Labour must decide if this Union is a hostage situation

There’s a saying in football that anything can happen in 90 minutes but at the Labour conference this week Keir Starmer gave a 90 minute speech during which nothing much happened at all, unless you count the heckling. For such a long speech it was incredibly light on policy and tangible vision. I like Keir. I think he’s a decent guy, but this speech was distinctly underwhelming. Even more so for those watching in Scotland.  Notwithstanding the length of his speech, Scotland was mentioned only three times and he had absolutely nothing new or original to say about the union. 

As Dr Kirsty Hughes noted on twitter, there was nothing in the speech for pro-EU anti-Brexit Scottish voters and nothing imaginative on the UK as a voluntary union. Starmer, and those advising him, cannot be oblivious to the important intervention made earlier this year by Ciaran Martin the former top civil servant who helped negotiate the Edinburgh Agreement. He said that in the face of yet another overall win for the pro-independence parties at the Scottish election, a continued refusal by the British government to co-operate in the holding of a second independence referendum would change the union between England and Scotland from one based on consent to one based on force of law. That, he said, would be the most profound transformation in the internal governance of the UK since most of Ireland left almost a century ago.

Sir Keir and his comrades must see the force of this intervention, yet earlier in the week we heard the same cloth-eared approach from Anas Sarwar and Andy Burnham. The Labour party have embraced the legitimacy of self- determination movements across the world including very close to home, but they seem unable to carry across this enthusiasm when it comes to Scotland. 

Instead, Sir Keir told us that he was very happy to leave settling the future of the union to a Commission led Gordon Brown. In that he’s pretty much alone as no one can have much confidence in Gordon Brown given the broken promises he made in 2014. The bizarre analogy with giving blood which followed was just totally cringeworthy. 

Perhaps Labour have got so out of the way of winning elections they have forgotten that winners, like the SNP Scottish Government, have a mandate to deliver on their manifestos. While he was singing Anas Sarwar’s praises, Sir Keir seemed to forget that, earlier this year, under his leadership, Labour had its worst result in Scotland in over 100 years while the SNP won a fourth election in a row with the biggest share of the vote in the history of devolution. Everyone, apart from Sir Keir it seems, understands that this is because the issue of independence is not going away and dominates Scottish politics. 

At some point Labour will need to address whether the union is a hostage situation or a union of equals based on consent. Seven years have passed since the 2014 indyref. The British constitution allows a referendum in Northern Ireland on the issue of Irish reunification every 7 years. Sir Keir needs to explain why the same courtesy should not be extended to Scotland. He waxed lyrical on rebuilding Britain’s profile on the world stage and mending broken international relationships, but he needs to face the reality of the broken relationships within the British Isles. 

At least the trade union leaders, or some of them, get it. Earlier this week the Scottish born Unison leader, Christina McAnea, told BBC Scotland’s the Nine that Labour needed to look at the constitution and Scotland anew. The newly elected leader of Unite, Sharon Graham, has made it clear that she backs self-determination for Scotland and that the policy on independence and indyref2 should be settled by the union’s Scottish membership. 

Sir Keir is more interested in making Brexit work than addressing the Scottish question. But he didn’t explain how Brexit could be made to work and he omitted to mention that the mess we are currently in is largely due to the hopeless agreement negotiated by Boris Johnson for which his party voted. Voters in Scotland really don’t like that complicity and they will be reminded of it more and more as Brexit continues to unravel with petrol and food shortages. 

Sooner or later Sir Keir will have to wise up.  The Scottish government plans to hold a second indyref before the end of 2023, Covid permitting. But there is a very real risk that a General Election may intervene before that happens. At Westminster there is a strong feeling that Boris Johnson will call the next election in the Spring of 2023. I agree with Michelle Thomson MSP that Boris Johnson is highly unlikely to agree a section 30 order for a 2023 indyref. Therefore, the Scottish Government will have to rely upon a Holyrood backed bill surviving a legal challenge in order for the referendum to proceed. Many people are wondering whether there is enough time for such a bill to be passed and, for a legal challenge to be heard and determined before the end of 2023 given that the bill is not in the current programme for Government. 

If it transpires that a General Election takes place before the Scottish Government are able to hold a second indyref then it could be rather important to the advancement of the case for independence because Sir Keir may find himself dependent on SNP MPs to form a government that functions. Sir John Curtice says that without winning Scotland, Labour will struggle to win a British election even if they take the sort of 12-point lead in England that Blair took in 1997. They will need to rely on the SNP and the price of our support would be a second Edinburgh agreement allowing for a second indyref the result of which would be accepted as binding by both Governments. 

I know many readers won’t want to hear this but it’s the reality of where we are given the timetable set down by the First Minister. 

Finally, I’ll say one thing for Labour, their conference looked like fun and involved lively debate on the issues of the day. Keir Starmer didn’t want to support a minimum wage of £15 per hour but a motion for the same was debated and passed on the conference floor.  The fringe was a lively as ever with some people getting themselves into very hot water on matters as diverse as cervixes and dinosaurs. That said, the conference wasn’t much fun for women like Rosie Duffield MP, too fearful for her personal safety to attend the conference floor. Nor was it much fun for the women banished from the official fringe to debate their rights at an off-conference venue, surrounded by heavy security.  Apparently, the attempts of the Lesbian Labour group to affiliate to the party have been met with a wall of silence. It seems that Labour, the authors of the Equality Act, have forgotten that same sex orientation is still a protected characteristic under the Act and that it is not lawful for membership organisations to discriminate against people on account of their sex, their sexual orientation or their gender critical beliefs. 

Whilst I would hope we never find ourselves in the situation where any SNP member would have real cause to fear for their personal safety at conference, it would be good to have a conference in person with the sort of lively debate that should involve. Now that Covid cases are starting to fall in Scotland perhaps those who run the party will reconsider their decision to hold the upcoming annual conference online and instead deliver a real in-person vibrant event that will help move the case for independence forward.