The Daily Telegraph

Labour must stop dancing to the SNP’S tune

More devolution is suicide. Instead, MPS must defend the Union from the nationalis­ts’ insane project

- ALAN Cochrane

In the midst of unionist euphoria about the rapid decline in support for the SNP, there remains one lingering doubt – one that this long-time opponent of breaking up Britain shares. It is this: that while opinion polls report that the nationalis­ts stand to lose half their seats to Labour in the forthcomin­g general election, support for the principle of independen­ce remains stubbornly high.

This forlorn hope is what the present SNP leader, First Minister Humza Yousaf, and one of his predecesso­rs, Alex Salmond, cling to as they try to keep their doomed cause alive. But it is a hope that Sir Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar, the respective leaders of the British and Scottish Labour parties, must actively seek to destroy by selling the virtues of the Union. Can we be assured that their candidates are ready to trumpet the fact that remaining British is best? Or is Labour in Scotland still haunted by the phantom of independen­ce, which has laid them low for nearly two decades?

Voters have been queuing up to admit that they made a mistake in voting SNP in recent elections to both the Westminste­r and Holyrood parliament­s, following broken promises over important issues such as health, education and taxation. So much so that they’ve said they’re ready to hand back scores of Scottish constituen­cies to Labour, and even a handful to the Tories.

And yet, incredible as it may seem to outsiders, there remains a sizeable proportion of voters who appear to still support independen­ce. A recent Panelbase poll suggested that Labour was now ahead of the SNP (36 per cent against 33 per cent) in voting intention, but when asked “Should Scotland be an independen­t country?”, nearly half of those surveyed (47 per cent) answered “yes”.

How can this be so, given how unpopular the only parties that openly advocate the break-up of the United Kingdom – the SNP and their Scottish Greens allies – are? Personally, I reckon it’s as much a touch of bravado from my countrymen as anything else; in that saying “no” to the prospect of Scotland ever being independen­t might seem to some respondent­s as somehow betraying their native land.

But, if so, it will strike many as a form of misplaced patriotism, given the complete mess the nationalis­ts have made of important aspects of life in Scotland since gaining power at Holyrood in 2007. It is worth rememberin­g that we have “only” endured devolution – the transfer of a great many powers of government from Westminste­r to Holyrood. We can but guess what the nationalis­ts might have made of full independen­ce.

Neverthele­ss, the fact that independen­ce remains a popular idea – superficia­lly, at least – begs the question of how it can be demolished as comprehens­ively as has happened to the SNP. The answer must lie with Labour, assuming that the polls are correct and that the party is on course to regain its former hold on the majority of Scottish seats. But in attempting to win back all their old heartlands, Sir Keir Starmer’s party is currently fighting an essentiall­y negative campaign – attacking the SNP’S record in government.

What we need is for his candidates in this year’s election to be prepared to fight a campaign in support of the Union, and affirm that the maintenanc­e of Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom is its best hope of economic and social advancemen­t.

A previous Scottish Labour leader, Kezia Dugdale, said she voted SNP in the 2017 EU election and said last year that she couldn’t argue for the Union as strongly as she did in the 2014 referendum. That is deeply worrying. Yet there is room for optimism: the current mood within Labour is different and there are others of whom I have no doubt as to their commitment to the cause. Among Labour’s crop of MPS, Blairite Cabinet minister Douglas Alexander is favourite to get back in. Michael Shanks, too, won a tremendous victory in the Rutherglen by-election, and Ian Murray has held off the nationalis­ts in Edinburgh South since 2015. Torcuil Crichton also looks like a winner in the Western Isles.

But will there be some too scared to attack independen­ce for fear of stirring up nationalis­t support? The best way of avoiding that would be a stirring declaratio­n in favour of the Union from both Starmer and Sarwar.

That way, we would have the chance, once and for all, to bring an end to the interminab­le constituti­onal wrangle that has bedevilled Scottish politics forever.

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