Repeatedly wounded in recent elections, the Scottish Labour party is a shadow of its former self. Labour has a sole Scottish MP. It stands on 21% in the polls, 31 points behind the nationalists. Its leader Kezia Dugdale trails the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon by 36. If the polls are right, Labour will have only 26 out of 129 MSPs at Holyrood after May’s elections.
This is a familiar picture. It is a tribute to the success of Ms Sturgeon and the SNP in painting themselves as Scotland’s champions. The party claims to be uniquely able to defend Scots against austerity while simultaneously promising a new Scotland through independence. The combination has created an all-conquering electoral hegemony, in which the SNP is both the party of the left and the party of separation. Everything points to the voters choosing another helping of more of the same in May.
In reality, the SNP’s position requires much sleight of hand. Blaming London for Scotland’s financial difficulties has proved a more effective campaigning narrative than using the enhanced powers the Scottish government possesses to govern in a more redistributive manner. Middle-class Scots thus get the best of both worlds – universal entitlements in health, social care and higher education in return for being spared extra personal taxation and enjoying a council tax freeze. The SNP talks a more leftwing game than it plays. It has proved a winning strategy.
Scottish Labour’s new pledge to increase the basic rate of income tax by 1p in the pound is thus a dramatic challenge to the nationalist narrative. Though there are genuine arguments about how it might work in practice, the pledge – similar to an earlier one by the Scottish Liberal Democrats – confronts the SNP’s claim to be Scotland’s party of the left. It also marks an end to the years in which Labour was so busy looking over its shoulder that it failed to see the political wall into which it was walking. When Holyrood meets to debate the SNP’s budget plans on Wednesday, there will now be a clear divide: the SNP offering cuts which it blames on London; Labour offering more spending on schools alongside higher taxes; the Conservatives promising more tax cuts.
Given its position, Scottish Labour is right to try something new and dramatic. Given the SNP’s past success in running to the left of Labour, it was clearly important for Labour to join battle for those voters. Given the orthodoxy that has for so long stopped serious parties from pledging to raise taxes, this is a welcome opening up of the political argument on a fundamental issue.
The claim that Scots are more leftwing and thus keener on higher taxes to support better public services is often made. But it has rarely been tested since the SNP’s “penny for Scotland” stance in 1999 failed. Now it will be once more. There is undoubtedly a mood in parts of many electorates – see the Democrats in Iowa this week – for a more determinedly redistributive type of politics. Now Scots can decide if that’s for them.
Whether Labour yet has the credibility to turn the policy into votes remains to be seen. Ms Dugdale is right to try – she carries little political baggage and it puts the SNP on the back foot. Alternatively it may shift nothing at all. Either way, it is high time that the SNP’s “best of both worlds” approach is challenged effectively. Once again Scotland is about to become the site of a significant political experiment. This time, that’s all to the good.
