A week on Thursday is the day that the Scottish Labour Party dies…yet again. Some polls have even suggested they will struggle to pip the Tories for second place in the Holyrood elections. I don’t think they’ll come third. But I do think that those within UK Labour who are arrayed against Corbyn will exploit the upcoming disaster to put pressure on his leadership. That would be disingenuous on their part.
That said, Corbyn has kind of brought this on himself. It’s been entirely predictable since the UK General Election that Scottish Labour were only ever going to tank come the Holyrood elections. Knowing that (He couldn’t have not known that, could he?), and given that Scottish Labour is essentially Blairite and hostile to his Labour vision, he should have granted Scottish Labour unequivocal autonomy from UK Labour when he became Labour leader. And he should have entered into some unofficial alliance with the SNP in Westminster instead of carrying on with the same old tired attacks. Unfortunately for him, he possesses an old school vision of ‘one world socialism’, that would deny any legitimacy to expressions of nationalism – even the inclusive civic nationalism of the SNP.
It’s a shame really.
While I’ve no enthusiasm for Labour either here or in Scotland (they seem to be cut from the same jib), I believe that the UK Labour Party could rediscover some elements of its roots with Corbyn as its leader, and so be able to offer the electorate in England and Wales some real hope for the future…an alternative.
Ironically, Friday week, all that’s going to be under attack from people ideologically aligned to the, by then, all but dead and buried ‘Blairite’ Scottish Labour Party.
As for the Scottish Greens (who are independent from the Green Party of England and Wales), I’m quietly hoping this election will be a watershed moment for them and that 2016 marks the moment when they embark on the path to official opposition…and beyond.
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