Press Gangs, PIP and Post-Labour Scotland
Neil Findlay’s resignation is a Death Knell for Scottish Labour, but what does that mean? asks Mike Small.
“To paraphrase Neil Kinnock’s 1983 speech Under this Labour Government – I warn you not to be ordinary – I warn you not to be young – I warn you not to fall ill – I warn you not to get old.” – Neil Findlay
Neil Findlay’s resignation from the Labour Party is a signal of deeper change and crisis in UK politics but also a momentous moment for Scottish Labour, who were trying to organise for the Holrood Elections next year.
In a scathing visceral letter to Keir Starmer Findlay takes no prisoners: “A party that gave assurances to voters that “change” was coming but failed to tell them that the “change” they meant was to impoverish pensioners through cuts to their winter fuel allowance, betray WASPI women by refusing to compensate them for the states’ failure, punish defenceless children by maintaining the horrific two-child cap, abandon the Grangemouth workers and now attack the long term sick and disabled by slashing social security payments (I refuse to call them benefits or welfare). Al of this to fund increased spending on the UK war machine – weapons that will be used to kill and injure innocent men women and children in far-off lands”
He added: “At a time when more people are going hungry, fuel bills are soaring and the cost of living is leaving working class families unable to afford the basics, a Labour Government should be going after the billions lost in corporate tax fraud and avoidance, it should be making those companies that pollute our environment pay and it should be introducing a wealth tax on the super rich.
“But instead you choose to punish and stigmatise the weak, poor and the vulnerable.”
The letter concluded: “The reality is that Labour will be lucky to come third at the forthcoming Scottish election, will lose power in Wales for the first time and faces being routed at the next UK election and this will be down to your disastrous tenure as leader.”
There are some that would say that Findlay’s light-bulb moment about the reality of the Labour Party has come late in the day, but I would prefer to give credence to the people who are speaking up or walking out of the Labour Party as it takes a historic turn to the right. Findlay is one of a handful of politicians and people with profiles who are speaking out and should be congratulated for that. The usual suspects of Dianne Abbot, Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana, John McDonnell, and Clive Lewis are among the handful of people who have stood up to these policies, more may be to follow.
“Is austerity 2.0 the change people really voted for?” asks Zarah Sultana of Labour Minister Liz Kendall over benefits cuts. The much-smeared and derided Jeremy Corbyn said: “This is a seminal moment: a Labour government cutting disability benefits. Not just continuing Tory levels. Cutting. This comes after a week of speculation, itself an act of cruelty by a government toying with people’s dignity. These cuts are disgraceful – and will cost lives.”
Torsten Bell, the former Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation and author of the forthcoming book Great Britain? How We Get Our Future Back was widely derided for a Newsnight appearance where he seemed to show not a shred of compassion for those affected by his policies. If anyone represents the cynical slide between the third-sector and the professional political class, and the porous relationship between the two, it is him.
“It’s immoral to push children into poverty, but that’s what the benefits cap does” he writes only a year ago.
Ironically it is Bell’s former think-tank which was leading the charge against the plans he now supports.
Louise Murphy, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Around 1 million people are potentially at risk of losing support from tighter restrictions on Pip, while young people and those who fall ill in the future will lose support from a huge scaling back of incapacity benefits.
“Too many of the proposals have been driven by the need for short-term savings to meet fiscal rules, rather than long-term reform. The result risks being a major income shock for millions of low-income households.”
Sarah Hughes, the chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, said: “Mental health problems are not a choice – but it is a political choice to make it harder for people to access the support they need to live with dignity and independence. These reforms will only serve to deepen the nation’s mental health crisis.”
Anela Anwar, a member of the End Child Poverty coalition, said: “The proposed cuts … would deepen child poverty and call into question the government’s commitment to reduce this.
“At a time when the government is developing a strategy to reduce child poverty – it is shocking that it is also proposing to make significant cuts to family incomes.”
To get a sense of how sadistic these proposals are, it’s worth noting that disabled people could be denied PIP even if they need:
•Supervision or prompting to be able to manage toilet needs
•Assistance to be able to get in and out the shower
•Assistance to dress or undress your lower body
•An aid or appliance to be able to speak or hear
This is not as new as some have made out. As Richard Johnson points out there is a long history of Labour presenting ‘work’ as a core ideal of the party and refers to Judith Hart as the Social Security Minister in the 1960s. Johnson notes: “Ben Pimlott described Judith Hart as ‘probably the most left-wing member of the Cabinet’ in the 1960s. As Social Security Minister (DWP), she took a hard line against benefit cheats in the name of socialism.”
Judith Hart
Press Gangs 2025
So far so predictable you might say.
But while this is certainly an electoral death-knell for Scottish Labour, that claim has been made before and its consequences, in the absence of a real alternative, are not immediately positive. Just as “getting rid of the Tories” was a redundant, reductive political aim, that after all has led us to this very position, so too is “getting rid of Scottish Labour”, in a Scottish context, a reductive political aim. There can be much glee at the chaos and decline that Starmers right-turn will produce at Holyrood, but then what? As the SNP exodus of MSPs and MPs continues (if you include the expelled John Mason, the SNP will lose 24 sitting MSPs at the Scottish Parliament election in 2026) their replacements will have to find more chutzpah, grit, direction and strategy than their predecessors, or the schadenfreude at Labour’s spectacular collapse will be entirely misguided and misplaced.
The prospect that such new blood would cast off the managerialism and commitment to neoliberal strictures of their predecessors seems, like many of them, dim. I would be pleased to be proved wrong. But this is the challenge to new people entering the political fray. Reform UK is polling at 17% in Scotland as of today, representing, no doubt, deep disillusionment with the political order and class. The worst possible options are either to mimic and ape the far-right as Labour are clearly doing, or continue with the same dull centrist grind that is both an electoral turn-off and a dead-end to the myriad socio-ecological crisis we face.
As always this shameful set of policies has a generational aspect. As part of Liz Kendall’s plans it’s been announced that “Under-22s with long-term illnesses or disabilities will no longer be able to claim a health top-up on universal credit under government plans.” And, just to add a chef’s kiss to the whole debacle Liz Kendall told MPs on Tuesday in the House of Commons those aged under 22 will not be allowed to claim certain benefits, she also confirmed in the House of Commons it is her aim to get 642,000 people aged between 16 and 24 that are unemployed to join the military.
This is weaponised poverty, conscription by economics, class war and modern-day press gangs.
The Express eagerly reports the move:
“The Government will push young people to join the army as part of its bid to slash the benefits bill. Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall made the announcement as she confirmed long-awaited cuts in the House of Commons. She is to meet colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to discuss the plan, she said.
The aim is to get some of the 642,000 people aged 16 to 24 who are currently unemployed into the armed forces, following concern that youth unemployment is soaring. The number is up by 136,000 in just one year. Ms Kendall made the statement as she responded to a question from Conservative MP Mark Pritchard. He said: “One way of perhaps attracting some people back into work is for her to have discussions with the Defence Secretary. Would she agree with me that getting more young people into his majesty’s armed forces, air force, navy, army would be a starting place?”
Yes, she would agree with you Mark.
The far-right is triumphant in Britain today, before Reform is even elected. The Spectator this week praised ministers such as Wes Streeting and Liz Kendall for going where even the Trump administration has yet to tread saying: “Keir Starmer’s imminent attempt to curb Britain’s spending on welfare is a more serious and important bid to curb the growth of government than Elon Musk’s theatrical Doge performance” it gushed.
We’re now entering a new phase of British decline and brutality. It’s an unchartered land where no-one is coming to the rescue. While there is talk of New Popular Fronts and a constitutional opt-out here, that can not be within the current political culture or system.
A post-Labour Scotland will have the following possible electoral consequences: Labour voters turning to Reform UK; staying at home; or moving to the SNP or SGP. It has potentially disastrous consequences for the Union, which virtually nobody is talking about. But the potential for this massive shift in UK politics to have any positive benefits in realignment will be dependent on similar scale shifts of the progressive and radical movements and parties in Scotland to step-up. Whether they have the guts or insight to seize that opportunity remains to be seen.
Please donate & share:
Backing Bella Caledonia 2025 – a Creative & Arts crowdfunding project
We are supported only by our readers. We don't have corporate backers and we don't take advertising, so we rely entirely on your support.
Help to support independent Scottish journalism
I had a seminal experience many years ago, during the mass unemployment of Margaret Thatcher’s time in office, when I was sent out to recruit around 50 people for cleaning and labouring work. Myself and others interviewed around 200 people in three job centres. We found that there are many, many people in this land that will NEVER be able to gain work in the competitive workplace. Those that did poorly in school, were rude, came from dysfunctional families or turned up unable to speak with any degree of confidence. They and others are routinely left behind.
There are many physically disabled who are truly unable to work. In todays “Devil take the Hindmost, society there are many they crack under the strain and fall into mental health problems. There are all too many addicted to drugs of one type or another. All of these people need help to move on and contribute to society as best they can. They are presently given little help and are treated as a burden to the rest of us.
Regardless of the screams of pain, the chainsaw is coming as we are now able to, and will, automate and replace many working in routine clerical and administrative jobs. Rather than a benefits shake up we really do need to get people doing what the machines cannot do. Caring, cleaning, labouring, mentoring, community work and teaching life skills.
This present situation is not good enough. Argyll & Bute have many, many chiefs and almost no indians; other councils will be that same. It seems that decisions are routinely outsourced to consultants who never tell them (or they never listen) to reduce bureaucracy. One example is that, for whatever reason, they cannot empty the bins in any sort of sensible routine; our recycling is falling into monthly rather than fortnightly and we often get circulars telling us to leave bins out and they will try to catch up. The beach is cleaned by volunteers; many toilets were closed during Covid and then they left them closed while trying to get volunteers to clean them. Libraries and leisure centres are either closed or on reduced hours.
The situation in government employ is certainly as bad and probably worse. Too many administrators too many unnecessary departments counting paper clips and arguing over trivia. Government now seems to employ lots of people specifically to tell people what to do or more likely what they cannot do.
Sorry to have a bit of a rant.
I can well understand why he left. But perhaps there were better options: to campaign within Scottish Labour for it to become a separate party, or to join with other sections of the labour movement in Scotland to push for Scotland’s right to self determination. He might well have been expelled as a result, of course, but it might have helped to build the New Popular Front mentioned here.
The policies introduced yesterday were primarily about saving money.
The increase in mental health issues and disability was almost inevitable after the country went through a once in a century pandemic (something which appears to have been ignored by many in power).
There are many people suffering effects of long covid. The health service virtually shut down for a year as far as treating many chronic conditions was concerned and this exacerbated many of these conditions.
There are many people, especially the young, suffering mental health problems either from the stress of working through covid or separation and isolation from lockdown. These issues have affected UK worse than many other countries due to the years of austerity that eroded the resilience of both services and many people both leading up to and post pandemic.
I would also add that for some people work is itself a source of mental health problems due to stress and lack of security of work in 21st century.
I am afraid the measures introduced yesterday are liable to lead to a further deterioration in both mental health of many, especially those under 22, and physical disabilities which will then put more pressure on healthcare services.
I remember years ago being shown two graphs at work / one was morbidity vs age and the other was morbidly vs poverty and being struck by how the graphs were nearly identical.
When you look at the range of Labour policies introduced affecting the poor and weaker members of society one can only imagine what the same Labour MP’s currently supporting these policies would have said if a Tory government had introduced them?
Pre- or post Labour , the problem isn’t the Labour Party. It is Scotland, which seems to me as corrupt as Trump or Starmer but much better at hiding it. It looks as though we will be faced in 2026 with a more or less binary choice between Labour and the SNP – two parties I could never for for again. Oh and of course there’s the Greens, whose betrayal of their previous principles is a bad as any other.
And our electoral system, at all levels, is a disaster too.
Nobody can be held to account at all, our money is poured into private pockets, certain groups are placed above the law, and we are already dictated to by international organised criminals. There is not a politician, regulator, police officer, solicitor who will stand up for us. I have discovered for myself that democracy and the rule of law are actually dead. Right here, right now. In Scotland.
Our long history of colonialism continues – the entire Scottish establishment is to blame, regardless of the supposed stance on the constitution. Meanwhile the fascist ‘Great Reset’ agenda just quietly continues regardless. We are all being reduced to utter poverty and debt-dependence, and control of every aspect of our lives is being handed to the tech barons. The UK agenda is frankly fascist. and Scotland just cringes and stays silent.
Unless we start standing up for ourselves this country will become as unliveable as England or America.
I don’t want to be a politician. I don’t think I would be very good at it. I would however like someone to vote for who I can trust to represent me and my community instead of betraying and selling us out.
It is past time for elected representatives to come clean, quit the silence, and start acting for constituents rather than political parties bought and sold (or just bullied) by billionaires.
Is it really too much to ask? How deep does the corruption and bullying go?
My finger has been hovering over the support us /donate button for a few weeks….every time I go to commit I recoil at another withering put down ,of the SNP, I pause in confusion….Bella claims to support Independence for Scotland but reinforces the demonising of the only viable option for change in our country ,that is reinforcing the interminable SNPBad proclamations from Unionist media and the Independece supporting(?) commentariat .
To now target people not yet even elected
“The prospect that such new blood would cast off the managerialism and commitment to neoliberal strictures of their predecessors seems, like many of them, dim.”
is beyond the pale!
I hope you can take this criticism in good faith, I hope I get over it and donate!…. then I hope the discourse on here develops to focusing on how we deliver an alternative reality to that so searingly articulated in this otherwise excellent article!!
The SNP , for a that and a that, is the vehicle for change and an alternative direction in these times…if we can’t harness the energy, ideas , opinions and talent on here to influence and shape the SNP then it must call into question if we are really serious about actually delivering any change?
Hi Alex
we remain absolutely committed to independence but independent of any party. I said that I hoped their “replacements will have to find more chutzpah, grit, direction and strategy than their predecessors” and I stand by this. I aim to make sure that” the discourse on here develops to focusing on how we deliver an alternative reality” as you say. We do not IMHO get anywhere by being uncritical of any political party.
You say “I hope you can take this criticism in good faith, I hope I get over it and donate!” I do take your criticism in good faith, and I too hope you get over it and donate! Thanks for your comment.
Of course you should donate, Alex! The kind of discussion that Bella promotes, and its wide-angle perspective embracing cultural as well as political comment, is exactly what’s needed within the independence movement, which, as I’m sure you’ll agree, goes much wider and deeper than the SNP. Furthermore, Bella engages with those open to but not yet convinced by independence, and that surely is something every independence supporter should welcome. I wish more indy supporters – including SNP members – read Bella, supported it, and took part in the debates it promotes. We really need that fresh, radical edge, even if – especially if ? – it sometimes drives you up the wall!
I think that idea of being open to wider groups is really really important. This could be – like many other blogs – a closed silo of nodding heads – with complete consensus – what some people call ‘dead certainty’. Its important that its not that imho. When people say “I’ll support you but I don’t always agree with what you say” – I say “great”, I don’t want you to agree with everything I say, but I want to have that discussion with you and probably learn from you. The world is so mad that no-one really knows what to do and what the ‘truth’ is but in times of what people call ‘radical uncertainty’ the best we can do is learn from each other, listen, create dialogue, show solidarity among ourselves and the most vulnerable and organise to resist and fight power.
I have donated for the simple reason I find the blog very stimulating and have read its pages many many times. It costs money for it to be produced and for it to continue so I feel it is right for me contribute regardless of how much I do or don’t agree with views expressed. If I really felt it was too far away from what I thought and too regularly so, I would stop reading and not donate.
Thanks very much Niemand. Yes it would be a very stale thing to pay to read views that you agreed with endlessly. Confirmation bias I think they call it. Thanks!
Sadly my experience over the last 5 years of the SNP has been one of betrayal. At every level. The police and legal profession tell me I have no remedy. I do not believe they will ever deliver independence so long as they continue to do the bidding of the globalists and flatly refuse to stand up for us. This is not a party political matter because no other party will act in our interest either.
It’s a very serious situation. UDI is the only way now and I for one will only vote for a candidate who will commit to that.
Who are the ‘globalists’ John?
Who are the ‘globalists’?
Good question, well worth asking.
The online Cambridge fictionary defines globalism as
‘the idea that events in one country cannot be separated from those in another and that economic and foreign policy should be planned in an international way’.
So a ‘globalist’ would be someone who supports and advances this view.
Planning policies in an international way initially sounded good in the early years of the UN. Countries would reach consensus on such things as an international rule of law, economic arrangements to help those countries and peoples in need , and so on.
But from the outset there were globalists who had a different idea – one where the private profit of international corporations was more important than anything else.
According to the Library of Congress archive, when Charles E Wilson of General Motors was nominated as US Secretary of defence in 1953 he answered questions raised about possible conflicts of interest as follows: ”
Mr. Wilson. Yes, sir; I could. I cannot conceive of one because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country. Our contribution to the Nation is quite considerable.”
Private affluence and public squalor is the very essence of ‘neoliberalism’. In the 1950s the US was establishing its ‘unipolar world’ and within the US the so-called ‘robber barons’ with their links to organised crime, were busy consolidating their power.
So what’s good for General Motors (or rather its owners) was good for the world. And the so-called 1% have grown wealthier and wealthier ever since – at the expense of human rights, people and planet. Their wealth apparently entitles them to buy anyone and anything they please.
These people have put themselves completely above even international law. The planet and its people, animals, plants and minerals they see as mere resources to be exploited. They do not care in the least about the consequences of their actions. Their greed has become an addiction to absolute power and control. In Musk’s case, he seems to think that having destroyed the Earth to create his technocratic, digital dystopia he will relocate to Mars. It’s all completely mad. But it is thinking on a global scale, and claiming to ‘own’ the science, so that what is good for Tesla, or X is good for all. He and Trump ‘need’ all resources, everywhere, and claim to be entitled to take them. Sweep aside anyone or anything that might stand in their way. Greenland? Ukraine? Gaza?
A globalised economy is one in which wealth is created internationally, on a global scale. Costs are minimised by employing cheap or slave labour in poor countries, ripping out resources where it is cheapest and easiest, and as marketing becomes more and more desperate and ineffective, forcing products and services on people whether they want them
or not. But the key thing here is the global scale and the steady destruction of national sovereignty and indeed any other possible competition to their absolute power.
This is where the ‘Great Reset’ comes in. It was, and is still a conspiracy by the modern day robber barons to control everyone and everything. This project was announced by (then) Prince Charles in 2020. Klaus Schwab set out the plan at the same time. We were not consulted, we were told it was inevitable, required by the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution, where their technology would in future monitor and control all biology including ours. There is no secret about it, but of course we have been told that it’s nonsense, a ‘conspiracy theory’ that fact-checking websites will refute. This is just a standard technique of psychological (or as NATO now calls it ‘cognitive’ warfare.
The Great Reset as originally set out by Klaus Schwab included a ‘new social contract’ (which is no contract at all – democracy is dead); ‘stakeholder capitalism’ in which only the billionaires were stakeholders (‘you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy’); governments are required to ‘co-operate’ ( using the word in the gangster sense), and so on. Henceforth there would be a global control system operated solely by them.
It is a project of the World Economic Forum (WEF), set up by Klaus Schwab in 1971. It is an exclusive club of the world’s richest and most powerful people whose aim is to ‘make the world a better place’ ( for themselves, of course, but what is good for them must be good for all). It meets at Davos and elsewhere and a number of world leaders are products of its training and mentoring programs. Keir Starmer has declared his allegiance. And his policies are remarkably like the Conservatives because both were dictated by the WEF.
Let’s not mention possible links to Nazism. They look suspicious but require more research.
So who are the globalists? Those who seek to control and possess the entire planet and its resources for their own pleasure. Musk and Trump are globalists. Our governments seem to be terrified of standing up to them.
The situation is unsustainable. You cannot rule by denying people and other species their basic needs, mass murdering and so on. Our survival does not depend on complete dependence on them. We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
And thieves fall out. They can only end up fighting each other. We need to step aside before they destroy us all in the process because when the gods have made them mad we need to retain our sanity.
As I have said before, we need independence from the billionaires (and their friend the ‘king’ at least as much as from their puppets in Westminster.
.
a world dictatorship where what was
What project did King Charles announce in 2020 that set in motion the ‘modern day robber barons to control everyone and everything’?
The ‘robber barons’ were set in motion long ago, so apologies if that wasn’t clear. I use this definition: https://www.britannica.com/money/robber-baron
What Charles launched in 2020 was a project of the World Economic Forum called the ‘Great Reset’ (of the world’s economy). See https://www.weforum.org/stories/2020/06/now-is-the-time-for-a-great-reset/ This in my view was the greatest crime ever committed in the history of humanity. It continues today and can be seen in Starmer’s otherwise inexplicable policies.
Labour is the Party of the parvenu.
Yet again we have the spectacle of Labour MSP’s opposing a policy being proposed by a UK Labour government. Will we again witness the spectacle of Labour MSP’s voting against a policy at Holyrood while Labour MP’s representing Scottish constituencies will vote for the same policy at Westminster?
It is very unlikely that Neil Findlay’s resignation will have much of an impact on the Labour Party’s fortunes in Scotland. Even if it did, would it matter ? Did Scotland change much after the Labour Party’s near wipe-out in 2015 ? After all, it was replaced by a nearly a decade of Nicola’s autocracy.
It is worth remembering that Starmer’s cuts in welfare were precipitated by a massive increase in the number of people applying for benefits; particularly young people applying for benefits citing mental health issues. There is a similarity here with the increase in Scottish school pupils being assessed as having ‘special needs’; over 40% – an eight fold increase in not much more than 15 years. Both these are suggestive of major problems with massive implications – both social and financial – for our country. Simply denouncing Labour will not do.
The cuts envisaged will be brutal for many people. That is the way of the British/Scottish state; subtlety does not exist.
Mike Small ends his article hoping that progressive radical movements and parties will ”step-up’. Stepping up means engaging successfully in electoral politics. (Across Europe, the right realizes that street theatre is a dead end.) The evidence of the past decade, very little will happen.
In a sense stepping up is putting your money where your mouth is, as you say, seeking to gain real political power, since otherwise it is hot air. I say that because otherwise you never have to face the serious issues you highlight and Labour currently have to deal with in realworld, practical terms. How do finance this, and that, and that, as well as that? No-one decent wants to see cuts in anything that will affect people negatively, so what do you do with finite resources?
There are political arguments, and answers to that, perhaps, but to be taken really seriously you have to have a joined up political programme to provide those answers and I am not seeing that. Not on the left, nor on the right (even less so there in fact) but the right are tapping into something else which is largely made up of scapegoats and questions about threats to culture. Ask Farage what he will do to improve the economy, fund the NHS properly, stop the decline in public services etc and he won’t have an answer. Even those in Reform itself know this (and have said it) but then of course many in Reform have no interest in the NHS, public services or people suffering great financial hardship. Do I think Labour actually do> Yes I do and they are at least trying to tackle things, are looking to the longer term, whatever you think about their methods.
Would I prefer a more radical, left approach than Starmer’s centrism? Very much so, but where is it other than in those who write about it but will never actually do anything to try and put themselves in a potion to enact it? Even if they did would anyone vote for it? And if you asked do I prefer centrist Starminism to Reform then I know the answer straight away.
I’m sorry but this just seems like more hand-wringing helplessness. Everyone wants someone else to take the initiative. It is cringe-worthy.
So I propose a new party, starting right here, for you all to join. It’s called the Planet and People (Together) Party. The basic principle is that people and planet are inseparable parts of a single ecosystem. Which works primarily through co-operation for the overall good, not conflict. Other people and the planet belong to no-one but themselves. They / we do not exist for the private pleasure of organised criminals.
In practice this means: 1. Any public servant, elected or not must commit to the Claim of Right and to serving constituents before party or anyone else. 2. We cannot ‘save’ the planet by destroying it. Scrap the huge infrastructure projects. Small is beautiful. Subsidiarity, participatory democracy, no more corrupt global dictatorship 3. All must have free access to the law, which must apply to all equally 4. People / public interest before private profit, every time. Scrap the ISDS treaties, the Freeports, the 20th c urban thinking, the surveillance society. 5. Human rights incorporated into Scots Law. 6. Completely redesign our public authorities and electoral systems 7. Any suggestions for more?
I have said before we need an idea or bold vision of a Scotland worth fighting for – in fact let’s have several and debate them Then at least we can see that whatever we ant to do, requires our sovereignty. Let’s at least open a debate on what we’d like, start being less negative and get on and do it!
It’s not so much that Findlay’s resignation will have an impact as such that it’s an indicator of where Labour are in Scotland and where its going. As for whether this matters, I think that it matters because the case for the Union and the revival of pro-Union votes in 2024 was largely predicated on the idea that Labour would ‘change’ Britain, and that great social and constitutional reforms were coming.
Florian – there are significant differences between Scottish government policy on welfare to that of Westminster which is why child poverty is lower in Scotland than England. Is Holyrood radical enough -IMO no but they are restricted having to balance their budget and having to mitigate policies rising from Westminster. In addition if Holyrood tried to be more radical, there is every chance that Westminster would intervene and overrule. Holyrood implemented a minor rise in tax band for higher earners and the response from media and Westminster was sensationalist and over the top.
The last few years of Holyrood governance has been disappointing to many from a policy implementation, competence and open government perspective but it is clearly wrong to state that Westminster and Holyrood are just the same. This is the same trope used by populists saying that all politicians are incompetent and just in it for themselves – some are but to tar all politicians with the same brush is unthinking populist bullshit.
Hm, yes some good points here John but then the easy ‘saying they are all the same’, plague on all their houses approach applies to Westminster-based parties and politicians too. Having restricted budgets applies to Labour currently, it is just that it is imposed by current economic circumstances rather than on strings from a greater political power. The economy also affects Holyrood too of course, plus the political strings, so it is a double whammy, hence the justice of independence. But we should not be under any illusion an independent Scotland would face very similar economic woes and demands on public services that Labour at Westminster are currently having to deal with. How that should be dealt with is of course where the big arguments lie but currently, those at Holyrood can, in a sense, distance themselves from the responsibility of convincingly answering those big questions.
Niemand – I agree with everything you have written in this comment.
In addition I would add that many commentators seem to ignore/underestimate the after effects of covid pandemic on the economy and health and healthcare systems. The conflict in Ukraine has also had a massive effect on energy supplies and economies in many parts of Europe. Nearly all western nations have an increasingly aged population to support so all governments are facing massive challenges without even mentioning how they try to address climate change. I would say that in UK all of these factors have been further excacerbated by Brexit and how it was implemented and the austerity policies from 2010. The current Labour government have been dealt a pretty bad hand of cards but they do not seem to be playing them particularly well though in fairness this is an accusation to which the current SNP administration at Holyrood is not completely immune
You are correct in stating that an independent Scotland would still be subject to many of the external economic forces that both Westminster and Holyrood are having to deal with. The point you make about the additional power over economy that independence would give is well made though I would also add the democratic argument is also powerful especially when you consider how Scotland has been removed from EU, to our economic disadvantage, despite nearly 2/3rds of of voters in Scotland voting to Remain.
“Having restricted budgets applies to Labour currently, it is just that it is imposed by current economic circumstances rather than on strings from a greater political power.”
Seriously? Come on now that’s nonsense. Restricting budgets are simply political choices. Evonomic circumstances impose nothing
John – I agree that Labour government at Westminster has much more flexibility and power over economic policy than Holyrood (a major reason for supporting independence) although I am personally disappointed by timidity of Holyrood in wealth redistribution.
Rachel Reeves has put on a self imposed straitjacket due to pledges in run up to election and does have choices about taxing wealth as opposed to cutting welfare spending.
There are a couple of other facts that do in reality restrain her options:
1)Debt level which is higher in UK than many other countries.
2)The bond markets which hold ran enormous (far too much) power over governments. This was demonstrated by their response to Truss budget and I am pretty sure they would react similarly to a Labour chancellor trying to implement an economically left wing radical budget.
I am not happy about these facts and wish they were not true but it is in part the outcome of 45 years of neoliberal economic policy in UK. Having said that this does not defend her cutting welfare while leaving the richest in society almost untouched. In short she can do more but is limited by external factors.
Holyrood has had long enough to achieve more than marginal improvements. Much of Scotland’s social infrastructure has deteriorated. Inadequacies in schooling, health care and the justice system are just the most glaring. At the heart of these failures is a culture of complacency which starts with the SNP but spreads far further. Scotland has mostly ‘worked’ for the middle class since devolution. Even this success is clearly fraying, most noticeably with health care.
I did not say that ‘all politicians are incompetent’ but the calibre of people reaching the top in Scottish politics – and far beyond – is a huge cause for concern. Going on about ‘populist bullshit’ gets us nowhere.
As does posting the sweeping generalisation that everything is shite. It just makes you sound like a grumpy old man mumbling into his pint at the end of the bar.
You may be on to something there, John.
I am happy to have my comment – and your response – side by side, so that everyone and anyone can reach their own conclusions.
I am happy to have your responses alongside the comments of Chief Executive of Save the Children who has highlighted that the Scottish Government’s policy to counter child poverty including the additional child payment for low income families is having a positive effect in reducing child poverty in Scotland in comparison to the rest of the Uk.
Cuts in PIP are bad enough. Justifying them on moral grounds, as some Labour politicians have done, is unconscionable, and is reminiscent of Victorian attitudes to poverty.