United we stand, divided we fall

Much has been made recently of the possibility of another coalition government forming after the general election, including Sunny Hundal’s piece this week, where he says that to get into power and save the union we have to consider a coalition with the SNP.

I profoundly disagree with Sunny’s analysis for a number of reasons.

Firstly, he assumes the SNP end up with 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats and that the Tories will end up with 20 more seats than Labour and goes on to consider coalition machinations on that basis.  I assume his figures come from the recent Ashcroft Poll of voters in certain Scottish constituencies and the wider Ashcroft and YouGov polls of constituencies across the UK last week which showed the Tories with a marginal lead over Labour – they could not have come from anywhere else since the average polling data does not support that trend.

To take the results of those polls and conflate the two worst results of the three ignores three vital issues;

  • polls are a snapshot, not a prediction

  • polls will move the nearer we get to the election, they always do, and

  • the seat numbers he quotes are uniform swing projections in an election in which, as almost all commentators now accept, there will not be uniform swings (this is particularly the case in Scotland).

The SNP may be riding high in the polls at the moment but the Scottish Labour Party is not dead yet – Jim Murphy and Kezia Dugdale are making much welcomed in-roads, membership is increasing and if you had seen the fighting spirit on display at Scottish conference last Saturday you would certainly not write them off.

Secondly, Sunny assumes that the only option that guarantees Labour gets into power is by entering a coalition.  I disagree.  Frankly, if everyone stops talking about coalitions and keeps a focus on fighting for a majority we are infinitely more likely to get one.  If there’s one way to ensure we get a coalition government it is to keep talking as if we’ve already lost.  I, for one, am not ready to give up the fight just yet and won’t until 10pm on the 7th May.

Thirdly, the theory that ‘the only legitimate coalition’ is one with the SNP is as far-fetched as the suggestion that there could at any point be some sort of coalition with the Tories.  The fact is they are both Tories and both much more used to being in coalition with each other than anyone else!

Don’t forget that it was the SNP who brought down a Labour government to let Thatcher into power, it was the Tories who propped up the SNP in Holyrood from 2007-2011, both the SNP and the Tories voted against the introduction of the national minimum wage, the SNP helpfully sat on their hands during the recent vote in the House of Commons on the Tories austerity plans, both have been a disaster for our NHS, both have starved local government of funding at a time when public services have needed it more than ever and both recently voted to demand that welfare payments are made in vouchers. 

Those are some examples – there are many more – where they have worked together hand in glove.  And we now find that the SNPs plans to scrap the Barnett formula would have cost Scotland more than £4bn than last year along and would cost 138,000 Scottish jobs.

The SNP have been in government in Scotland for the past 8 years and have a record any Tory government would be proud of.

Talking up a coalition with the SNP suits the Tories because they know that it will damage Labour in Scotland and in England.  The SNP talk up a coalition with Labour (whilst at the same time attacking our members and activists at every turn) because they know it will damage Labour in Scotland.  Both Tories and the SNP are united in their desire to, and attempts at, destroying us – the Tories because they are desperate to win Westminster again, the SNP because they know that they only way they can kill the union is to kill the biggest supporter of the Union north of the border.

Sunny says that ‘Miliband has to consider what is good for the country, not just the Labour Party’.  I agree with this point but its incompatible with his earlier statement ‘that the ‘only way Labour can make the argument for the union is by going into a coalition with the SNP’.

If reports that Scottish MPs are united in their opposition to a coalition with the SNP are true it’s because they know the danger they pose.  This is not a choice between party and country – the SNP need to destroy one to destroy the other.

They will try to play down their demands prior to the election to try to appeal to Labour voters but they do this for one reason only – independence. Nicola Sturgeon can wear red all she wants but it doesn’t make her a socialist and she is not our social conscience. Every vote they get will be used to justify their demands for further devolution, another referendum, greater distance and ultimately independence. Because they are nationalists. Nationalism trumps everything else.

Scotland would be too high a price to pay and ours will not be a party that betrays the 55% of people who voted on 18th September to keep our union together.

United we stand.  Divided we fall.  That’s true both for our Party and for our country.

And on that note I’m going back to the campaign trail.