Both the United Kingdom and Scottish Labour parties, with just seven months until the 2015 general election, have been thrown into disarray since Johann Lamont brought her short three years tenure as leader of the Scottish Labour party to an abrupt end.
And she has by no means left the stage quietly.
Lamont was scathing of her Westminster-based colleagues, saying they ‘must recognise that the Scottish party has to be autonomous and not just a branch office of a party based in London’ and that Scotland must be recognised as being ‘distinct’ from the rest of the UK.
The Scottish National party is, according to an increasing number of polls, offering stiff competitive in a number of Labour-held Westminster seats. So it is more essential than ever we have a serious conversation about the relationship between UK and Scottish Labour if they are to exist as genuine political forces.
And with the Scottish parliament set to gain a whole raft of new tax-raising and spending powers following the ‘No’ vote in September’s referendum there has never been a better time to have this debate.
Could a looser relationship between the two parties be formed? One need only look across to Germany and its centre-right parties to consider how such an arrangement could work in the future.
The two parties in question – the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria – are considered ‘sister parties’: they cooperate on a wide range of issues, and have frequently governed together since they were both formed shortly after the second world war. The CDU, led by chancellor Angela Merkel, is often viewed as the senior partner in the relationship due to its reach across the whole of Germany, with elected representatives from all parts of the country – with the exception of Bavaria, where the CSU, like Scottish Labour, is entirely concentrated in one area. It works with the CDU on national issues but enjoys complete autonomy in the running of regional state affairs.
Such an arrangement has benefitted both parties. The federal system has ensured that the CSU has free rein over issues that affect Bavarians – it has, save for four years, been the dominant governing party in the Bavarian parliament since 1949. This autonomy has allowed the CSU to position itself slightly to the right of the CDU in Germany’s most conservative state, while still being able to play a role on the national scene and participate in national coalitions.
Meanwhile, the CDU is able to dedicate its attention to the rest of Germany and advocate a more centrist policy platform, safe in the knowledge that it has a reliable partner in the CSU, with which it can cooperate on national matters. This arrangement has served both the CDU and the CSU well – they have been the dominant governing force in Germany for 45 out of the last 65 years.
But could such an arrangement work here?
The comparisons of a potentially similar relationship between the UK and Scottish Labour parties are clear. With new constitutional powers imminent, a looser relationship between the two parties would liberate Scottish Labour, enabling it to offer a policy platform more amiable to the Scottish electorate, yet still maintaining its close ties with the UK party. Equally the UK Labour party will be able to tailor its manifesto towards an English electorate.
This need not necessarily weaken the UK Labour party, as suggested by Stephen Bush. In fact, this could prove to be the realignment of the Labour movement that members from both sides of the border have been waiting for.
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Callum Anderson is a Labour activist and blogger. He tweets @Cavlar_Anderson
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Funny, of all the European examples of multi regional cooperating parties, as they exist in Spain, Italy, and Belgium, Progress could have chosen, they choose a centre-right Conservative party in Germany. It couldn’t possibly be that the parties concerned are a bit too, er, socialist?
Hi Ric – the points you made above are valid – thanks. The reason I chose Germany was because I have lived there previously, and therefore have a far better understanding of the political climate there.
Additionally, it’s worth considering that the CDU and CSU do not always enjoy a trouble free relationship, and the latter are considerably more hawkish than the former, and are the reason, for instance, that Germany has some of the most restrictive abortion laws on the European mainland. The CDU spends an inordinate amount of time trying to keep the CSU on side, and hawkish rightwing Chancellor candidate (and CSU member) Edmund Stoiber was the main reason the CDU/CSU lost the German election in 2002 – in part because he backed a war on Iraq in the teeth of considerable German public opposition, and in part due to his lacklustre presentation skills. There are lessons to be learnt here, not least that the election of an unpopular centre right candidate in a constituent part of the state can have repercussions across borders, internal or otherwise.
Well we better do something to work with the SNP as under Nicola Sturgeon we have a formidable opponent. Her comments, today, about the EU referendum are excellently put & hard to disagree with. She & the SNP have more socialist ideas which will suit those of us with similar views very well. Get on with it. But don’t forget to give lots of thought to Johann Lamont who was appallingly badly treated by the Westminster MPs.
Why should we work with a bunch of needlessly antagonistic opportunists like the SNP, whose attachment to democratic socialism stretches only as far as the last positive poll, and who were so ‘principled’ that they accepted money from notorious homophobe Brian Souter, and then dropped a commitment to reregulate the Scottish bus network as a consequence of his £500,000 donation?
Germany comprises 16 Länder. Created after World War 2 to ensure centralised German government could never again over-reach itself, the Länder have powers defined by the constitution. The German Government has more or less exclusive responsibility only for foreign affairs and defence.
So to start discussing the Scottish Labour Party as potentially an equivalent to the CSU in Bavaria (Freistaat Bayern), immediately requires a discussion of the UK constitution, of whether Scotland should be one or more “Länder” and so on.
There may be a good case for a Federation of Great Britain with a Scottish “Freistaat”. A Federation may then be best served by a CSU-style Scottish Labour Party. But this requires a profound discussion first.
For now, the Labour Party is surely “better together”.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an urgent need to clarify that Scottish and Welsh Labour can issue manifestos for their parliaments that differ from UK Labour’s manifesto for the UK Parliament. If that leads to apparent policy contradictions, then this will demonstrate our commitment to pluralistic governments and a pluralistic party and to ongoing reform of the party in a rapidly-changing world.
In Germany there is a debate today about whether complete decentralisation of powers is appropriate for all questions. So don’t let us imagine that any UK steps toward devolution or decentralisation are the end of the matter. Movement in one direction or the other will be with us for as long as the nation state has any significance.