Back in 2014
it didn’t look like Labour could support independence for Scotland. After the
recent general election I thought this question needed considered.
Most thought
the answer was extremely unlikely but I don’t think it is too much of a surprise
to see Labour starting to make possible moves in this direction.
Kezia
Dugdale would allow indyref 'free vote'
Some recap
is necessary and to think why labour did not support independence.
Simply the
UK labour party believed that Scotland would always support Labour and the independence
thing would just go away. It seemed that the risk of going with the
Conservative party on a NO campaign would be to their benefit in the long run.
This tactical
mistake, that shouldn’t have been too hard to foresee, resulted in Labour in
Scotland losing in the following General Election in May 2015. This was clear
to many in Scotland the day after
the referendum in September 2014. However Labour in the whole of the UK also
failed as many voters in the rUK feared Labour and the SNP doing a “grubby deal”.
This fear, by a small but influential minority, was based on the belief that
the SNP Party, clearly way ahead in the opinion polls, would use their
democratic right to “interfere” with UK politics, since they had lost their
chance of being independent from the UK.
It is worth
considering what may have happened if Labour had supported independence. The likeliest
outcome would be that independence would have been successful. Labour in
Scotland would have not collapsed and the rUK would have been more than likely to
have voted for a party that would have worked with a new incoming Independent
Scotland.
Ah well
better strategies next time.