Trust English Labour? Are you kidding?

Published in The National, May 5th.

Viceroy-in-waiting Ian Murray penned another screed in yesterday’s Edinburgh Evening News. This is my response.

English Labour's Viceroy-in-waiting Ian Murray is demanding an election now. He slams the Scottish administration’s record but doesn’t say that Scotland not only has the UK’s best-performing NHS but has avoided strikes while the English NHS has had almost continual strikes since 2022.

And look at Labour-run Wales. Not only has the new Welsh Labour leader accepted £200k from a company owned by a man prosecuted for illegally dumping waste, but the Welsh NHS isn’t functional and 80% of Welsh GPs complain of excessive workloads, putting patients at risk. But you don’t hear Ian Murray screaming for a Welsh election, do you? 

Then we have yet another English Labour U-turn [it’s so hard to keep up with them!]. This time it’s a rollback of workers’ rights. Starmer says he won’t end employers’ use of “fire and rehire”, won’t raise sick pay, won’t reverse anti-strike legislation and won’t ban zero-hours contracts. This makes a complete mockery of English Labour’s northern manager Anas Sarwar’s promise to “always be on the side of working people across Scotland.” As the saying goes, with ‘friends’ like this, who needs enemies?

But we know whose side English Labour is really on - the side of its corporate donors who, the FT reports, are really now “quite relaxed” about Labour’s plans. The clueless Rachel Reeves can’t answer how a government that creates money can, as she claims, have no money, so she’ll impose more austerity on the long-suffering people. What matters to her is that the banksters and billionaires who fled the Tories are now comfortably ensconced within the bosom of Sir Keir’s Labour party where they have nothing to fear.

There’s no way English Labour will deliver anything positive for Scotland. Sir Keir has already confirmed there won’t be a return to the Single Market or nationalisation of vital public services. And despite affirming that the union is a ‘voluntary’ one, he says Scotland has no democratic way out and no right to self-determination. Why would Sir Keir voluntarily relinquish the UK’s cash cow?

Scotland doesn’t need another faux election, Ian. It needs a swift end to our nation’s exploitation and subjugation by its larger 'partner.' Come on People of Scotland. Let’s get organised and do it.