the left with their liberal social views and opposition to the war in Iraq. The SNP have some left-leaning policies, but that with the combination of right wing ones, such as the council tax freeze, shows that they too are not consistently left wing. The exception might be their 1999 manifesto, which had the “penny for Scotland” option of increasing income tax to pay for social policy. However, this was later dropped, as it was considered not to be a vote winner.

There have long been arguments about whether Labour can be considered left-wing, and for the purposes of this blog I will leave them. What can be said, however, is that they have consistently been the biggest loser in terms of votes lost between the constituency and the list. An analysis of that will have to wait for a future blog post

Who would redistribute wealth more?

If a measure of how progressive you are, is your top rate of tax, then is it possible that an independent Scotland could end up being more right wing than the rest of the UK?

Well, we now know that taxes won’t be rising under John Swinney in an independent Scotland.

And we know that Labour, if elected in 2015, would bring back the 50p rate.

But if Scotland is independent, won’t that make it impossible for Labour to win? Well, no, it won’t. The latest YouGov survey, gives a Labour lead of 9 points – on the low side of other recent opinion polls, but perhaps more representative. In Scotland, however the lead is 22 points over the SNP, reflecting the different voting strategies of Scots when it comes to elections at Holyrood and Westminster.

Putting these numbers into Anthony Wells’ swingometer gives us an overall Labour majority of 96, with gains for Ed Miliband across the country, including Scotland. The SNP would surely be disappointed to only gain Gordon from the Lib Dems, while Labour makes 5 gains, all at the expense of the coalition.

But if you take out the Scottish seats, and just look at the rest of the UK, Ed Miliband sill wins 324 seats, giving him an overall majority of 58 in the reduced House of Commons.

If Scotland votes, Yes in 2014, it’s difficult, if not impossible to see anything other than an SNP Government taking control at first in Edinburgh. And since John Swinney has said he wont increase the personal taxes, nor those of companies, especially in the North Sea, while Ed Balls would not only be increasing the top rate to 50p, he might also extend its reach.

So which country would be closest to the utopian ideal of wealth redistribution?