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There is only one coherent solution to Scottish Labour’s problems

Oct 27

Posted by James in Holyrood, Parties, Westminster | 1 Comment

jpegPrior to Johann Lamont’s doomed leadership, there was no leader of Scottish Labour, just a Leader Of Labour In the Scottish Parliament, a mere LOLITSP. Iain Gray, a much better politician than he ever gave the impression of in that role, wasn’t the formal leader of the Scottish Labour MPs: that was still run through Westminster. And it showed.

Labour’s priority, as everyone has been observing ad nauseam, has remained on Westminster throughout, with Holyrood mistakenly regarded as a stepping stone to winning UK general elections, or in some cases, at an individual level, to a Westminster seat.

Scottish Labour MPs regarded their MSP colleagues with utter disdain, and the feeling was (with more justification) mutual. But the 2011 changes were meant to resolve that. From that point on, Johann Lamont was formally the leader of the Scottish MPs. Except Ed Miliband was her leader. And selection for Labour MPs remained with the UK party, as did their loyalty. All that had changed was a formality, a line on an organisational chart. The previous situation, although broken and in need of reform, was at least more honest.

It’s clearly not working. And giving Lamont’s successor some nebulous “more powers” over the Scottish party (sound familiar?) won’t help either. There is only one structural solution within which Scottish Labour could flourish, and, ironically, it’s closer to independence than federalism. A true Scottish Labour Party, with links to rUK Labour more akin to the partnership in Germany between the CDU and the CSU: both part of whatever the centrist ex-socialist European grouping calls itself nowadays, but closer than Labour are to the SPD or the French PS. All policy, selection, fundraising, expenditure – the lot – run in Scotland.

It’d allow a coherent set of policies to be constructed in Scotland for Scotland, perhaps an inch or two to the left of rUK Labour. It’d end the back-stabbing and sniping which have gone on since Dewar died, or at least limit it. The leader would be in Holyrood, but the group leader at Westminster would be a key role too – perhaps the deputy, until Scottish independence. If rUK Labour need Scottish Labour MPs to make a majority (or even if they don’t – up to them) they could work together just like the CDU and CSU do in Germany. Scottish Labour MPs could still serve in a UK administration. If the talent sent down was exceptional, which may be hard to imagine when you look at Brian Donohoe or Ian Davidson, maybe one amongst them could still be a good choice for a Labour PM. There might sometimes be a need for a little policy compromise if the two parties set different courses, but that’s manageable. Possibly even constructive.

The alternative is more of the same. It’s not just the Sunday Herald gloating about the party’s travails: even this weekend’s Sunday Mail editorial said it was time for change or “hell mend Labour”. In a way, of course, it’s none of my business, although this isn’t intended unhelpfully. I’ve not identified as a Labour voter since about 1992. One part of me thinks they can’t be saved, and (given the continued power of Blairism and Blairites) isn’t upset about that – but another wants to see Labour get its act back together and provide a proper opposition to the SNP. If Labour want to do that, they should be listening to Andrew McFadyen, not falling for John McTernan’s complacency. That way lies the wasteland, or even the graveyard.

The wrong kind of policy on the lines

Oct 22

Posted by James in Transport | 3 Comments

tubepackedThe weekend before last, to my surprise, the Scottish Greens’ conference rejected a motion calling for free public transport. I don’t know why conference opposed it, but I know why I did, and why I spoke against. Here’s the motion:

We will make a phased introduction of free public transport as finance becomes available. Through both local and national schemes, we will make bus, train, tram, underground and foot-ferry services fare-free, with free bus services the first priority.

I had been pretty anxious about this vote. Everyone at a Green conference loves public transport, and everyone wants to see it displace car and plane travel in particular. But this approach would be thoroughly flawed, and would undermine the existing public transport network while missing opportunities to tackle inequalities.

The first and most obvious problem is the money. Fares on our current transport network bring in a substantial sum of money to contribute to its costs. In 2010-11, bus, train and ferry tickets in Scotland brought in around £750m. I was advised after the meeting that the most recent figures are actually over a billion pounds. That’s equivalent to around half Transport Scotland’s budget, and yes, I’m aware that a lot of that is wasted on vanity roads schemes like the additional Forth Crossing.

A billion pounds, though, is also four times the cost of building Glasgow Crossrail and reopening Edinburgh’s South Suburban railway. Every year. To call for the expansion of the public transport network, as we do, and then to make it all free? Apologies to the comrades, but that’s SSP economics, i.e. uncosted and un-thought-through handwaving. There’s no point even aiming for something if you can’t work out whether you could ever get there.

The second problem is usage. Imagine how busy our buses and trains would become if they were free for all. These networks are creaking already. The preamble to the motion talked about a town in Belgium (note, not an intercity network or one that covers vast rural areas) which saw a 1,300% increase in usage when it made public transport free. I pretty regularly take Scotland’s busiest rail journey: Edinburgh to Glasgow Queen Street. It’s regularly full to bursting, even with four trains an hour at the busiest times. I can’t even imagine what it would look like if it were thirteen times more full, especially without thirteen times the ticket revenue to support expansion. Sure, there are four routes between the two cities, and the others can be less busy, but even so, it just doesn’t add up. To make sufficient capacity for every person in Scotland to use trains, buses and ferries on a whim would cost billions more. Without that, the result would be a miserable and virtually unusable service, one that would cost almost incalculably more, and one where the better off would tend to retreat to their cars. And this plan would use vastly more energy and other resources: a nation constantly on the go on a whim, jammed into continuous trains and buses isn’t a vision of the green future I want to see.

I’m all for radical shifts in spending, mind. But if we want to spend more money on public transport, and I do, that wouldn’t be my preference. It wouldn’t even feature at any point before we have cracked resource depletion, energy costs, and social inequality. Why should we be making it cheaper to get a bus than it is to get on a bike? Counting shoe-leather, this would make a bus cheaper than walking: and those two ways of getting about, for those who can, should be the top priority. Let’s spend some of this same money on proper bike networks and support for much wider active travel.

Let’s also invest more in all forms of public transport instead. Buses get neglected: let’s re-regulate them, and work towards bringing them back in-house (trains too). Let’s subsidise those rural routes even further. Let’s gradually reopen rail lines (one of the modest transport success stories of devolution). Let’s expand the network, not make the current limited system unusable.

And yes, let’s cap fares or reduce them if we can. But before that we should be looking to waive fares for more people. We already have free travel for pensioners: let’s not give a subsidy to companies sending their employees to meetings or tourists heading to the Highlands. We could instead extend that free travel to those on benefits, those earning the minimum wage, those in education, carers – any number of groups for whom this would make a real difference. It’s not like the NHS or education – I don’t think infinite travel for work and leisure should be subsidised for the better off, whereas I do think everyone should be treated for free and educated for free irrespective of income. But imagine if those currently on the wrong end of austerity didn’t have to pay to get to job interviews or the job centre, if they could take their family away to somewhere nice with a beach for nothing of a weekend, or if they could visit friends elsewhere in the country with ease. It’d be transformative. I’d still be paying to go pitch my company’s wares to organisations in Glasgow, too: and rightly so.

Expanding the network, supporting active travel, and ending fares for those for whom it would make a real difference: that would fuse our social justice and sustainability objectives. Pipedreams about free transport are superficially appealing, but would in practice push the wrong way on both those objectives.

Join the conversation

Oct 14

Posted by Guest Blog in Parties | 3 Comments

A guest post today from Andrew McFadyen on the future of the Labour Party: here’s the Labour for Scotland statement. 

lfsSeptember 18th was a misty, murky morning in Edinburgh. Beneath the haar that rolled in from the Firth of Forth something extraordinary was happening.

People came out to vote in unprecedented numbers to decide on Scotland’s future. In some districts, turnout topped 90 per cent. Many who hadn’t taken part in any election for years felt energised and engaged.

The result confirmed Scotland’s place in the UK, but some of the areas with the deepest connection to the Labour movement voted Yes. In Glasgow, every single constituency produced a majority for an independent Scotland.

At its simplest, those people who looked out their windows and didn’t like what they saw voted Yes. Those 1.6 million votes should be heard as a deafening call for change in the way that politics is done in Scotland.

When the people shouting loudest are those who have traditionally looked to Labour to speak for them, the party must respond.

This matters to me because the Labour Party has been one of the longest and most important relationships in my life.

As a boy, my brother and I were packed off every summer to our grandparents in Kilmarnock. We spent our days playing football in the grounds of the Grange Academy. In the evenings my grandpa would talk about politics.

He described to me how the 1945 Labour Government was the best the country had ever had and spoke about Nye Bevan, the Welsh coal miner who founded the NHS, as if he had known him personally.

When I went up to Glasgow University, to study history, I signed up to join the Labour Club during Freshers’ Week. My next four years were spent marching against fascism and campaigning for student grants.

Twenty years on, I am a bit older and wiser but Labour is still my party.

That’s why I got involved with Labour for Scotland’s initiative to hold an open meeting at Strathclyde University, on October 18th, at which Labour members and supporters can discuss what happens next.

I believe that Labour’s distinctive contribution to the political debate in Scotland must be as a force for socialist and progressive policies.

Now that the referendum is over, we should admit that spending the past two years running a joint campaign with the Conservatives has done real damage to Labour’s reputation in its heartlands.

You can’t talk credibly about solidarity when you are sharing a platform with the people responsible for the Bedroom Tax. The values that motivate your politics are a far more important dividing line than whether you are Yes or No.

It is time to surprise people with imagination and ambition. Labour needs to set out a vision for how home rule in the 21st century will shift power, not just across borders, but from the elites into the hands of working people.

A more democratic Scotland must be a way of achieving a more equal Scotland.

I would like to see Labour’s next manifesto containing commitments to make the minimum wage in Scotland a living wage, to give communities a far greater say over issues that affect them, such as school closures, and to put railways into public ownership.

But this is just my view. The most important thing is that we start a conversation from the grassroots upwards.

This debate should include how we democratise the Labour Party itself. For example, is there a case for directly electing members of the Shadow Cabinet at Holyrood? This would make party spokespersons far more accountable for policy decisions.

Labour for Scotland is not offering a plan, or a blueprint, about how Labour should respond to the referendum, but we want to talk. Come along on Saturday and tell us what you think.

This is England

Oct 12

Posted by Dom in Democracy, Equality, Europe, Parties | Comments off

burford

Those who squeezed in to the Scottish Green conference this weekend were greeted by thought-provoking image on the front of their delegate packs – an inverted map of the UK with Scotland in the middle nestling comfortably between Norway and Ireland, England fading into the distance.

In England though Scotland is as peripheral as ever. On a Saturday afternoon in rural Oxfordshire people mill about the bus stops and market in Witney, the nominal home of the Prime Minister. This is small town English life as the modern Tories envisage it. Pavement cafes and bistros line the high street, itself furnished with ample parking. Witney is a bus ride from Oxford, and functions as a jumping off point for even quainter Cotswold towns and villages.
A few miles away, just down the road from the RAF base at Brize Norton, sits the town of Burford. Its long street of pubs and restaurants is straight out of the Visit Britain adverts plastered on the white walls of airports across the globe.

The town hall has a noticeboard outside listing all the goings on, a public letter of support about the maintenance of rural bus services in West Oxfordshire taking centre stage among the bulletins. There’s no appeal for food bank donations or invitations to public meetings though. The various crises and pressures hitting contemporary Britain from both left and right are well beyond being felt here. Burford is the final navigable point on the Thames, and it feels a very long way from London.

In the local deli, a phenomenon quickly replacing the dying village shop in places like Burford across the South, a woman is giving out samples of locally grown organic fruit liqueur. “I’m guessing you’re not local” she says, pushing over a thumbfull of red liquid. “It’s very nice here, even if it is a bit Midsomer Murders sometimes.”
Stepping outside on the street it is obvious she is right. This is not the kind of place that needs to put up Union Jacks. Its Englishness is written into the buildings, as is its wealth.

A taxi driver who ferries people from village to village, a British-Asian called Abdul, puts it succinctly. “I mostly just do station runs or take non locals to weddings. Almost everyone here has a car.”

At a local wedding venue you can hear the transport aircraft whine as they race up the runway at Brize Norton, headed for Afghanistan, the Falklands and perhaps now Syria too. Inside a Ceilidh band is starting up and a mixed crowd of nervous home counties partyers peppered with a few Scots nervously practice the dances the band want them to play. The Scots, kilted-up and playing their part, lead everyone else as the good whisky is uncorked on the sidelines. This is the only manifestation of Scotland that could possibly work in this part of the country, detached as it is from the reality of the England outside too.

The following morning the TV at the local pub broadcasts a silent Andrew Marr as guests tuck into their full English breakfasts. The UKIP election victory in Essex is comparable to the shockwave the SNP have created in Scotland, he says. In Burford and Witney though it is very easy to forget what is going on, chillax and eat your cereal.

The Two Faces of Democracy

Oct 8

Posted by Guest Blog in Constitution, Democracy | Comments off

Today’s guest post is from Duncan Thorp, who’s previously written for us about social enterprise and hate in politics. Thanks Duncan!

12978395593_3fbf45b646_mWe’re living in exciting times, Scotland has changed for the better. Nothing’s changed but everything’s changed. The referendum has been recognised by most people as an exercise in peaceful democracy. It’s true.

In terms of the vote itself, the huge level of popular participation and the technical and legal agreements, it was incredible.

97% of the voting population registered to vote. 16 and 17 year olds enfranchised for the first time, an 85% turnout. A true Scotland-wide debate. More information, slogans and facts flowing like never before. All this over an extended timeframe, far longer than any election.

We should genuinely celebrate this achievement. Only with historical perspective will future generations understand how powerful it was, an independence movement without bloodshed is virtually unheard of. A few bad eggs are as serious as it got.

But there’s another side to this exercise in direct democracy. The environment of the wider society that it took part in was very much anti-democratic. The dominant state narrative of Britishness is ever-present in every aspect of our lives. In this context it’s nothing less than a miracle that 45% of those voting wanted independence.

Much of the mainstream corporate media was of course a blatant case of misinformation, bog standard bias or agitprop. Years of daily, unrelenting, anti-independence news from nearly 100% of the print media can’t be dismissed. Broadcasters often struggled with their values and biases in favour of the status quo. Any media “neutrality” simply means that a story includes views from both sides – it doesn’t cover the decisions to include/exclude certain stories in the first place.

Similarly, large corporations making even vague anti-independence statements, while wielding huge economic power over jobs and investment, were leapt on by the mainstream media. The very fact of the unequal economic power balance in favour of big business meant that any potential relocation was a huge threat (genuine or not).

Indeed without straying into silly conspiracy theory territory, it would be naïve to suggest that HM Government and all the apparatus of the British state, were not deployed (under the radar) to save the state itself in its most critical moment of need. Would you lie back and allow your own power to be fragmented and taken away?

It’s also perplexing that the British nationalists of the far-right were absent until after the votes were counted. It was upsetting to see a mob performing Nazi salutes, singing Rule Britannia and burning a Saltire in George Square, Glasgow. They clearly didn’t get the memo about the “war against nationalism”. Where were they in exercising their democratic rights during the campaign?

It’s certainly unfair to suggest that every no voter was simply fooled or voted out of fear. Some were emotionally dependent on the British narrative and some were basically happy with the way the UK had turned out. Many people voted no because they didn’t think that the economic case had been made. They just disagreed with the other side. Acceptance of the referendum result is vital; we can identify flaws while still abiding by it. It’s all relative. We must move on. But getting back in the box is not an alternative. “One Scotland” unity, while well-meaning, is easily abused. Orwell’s Unity is Strength springs immediately to mind because unity is often a code word for compliance and conformity. There’s no place for eat your cereal politics.

There is only wisdom in crowds, not in elite decision-making. The huge participation wasn’t simply because of the subject, it was because we, the people, were making the actual decision ourselves. Unlike in elections, we were not voting to choose other people to make decisions for us. One of saddest things I read on 19 September was Happy Dependence Day, a slogan but also a defiant recognition of the need for autonomy.

We’ve been too conservative in using the powers that The Scottish Parliament already has. By using current and newly devolved powers a real difference can be made. From the missing link of radical devolution to local communities, land reform, community energy and building our own community organisations to real public sector reform. We need creativity and commitment. We also need to drive forward social media and democratic, inclusive, unbiased media. We don’t need alternative media that just reinforces our own views without challenge.

There are many incredible people-led movements across the world and there’s also a wider war against democracy. We should be aware of these many campaigns against elite, minority rule and for direct people power. It’s only with mass and persistent action that fundamental change happens.

While the UK state infrastructure remains powerful, the unionist campaign was temporary. The Indy infrastructure is now thriving. Energised, motivated and determined, they’re going nowhere. Much of this has thankfully gone beyond narrow nationalism and indeed beyond narrow independence. It’s not about the 45%, it’s about the 100%. We now need this to be a democracy movement.

But forget the challenges, the truth is self-evident. Autonomy and authentic, direct democracy is addictive. One taste and people want more. This vote was important but it was just one step as part of an ongoing journey.