In seeking to put as much distance between it and the SNP as possible, Labour is alienating potential voters in Scotland
Writing for the Scotsman over the weekend, Jon Curtice of Strathclyde University had a dire warning for Labour: “Rather than beginning to puncture the nationalist balloon, Scottish Labour is if anything falling even further behind the nationalists in the polls.”
Labour’s problem is that they are playing to the Tory tune. In seeking to put as much distance between it and the SNP as possible, the party is effectively alienating pro-independence supporters who previously voted Labour. In the process they are choking off the only viable option to a stable Labour-led government that can go on for a full Parliament.
Politics has changed – and potentially for good. The UK is fractured; but rather than embracing Scottish voters and seeking to tie the SNP to the difficult decisions to come, Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are slowly prising the Scottish-England border apart.
All of that aside, what of the content of the SNP’s manifesto, which Nicola Sturgeon today declared to be ‘bursting with ideas and ambition’?
At its heart is a commitment to bring an end to austerity. What it dubs a ‘modest’ spending increase of 0.5 per cent a year would, the manifesto argues, enable at least £140 billion extra investment in the economy and in public services. On the basis of an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Labour could potential sign up to such a plan and still meet its fiscal targets.
On housing, the SNP commit to the construction of 100,000 new affordable homes a year each year and to increasing the minimum wage to £8.70 an hour by 2020 (Labour has committed to increasing it to ‘more than £8 an hour by October 2019’).
Restoration of the 50p top income tax rate mirrors the commitment made by Labour. It would also be difficult to find a Labour politician willing to argue against an increase in the Employment Allowance, or to support the £3 billion cut in disability support which, the SNP argues, ‘threatens to cut the income of a million disabled people by more than £1,000 a year’.
For the rest of the day, politicians of the major parties will be doing their utmost to undermine the SNP. In reality, however, the differences between the SNP’s plans and Labour’s are not as stark as some in Miliband’s circle might have you believe.
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
55 Responses to “The differences between Labour and the SNP are smaller than you think”
Guest
No, not at all. In countries with PR, the left wing and green votes are quite distinct, with their own parties, and TUSC has limited overall appeal.
Thanks for your propaganda for seperatism, refusing to look at the moral stance mader and won, as you say that ripping away a region which voted for remaining would be anything but in defiance of the people’s will. You don’t care about FPTP, please don’t pretend, preferring separatism and blaming the grip of the British to fixing Britain.
Your uncritical support for letting dictators and tyrants slaughter their people, showing you don’t hold basic values to be in any way universal, as you talk the Tory, neoliberal, view on debt…as you want the British OUT of your Scotland, which just rejected your views. Aww, democracy,
Philip Thomas
Unlike the Labour party, we haven’t given up on universalism, for the same reasons that Labour used to cling to it.
Philip Thomas
Austerity implies cuts. There are no cuts in the SNP manifesto…
Leon Wolfeson
Except, you know, in your actual Manifesto. Hmm.
Leon Wolfeson
Uh-huh.
Let’s start with cutting the ties to the UK….
Trident.
Bedroom tax.
National Insurance, Employer’s (in some situations)
“Abusive” Zero Hour Contracts
Even *remotely* sensible rules in transmission charging
Fracking
Etc.
(Not *all* the cuts are bad, but they exist! And some of those..uh…)