Scotland

In the wake of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, the Scottish National Party swept all before it. At the 2015 UK general election it won 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats, taking half the popular vote.

The 2016 Scottish election confirmed the SNP’s dominant position, winning 47 percent of the vote and giving it just short of an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament.

Nicola Sturgeon has played another blinder and lit a bonfire underneath the cosy Westminster establishment. There will be another independence referendum in Scotland, or at least she will ask that Westminster grants permission for one to take place between the autumn of 2018 and the spring of 2019.

The issue of a second Independence referendum is once again coming to prominence in Scotland.

The UK Tory government’s decision to pursue a “hard Brexit”, remove the UK from the European Single Market and end the free movement of labour puts it strongly in the opposite camp to the Scottish government, which favours both.

It is two years since the inspiring Yes campaign for Scottish independence ended in defeat. Things have moved on, and how.

The SNP won all but two of the Scottish constituencies in the general election in 2015. Scots were again landed with a Tory government they did not vote for. In the Scottish parliament election in May this year the SNP was the top party in the constituency votes but failed to win an overall majority.

Whatever way you look at it, the Scottish National Party have won another crushing victory in the Scottish parliamentary election. Due to the bizarre maths of the list system, designed to prevent an overall majority, the SNP won more constituency seats than last time but won less list seats and so do not have an overall majority, missing out by two seats.

It looks like a racing certainty that the SNP will regain a majority in the Scottish Parliament after the Scottish elections in May 2016. Recent opinion polls suggest 70 of the 129 seats could be held by SNP members. This is not surprising given the lack of a coherent challenge by the Labour Party.

A left wing campaign to vote No to membership of the EU has recently been launched in Scotland. Left Leave consists of some of the Labour Party left, the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party.

On the surface Scotland — an almost Tory-free zone since 1997 — should provide fertile ground for a Corbyn-led Labour Party. Opposition to austerity, war, Trident and support for refugees are all now deeply ingrained in the political culture.

During Corbyn’s election campaign thousands turned up to hear him at meetings across Scotland. This seemed to reinvigorate the Labour Party, particularly those members who identify with the left. Corbyn spoke at a rally of almost 2,000 in Glasgow organised by the Scottish TUC in opposition the Tories’ Trade Union Bill.

August saw the launch in Scotland of RISE (Respect, Independence, Socialism and Environmentalism), a new left alliance initiated by activists from the Radical Independence Campaign, the Scottish Socialist Party, and socialists and activists.

Around 600 people attended the launch event in Glasgow.

RISE aims to bring the Scottish left together under one umbrella which can pose an electoral alternative to the Labour Party and the nationalist SNP, with the first test being the Scottish parliament elections next May.

The bemused look on the face of Jim Murphy, then leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, the day after the general election summed up the fate of Scottish Labour. His explanation for what had happened was an object lesson in delusion and denial. According to Murphy the almost total wipe-out of Labour at the hands of the Scottish National Party (SNP) was as a consequence of “two nationalisms — Scottish and English”.