How Scotland could add to Ed Miliband’s troubles
Liam Byrne just said you need a leader who should have “a couple of years into any leadership of the opposition” to establish himself.
That gives Ed Miliband until September 2012 to make some impact or connection with the voters…or else. That’s certainly how things will be interpreted.
One thing keeps getting missed in all the chat about Labour’s plight. Scotland.
If Alex Salmond gets his way, Scotland could have a referendum at the end of this current term in Holyrood and it could result in Scotland going for a heightened form of devolution – “devolution max” or “devo max” as it’s being called.
So many powers would’ve been transferred to Scotland that the case for whipping away powers over English politics from Scottish MPs would be “unarguable”, one senior Labour source worries. What would that mean for Labour’s chances of forming a majority government in Westminster in the future? “Curtains”, was the word used to me.
There is a race against the clock and against Alex Salmond for Scottish Labour and Labour as a whole…but little by way of high calibre leadership in Edinburgh to take on the big fellah. Some around Ed Miliband occasionally talk about trying to propel Jim Murphy into Edinburgh to get a big hitter up there taking on this vital battle.
Jim Murphy, it’s worth remembering, was David Miliband’s campaign manager, so he might feel as though something else is going on here and feel less than enticed by the proposal.
There are 22 comments on this post
Is that all we here in Scotland are, just a potential thorn in Ed’s side? Sadly, yes, that’s probably how most in the Westminster bubble view us, as an incidental to the ‘political mainstream’. That’s just another reason why a majority of us voted for Alex Salmond and the SNP at the last election, because we want a referendum, because we want to be more than just a piece in Labour’s Westminster jigsaw. Labour cares about Scotland for its own sake, not for the sake of Scots. Labour MPs in Scotland (the Feeble 50) do nothing for Scotland, never have done, and most likely never will. Scotland, and England too, would be better off without them.
Labour had a landslide victory in the 2010 general election. The SNP went into that election with 6 MPs and came out with 6 MPs. After four years of SNP rule in Holyrood that was a thrashing in anybody’s language and certainly no mandate for a referendum.
On that basis alone we in England should also have a referendum on independence. We should certainly have one on an English parliament.
I agree with your assertions about England being better off without Labour. Sadly, there is not a single party with MPs at Westminster that cares about England.
“If Alex Salmond gets his way, Scotland could have a referendum at the end of this current term in Holyrood and it could result in Scotland going for a heightened form of devolution – “devolution max” or “devo max” as it’s being called.”
There’s no ‘getting his way’ about it. He has a democratic mandate from the Scottish electorate to hold a referendum, which will also include, as you bizarrely failed to mention, Independence.
The future self determination of Scotland is a damn sight more important than the internal squabbles of a London-centric party that has long failed to place any importance in Scotland, other than as a cash cow from which to greedily suck from.
Mark. Agree he has a mandate. Agree Scotland should have independence. But to suggest that Scotland is a cash cow for England is risible. Scotland costs us a fortune through welfare and public employment dependancy. The English are over 70% in favour of independence in polls.
@NeilMc
“Scotland costs us a fortune through welfare and public employment dependancy. The English are over 70% in favour of independence in polls.”
Hi neil. I think you’ll find we’ve contributed far more than our fair share to Wasteminster than is promulgated by the Unions favoured press.
What I find most interesting is the fact that Labour is toast without Scotland. Permanent Conservative Govt? Never mind Scotland wanting it to go it alone, I can see the North of England wanting to do likewise!
An English parliament (either in a federal ‘United’ Kingdom or as an independent state) permanently or near-permanently ruled by a Conservative government? I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Blair’s Anglophobic racist thugs engineered the Scottish parliament with the arrogant assumption that they would always have the biggest block of seats in Holyrood, but look at it now. It’s worth remembering that Cameron is no friend of England (he called us all ‘sour little Englanders’), so there’s no guarantee against his stock falling in England. The party most likely to gain a foothold in an English parliament, if it happens, is the first mainstream party to speak of, to and for England, and to act for England (ALL of England), but I’m not going to wait here holding my breath.
Can – you – really?
I live in the north of England and most of us want to be free of Scotland so the money doesn’t keep flowing northwards out of England.
Labour split the voice of the north of England into north west and north east regions despite fierce opposition. Leaving the north of England united would have highlighted the real north-south divide, the Anglo-Scottish border. That would never do for Labour’s Scottish cabal of Blair, Brown, Reid, Robertson, Alexander, Browne etc etc.
Standards of living in the north of England will increase dramatically once England is independent and we living here know that.
One of the myriads of Scottish self-deceiving myths is that they believe we in the north of England have more in common with Scots than the folk in the south of England. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I wonder if the Shetlands would like to go it alone? Maybe so, with all that oil.
Ed Miliband is highly disliked in Scotland.
The Scots aren’t the only ones. We’re none too crazy about him in England.
Who’s Ed Miliband?
with ed miliband attempting to attack cameron from the right i can’t see any solution to the loss of scotland
That’s all the Celtic fringe causes – trouble. Time to cut ‘em adrift. They’ve been holding England back for centuries.
Why should England be made to wait 4 years for the Scots to make up their minds whether they want to be in a union with us or not? What’s so special about 5 million Scots that they can cause such a destabilising constitutional matter to last for years? That’s no way to run a country. Time to let the English have their say – for the first time – and find that Scots won’t need a referendum. They’d be gone and England wouldn’t notice, apart from the number of Scottish accents currently choking the airwaves being drastically reduced.
Unlike English nationalism, as demonstrated by Stephen above, Scottish Nationalism has nothing to do with racism – it’s about making Scotland better for everyone living here, no matter their ethnicity or accent.
More Scottish self-delusion. Scottish nationalism is founded on anti-English racism. From “Anywhere but England” T-shirts, to students only from England paying full tuition fees in Scotland.
We are the only people to be left out of the home-rule debate and decision-making, yet we are supposed not to get vexed about it. Instead we are branded “racist” for saying a few home truths.
Scots never have a good word to say about the English, but constantly define themselves against the English, invariably comparing themselves favourably. Of course, that isn’t racism is it? Tell me. Is there anything good the English are better at than the Scots?
It’s difficult to see why Scottish (and Welsh & N Irish) MPs should have any say at all over English domestic policy now let alone if ‘devo-max’ follows in Scotland. The Labour party’s attempt to engineer devolution in Scotland to its advantage has backfired. Its attempt to engineer English ‘devolution’ by way of elected regional assembles was emphatically rejected in 2004.Meanwhile, the Labour party has ignored the ‘white working class’ in England,once said to be its ‘natural constituency’, Maybe it’s time that the party dropped its fixation with Scotland and brought forward some honest democratic constitutional reforms to allow the people of England a national focus through their own Parliament – there are votes in this if the party wants them, provided it is not once again engineered dishonestly.
The case against taking away the powers of Scots MPs over English politics has been unarguable since 1998, but that hasn’t prevented them from being retained.
Alex Salmond has a mandate to hold a referendum on independence and few would argue that, if he wins, Scotland should not have it. Devolution Max, however is another matter. Salmond has no mandate for it and the Scots have no unilateral right to it just because they vote for it. The terms under which Scotland remains in the United Kingdom, if that is what it wants, are a matter for the whole of the United Kingdom.
It should be made clear to the Scottish people now that devolution max is not on offer. They must make up their minds to go, or make up their minds to stay, not try to have their cake and eat it, at the expense of the rest of us.
As to Scotland being a cash cow for the UK, as one of the above comments asserts, it has been almost thirty years since Scotland paid more in taxes than it received in expenditure, even when oil revenue is taken into account. The debate on independence for Scotland takes place almost exclusively as a matter of economics, not gut loyalty. It is the Unionists who have got their…
Any chance of my reply to Rolf appearing please? I think if I’m being called a racist I should be able to respond.
Thanks
@ Stephen Gash.
I used to think that Scotland in the united kingdom was for the good of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. However in the past year or so i have begun to change my view on that. I for one as i’m sure quite a lot of other scots are sick and fed up with all the English resentment towards Scotland being a benefit horde when that is not the case.
I have quite a few English friends with the same attitude as you and i remember once talking about this very same subject with them and all i could do was grit my teeth in anger as it did not matter what i said i was clearly wrong. Its this sort of talk that makes me want to vote for independance and get rid of negitive talking people like you.
@Stephen Gash
I know that the United Kingdom is bust when I sit in my local pub, owned by a chap from Essex, in my own corner of Scotland and listen to the braying of some of the affluent migrants from England(who make up nearly 21% of my regions population) and have to listen to them make derogatory comments about people of all non-white ethnicity throughout the UK. I’ve since learned that to comment in the interests of fairness, leads to almost visceral levels of hatred about the Scots.
@James Mathews, I suggest you look at the official GERS reports, the last one which showed Scotland in surplus to the tune of £1.3billion and that without our natural share of oil and gas income.
The people of England want Scotland to go independent, the UK is over anyway due to the 1997/8 Act of Discrimination (devolution) it created inequality, it’s undemocratic unfair and tilted in Scotlands favour. The riots in England are as a result of this.
Thank you Mark MacLachlan:
I would suggest to you that ninety percent of the folks in England really believe that they are subsidizing Scotland when in fact it is the other way around. Please, please Stephen Gash check the GER’s (I believe that is what they are called.) I am not in the U.K. but have followed much of what Mark says. He is right.