Without Scotland
This is a perpetual myth that needs constant debunking. Here Dougie McCann addresses the often-repeated fairy tale that Scotland is crucial to Labour’s victory at the General Election.
Only four days into the New Year, and BBC Scotland led its output with “in most general elections Scottish votes have been crucial in deciding who takes power” as you will see later the “most” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
The next day Anas Sarwar appealed to pro-independence voters to “boot the Tories out“ telling activists that 2024 would be a “momentous“ year and in shade of 2014, that Scotland could lead the way in “booting” out those Tories.
A huge part of Labour’s argument for the union in 2014 was that Scots would be abandoning our neighbours, to perpetual Tory rule there was a covenant between nations; an expected solidarity with the workers of Manchester, Leeds and Cardiff. However, the party were perfectly content to break a vouch of solidarity with international workers from the likes of Paris, Berlin ,Madrid and Dublin.
So what is the truth? Does a Labour revival start in Scotland as Starmer has stated in the past , and what does a Scottish Labour party offer? When Starmer is going to win, and win big with policies correlating with all the things middle-England likes Brexit, tougher immigration laws, isn’t it a change of faces at best?
So what difference has Scotland’s voice made and is the BBC Scotland claim that “Scottish votes have been crucial in deciding who takes power “or Labours appeal to voters for solidarity to Scots not to abandon England to perpetual Tory rule.
The House of Commons Library in the lead up to the Independence referendum Published a Paper titled “General Elections Without Scotland” (1945-2010) from which I shall use for data in Scotland which shows that Labour had a majority of seats in all but two General elections up to 2010 ,1951 and 1955 being those only exceptions.
Without Scottish votes
1945 Labour win
Majority 146
Without Scotland 143
1950 Labour win
Majority 5
Without Scotland 2
1951 Conservative win
Majority17
Without Scotland 16
1955 Conservative win
Majority 60
Without Scotland 61
1959 Conservative win
Majority 100
Without Scotland 109
1964 Labour
Majority 4
Without Scotland -11
change from Labour majority, giving the conservatives a majority of 1
1966 Labour Win
majority of 98
without Scotland 77
1970 Conservative Win
Majority 30
without Scotland 55
February 1974 Labour Minority government
majority -33
without Scotland -42
possibility of change to Conservative minority government
October 1974 Labour win
majority of 3
without Scotland -8
Labour would have been a minority Government
1979 Conservative Win
Conservative Majority of 43
without Scotland 70
1983 Conservative Win
Conservative Majority 144
without Scotland 174
1987 Conservative Win
Conservative Majority 102
without Scotland 154
1992 Conservatives
Conservatives Majority 21
without Scotland 71
1997 Labour Win
Labour Majority 179
Without Scotland 139
2001 Labour Win
Labour Majority 179
Without Scotland 139
2005 Labour Win
Labour Majority 66
without Scotland 43
2010 Coalition Government
Conservative Majority -38
without Scotland 19
The 2010 Election failed to produce an overall majority for either Labour or Conservative parties leaving the Lib Dems as king maker – they refused to work with Gordon Brown and a possible Rainbow Alliance was proposed but Douglas Alexander spoke out against working with the SNP in particular , the Lib Dems chose the Tories and a Coalition Government was formed the first since World War Two.
so to sum up Without Scotland …
- in 1964, The Conservatives would have had the largest party but not a Majority, with Scotland, Labour had a House of commons Majority
- in February 1974, The Conservatives would have been largest party but no majority
with Scotland Labour were largest Party but did not have a majority
- October 1974 ,Labour the largest party but not a majority
with Scotland Labour won house of commons majority
- 2010 The Conservatives would have won an outright Majority
with Scotland they are still in Government but in Coalition with Lib Dems
or to simplify
- 1964 -Change
- 1974 Possible Change
- October 1974 Change Labour Majority to Minority
- 2010 Coalition to Conservative Majority
So in a 65 year period Scotland that started of with 74 seats , then 59 and for 2024, 57 giving us even less influence Scots have stopped the Tories winning outright once 1964, possibly changed outcome in 1974, and denied the Tories an overall majority in 2010 only for Labour to make a mess of negotiations.
Its clear that what England votes for the majority of the time is what it gets.
So what happens if as some polls are showing a Labour revival and Labour become the largest party in Scotland? Remember it was Labour who despite promising the closest thing to federalism, the nearest thing to home rule as possible when around the table at the Smith Commission talks had to leave room to get permission from London and the Party that then blocked powers like Employment law being devolved, preferring Scottish workers in Tory hands.
As David Lammy Shadow Foreign Secretary has confirmed in a Sky TV interview “We are a Unionist Party, we believe in the Union, there will be no Indy ref 2” and will the branch office in Glasgow say the same thing? he was asked. He replied “Yes”.
If its hard for Scotland to argue it has a mandate for constitutional change with the SNP winning 81% of possible seats in the House of Commons (2019) then I suspect as Tommy Sheppard MP recently said, any talk of constitutional change will be not only off the table but in a cupboard gathering dust if we give Labour that Scottish mandate.
And without that change Scotland will be locked into Westminster’s dysfunctional system, voiceless with no hope of change just ten years at the most of Labour and a return of a Conservative party that will have moved even further to the right, 2024 could prove to be a momentous year indeed for Scotland, and not in a good way.
Thank you for the analysis and for the debunking of the BBC assertion of ‘most’. The electorate in England is who decides the outcome of General Elections, in almost every case.
Labour is a British-English nationalist party.
It would be good to know who in the BBC said this, and when and where, and who if anyone took them up on it?
Always good to have specifics if possible rather than…”the BBC said”
This methodology is flawed logic and it shows up most strongly in relation to 1950 and 2005.
It’s not a question of ignoring Scotland and calculating majorities in the rest of the UK – but in order to illustrate the point as to whether Labour ‘needs’ Scotland WHILE Scotland is still in the UK, you need to assume all the Labour seats in any particular UK election in Scotland went to the opposition and then work out who has the majority of seats.
On that basis Labour would have been in minority government territory in 1950 and 2005. However it’s important to realise that although Labour won 55% of the seats in England in 2005, this was a huge distortion under the first past the post electoral system when, in England, Labour lost the popular vote (or as I prefer to think of it Tony Blair’s Labour got LESS votes than Michael Howard’s Tories – yes, Michael Howard BEAT Tony Blair among English voters, so much for Teflon Tony! The figures for England were: Labour 286 seats 8,043,461 votes 35.4%, Conservative 194 seats 8,116,005 votes). Blair only won a third term because the seats went his way in England, AND he also had enough seats in Scotland and Cymru/Wales to have a majority. However even without any seats in Scotland in 2005, Labour could have formed a viable minority UK government based on a distorted and undemocratic result in England, as the 3 SDLP and 2 ex-Labour MPs not in Labour would have probably supported them, and 5 Sinn Fein did not take their seats (and of course the Speaker does not vote). Of course the same thing also happened in reverse at UK level in 1951, when Labour actually won more votes than the Tories but the Tories won a majority of seats (Winston Churchill NEVER won the popular vote in any of three elections he contested as Tory leader, despite being frequently described as the ‘greatest’ Prime Minister).
The way I prefer to describe it is as follows: There are eight occasions on which Labour has formed a majority government at Westminster. On four of those occasions (1945, 1966, 1997, 2001), Labour would have still had a MAJORITY of seats at Westminster even if they had NOT won a single seat in Scotland. On one occasion Labour would have still formed a government (2005) as it won enough seats in England (despite losing the popular vote) and Cymru/Wales. On only three occasions (1950, 1964, 1974Oct) did Labour actually NEED any seats in Scotland to form a government, and not only is that a minority of occasions, the last one was 50 years ago! Additionally there would have been a hung parliament in February 1974.
Without Scotland being in the UK, Labour would still have been capable of forming of majority governments in the rest of the UK on most historic occasions.
Labour’s message to Scotland- ask not what Labour can do for Scotland but what Scotland can do for Labour’.
With apologies to JFK.