Behind what did seem like a tough-it-out push-back (backtracked when faced with the interpretation that Labour would rather have the Tories in power than deal in any way with the SNP) there was a more telling point. The differences between the parties mentioned were Trident and austerity. On the latter the message was clear. Labour fundamentally disagrees with the SNP on austerity.
Economists, Paul Krugman, for example, (see the Austerity Delusion in the Guardian) are already saying the harsh deficit reduction strategy has fallen our of political fashion. It’s bad for growth and prolongs stagnation in the economy. An anti-austerity position is a legitimate fiscal approach. Labour clearly remain thirled to the same old challenged economic doctrine. As party of the left, working people and the poor (supposedly), I’d expect them to seize on alternatives to austerity and pursue them. But no. They’re as intransigent as the Tories. Either because their ideologies have, in fact, merged or because they’re just too dogmantic to change.
So Ed Miliband has, cut himself and Labour loose from Scotland. His firm stance is actually two things in one: a pitch to English voters who have been media-ed into fear of an SNP agenda and an attempt to scare any Scottish Labour defectors that an SNP vote won’t deliver Labour nationally. The first may work to an extent, although I’ve seen tweets and posts showing English Labour voters saying, on the strength of last night, not any more. On the second, I still don’t think Labour get it.
Scots want a distinct Scottish voice in Westminster, not about independence, but about Scotland in the UK. Labour betrayed its constituency here in how it stood beside the Tories over independence. The task now should have been to win back trust but their campaign simply continued the fear rhetoric, never let up about the referendum and attached an ‘SNP bad’ tag line on everything to the exclusion of clear policy.
I wondered, what would it have taken for Labour to have found a mature political way to deal with the SNP’s rise? I fantasised, maybe a simple recognition that there’s common ground on some issues. On fundamental political principles there surely is. Why not simply acknowledge the key differences, the red lines if you like? Trident on the SNP side, the mechanics of debt reduction and fiscal autonomy on the other: mature parties accepting their areas for accommodation while pursuing a socially-just, shared agenda.
I could hear lines like: we can work with the SNP. We differ on some issues but I’d want to persuade them to modify their approach for the sake of progress. Or on independence. If we work together, we’d like to think, we can show the SNP how our strong voices in the Union might achieve what we all want. We’d try to demonstrate independence isn’t a necessity…
No such words from Labour. Yet how hard could it be to modify the mantra? From the SNP, I hear much more openness, an openness which is treated with derision. It seems you can’t leave room to accommodate future developments, to negotiate and adjust to the partnerships they demand. Maybe that’s the difference. Labour and the Tories, all the main Westminster parties don’t understand co-operative politics. They don’t seem how to be clearly and firmly different but to choose to work with others nevertheless. That was misunderstood in the referendum debate and is misunderstood now.
As a relief from watching Ed being tough and reading tweet and counter-tweet on what it all meant, I caught up on Sally Magnusson interviewing Jim Murphy. This what I teased out there.
Murphy reiterated Labour’s unwillingness to work with the SNP and how that could allow the Tories to remaining in power. When pressed he said, ‘of course we’d work with the SNP. But it would be from the back benches in opposition.’
I could only gape. In the event, when the Tories’ Queen’s Speech comes before Parliament, would Labour back it? I mean, when the SNP vote against it, shouldn’t Labour do likewise so the Tories can’t command a majority. A second election would follow, or else another party (such as Labour) or another group of parties would bid to form a government with a working majority.
To even hint Labour and SNP in opposition mightn’t vote together on this must mean Labour have contemplated voting with the Tories or abstaining en masse.
Either that or is there a secret coalition of austerity parties in the wings. Imagine that: a Labour-Tory coalition. Trouble is it’s not as unthinkable as it used to be. The seas would all run dry first. But then, if there’s a tsunami coming… You know what that means.
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