Labour in Scotland.

[Sam Slater]

Just been talking to an old poster on here, who's Scottish, and he's telling me that Labour is finished in Scotland.....both amongst the 'Yes' and 'No' voters.

What do you all think and what does it mean for the Labour party in the long term? Miliband has promised for funding for Wales if they win the next GE too. Given the same promise has been made for Scotland, who's going to lose out to give all this extra funding?

If the result on Thursday is a narrow 'No' as polls suggest, I can see this thing happening all over again in a few years time. The Scottish nationalists will keep trying until they get the result they need and it won't do anyone any good either side of the border.

Maybe the best result is a 'Yes'. The only downside I saw was the possibility of more Tory rule if Scotland leaves, but if Labour is finished up there anyway......well, what's the point? Labour may as well cut their losses and focus on getting more seats in the rest of the UK.

[David Johnson]

"and he's telling me that Labour is finished in Scotland.....both amongst the 'Yes' and 'No' voters."

I think you will need more than one or two elections before you can come conclusively to that conclusion. Yes, Labour did badly in the 2010 Westminster and 2011 Scottish Assembly elections. However that was after the worst recession this country has had since the 1930s so the results were predictable

I remember during the Thatcher years when Labour were riven with internal dissent, there was similar talk about Labour being finished.

"What do you all think and what does it mean for the Labour party in the long term?"

I think that it has given the party a good shake which it needed. Labour has taken Scotland for granted for a number of years in terms of Labour votes and MPs.

"Given the same promise has been made for Scotland, who's going to lose out to give all this extra funding?"

England I would guess. However, the details of the "devo max" or whatever it is being called by the three Westminster party leaders has yet to be confirmed as far as I am aware.

"the result on Thursday is a narrow 'No' as polls suggest, I can see this thing happening all over again in a few years time. The Scottish nationalists will keep trying until they get the result they need and it won't do anyone any good either side of the border...Maybe the best result is a 'Yes'.

In a way I would like to see a Yes vote. I don't think a Yes vote would be in the best interests of the Scottish people or the remainder of the UK, but at least, provided the refusal to have a currency union is adhered to by the Westminster government , then Yes voters and Alex Salmond's SNP will be forced to be truly independent rather than to be terrified of independence in their offering to Scottish referendum voters e.g. Bank of England set Scottish interest rates and spending limits etc.

A narrow No vote will probably result in the SNP continuing to claim the Westminster government for problems in the NHS, the economy etc when Salmond already has tax raising powers, control of the NHS etc etc.

Salmond has already accepted that this is a once in a generation decision so if there is a narrow No vote it is unlikely that we will see another referendum in our lifetime.







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[number 6]

Have to say ii like the contributions of Sam Slater but the thread is a load of horseshit. In a general election Scotland always votes far more for Labour because they want the tories defeated,and that will be the case next year. SNP don't figure in general elections. If faced with a choice of a tory govt or voting SNP those diehards will always vote Labour.

[number 6]

Assuming a NO vote wins on Friday , which i think it will.

[max_tranmere]

If its 'yes' on Thursday and Milliband wins in Westminster next year, when they conclude the 18 months or so of organising the separation of Scotland from the UK, the Scots Labour MP's will be withdrawn from Westminster. This will mean Milliband's Labour government in Westminster will collapse and they'll have to be another general election for England, Wales and Northern Ireland - probably in 2016.

If what you say is correct however, and Labour is very unpopular in Scotland now, then the SNP and the Green's will pick up lots of seats next year - they will still be ruled by Westmister for about the next 12 months after the 2015 UK election, then Ed's government won't collapse, it might not even get elected at all, and we might have the coalition of Dave and Nick until 2020. However the SNP and Green MP's elected by Scotland for that 12 month period WILL be withdrawn when the separation is completed in 2016. The only way to avoid having the Scots vote in the Westminster election next year (post independence, and those MP's would sit for no longer than about 12 months), would be to hasten to separation and wrap it all up before next Spring when the Westminster election will be. And that is almost impossible.

It is all very complicated. If Labour are now very unpopular in Scotland, as you say, then it will only be the SNP and the Green lot who would be popular. It certainly can't be the Tories - as witty commentators keep telling us, there are more pandas in Edinburgh zoo (two) than there are Tory MP's north of the border. Maybe Salmond and co choose this referendum date of late-2014 to intentionally put a spanner in the works of the Westminster election which would have to follow 6 or 8 months behind it.

[Arginald Valleywater]

There is no Labour Party. The party that was made up of working class folk who cared about other working class folk is long gone. I only need to look at my local Labour councillors. Senior managers, retired management consultants, head teachers etc. One drives a nearly new Porsche and his wife a BMW convertible. None will have ever got their hands blistered doing a hard days graft. Then look at Balls etc. Oxford and Harvard...these people have no idea what it is like to be short of money, have the fear of redundancy or heavens above having to drink cheap wine.
Alan Johnson was a proper Labour politician but he is part of a rapidly dying breed.

[David Johnson]

I don't think that to be a member of the Labour Party, you need to be penniless, live in a council flat and have your arse hanging out of your troosers any more than you have to be a muesli eating ex-hippie in a corduroy jacket to be Lib Dem.

Clem Attlee was the greatest Prime Minister of the 20th century and he was the son of a solicitor, went to a prep school and trained as a lawyer. Didn't stop him from overseeing the introduction of the NHS, pensions and the welfare state.

[David Johnson]

"In a general election Scotland always votes far more for Labour because they want the tories defeated"

This is correct. Although Labour did very badly overall in the 2010 Westminster election, in Scotland, Labour got 42% of the vote winning 41 seats to the SNP's 6.

This led to the complacency that allowed Salmond to gain traction in the Scottish Assembly election of 2011.

[Sam Slater]

Just passing on a conversation I had, and asking people's thoughts, number 6. Don't think doing that is 'horseshit'! !laugh!

I think you're right in that, long term, Scotland will come back to Labour, but before the next general election (assuming we get a 'no')?

[Arginald Valleywater]

I can tell you now if there is a YES vote a bunch of English based MPs are going to propose a motion in Parliament that Scottish MP's will no longer be able to vote on any matter that affects England, Wales and Ulster issues. I agree on this because if a Scottish MP is going to be part of another nation then there is no fucking way they should have any influence on matters affecting the nations they so desperately want away from.