Those who read my first Conter piece at the end of May will know I took a dim view of the struggle between the major parties of government, both offering largely similar programs committed to severe cuts in public spending and a refusal to rebalance wealth and power in society. It would produce, I worried, disillusionment or even a turn to the far right. As it happens, purely in seat terms, the far right of Reform – with Farage leading the charge – won only the same amount of seats as pro-Gaza independents. The first-past-the-post system grossly inflated Labour’s majority and deflated the seats of Farage’s party when compared with their national vote share. This masks the real threat we face from the radical right, as Farage declares his intent to set about party building in a way he hasn’t done before and using the platform Westminster provides to place Reform as the principle opposition to Starmer’s Labour on the ground across much of England. Here in Scotland, any idea of exceptionalism to the disease of far right populism should surely be consigned to the bin, as Reform had made an impressive impact despite a lack of campaigning, picking up 7% of votes – enough to establish a Reform presence in Holyrood in 2026, assuming they can find a suitable candidate to lead the campaign here.
I concluded my last column by reaffirming the most urgent task for socialists to construct a left wing, anti-cuts, anti-imperialist programme and to take it into our communities, workplaces and onto the streets. The election results reinforce the need for such a force as the only feasible alternative to Reform when the inevitable failure of Starmerism to confront the key issues in working class communities like housing, employment and inequality, bites. An anti-establishment, front foot, fighting left programme rooted in workplace organisation and community presence that’s prepared to challenge the consensus in Scotland can gain traction and hopefully gain parliamentary representation post-2026. For my own part, this election afforded an opportunity to put socialist ideas into the debate here in Glasgow East and after some considerable thought I put myself forward as the Scottish Socialist Party candidate. We fought a hard, local campaign putting ideas of public ownership of energy, a £15 per hour minimum wage, free public transport and to stop the war in Gaza at the forefront. All be it still modest in number both our actual vote and vote share more than doubled from my last campaign in 2015.
For now, the scene in Scotland is dominated by what the SNP does after their own result, which was at the extreme end of bad expectations. To be reduced to single digit MPs less than a decade after sweeping all before them in 2015 is disastrous. Both the party’s UK profile and financial position will suffer, as over £1 million of short money (public funds for MPs’ offices) vanished overnight.
The reasons for this collapse are many and varied. But the most important can be traced back to the Parliamentary term of 2017-19, when the SNP decided not to pursue independence at the point of maximum UK constitutional chaos. Instead, they tried to save the UK state from Brexit, collapsing themselves inside the People’s Vote campaign. In courting the approval of the likes of Alastair Campbell the SNP leadership proved themselves to be reliable partners – on Europe and foreign and economic policy more generally – to those middle class voters frightened by the prospect of a Corbyn led programme of redistribution. The ongoing Police Scotland investigations, the defence of Patrick Grady over sexual misconduct at Westminster and defending Michael Matheson and his IPad expenses scandal, coupled with poor Government delivery and lack of focus on material conditions, all contributed to the sense of a party in government too long. Like the Tories, they are perceived as tired, stale and dripping with arrogance.
The sight of Nicola Sturgeon on the ITV election night show, distancing herself from her party by referring to the SNP as ‘they’ and ‘them’, must have sent shivers down the spine of those remaining Sturgeon loyalists inside the party, and has set alight an inevitable bonfire of recrimination and revenge among those who for years have criticised the style and substance of her leadership.
If one silver living can be taken from the Scottish result, it is that the post-2014 era is gone. A decoupling of the Independence movement from the SNP has now materialised and the quicker they accept this reality the better for all of us who desire self-determination. It’s my opinion and belief, and has been for some time, that independence is now a medium-term issue and should be treated as such. The movement for Independence needs to create a forum for debate and discussion as to where we are and how we move forward. Based not on wishful thinking nor sweeping generalisations but material reality. A cross party, non-party campaign organisation needs to reassess the very foundations of the case and the route to achieving our goal before we can credibly assert it as a realistic prospect. Without answering the how and why, we are stuck in a perpetual merry go round where we have been since Sturgeon foolishly took the case to the UK Supreme Court and lost to no-one’s surprise but, apparently, hers.
With the rise of the independent pro-Gaza MPs, the expansion of the Greens and the rise of the far right, British politics has arrived at a place it’s not been before. A multi-party, multi-polar politics constrained within an electoral system unfit for purpose. As new possibilities emerge and the Labour Party govern in the interests of big business and the status quo at home and US foreign policy abroad, it remains to be seen how the cards fall in the coming months. May perhaps the left here take the lessons from France? A united front, refusing to compromise on key principles, taking the fight to the far right at every level of society. On the front foot, with socialist ideas and solutions.
