Commomnspace columnist Ian Dunn sees no way back for the party of Dewar, Darling and Dugdale
IN the moments after clinical death, the release of sudden stagnant gases means the corpse can produce a wide array of moans, groans and whimpers.
This is the stage the Scottish Labour is at.
No amount of noise can disguise its mortal condition. The worst has happened. The rest is the slow drift to the grave. There’s a practical reason for this and a thematic one.
No amount of noise can disguise its mortal condition. The worst has happened. The rest is the slow drift to the grave.
Practically, the party has hee haw support. The great swathes of working class, Central Belt Scotland that used to vote Labour are gone. They decamped en masse to the SNP during the independence referendum. They’re not coming back.
As I noted before, Labour ruled the roost in Scotland for a long, long time. When a plausible alternative came along in the form of independence, long time party supporters jumped at the chance.
Those Labour supporters who weren’t won over by independence tended to be more middle class, and had more to lose by the possibility of change.
Labour then elected Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the UK party. Jeremy Corbyn is many things, but he’s not the man to consolidate the middle class Scottish vote. So, as recent polls have suggested, those voters are also shifting, to the Scottish Tories.
Now the revival of Scottish Conservatives has been predicted many times by their many friends in the Scottish press, but at last, their dreams are going to come true.
Those Labour supporters who weren’t won over by independence tended to be more middle class, and had more to lose by the possibility of change.
What has changed is the great sodden whale carcass of Scottish Labour has washed ashore and a thousand seagulls with the face of Ruth Davidson are busily stripping the blubber from the bone.
Whatever you think of her politics, Davidson is a likeable, effective leader but her blessing is to lead the party at a time when you can only be two things. Which brings us top the thematic reason for Scottish Labour’s demise: a Yes or a No, a Unionist or Nationalist.
That, for the time being is the single fracture that defines all Scottish politics. So if you are one of the substantial number of Scots that do not want independence, and are not inclined to change your mind, then the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party surely has considerable appeal.
Even given Cameron, tax credits and the rest. If resisting the independence is what’s important, then Ruth Davidson’s party has your back.
What has changed is the great sodden whale carcass of Scottish Labour has washed ashore and a thousand seagulls with the face of Ruth Davidson are busily stripping the blubber from the bone.
The Scottish Labour party, with its infighting and constant attempts to proclaim autonomy from London just isn’t going to cut it. So if the working classes have gone, and the middle classes are going, what’s left for Labour? A few tribal pensioners whose vote guarantees nothing but an ever declining rump of MSPs.
Next May Labour will be lucky to return half of its current number of MSPs. The Scottish Conservatives will overtake them to become the official opposition to the SNP.
Picture courtesy of Jack Donaghy