The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Miliband the Unionist

The Labour leader made a convincing social democratic case against Scottish independence.

By George Eaton Published 30 January 2012 14:55

Since he became Labour leader, Scotland has often been a weak spot for Ed Miliband. His decision to turn last year's Holyrood election into a referendum on the coalition proved disastrous and he was famously unable to name all three of the candidates for the Scottish Labour leadership. But his speech in Glasgow today on Scotland and the Union was one of his most impressive to date.

Buoyed by his victory on Stephen Hester's bonus (he accused Cameron of failing to act as a "responsible shareholder"), Miliband presented his own brand of social democratic Unionism. The crux of his argument was that "the real divide" in Britain is not between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom but between "the haves and the have-nots." The task of creating a "more equal, just and fair society" is one best performed by the nations of the UK working together, he said. He spoke of the Scotsman who founded the Labour Party (Keir Hardie), the Englishman who led the "most successful Labour government" in history (Clement Attlee) and the Welshman (Nye Bevan) who founded the NHS.

In his Hugo Young lecture last week, Alex Salmond argued that an independent Scotland could serve as a "progressive beacon" for the rest of the UK but Miliband turned this claim on its head. Scottish secession, he warned, would trigger a "race to the bottom" on bank regulation, wages and conditions at work. For instance, citing the example of Ireland, Salmond has pledged to slash corporation tax should Scotland win fiscal autonomy. Perhaps partly for this reason, Miliband argued for a single-question referendum, excluding the possibility of a "devo max" option. There are some in Labour, citing Donald Dewar's echoing of devolution as "a process, not an event", who argue that the party should embrace devolution max, which is favoured by a majority of Scots, as a positive alternative to independence. The danger in leaving devo max off the ballot paper, they note, is that Scottish voters conclude that the only way to win fiscal autonomy is to vote for full independence. But Miliband, like Cameron, seems wedded to the high-risk option of a one-question referendum.

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Tags: Scottish independence Ed Miliband

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23 comments

Mon, 2012-01-30 17:33 — duck soup

How unprogressive of Scotland if we spent our oil,gas and renewables revenues on Scotland instead of on the Labour/Tory priorities of wars,Trident,prestigious London based events and Westminster troughing.

Mon, 2012-01-30 17:41 — Gerry Tierney (not verified)

Goodbye, Union. Can't wait to see the back of you.

Mon, 2012-01-30 20:35 — David Lindsay

The Welfare State, workers’ rights, full employment, a strong Parliament, trade unions, co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual building societies, and nationalised industries (often with the word “British” in their names) were historically successful in creating communities of interest among the several parts of the United Kingdom, thus safeguarding and strengthening the Union. The public stakes in the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland are such permanent, non-negotiable safeguards of the Union.

The Union can only defended in these terms and within this tradition. Ed Miliband has made a good start today.

Mon, 2012-01-30 20:43 — Seon (not verified)

Miliband has loser written all over him. Strange how a London millionaire is coming up here where we have free prescriptions, free education, a government that stands against nuclear power and WMDS like Trident not to mention a govt that campaigned to close down Labour's Dungavel Prison for child asylum seekers. Scotland WILL go her own way sooner or later and we will seek to emulate the likes of Norway and not conservative England.

Tue, 2012-01-31 21:37 — David Lindsay

Christian Wright, the EU has been the making of Scottish nationalism. Look where it was 40 years ago, and look where it is today. The EU will happily let five million people have the trappings of statehood. Just so long as you don't want any of the substance.

Marbles McMoon, if you believe that, then you'll believe absolutely anything. Even UKFI has more or less had to admit that no one would want to buy them.

David, most of those people in Scotland who used to vote Tory. Where did you think that the SNP voters came from? What did you think that they were before? Where did you think that most of the Scottish Tories had gone?

Wed, 2012-02-01 00:46 — Lox (not verified)

Iain, thanks for tearing apart David Lindsay's feeble argument that the SNP are Tories with a mask. But since this repeated lie has been pointed out to him again and again with no effect, I doubt you'll stop him from squawking the same old nonsense.

George Eaton might have heard a convincing Social Democratic case for British unionism from Ed M: most other people heard a string of self-interested platitudes.

Tue, 2012-01-31 00:45 — David Lindsay

Pull the other one, Seon. Look who votes SNP.

And the plan is to be as independent as Ireland, the Budget debated on the floor of the Bundestag before the Cabinet back whom is told what it is in it.

You have vastly more self-government within the United Kingdom - you did even before devolution - than you could possibly hope to enjoy as a small member of the EU.

Tue, 2012-01-31 07:35 — Christian Wright (not verified)

I watched the speech; it was tepid at best. He looked like he was running for the Students Union.

Apparently Ed feels deeply the problem we should be confronting is not this irrelevant distraction about separation, but the issues of poverty and inequality - "between the haves and the have-nots."

He is going to have a problem getting traction with that notion, though. Labour's political hegemony in Scotland at all levels of government lasted half a century.

They have held power as the UK government, the Scottish government, and in the great majority of councils at the local level, ALL AT ONCE, and yet the life expectancy for men in poorer areas of Scotland's most populous city is less than that in Baghdad.

Generational poverty among children in the West of Scotland is so entrenched that it has produced an epigenetic predisposition to ill health, disease, and early death in adulthood.

That is the legacy of 50 years of Labour rule in Scotland. Why would the people of Scotland ever listen to this bunch of Unionist chancers again?

Enough is enough.

Tue, 2012-01-31 07:44 — Christian Wright (not verified)

David Lindsay wrote: "You have vastly more self-government within the United Kingdom . . than you could possibly hope to enjoy as a small member of the EU."

Demonstrably untrue, ridiculous, and absurd. Mr Lindsay should spend time in study before pontificating upon a subject he clearly knows nothing about.

Mon, 2012-01-30 15:44 — jaded1

His support for the Union has nothing to do with the fact that without Scottish seats Labour will never win another election.
When in power they tried to break up the country into regions so we could be swallowed by the EU.Now they regret it.

Tue, 2012-01-31 11:31 — duck soup

Ed Miliband in his speech referred to himself 53 times and referred to Scotland 24 times.That's a lot of use of me,my and I in a speech that was supposed to be about Scotland.

aye aye

Tue, 2012-01-31 12:07 — Marbles McMoon (not verified)

"The public stakes in the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland are such permanent, non-negotiable safeguards of the Union. "

You talk a lot of garbage all across the internet, David, but this is a real peach. The public stakes in RBS and HBOS are "permanent", are they? That's going to come as quite a surprise to both everyone in the government and said banks. The government's stated policy is to sell its shares off as soon as it's viable to do so without incurring a massive loss.

Mon, 2012-01-30 16:16 — RegularBarfly

Appeals to the past successes of the UK aren't enough. Modern Scottish nationalism is all about the future, Scotland's future. There are real problems in Scotland - poverty, health and so on. Successive UK Governments, Tory and Labour, haven't addressed, let alone solved these problems. It's time for change; it's time for the people of Scotland to control and shape the future of Scotland for themselves. The only political party offering a positive vision of what that furore could be like is the SNP, which is why the Scottish people will vote for independence when they are given the chance.

Tue, 2012-01-31 12:33 — David (not verified)

@David Lindsay: "Look who votes SNP" - do you even know what you mean by that?

Mon, 2012-01-30 16:24 — richy (not verified)

Bloody good argument on Milbands behalf. As someone who has been sympathic to the scottish independance argument, the "race to the bottom" argument is becoming increasingly the economic strategy of smaller nations e.g. Republuc of Ireland with its 12.5% coporate tax, northern ireland pushing for parity with this and now scotland.

How are any of these nations going to fund their future welfare states, purely on the backs of the workers?

Mon, 2012-01-30 16:32 — Marbles McMoon (not verified)

"His support for the Union has nothing to do with the fact that without Scottish seats Labour will never win another election. "

This is, of course, total rubbish from top to bottom. I marvel at how you've somehow managed to miss the hundreds of times this link has been posted:

http://wingsland.podgamer.com/?p=13513

As for Miliband's feeble speech, I doubt it would have "convinced" his mum. He appears to believe that the best way to promote social democracy is to have even the social-democratic parts of the UK governed against their will by the Tories. He's not fooling anyone - except George, apparently.

Wed, 2012-02-01 16:53 — David (not verified)

@David Lindsay: As others have already helpfully said, you clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about. 'All those who vote SNP' voted for a combination of parties, and this is evidenced by the swings to the SNP from every party in Scotland, but principally Labour. It's always best to have a wee look at the numbers and then tell the story based on those, rather than assuming Scotland chose to dump the Tories in favour of the Nats.

And as for this: "The Welfare State, workers’ rights, full employment, a strong Parliament, trade unions, co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual building societies, and nationalised industries (often with the word “British” in their names) were historically successful in creating communities of interest among the several parts of the United Kingdom, thus safeguarding and strengthening the Union." Well, workers' rights are upheld as a result of the Social Chapter (yes, that's courtesy of membership of the EU, not the UK); the UK governments have been successively dismantling the effectiveness of trades unions, there is nowhere near full employment under the Union, and the Westminster parliament is a disgrace which is more or less a poodle of Government. You make assertions for the integrity of the Union, based upon institutions which have nothing to do with government. Time to get real, I think.

Mon, 2012-01-30 17:22 — David (not verified)

I'm not sure if Eaton actually heard or read the speech, but I've just read the transcript. His argument is vacuous to say the least, and devoid of a vision for what Scotland and the UK should become together in the future. This is what is missing from the pro-Union argument: any positive vision for the future.