These are turbulent times. As the world economy enters its most difficult year since the 1930s, our politics are being challenged – and changing. Progressives must respond globally. We must press home a consistent narrative in the UK. And in Scotland we must make the argument that the package of measures we have implemented to rescue the banks, prevent repossessions and reflate the economy makes the most powerful possible case in favour of the United Kingdom.
How are the nationalists responding in Scotland? They have appointed a minister for the constitution – a minister for breaking up Britain – not one for the economic recovery. They are putting their party’s obsession before Scotland’s priorities. Theirs is a politics of no compromise with reality.
By contrast, our message is a straightforward one. We are all in this together and we get out of it together. Scotland trades more with England than with all the other 195 countries of the world put together. The UK is the longest lasting and most successful union of nations anywhere in the world. It offers prosperity in good times, and greater security in these more difficult times. Most Scots and most Britons agree.
The nationalists once talked of an ‘arc of prosperity’ surrounding Scotland. Journalists now dub it the ‘arc of insolvency’. The nationalists said that Scotland could be like Iceland. They said the UK was holding Scotland back, when in truth it helps keep us strong. Their economics was based on record oil prices and looking enviously to Ireland.
Well, the oil price has collapsed from $145 to $40 and, tragically, Iceland’s economy has fallen even further. Their banks did not have the backup that ours did. They collapsed, while ours have been rescued with over £50bn of public money – nearly twice the budget of the Scottish government. Scotland’s future prosperity cannot be based on oil volatility or Icelandic economics.
The Scottish government’s own figures show that Scotland separated from the UK would have a substantial budget deficit. But the nationalists say that they can cut taxes, spend more on services and build an oil fund. This isn’t just double counting, it’s spending the same money three times. Ordinary families know that you cannot run your home the way the SNP want to run a separated Scotland. Nationalist economics are a fantasy beyond fiction.
But their paper-thin arguments have been protected in the past because they wrapped themselves in the folds of Scotland’s flag. And sometimes Labour let them do this. Of course, what is most important is the fabric of our society. But perhaps, in the past, we were too reticent about the symbols and emotion of patriotism. And we let the SNP assert that patriotism and separatism were the same thing.
That is, and always has been, a shallow assertion. I believe that everyone in Scotland – every party in Scotland – has the right to celebrate the Saltire as a symbol of their Scottishness. No political party has a monopoly on patriotism.
Today, Scottish Labour is more confident at the intersection between our politics and our patriotism. Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray and I are working together to fuse modern social democratic values with Labour’s progressive patriotism. A patriotism that is welcoming, tolerant, open and liberal.
And while for the Labour party unity is strength, ours is a unity founded on diversity, since uniformity has always been the hallmark of a weak and under-confident country. Scotland is not that country.
There is a patriotic case for the union and we should be proud to make it. It is precisely because we love Scotland so much that we do not wish to see it weakened by leaving the rest of UK. Scotland is bigger because of the union of the four nations of the United Kingdom. We are game-changing players in the UN, EU, Nato, the World Trade Organisation and the G8. In truth, within the UK, we are probably the most influential small nation on earth.