Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale proclaimed Monday marked a “new chapter in Scottish Labour’s history” on Twitter with the signing of a joint statement with Jeremy Corbyn on her party’s autonomy.
Signing a new chapter in Scottish Labour's history. Jeremy & I set out plans for a more autonomous party https://t.co/ofsYNMBauG
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Kezia Dugdale (@kdugdalemsp) October 26, 2015The statement failed to make a significant impact in the following day’s press. Indeed her tweet heralding the event failed to even garner more than a hundred retweets at the time of writing. If you can use Twitter interaction as somewhat of a guide to the importance of an event then this certainly lacks the gravitas of its billing.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that so many Scottish Labour grandees have proclaimed something along these lines before. Why would newspapers or their readers be interested in a story they have printed and read again and again?
John Reid, Scottish Secretary, 1999:
“We require a degree of autonomy inside the Scottish Labour Party as in every institution”.
Henry McLeish, First Minister, 2000:
“Nobody has a monopoly of drive when it comes to greater autonomy.
“The Party has moved for greater autonomy in the last few years, and that will continue”.
Wendy Alexander’s leadership campaign manager Tom McCabe on her future premiership, 2007:
“It will mean more autonomy. Clearly we will be keeping strong links with colleagues in the rest of the UK.
“But we need a stronger, more focused Scottish Labour Party, with more control over policy”.
Henry McLeish, again, in 2007:
“It [the Party] has to stop looking over its shoulder to Westminster. A Scottish Labour Party with far more autonomy, remaining loyal to UK Labour but recognising the need to be more Scottish and having the ability to develop new political and constitutional futures for Scotland without having to defer to Westminster, could help renew the party north of the Border”.
Ed Miliband during his 2010 leadership campaign:
“I think the policy in Scotland, for Scottish Labour, should be decided in Scotland.
“For me that’s not controversial. Under my leadership we would lighten up about difference because I think we gain from difference.
“The whole nature of the devolution settlement is accepting that within a United Kingdom we can learn from each other and there will be particular policies and ideas which would be appropriate to Scotland and that Scotland should be able to pursue”.
Johann Lamont on resigning as Scottish Labour leader, 2014:
“…the Labour Party must recognise that the Scottish party has to be autonomous and not just a branch office of a party based in London”.
How many more times must a senior Scottish Labour figure declare autonomy before being, well, autonomous?
If the SNP are obsessed with the British constitution then Labour has a somewhat similar addiction to amending their party’s constitution.
Why is it that Scottish Labour wants or needs autonomy anyway? Perhaps they are embarrassed by Jeremy Corbyn. Indeed, Dugdale remarked while Corbyn was an outsider in the leadership contest that his election would leave Labour “carping on the sidelines” for years.
This way, Kezia
As I have blogged on previously a large portion of the sub 25% of voters who vote Labour in Scotland today are now middle-income unionists. The type of voters the centrist Scottish Labour party won round from 1987 onward.
Lose them and you consign Scottish Labour not just to the opposition benches but as the third force in Scottish politics.
Distance from London from Corbyn and McDonnell is not what Scottish Labour need not to thrive, but to survive.
Though as we have seen previously, many Scottish Labour leaders soon find out London’s anchor is still attached when they decide to set forth on a new course.
