Goodbye Labour

Like so many people in Scotland, I used to support the Labour Party. It offered an alternative to the Thatcher doctrine, and championed Scottish home rule. Before I was even old enough to vote, I would cycle around our area, fired up and full of enthusiasm, dropping off leaflets for the cause.

This week’s party conference has reminded me of why I no longer support the Labour Party.

Labour’s position on both major constitutional issues – Scotland and Brexit – is shambolic, and seems completely lacking in principle. Only days after Jeremy Corbyn said that he would decide a Labour government’s approach to any new independence referendum

at the time, the party’s leader in Scotland, Richard Leonard, ruled it out. Does anyone know what their actual position is? And whatever has happened to the core value of support for home rule, dating back to Keir Hardie?

Similarly, on Brexit, a “composite motion” was passed

that rules absolutely nothing out, but nothing in. I wrote to my local Labour MP, Martin Whitfield, four months ago to ask his, and his party’s, views on Brexit – the biggest issue of the day. I have had no response. Again, who knows what their actual position is?

On other issues, severis,

al policy aspirations were announced or reaffirmed, many resembling the current practices of the SNP’S Scottish Government. Yet in Wales, where Labour has been in power for years, the party has put very few of those aspirations into practice.

Outdone by the Tories on the Union; outdone by the SNP’S consistency on issues such as Trident and Brexit, sadly, I see few reasons why any idealistic teenager would jump onto her or his bike now to deliver leaflets for Labour.

C HEGARTY

Glenorchy Road , North Berwick