Spats in political parties are well documented and often-over blown. People who are close friends and allies in almost all things can, legitimately, have different views on particular things. These often lead to column inches and blog posts a-plenty of how one side is ‘obviously right’ while the other side ‘refuses to listen to X group of people.
But there are times when the opposite happens. There are times when people in opposing political parties can, in spite of everything, agree with each other. Sometimes, this can be out of political convenience; sometimes because of a particular experience or background; and sometimes because, genuinely, worldviews collide. How different people and groups respond to that, though can give an insight into how the real-politics is working at any particular time.
On Thursday, former SNP Depute Leader, Stewart Hosie, appeared on BBC Question Time and offered a clear condemnation of Brexit and its effects on the UK, economically, socially, but also politically:
This is a position I, and many people who are not members of Mr. Hosie’s party would agree with, wholeheartedly. Brexit was one of the biggest act of self-inflicted harm the UK could have and has inflicted upon itself. There may be some benefits and advantages – things we might be able (theoretically) to do now that we couldn’t do before. But those things are, in his and my view, far outweighed by the disadvantages and costs incurred by that decision.
On Friday Morning, I tweeted that I agreed with Stewart Hosie completely:
I should make clear that I am genuine about what I said. I agree with Stewart Hosie’s analysis that Brexit has made the UK’s domestic position fundamentally worse and made us, as a country, fundamentally worse-off. I do believe that erecting obstacles to trade and movement between close countries and trading partners due to an over-emphasis of national pride is an act of silliness. All I have said I genuinely believe.
But of course, dear reader, there is a sub-text. An SNP MP pointing out the damage Brexit has caused by erecting borders where there were none before doesn’t make his point any less valid; but it does make it slightly strange. His party’s number 1 goal is to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK. There may be some benefits and advantages – things we might be able (theoretically) to do then that we can’t do now. But those things are, in my view, far outweighed by the disadvantages and costs incurred by that decision.
There are places to read and see that argument – some on this blog, some on others. But what I found most interesting was the reaction to this tweet, who liked it, who re-tweeted it the replies it got. And then I thought about how these can exemplify different groups of voters, and the challenges they pose in a Referendum context, and for the Labour Party as we seek to continue our Scottish recovery.
The Constitutional
The first reactions were likes from a high number of people who had a profile picture declaring they were members of the ‘Scottish Civil Rights Movement’ or who had bios who proclaimed themselves “2nd Class UK Citizens (UK Supreme Court 23/11/2022)”. These, I surmised, were people who were people we would once-upon-a-time have called “Indy-Fundies”. People who were committed the Independence cause, and were liking the tweet because they saw it agreeing with the SNP Rep on Question Time that week.
But there were some who commented who attacked the tweet for points it didn’t make. As I said, there is a sub-text – the ‘sub’ being important.
There is a book-writing ‘trick’ that is said to prevent suits from real-life people who may feel that your fictional character ‘Tonald Drump’ may be a little bit too similar to them to ignore the stories of bribery and corruption. The informal rule is that among the tales of drink, drugs, sex and scandal you imply – or outright state – that a certain body part may be smaller than one would hope. If someone, then, identified with that ‘fictional’ character, and took umbridge at the perceived allegations of chicanery, they are also implicitly accepting that they also fit with the physical description that’s set out.
To return to the replies, one person suggested I was a “…Brexit Nationalist…” (despite my comment being explicitly anti-Brexit); another that Independence would knock down barriers (ignoring the big one an EU-Scotland would have to have with a non-EU-England); another observed that France and Germany are in the EU and are both Independent countries, able to run their own affairs (which is also true) of that I didn’t understand ‘self-determination’ (whom I would refer tot he Supreme Court Decision). There were those who said that Scotlands dominance by its larger partners, who acted without regard to Scotlands interests justified separation (which is similar to the argument that the UK’s dominance by larger EU members, who acted without regard to the UK’s interests justified Brexit), but it was different to Brexit cause this was Scotland. I never once mentioned the Scottish Question, I left any connection between the Brexit Hosei condemns, and the Separation Hosie support to be drawn by the reader. All of these people are shadow-boxing with the Unicorn in the Room – that Brexit and Independence present similar challenges to be faced.
Brexit presented (and continues to present on a daily basis) challenges on how we disentangle nearly 50-years of entanglement of market standards; tax; agricultural policy; financial mechanisms; as well as movement of capital and people. the pro-Brexit leaders are slowly beginning to realise that Britain can set its own (lower) standards if it wants, but if Britain wasn’t to export to Europe, then we still need to play by their rules. We are realising that we can make it harder to come here for work or study (or spend their retirement funds)…but we better have a plan to prepare for it. And, most of all, that an EU-Border is something you simply cannot ignore – even when a fragile and (often overlooked) recent peace hinges on it.
Scottish Independence presents the exact same questions to the SNP; and they are just as prepared to answer them as the Brexit Brigade were in 2016 – even though this is the 2nd go around. How do we disentangle over 300-years of market and social integration carefully? What will our immigration system looks like given, as the 2014 White Paper (signed off by Salmond and Sturgeon) supports a points-based immigration system? If we are to join the EU (which is a whole discussion in itself) then, as well as borders with our 27 European Neighbours falling (which would be welcome), we need to accept that a border with our 1 British next-door neighbour (our biggest trading partner, with whom we share so much – good and bad) would appear – and how would we deal with that. It is not something we can say “independence negotiations can change” – the ongoing UK/Irish Border issues show that.
Those on both sides of the Independence divide, recognise the challenges it poses; but answers there come none.
The Political
Not everyone read what wasn’t there, of course. There were those who noticed the ‘Labourness’ of me and that the Labour Leader has said that, for now, a Labour Government would not pursue re-entry to the EU or Single Market admittance. This is in line with the tune of the SNP’s recent attacks on Labour – that they are just as bad as the Tories because they now back Brexit. For some of their supporters this makes Labour “UKIP lite” and also a “full on xenophobic UKIP right wing party”. It is nice to have a range, I guess, but it does highlight something serious for the Labour Party to grapple, and does present a bit of a ceiling to break through in Scotland.
Labour’s recovery from mid-teens to high-20s in the Scottish polls has been great, and has not come about by chance. It has come about by take ourselves seriously as a party, organising ourselves properly, and beginning to develop a clear coherent message. The UK Poll resurgence has definitely helped – though even after a change in Prime Minister and the UK Labour lead has begun to readjust, the Scottish Labour figure has remained, more-or-less stable since the recovery. Mostly, that is because most of the gain has come from other pro-UK parties (particularly the Tories), and not the SNP (though some has).
Even that poll, which had an Independence Majority and a 50%-SNP vote in Westminster still has Labour growing and staying in the ‘new-normal’ of the mid-20s. But the movement behind the numbers is what may be growing concerning for the Party:
The Tories & the Lib Dems dropping 10% between them and the SNP gaining 7% simply cannot be direct movement. Once upon a time, maybe – but not in 2022. What is more likely is that Labour probably picked up most of that movement, but then some of the Pro-Indy-Labour-minded voters moves to the SNP. And those voters are going to be the key for the party going forward.
In Glasgow, for example, Labour might have all the Tory votes on their side, and even those elusive Lib Dems – but without some of those Labour/Indy deciders, they are going to struggle to make progress in the Central Belt. Those voters are choosing between 2 visions of change – one a Change of Government, saying the UK can (and will) be better; the other a Change of Country, saying that the Labour and the Tories are now the same, and Scotland can only change itself.
I do think that Labour should (and could) be more pro-European than it is – and at Least Single Market membership should be a policy that we could pursue in Government. It accepts the reality that to sell to Europe, we must work with Europe. It solves so many of the practical problems Brxit has brought for people who want to go on holiday, want to work, or just want to communicate with EU countries. And it may well de-escalate a situation which has been the most tangible threat to Irish Peace since the Good Friday Agreement was entered into, and may even allow power-sharing at Stormont to resume.
But even if we do not do that – in Scotland, we need to be bolder in addressing the idea that ‘we are all the same’ in pro-UK Parties. We need to get better telling a story of the change that a Labour Government can make in people’s lives. There are people who will vote in the next Westminster Election who know Tony Blair primarily as the PM who led us into Iraq and cannot remember a Labour Government. We need to be able to weave a Labour narrative to match the pick-your-own adventure story the SNP tell about the sun-lit uplands of independence – otherwise the myopic Pro-or-Anti Independence lens will simply keep us being ‘UKIP-lite’.
The Perspective
Look – it’s Twitter.
I am fully aware that I’ve written nearly 2,00 words based on 1 tweet and around 30/40 replies to it. Twitter is not a representative sample, and it is full of the ultra-partisan and pre-committed. But it is, I would argue, still useful. The arguments that appear on Twitter by the ‘leaders’ (however you define that term) cascade down to their followers, who speak to the campaign directors, who train the door-knockers who knock the doors of voters.
The fact that comparisons between Brexit and Scottish Independence are so easily drawn is an advantage to Labour, and to the Pro-UK Campaign. The SNP, even when they give answers, do not show their working. We will have a new currency, but will then join the EU at some point – which is why we want to be independent again – but we can’t set out what that means, what currency we’d use at that point, and how we would deal with the necessary difficult consequences which come along with the positive effects of EU Membership.
Be it the NHS, School Strikes, Local Government, Island communities, the Justice system – the SNP have made an art of answering a different question than the one they’re asked. They refuse to acknowledge the tension between their raison-d’etre and their justification of it. They will use leaving the EU as the justification for another Referendum; but will ignore that Independence and Brexit raises the same sets of the same questions.
Labour can ask them to its advantage – and offer an answer to both.
Paul Cruikshank 