Scottish Labour is doomed if it does not have full autonomy
IT doesn’t really matter who is the eighth leader of Scottish Labour after next month (Letters, August 12). As long as the Scottish party does not have separate identity and full autonomy and instead is treated as a branch office by its London masters, it will continue to be rejected by Scottish voters.
Despite the elaborate voting system imposed by Westminster, specifically designed to prevent any single party – and especially the SNP – getting an overall Holyrood majority, that is exactly what happened in the 2011 election. Current polls suggest that a similar outcome, perhaps even more decisive, could result next year. The recent General Election result in Glasgow, and the current shambles within the city council’s Labour group, does not bode well for the party’s revived electoral success in its former guaranteed stronghold, while elsewhere in Scotland the Liberal Democrats are in disarray and the Conservatives almost out of sight.
Meanwhile Labour now has only one lonely MP to speak for Scotland’s interests at Westminster, and the party looks set to commit electoral suicide by electing another left-winger, although Jeremy Corbyn is considerably more eloquent and impressive than Michael Foot, to lead their opposition for another long and frustrating five years.
The aspirations of the Scottish people now go far beyond anything on offer from either Labour or the new Conservative government, and the blatant watering-down of the very modest proposals of the Smith Commission fall very far short of meeting our expectations. An even greater SNP landslide victory at the 2016 Scottish Parliament election will make the demand for a further referendum irresistible.
Whether Scottish Labour is led by that machine-gun deliverer of many words, Kezia Dugdale, or the more restrained and thoughtful Ken McIntosh, will not have the slightest difference to the ultimate outcome. Writing on the Glorious Twelfth, I predict the new T-shirt star Nicola Sturgeon will easily shoot down either of them. Iain AD Mann, 7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow. LABOUR leadership candidates and commentators are failing to understand the well of discontent at the heart of the Labour movement, just as political leaders failed to grasp the depth of resentment felt in Scotland in the last General Election.
Demonising Jeremy Corbyn will only serve to drive voters into his arms, just as demonising the SNP took the nationalists to victory in Scotland. Trevor Rigg, 15 Greenbank Gardens, Edinburgh. THE overriding argument against Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party is that he would take the party back to the 1980s. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that what the Tories have done, in spades , with their extreme Thatcherite policies ? James Mills, 29 Armour Square, Johnstone. YOUR correspondents Dr Scott Arthur and Alan C Steele (Letters, August 12) are grasping at straws. The SNP are shown at more than 60 per cent support but many are dissatisfied with some aspects of government. This comes as no surprise as there is not, and never will be, a money tree to meet all of the wishes of all of the electorate. Most of the voters fully understand this basic fact of life.
The majority of people are clear that the Scottish Government is doing what it can, within its means, to protect as many as possible of our people. It has seen the other parties follow the right-wing policies of their London leaders and want no part of it. While we will grumble, as I have done, we know what side our bread is buttered on and will continue to support the SNP. DS Blackwood, 1 Douglas Drive East, Helensburgh. ALLAN C Steele repeats a suggestion that is doing the rounds in some quarters, namely that Scotland could become “a one-party state”. The reality is that every Scottish voter who holds a ballot paper in his or her hand has the choice of a number of parties to vote for, including the self-destructing Labour Party, the austerity-imposing Conservative Party and the unprincipled Liberal Democrats. The problem for these parties is that the voters aren’t ticking their boxes, and who could blame them? Ruth Marr, 99 Grampian Road, Stirling. FAILED states in Africa and the Islamic Crescent all listened to charismatic leaders who told them their economic hardship was caused by a malign establishment or foreign devils.
Nicola Sturgeon and Jeremy Corbyn speak their own words but their theme is, “somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue and dreams that you dare to dream really do come true”.
However, both appear to have learnt the wrong lessens from the financial crisis and offer ad hoc interventions divorced from the constraints of the rules of law and property.
And lurking inside of every intervention is the law of unintended consequences as a ban on fracking and GM crops or the renationalisation of everything will doubtless demonstrate. Rev Dr John Cameron, 10 Howard Place, St Andrews.