Labour Have Put Scotland’s Head in the Tory Noose

In a former post, I argued the case that we cannot realistically call opponents of Scottish independence ‘traitors’ for two reasons: first, Scotland is not yet an independent state. Second, there are only 5 million of us. Slightly more than Norway, a wee bit less than Denmark. Unless we plan to shoot people to improve the polls, those who disagree with us have to be persuaded, until those in favour of independence are in a healthy majority.

This means that the case must be made to those Scots, English, French, Chinese, Irish, Poles and Pakistanis living in Scotland that their quality of life would be vastly improved outside the financial and cultural straitjacket of the United Kingdom. To browbeat fence sitters by calling them traitors and fools sounds arrogant, and can only serve to harden attitudes.

Recent events, however, have changed my mind about one particular group of Scots. It is now beyond any reasonable doubt that the Scots of the Labour Party are traitors to their own people. I refrain from saying the ‘Scottish Labour Party’, an entity which does not actually exist. I mean the UK Labour Party in Scotland. (1)

If the post-Election negotiations proved nothing else, they proved this: that, knowing full well what the Tories will do to Scotland, a cabal of Scottish Labour Party members preferred to let the Tories back into power to wreak havoc on Scottish society, rather than work with the LibDems and Scottish and Welsh nationalists to form a progressive, social democratic alliance. They lined up to shoot down the idea of an anti-Tory alliance live on television. This while the leaders of their party were still in talks with the LibDems on forming a coalition.

No concessions on referendums or special powers were asked for by the SNP as a price, yet these Labour Scots slapped away the SNP hand, unwilling even to discuss the possibility of cooperation.

The central proposal on the table was to keep the Tories out. Yet it’s now clear for all to see that Labour’s priority was something quite different: to keep the Scottish Nationalists out.

So maybe now at last we can put to bed the tired old Labour mantra that the SNP let in Margaret Thatcher in 1979. In 2010, the Scots of the Labour Party – with living memory as a guide for what to expect from the Tories – walked away from a viable alternative UK government and let the Tories back into power. This government would have held a UK majority, just as Labour likes to claim that Unionist parties form a majority of opinion in Holyrood.

Think about what this means: that the Labour Party would rather sit out a decade in paid but impotent opposition under a UK Tory Government than give 1 second’s consideration to working with Scottish nationalists.

The Labour Party Scottish footsoldiers evidently have stronger attachment to their Westminster salaries, benefits, expenses, titles, privileges and pensions than their own people. Protecting those eking out a living in Scotland in the face of impending Tory cuts is a long way down their list of priorities.

So let us lay the blame for everything that now happens to Scotland under this Tory-LibDem regime fairly and squarely at the feet of the Labour Party in Scotland.

Thank you, Scots of the Labour Party, for putting Scotland’s head in the Tory noose.

NOTES
(1) The London-based British Labour Party is probably in violation of British electoral law by representing their party in Scotland as the Scottish Labour Party, a name that is an invention of Labour’s spin doctors.

UPDATE

Labour MP admits being 'relieved' when Tories got in

The BBC: Just Another TV Channel After All

In light of the BBC court victory over the SNP, in which the BBC was allowed to weasel out of its charter obligations and only be held to the same low standards as commercial TV channels, perhaps it is time for a different tactic.



Let’s face it, the SNP’s court action was a good idea, poorly executed. They completely missed the opportunity to present the equivalent of a class action for all UK minority parties to be heard in these crucial debates.

Specifically, their petition was:

"For interdict ad interim against the respondents [i.e. the BBC] broadcasting in Scotland on or before 6 May 2010, by any means, a debate scheduled to be broadcast on 29 April 2010 between the leaders of The Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal democrats that does not feature on equal terms with the said persons a representative of the petitioners."

With only 7 seats in the UK Parliament, this should never have been just about the SNP. Instead, they should have petitioned:

"For interdict ad interim against the respondents broadcasting in the UK …that does not feature on equal terms the leaders of all UK political parties currently represented in the UK Parliament."

Considering the effect the first debate had on the election prospects of the LibDems, this would have been a fair and democratic demand: there can be absolutely no doubt that the decision to give the LibDems a podium place has utterly transformed the election prospects for Britain’s third party in the coming election.

It also gave the lie to the argument that the debate was only between those party leaders who could become PM. On the contrary, the BBC’s decision to include the LibDems was about maintaining the British political status quo. If you look at their policies, conceding the LibDems a share in government is in reality only a small concession by the British establishment at almost no cost. After the election, the new government will appear different but the new actors will still be reading from the same script.

Does anyone truly believe that, with the LibDems in a coalition government, Britain will emerge from this election with proportional representation, scrap Trident and reduce immigration to levels that can be absorbed?

Had the SNP petitioned for a fair hearing for minority parties – not just the LibDems and the SNP – then Plaid Cymru, Respect, the the Democratic Unionists would have backed them to the hilt, even contributed to their legal war chest. Granted, it would not have been perfect. It would have given more voice to the so-called regions, but it would also have excluded the Greens, the UKIP and the BNP. But the SNP would have been acting with democracy in mind, not merely with me-too petulance. The case would have been a cause célèbre on every media outlet.

A real missed opportunity.

But, as we all know, every cloud has a silver lining. One benefit of the court case is that it has made Scots sit up and take stock of how critical the BBC is to the maintenance of the British state. The BBC, in fact, is a perfect example of how the UK works in Scotland – we pay our taxes, but have little say about how they are spent or what we get in return. Or, as Sir Tom Farmer puts it, it is taxation without representation.

Perhaps then it is time we re-examined why Scots are forced to pay for the BBC, and its one-size-fits-all political programming. Hypothetically, what exactly would happen if, as a result of the savage economic cuts proposed for Scotland by the UK London parties pandering to their English electorates, some of us temporarily find it difficult to pay the TV licence fee, but choose to hold on to our TVs to maintain our vital connections with our local communities?

According to Wikipedia:

“TV Licensing enforces the BBC's statutory obligation to ensure that every address where a television licence is required is correctly licensed, but its agents have no special rights and, like any other member of the public, rely on an implied right of access to reach the front door.

The occupants of a visited property may deny an agent entry to the premises without cause and are under no obligation to answer any questions or enter into any conversation. If an agent has evidence that television is being watched or recorded illegally but is denied entry by the occupants so that (s)he cannot verify the suspicion without trespassing, then TV Licensing may apply to a magistrate for a search warrant, but the use of such warrants is rare.

The BBC states that a search warrant would never be applied for solely on the basis of non-cooperation with TV Licensing and that in the event of being denied access to unlicensed property will use detection equipment rather than a search warrant.

The law allows a fine of up to £1,000 be imposed on those successfully prosecuted. This figure is frequently publicised by TV Licensing to maximise deterrence. In reality, magistrates rarely impose the maximum fines allowed to them by law. During the year 2005-6, the average fine including costs was approximately £153 (slightly more than the cost of a licence)…

TV Licensing is managed as a sales operation and its officers are motivated by commission payments. In 2005, a TV Licensing officer was found guilty of false accounting and perverting the course of justice after he deliberately forged the confessions of four people to obtain commission payments.”

Perhaps the time has come for a general boycott of the BBC licence fee in Scotland. Should it happen, the BBC can of course fund itself in Scotland by advertising.

Just like every other TV channel.

UPDATE

Newsnet Scotland argues that the BBC is in fact the fifth political party in Scotland.

A petition to abolish the BBC licence fee.