I HAVE looked on at the turmoil and infighting , which has, post-General Election, consumed the Labour Party with an interest , which, while it may fall short of being intense, nevertheless is extant.
Iain Macwhirter ("What's in a name? A lot for Labour in Scotland", The Herald, May 19) writes on the possibility of the Scottish Labour Party severing its links with the British version and, perhaps, taking the name of the Independent Labour Party.
The main difficulty facing the Labour Party is to develop and set out a vision which its members and those with its interests at heart are prepared not only to sign up to, but also to work toward turning that vision into reality. In due course that vision will have to chime with a majority of the electorate. The Minotaur probably had less of a task finding a way out of the labyrinth and Sisyphus has less trouble getting his heavy stone up a hill.
Mr Macwhirter's suggestion about a name change leads one to reflect upon aspects of the original party of that name. It faced certain episodes similar to some of those met by its modern successors. For example, a number of Scottish leaders of the ILP, such as Ramsay MacDonald and Keir Hardie, eventually went through the experience of progressing more successfully in England than in Scotland. There are many modern parallels with that, such as Gordon Brown (admittedly more as Chancellor than Prime Minister), and Robin Cook.
A significant problem , which those early leaders of the ILP faced in Scotland, was that many of the Scottish working-class voters still retained a strong belief in the merits of Liberalism, under William Gladstone and those who succeeded him, rather than being won over by the untested policies of socialism. Recent electoral results would suggest that again many working-class voters have found a new home in the SNP.
Moreover, the General Election earlier this month illustrated the difficulty which has confronted all left-of-centre movements in the UK. The House of Commons is often controlled by the in-built conservative nature of what is referred to "Middle England". The results there control the make-up of the Commons, because of the number of seats involved.
Is there an identifiable and meaningful form of radical socialism in Scotland , which would sustain a separate and effective Independent Labour Party here? I have my doubts. Tony Blair, supported by serried ranks of Scottish MPs, won three elections under the name of New Labour, the definitions of which rarely, if ever, brought in the word "socialism". Just how radical are we in Scotland where we railed against Margaret Thatcher and her works, when she was Prime Minister, but still lined up to take advantage in the 1970s and 1980s of her administrations' tax reductions, to utilise the legislation enacted to facilitate parental choice, and,as tenants of council houses, to buy them up on a significant scale, leading to the scarcity in public sector provision, which exists today?
Are we, in fact, witnessing the slow demise of the once mighty Labour Party as once went the dominating Liberal Party? Events over the next decade, I believe, will go a long way to providing an answer.
Ian W Thomson,
38 Kirkintilloch Road, Lenzie.
WITH all respect to Iain Macwhirter in his reflections on Scottish Labour's future ("What's in a name? A lot for Labour in Scotland", The Herald, May 19) it is a gross over-simplification to maintain that the old Independent Labour Party (ILP) - the party of Jimmy Maxton and John Wheatley - "had nothing to do with Scottish independence which simply wasn't an issue in those days".
In fact the old Scottish ILP had a strong Home Rule tradition going back to the days of Keir Hardie, the principal founder back in 1888 of the original Scottish Labour Party; he devoutly believed that the establishment of a Scottish Parliament was an essential pre-requisite for the delivery of "the many and great reforms on which the Scottish people have set their hearts".
In 1924 - during the period of the first UK minority Labour administration under Ramsay MacDonald, a Scot from Lossiemouth who had previously served as secretary of the London branch of the Scottish Home Rule Association - a Glasgow ILP MP, George Buchanan, managed to introduce a Scottish Home Rule Bill but it was unfortunately "talked out' before it came to a vote.
In 1927 a further Scottish Home Rule Bill was introduced by two ILP MPs - namely the Rev James Barr and Tom Johnston, the future Secretary of State for Scotland in Churchill's war-time coalition administration. But as the Tories were now back in power under Stanley Baldwin its chances of success were clearly negligible and it too was duly talked out without coming to a vote.
However it is worth noting that its provisions envisaged a far greater degree of Scottish Home Rule, amounting in fact to Dominion status within the then British Empire and putting Scotland on a par with Canada and Australia in terms of its degree of autonomy. In this respect it was on paper a far more significant measure than the 1998 Scotland Act, re-establishing the Scottish Parliament and any subsequent amendments including of course the latest woefully inadequate recommendations of the Smith Commission.
It is also worth noting that the failure of the Barr-Johnston Bill led in the following year, 1928, to the formation - to no small extent at the instigation of a prominent ILP activist and Home-Ruler, Roland E. Muirhead - of the original independent National Party of Scotland. It proceeded to elect as its first President RB Cunningham-Graham,
the aristocratic supporter in earlier days of Keir Hardie in 1888 at the time of the founding of the (original) Scottish Labour Party.
Ian O Bayne,
8 Clarence Drive, Glasgow.
IAIN Macwhirter says that the old Independent Labour Party "was a party with profound Scottish pacifist, socialist and anti-imperialist principles". I have to thank Mr Macwhirter for improving my understanding. Previously I had thought of these merely as "pacifist, socialist and anti-imperialist principles" without realising they were distinctively Scottish.
That I'm sure is my failing, and wasn't one present at the ILP's founding conference in Bradford.
Stephen Low,
59 Calder Street, Glasgow.
BRIAN Dempsey opines that one would require a heart of stone not to laugh at Jim Murphy's resignation statement (Letters, May 19).
I did not vote for Mr Murphy's party and call me a big softie but I found nothing to laugh about in a message which came across as thoughtful and balanced from a leader who had worked tirelessly.
I find myself in tune with Allan C Steele (Letters, May 1) who concludes that the people of East Renfrewshire have lost an excellent MP. Labour's standing in Scotland is no laughing matter.
R Russell Smith,
96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.
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