This is the second of a series of articles on ‘Refounding Labour’ – the consultation process led by Peter Hain. Contribute here.

Many years back during Thatcher’s reign I made myself unpopular in Labour circles by remarking that were I living in Scotland I would probably be voting for the SNP. Now the future of Scotland’s governance looks set to be a major issue for UK politics in the years ahead. It is in Labour’s interests in England and Wales as much as in Scotland to make the uncomfortable decisions now. Though the future of Scotland is a matter for the Scottish people, decisions over Labour’s legitimacy in Scotland will require some common sense in England.  

The result of the Scottish General Election on May 5 brought into sharp focus a choice that Labour has ducked since the Scottish Parliament was re-established during Tony Blair’s first term. The devolution settlement left unresolved the position of Scottish MPs voting on legislation for England and Wales. It left unresolved the question of how Labour in Scotland related to Labour in England and Wales. Labour’s structures barely changed and the relationship with the UK Party was unaltered in substance. This was all OK because Labour was winning, or so it seemed, however it was painfully short sighted.

One of the biggest mistakes made during Labour’s first term was the meddling with local/devolved selections and leadership decisions. The problem didn’t start with devolution – Labour has always had a problem with the loyalties of ‘local’ politicians (whatever level of ‘local’ we are talking about).  The idea that the first loyalty of a politician elected in whatever ward/town/country is to the electorate of that ward/town/country as opposed to the Party interest has been anathema to the Labour machine. The electorate would seem to have a different view. It is hardly a uniquely Scottish response to ‘top-down’ politics – the London electorate liked these shenanigans no more than that of Falkirk East, sending a similar message.

While the iron rule of political strategy in the US and many other countries is that all politics is local exactly the converse is practiced by UK Labour. It should have been clear to any half-decent political strategist that devolved Governments necessitated a break with this and that in turn required long term changes to Party structures and methods. This was and is so because the starting point of any attack strategy from Labour’s opposition in Scotland would be to paint Labour in Scotland as run by and from London. The easiest way to make sure that doesn’t work is to make sure that it isn’t true. The point was completely missed.  

Instead Labour seems to have stood still while the political landscape was evolving. While it would seem clear from a distance that the action on the issues over which politicians can have most influence – health, education, local government, transport and so on – was at Holyrood, Labour’s most prominent Scottish politicians, with the exception of Donald Dewer, chose to stay at Westminster. A lot of individual career decisions adding up to a lousy collective political judgement – whatever the merits of those first Labour MSPs the message was that, as far as the ‘big beasts’ of Labour politics were concerned, Holyrood was second best.

That was then. Where are we now?

A Scottish friend of independent politics said to me a couple of years back, “You can’t imagine how Labour seems up here – it’s so London centric. I don’t know how Scottish Labour people put up with it – it must make them sick”. I told him that Labour’s London centricity makes us sick in Reading and we are only 35 miles away!

The Refounding Labour consultation document, written and issued mid-campaign (there were no elections in London this year!) before the results of the Scottish vote, gets round to a cursory mention of Scotland and Wales on page 19 or 23 (under National Party Structures – here ‘national’ means ‘UK’):

“despite devolution to Wales and Scotland which Labour delivered, our Party structure has not adjusted. Is there a case for direct Welsh and Scots (sic.) representation on the National Executive Committee? Are any other reforms needed in the NEC?”

Dear God, do they really think it’s that simple?

Labour is in a hole in Scotland that can only get deeper while it clings to the old structures. I don’t pretend to know the right policy approach for Labour in Scotland, but it is self-evident that the answers have to be Scottish. Whatever the future of the UK the time has now come for Labour in Scotland and the Party in England and Wales to divorce amicably.

Sister parties with separate leaderships and governance would allow a number of necessary developments: Labour in Scotland can have the space to re-invent, to focus on Scottish solutions and to define itself logically and democratically on the future of Scottish governance. If it is to argue for continued union (and I repeat that it is not my business to say one way or the other) it can do so from a positive, Scottish standpoint. If it is to move to a pro-independence position from a social democratic perspective it becomes free to do so. Labour in England and Wales can look toward future possibilities in the knowledge that it cannot take a block of Westminster votes from Scottish MPs for granted and, perhaps, get ahead of the game in defining a future neighbourly relationship.

And this, to some extent is UK Labour’s big problem. The Scottish ‘block vote’ is seen cynically by southern English Labour as essential to holding power in the UK Parliament – in fact it is often expressed as such – “Labour cannot win in England without the Scots”.  This is not only woeful politics, but history shows it’s plain wrong. Firstly, Labour’s ‘dominance’ in Scotland (made considerably easier by ‘first past the post’) was a relatively recent phenomenon catalysed by  a reaction to perceptions of the Thatcher administration, prior to which Labour was the largest party in Scotland but not overwhelmingly so. Secondly, in 1997, 2001 and 2005 Labour held an overall majority of English seats at Westminster. There is no reason why is cannot do so again, what it cannot do is win in England without significant representation south of the line from Bristol to The Wash (half of the country). Down here Labour is often seen as a party of the “Celtic fringe” and the “Grim North” – that hardly helps Labour to win in Stevenage, Swindon or Sittingbourne (and, brothers and sisters north of Watford, it needs these places).   

In any case it would be downright daft for Labour’s Westminster leadership to take its ‘Scottish block vote’ for granted by assuming that the Scottish General Election result would not be repeated at a future UK General Election. It hasn’t happened that way yet, but the potential for mishandling of events by Westminster politicians is massive (witness the laughable statements of Michael Moore – who is, apparently Secretary of State for Scotland and MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and not a podgy American lefty film director in a baseball cap) and there is no guarantee that things will simply swing back.

13 years after Labour at Westminster passed the devolution legislation; Labour in England is still in denial about what it actually means.

Note: There are lessons in this for Labour’s local government organisations and their relationships with UK Labour, mainly that one size does not fit all. More on that elsewhere. On the Scottish question there is much more that I would like to explore, particularly how it is viewed by natives of south east England, unrelated to Labour’s position. Both of these areas are for further exploration another time.