Sunday 20 September 2015

The answer is "Yes"

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.