I'm cured of my Labour nostalgia. Now I know it's indy for me

The symptoms were twofold: first, I’d find myself enraged by the SNP to an extent which didn’t quite match the party’s offending. 

Secondly, I’d catch myself casting glances in the direction of the Labour Party as a possible alternative to independence.

Some of this made sense. I don’t do flags or patriotism (respectively, painted rags and the last refuge of the scoundrel, I believe), so why wouldn’t I berate my own "side", given the sporadic displays of gaudy nationalism which frankly give me the ick?

Also, I came to support for Scottish independence in a way widely shared by many: I was once a Labour voter. As Tony Blair careened right, and then took the country into a grotesque war against Iraq, I simply walked away. 

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My support for independence was fundamentally predicated on this: I want a fairer country. Until the early 2000s, I believed Labour was the vehicle. 

After Blair, I came to the conclusion that Westminster was simply irredeemable, and that Scottish independence was the only way to achieve the socially democratic country I wanted.

But growing up supporting Labour, through my formative years under Thatcherism, left its mark on me. 

Every so often, I’d wonder if my longing for a fairer country might be better jumping horses: should I switch from supporting independence to supporting a Labour Party that might change the country?

That tension made me extremely uncomfortable at times – primarily due to the fact that at every turn Labour seemed not just incapable of recovering its lost socially democratic soul, but antithetical to its heritage.

Then last week, I was able to put words to this unease. A reader contacted me regarding a piece I’d written rather strongly condemning the wholesale abandonment of social democracy by the current Labour government. 

Pensioners, low-income families, and the disabled have been put in Keir Starmer’s crosshairs. Meanwhile, the super-rich can rest easy. Under Starmer, they’ll never face meaningful wealth taxes. 

The reader told me there was a video online analysing some of my thoughts which I should watch. Now this should fill any sane person with terror. Turning to the internet for personal critique is ill-advised. 

But in this case, I was wrong. Another Herald reader had made a short video talking about my work and wondering if I didn’t have what he termed "Labour nostalgia". 

What he was discussing was my support for independence and how it fitted with my harsh critique of the SNP over the years.

The chap had found a phrase to neatly express my malady: Labour nostalgia. It’s a good term. Switzerland once outlawed nostalgia in the military due to its deleterious effect on morale. 

Nostalgia fogs the brain with dangerous nonsense that once made you feel good. I can sit here and get dewy-eyed for the sugar sandwiches my granny gave me before I went out to play. But it was hardly a healthy snack for 10-year-olds.

I think this Labour nostalgia affects many Yes voters. Support for independence was a minority sport until after the Blair years. The folk who took the Yes vote to 45% were ex-Labour voters. People like me. 

By 2014, we were deeply nostalgic for what Labour once was – or rather what we thought it once was. We were, effectively, voting for the SNP’s promise to create a country fashioned in Labour’s image.

However, Labour is, in truth, a case study for Plato’s Theory of Forms. Plato posited two realities: the physical world which is imperfect; and the realm of forms, where everything exists in a state of perfection, the "Platonic ideal".

Labour, for many, is a fantasy from the realm of forms: we imagine it to be what we want it to be. Perhaps, under Attlee and Wilson it was the perfect socially democratic engine of change. But I wasn’t born when Attlee governed, and all I remember of Wilson is his pipe.

After Blair and Brown, we faced 14 years of abject Labour failure to combat the growing madness of the Tories. If Labour couldn’t save us, maybe indy could? That was the thinking.

If Labour had shown it could win and, crucially, defend ordinary people, many may never have shifted to independence. So throughout this political darkness, many of us carried a nostalgic torch for Labour. 

Keir Starmer (Image: PA)

Then, though, the SNP started its decline. It failed to deliver independence and was woeful on domestic policy – despite, I hasten to add, having its socially democratic heart in the right place.

Post-Sturgeon, many folk who had left Labour and voted SNP began thinking of making the return journey. Getting the Tories out mattered most now. 

Starmer was on the up in the polls. Might he bring back what Labour once was? Might he satisfy those nostalgic pangs?

This accounts for the flight of left-wing voters from the SNP to Labour at the General Election. Nostalgia for Labour increased anger at SNP governmental failure, and drove hope that voting Starmer might change the country.

However, as we now see, those left-wing voters are returning to the SNP again. I resisted voting Labour last summer. I’d sworn after Iraq I’d never back Labour again. But I was still nostalgic. 

Those who did take the risk, though, are now cured. Starmer’s assault on the weak, and his obeisance to wealth and power, has proven conclusively that what Labour once was is well and truly in the grave forever.

For long now, we’ve talked of how it’s Conservatives who drive indy support. That’s only partly true. Labour’s betrayal of its heritage fuels indy as much as repulsion at Tory cruelty.

The true paradigm of independence, therefore, is this: Tories are the ignition mechanism, but without Labour fuel – namely despair at Labour positioning – the engine cannot run. 

Starmer has been the medicine my Labour nostalgia required. So I thank him for removing the last doubts I had around my support for independence.

Neil Mackay is the Herald’s Writer-at-Large. He’s a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics.