10 July, 2024 -
Author: Ann Field
WORKERS LIBERTY, UK
Scotland was the only part of Britain where Labour’s share of votes on 4 July was up in 2023 compared to 2019. In England, Labour won seats because of Tory voters staying home or switching to Reform, but had no overall rise in vote-share.
In Scotland, Labour won 37 seats (up from one in 2019), the SNP won nine seats (down from 48), the Lib-Dems won six seats (up from four), and the Tories won five seats (down from six).
The Greens (until recently allied with the SNP in government) contested most Scottish seats, generally winning between one and two thousand votes. In some Glasgow and Edinburgh constituencies, they polled between 4,000 and 5,000 votes. Reform UK contested all Scottish constituencies and usually won 3,000 plus votes.
The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (led by the Socialist Party) stood in four seats, winning just over 1,500 votes in total. The Scottish Socialist Party (led by Richie Venton) stood two candidates, picking up a thousand votes in total.
Labour won 36% of the popular vote (up from 19% in 2019), the SNP won 30% (down from 45%), the Tories won 13% (down from 25%), and the Lib-Dem popular vote remained virtually unchanged. Turnout was 8.5% lower than in 2019.
The headline figures correspond to canvassers’ experiences on the doorstep.
Previous SNP voters are demoralised. The “true believers” see the SNP as having gone soft on independence. Pragmatic SNP voters are disillusioned with the SNP’s record in power in Holyrood. Many SNP voters simply stayed at home.
Some of the growth in the Green vote is probably accounted for by switching by one-time SNP voters.
A substantial number of one-time SNP voters switched to Labour. Tactical voting by Tory voters in some constituencies added to the Labour vote. The first-past-the-post system translated that in to an election landslide for Labour.
Inevitably Scottish Labour is focussing on its tally of 37 MPs. But the headline figure conceals a variety of problems.
Scottish Labour is not, and was not even in the Corbyn years, a mass-membership party with a large activist base. Its membership is probably well under 20,000, about a quarter that of the SNP. Its election campaign relied on a lot of effort by few activists.
Its newly elected MPs include those responsible for the debacle of Better Together in 2014 (when Labour allied with the Tories in that year’s independence referendum) and the electoral disaster of 2015 (when Labour lost 40 of its 41 Scottish MPs). These people have learnt nothing in the meantime.
Added to them are a new generation of thought-through right-wing ideologues — and a further layer of MPs who just faithfully repeat the party line.
If Starmer faces backbench rebellions at Westminster, they will certainly not be spearheaded by Scottish Labour MPs.
Scottish Labour portrays its gains last week as the basis for further gains in the next Holyrood election. Although there is some substance to that belief, it also contains an element of wishful thinking.
Holyrood elections are based on proportional representation, not first-past-the-post. And the next election will take place during the mid-term of the Westminster Labour government, when governments tend to be at their least popular.
The election result in Scotland should give the left — inside and outside of the Labour Party — cause to reflect on what strategy it should now pursue.
The Labour left in Scotland has long been much weaker than in England. Unlike in England and Wales, there was only a minimal influx of new members under Corbyn (and by now those have now virtually all left anyway). The Scottish Labour left’s politics are largely those of the Communist Party’s Morning Star newspaper.
Labour left activists will have to challenge the “common sense” view of last week’s election: that Labour loses elections when it moves to the left, but wins elections when it moves to the right.
We will probably also face further isolation as — in the best traditions of Scottish Labour — the family, friends and employees of newly elected MPs join the Labour Party and provide the right-wing parliamentarians with a social base within the party itself.
If the “tough decisions” promised by Starmer trigger opposition from the trade unions, the Labour left will need to prioritise supporting that opposition and attempting to take it into the party itself.
For the left outside the Labour Party, the time to take stock is also well overdue.
In 2014 virtually the entire left backed a Yes vote in the independence referendum. In 2016 it largely supported Brexit (even though Scotland overall went 62-38 Remain). Now it has adopted Gaza as its cause célèbre — and, in practice, that has meant concessions to various forms of antisemitism.
Scottish independence, Brexit, and Israel-annihilationism have all been expressions of a fantasy anti-imperialism. Wrong in principle, it has also been an abject failure in practice. In electoral terms it has yielded just 2,500 votes and half a dozen lost deposits.
Author: Ann Field
WORKERS LIBERTY, UK
Scotland was the only part of Britain where Labour’s share of votes on 4 July was up in 2023 compared to 2019. In England, Labour won seats because of Tory voters staying home or switching to Reform, but had no overall rise in vote-share.
In Scotland, Labour won 37 seats (up from one in 2019), the SNP won nine seats (down from 48), the Lib-Dems won six seats (up from four), and the Tories won five seats (down from six).
The Greens (until recently allied with the SNP in government) contested most Scottish seats, generally winning between one and two thousand votes. In some Glasgow and Edinburgh constituencies, they polled between 4,000 and 5,000 votes. Reform UK contested all Scottish constituencies and usually won 3,000 plus votes.
The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (led by the Socialist Party) stood in four seats, winning just over 1,500 votes in total. The Scottish Socialist Party (led by Richie Venton) stood two candidates, picking up a thousand votes in total.
Labour won 36% of the popular vote (up from 19% in 2019), the SNP won 30% (down from 45%), the Tories won 13% (down from 25%), and the Lib-Dem popular vote remained virtually unchanged. Turnout was 8.5% lower than in 2019.
The headline figures correspond to canvassers’ experiences on the doorstep.
Previous SNP voters are demoralised. The “true believers” see the SNP as having gone soft on independence. Pragmatic SNP voters are disillusioned with the SNP’s record in power in Holyrood. Many SNP voters simply stayed at home.
Some of the growth in the Green vote is probably accounted for by switching by one-time SNP voters.
A substantial number of one-time SNP voters switched to Labour. Tactical voting by Tory voters in some constituencies added to the Labour vote. The first-past-the-post system translated that in to an election landslide for Labour.
Inevitably Scottish Labour is focussing on its tally of 37 MPs. But the headline figure conceals a variety of problems.
Scottish Labour is not, and was not even in the Corbyn years, a mass-membership party with a large activist base. Its membership is probably well under 20,000, about a quarter that of the SNP. Its election campaign relied on a lot of effort by few activists.
Its newly elected MPs include those responsible for the debacle of Better Together in 2014 (when Labour allied with the Tories in that year’s independence referendum) and the electoral disaster of 2015 (when Labour lost 40 of its 41 Scottish MPs). These people have learnt nothing in the meantime.
Added to them are a new generation of thought-through right-wing ideologues — and a further layer of MPs who just faithfully repeat the party line.
If Starmer faces backbench rebellions at Westminster, they will certainly not be spearheaded by Scottish Labour MPs.
Scottish Labour portrays its gains last week as the basis for further gains in the next Holyrood election. Although there is some substance to that belief, it also contains an element of wishful thinking.
Holyrood elections are based on proportional representation, not first-past-the-post. And the next election will take place during the mid-term of the Westminster Labour government, when governments tend to be at their least popular.
The election result in Scotland should give the left — inside and outside of the Labour Party — cause to reflect on what strategy it should now pursue.
The Labour left in Scotland has long been much weaker than in England. Unlike in England and Wales, there was only a minimal influx of new members under Corbyn (and by now those have now virtually all left anyway). The Scottish Labour left’s politics are largely those of the Communist Party’s Morning Star newspaper.
Labour left activists will have to challenge the “common sense” view of last week’s election: that Labour loses elections when it moves to the left, but wins elections when it moves to the right.
We will probably also face further isolation as — in the best traditions of Scottish Labour — the family, friends and employees of newly elected MPs join the Labour Party and provide the right-wing parliamentarians with a social base within the party itself.
If the “tough decisions” promised by Starmer trigger opposition from the trade unions, the Labour left will need to prioritise supporting that opposition and attempting to take it into the party itself.
For the left outside the Labour Party, the time to take stock is also well overdue.
In 2014 virtually the entire left backed a Yes vote in the independence referendum. In 2016 it largely supported Brexit (even though Scotland overall went 62-38 Remain). Now it has adopted Gaza as its cause célèbre — and, in practice, that has meant concessions to various forms of antisemitism.
Scottish independence, Brexit, and Israel-annihilationism have all been expressions of a fantasy anti-imperialism. Wrong in principle, it has also been an abject failure in practice. In electoral terms it has yielded just 2,500 votes and half a dozen lost deposits.
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