Labour, the SNP and Scotland's Voters

Diverging, as I do, from previous themes, I thought I might comment on the political landscape of Scotland right now as I see it. I should mention here that I am neither a supporter for the Scottish Labour party, nor particularly for the SNP, my best fit in terms of policies would probably be the Scottish Socialist Party.

It would seem, certainly it does to Scottish Labour, that the SNP victory in May's elections was a massive surprise, even for the nationalists. Certainly, nobody expected them to defeat the system which was set up so that they would never get a majority. However, an SNP victory, or at least large Labour losses, should have been anticipated from the get-go. Looking at the statistics, the Labour Party vote in Scottish elctions has dropped year after year. In 1999, the Scottish Labour Party won a staggering, though not unexpected, 908 392 contituency votes and 786 818 regional votes, gaining it a comfortable 56 seats over the SNP's 35 (from 672 757 consituency votes and 638 644 regional). However, in the ensuing elections Labour's vote has dropped nearly every time:


2003 Election
- Labour dropped to 659 879 constituency and 561 379 regional.

- SNP dropped to 449 476 consituency and 399 659 regional, losing just over 200 000 from their regional vote and their constituency vote.


2007 Election
- Labour dropped to 648 374 constituency but regional vote went up to 595 415.

- SNP rose to 664 227 constituency and 633 401 regional, returning more than 200 000 to their regional and constituency votes.


2011 Election
- Labour dropped to 630 461 constituency and regional votes down to a record low of 523 559.

- SNP rose to 902 915 constituency and 876 421 regional, adding almost 250 000 votes to their constituency vote, and over 300 000 votes to their regional delivering the highest regional vote count for any party in any Scottish Parliament election.


Apart from their regional votes in 2007, Labour has never made a net gain in pure votes since the first parliament. This kind of consistent hemorrhaging of votes can only be indicitive of a party which is either failing to get their supporters interested enough to come to the ballot box, or a party which is losing out to rivals, and I have a hunch it is more of the latter and less of the former. The fact is, nontheless, that SNP in this most recent election has managed to get voters out in numbers which had not been seen since the honeymoon days of the first Scottish Elections. In the light of what seems to have been diminishing voter turnout in 2003 and 2007, the SNP's feat seems all the more impressive. Though, it must be said, the collapse of the Lib-Dems and the drift of the left-wing vote from the SSP and the Greens may have more to do with the impressive numbers, rather than an increased interest in voting in 2011.

The stock response that Scottish Labour's fate has not been helped by a parade of ineffectual and uninspiring leaders since Donald Dewar's death may have some part to play here, but it must be remembered that even though there had been the tumultuous move from the capable, but financially clumsy Henry McLeish to the younger, but slightly more dull Jack McConnell prior to the 2003 election, Labour still came out on top. Certainly Labour's hopes since 2007 have been severely hampered by the lack of inspirational leadership to rival the political weight of Alex Salmond, it seems that there is a deeper problem here for Scottish Labour.

What I believe has happened, admittedly without any solid evidence to back me up here, is that the left-wing instincts of Scottish voters have been gradually picking up on the fact that since 1994 the Labour Party ceased to be a socialist party. Call me idealist, but I think that a large percentage of Scottish voters would, if perhaps reluctantly, describe themselves as socialists and are distinctly unimpressed by the kind of Blairite, managerial, centre-right politics which we have seen the Scottish Labour party delve into, not least the famously reactionary (as well as completely unworkable) policy of mandatory sentencing for anyone found carrying a knife.

As well as this, the SNP's policy of emphasising the need for bringing greater attention to Scottish issues and not taking the Scottish parliament to be the kiddie's anex of Westminister as the attitude of Labour's last election campaign suggested means that Scots are getting more used to a political discourse which treats them as seperate from the rest of the UK electorate, developing our own distinct political culture, priorities and most recently, a radically different government from the one in London. The Scots aren't so worried about stopping the Tories as we used to be, certainly having a Tory government in Westminister is stirring old fears, and will probably have a role to play in the independance referrendum, but in Scottish Elections at least, they aren't a threat, and so the old tribal barriers break down. We don't have to vote Labour anymore, there's another party, which is better at doing what Labour are supposed to have done!

There seems to me to be a major disconnect between the instincts of the Scottish electorate and the instincts of the Blairites running the Scottish Labour party, one towards social democracy, and the other towards the centre-right agenda prevelant in Westminister. And from this disconnect a far more left-leaning SNP can take the stage as the party of best fit for the Scottish electorate as it currently stands. My advice to the Scottish Labour party (if they get that desperate, which doesn't seem so unlikely right now) would be to return to their roots. The term Old Labour is very unfashionable right now, but it's still Clement Atlee's government which gave us the NHS and all the other social democratic benefits of the welfare state. If the Labour Party wants to steal votes back from the SNP, they need to realise that the reason the Scottish people voted for them in such large numbers for well over half a century is that the Scots thought the Labour party stood for ordinary working people, for resisting the excesses of capitalism and for representing minority groups. As it turns out, in the end the Labour party, or at least its leadership, only really stood for itself.

As I think should be obvious, the final section here is a mixture of analysis and speculation, which should not be taken as if I were presenting them as fact, if people disagree with me feel free to say so in the comments (which I may moderate if people are being dicks).

Peace, yo.