Don’t take my word for it. Joseph Borrell, the EU’s foreign minister, and a man who is very careful with his words, said on Monday “This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine.”
Israeli ministers, and their apologists on the right of the Tory party, claim that they cannot allow aid to be delivered because Hamas will siphon it off for their fighters. Even if this were true to some extent, this is still an admission that starvation is being deployed for military purposes. But worse, Israel has extended the use of this tactic to attack the entire civilian population, most of whom are entirely innocent, their only crime to have been born Palestinian.
International law dictates that Israel as the occupying military power, are responsible for the wellbeing of the civilian population. Not only are they refusing to do that, they are stopping other peoples’ aid reaching Palestinians too. This is a war crime squared.
What little aid that does get in has no distribution process in place with UNRWA, the agency that could and should do it, neutered by the Israeli military. In consequence people already weak after eating grass and animal feed for weeks, scrabble over each other to fight for scraps. By definition those in most need will lose. It’s inhumane. Grotesque.
But the thing that should shame us most is that the UK government does nothing, acquiescence becoming complicity.
I used to have some regard for Alaistair Mitchell, the minister who fronts the government’s foreign policy in the Commons since MPs are not allowed to question Lord Cameron. Not anymore. On Tuesday, questioned for nearly two hours, he repeatedly refused to call for a ceasefire, defended weapons sales to Israel, and never once uttered a word of criticism or admonishment of the Netanyahu regime. Shame on him.
MICHAEL Gove gave a masterclass in silver-tongued sophistry in the House of Commons on Thursday. Usurping the role of Home Secretary, he launched the Tory government’s new “initiative” on “extremism”.
Like a political matador, Gove parried concern and criticism from left and right. Unfazed, he praised his opponents for any criticism they threw his way. Nothing to see here. All very sensible. After all, we all hate Nazis.
Actually, there’s quite a lot to see here. Gove’s performance follows Sunak’s attempt to portray himself as custodian of the public’s morals just two weeks before. This is an exercise in political deflection, pure and simple. Out of ideas, out of support and almost out of time, this is a government desperate for anything to take the attention off its record.
So, why not create an enemy within? Demonise and vilify protesters who try to undermine the cosy consensus of what constitutes so-called Britishness. Underpinning this is a load of nonsense about British values – as if there were a universal set of beliefs and attitudes that we all share. It’s a 2024 version of John Major’s warm beer and the slap of leather on willow.
Who decides what is and what is not an acceptable opinion? Undoubtedly, Michael Gove would count among his British values support for the Union under the crown. I support neither – does that make my values less respectable than his?
And what happens when views change over time. When I was at primary school, gay men were jailed for having sexual relations. I dare say at the time this was widely supported by the public. Was that a British value then? Why is it not one now?
The current initiative is about delegitimising those who do not agree with the prevailing orthodoxy. It is consistent with a government which in recent years has brought in the most draconian legislation on public order designed to incapacitate or outlaw protest and dissent.
True, Gove pulled back on some of the scary suggestions earlier in the week about blacklisting groups like the respected Palestine Solidarity Campaign. In the end, very few groups were named as he repeatedly referred to neo-Nazis and Islamists in the same breath.
This was another dark day for Muslim communities. Although he was at pains to stress otherwise, there are plenty who will hear “Islam” when he says “Islamist”. The rabid right is none too discerning when it comes to theological distinctions. Rather than tackle Islamophobia, Thursday’s statement will enable it.
The Government points to the protests across the UK since October 7 and suggests that they are a prime driver in the rise of violent extremism and increasing attacks on both Jewish and Muslim people.
Strangely, it never once considered that its own actions might in some way be responsible.
It is no wonder that decent people are taking to the streets. They are horrified not just by what is happening in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but also by their own government’s complicity in the tragedy.
They see starving people killed in an air strike while queuing for food. They see residential areas bombed for 150 nights in a row. They see more than 14,000 babies and children dead. Who wouldn’t be moved to protest?
But then they see a UK Government that does nothing. That sits on its hands at the United Nations. That continues to license the export of weapons and military systems to the IDF aware that some of it must be used in the commission of war crimes.
Perhaps instead of trying to justify Israel’s actions as self-defence, if the UK Government had just once acted to prevent this humanitarian catastrophe, people would feel listened to.
It is the unwillingness – or the inability – of the Westminster consensus to tolerate views outside a narrow range that forces people to organise on the streets.
Any functioning democracy must have a way to register and adjust to public opinion and desire, a dynamic relationship which allows for policy change. This one only has denial.
Instead of listening to those demanding justice for Palestinians, the Tory government has sought to demonise them. They have been called antisemitic. They have been called hate-filled.
Now anyone who has been on these marches and rallies knows that this is not true. They are not antisemitic in character – indeed, many Jewish people and organisations are part of the protests.
We should never think we have to choose between standing up for Palestinian rights and fighting antisemitism. They are two sides of the same coin. We do both. In my experience, that is the overwhelming view of those who march for peace and for human rights.
The hypocrisy of pleading for tolerance by a party whose senior lieutenants claim London has been taken over by Islamists is astounding.
There is something otherworldly about the fact that the UK Government launched a statement on countering extremism and political violence in the same week that it was reported that its main funder suggested that Diane Abbott should be shot. You couldn’t make it up.
But the political irony over the member for Hackney North doesn’t end at the Tory Party. Incredibly, Labour took to social media condemning the Tory donor’s comments and seeking to raise funds themselves, somehow forgetting to point out that they had expelled her from their parliamentary party for her own comments on racism.
Gove’s statement was political posturing, nothing else. And it didn’t suggest any change to the law. None of this is to say that there is not a problem with rising political violence. There is. But it is one principally emanating from the extreme right who are hell-bent on attacking migrants and ethnic minorities.
This has been festering for years and the refusal by mainstream politicians to call out racism has allowed it to become ingrained in some communities. But the cosy Westminster duopoly which defines what is acceptable in polite politics and excludes the rest is to blame too. A corrupt electoral system in Westminster has left many feeling unrepresented and left them easy prey to the right-wing conspiracy theorists who spread poison in poor communities.
Thankfully, in Scotland the political debate is along other axes, and alternatives exist. But we should not get too blasé. There’s still ignorance and prejudice aplenty here and it can sprout quickly and virulently if not checked. Pollsters Redfield and Wilton report that Scottish voters now say immigration is their third most important issue at this election.
We don’t know why. But we would be foolish to assume that this degree of salience is because they all support the progressive policies of the SNP and welcome migrants. Some will, but others may be susceptible to the hostile attitudes being promoted by the Tories and insufficiently countered by Labour. This is why – whether it makes us popular in the short-term or not – we must ensure the fight against all forms of racism is central to our prospectus for change.
As we limp towards a general election later this year, energy policy will feature high on the political agenda. Sadly, though, it looks as if one aspect of that debate will escape serious scrutiny due to a cosy consensus between the main parties at Westminster. Nuclear power.
Earlier this week Parliament debated the government’s recently published civil nuclear roadmap. This hare-brained scheme sets out an ambition to quadruple the current 5.9 gigawatts of nuclear energy production by 2050. Sadly, not only does the Labour party support this Conservative plan, it accuses the government of dragging its feet on implementation, suggesting that if anything a Starmer administration will accelerate the nuclear programme.
It’s crazy that this 20th century technology still commands such widespread political support in the UK. A quick recap. Nuclear power is – by far – the most expensive way of generating electricity ever devised by mankind. Contrary to claims it is not a renewable energy source. It is fuelled by uranium ore of which there is approximately 90 years supply left, less if programmes expand. Most of this is in Kazakhstan so it hardly qualifies as a secure energy source.
Moreover, it produces toxic waste which has to be kept isolated from human beings for generations. The new roadmap by the way suggests a new form of reactor which will produce twice as much waste and has no credible plan to safeguard it.
You can only spend a pound once – and if the government spends billions on nuclear that investment will be siphoned off renewable energy development. The craziest part of Labour’s plan is to argue for a further windfall tax on oil and gas in order to subsidise new nuclear plants in England. Don’t get me wrong, corporations should pay fair taxes, especially on excess profits. But of all the things you might spend that revenue on, subsidising nuclear power must surely be the worst.
If this continues, our children will look back mid-century and wonder why we didn’t make use of the phenomenal natural energy resources from sun, sea and air. We can stop this nonsense by the simple measure of putting Scotland’s energy policy in the hands of the people who live here. Another reason why Scotland should be an independent country.
“Don’t go that way, there might be snakes”, says Mette. We keep to the trampled path that leads to the inflatable white tent. Inside a front room sits a nurse at a desk full of contraceptives and leaflets, through the back a consulting room where women can get an IUD or implant fitted on the spot.
The set-up is part of a festival like event which includes contemporary African dance, a DJ giving sexual health messages through a pulsating sound system, and groups of young people discussing family planning methods under the shade of nearby trees.
We are in Bagamoyo, fifty miles north of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city. I’m here during the parliamentary recess on a five-day trip with Conservative Baronesses Jenkin and Hodgson, and Labour MPs Kim Johnson and Apsana Begum supported by our organiser Mette Kjaerby. All of us from the all-party parliamentary group on population, development and sexual health. The title is a mouthful, it’s basically a cross party campaign to improve women’s reproductive rights across the world.
For us, that means finding out what the UK government is doing through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and building pressure to make it do more, better. Today’s event has been made possible by funding from the FCDO. Future ones are now under threat as funding reduces.
At a global level the link between sexual health and rights and unintended population growth was established decades ago. The UN set up a dedicated agency, UNFPA, to co-ordinate efforts and it is under their auspices we are here.
Tanzania was run by Britain when I was born. In 1961 it became an independent republic and Julius Nyere, the man who had led the independence movement its first president. The country Nyrere established had ten million people. Today it has 62 million. The population has doubled in the last twenty years and is predicted to double again by 2050. It is the eighth fastest growing country in the world, and a good place to start if we are going to manage global population at sustainable levels.
Worth noting the land mass is five times that of Britain, and there are large areas of fertile land yet to be cultivated. Those hostile to birth control say that unlike many countries, Tanzania can feed itself even with a growing population. Even if that were true to some extent there are still numerous benefits to reducing the birth rate, for the women and girls involved, and for the country as a whole. Besides, the continuing influx into urban areas means services are already under pressure. With increased arrivals from the countryside numbers will swell to crisis point.
Dar es Salaam is a massive urban sprawl. It has grown rapidly with inadequate planning or investment in the infrastructure required to cope with a huge population. The roads are good but already full of traffic and there is minimal public transport. Despite a network of bus only expressways under construction it is hard to see how it could double in size without serious collapse. That point is accepted by the government officials and ministers we met, all of whom are now behind the drive to give women choice and access to contraception.
The current fertility rate is 5.8, far higher in the rural, poorer, areas outside the cities. Admittedly that is down from a high of over eight some years ago. Everyone knows that figure isn’t sustainable. No-one will put a figure on what it should be, and targets are eschewed for fear that they might seem draconian and lose public confidence in the process. But everyone we spoke to was clear: it has to fall.
So, all efforts are now going into scaling up family planning. Key is expanding access to modern methods of contraception. Currently about two in five women of reproductive age (15-49) are using some form of contraception. Probably around ten percent will have fertility problems. That leaves almost half – eight million women – who are not currently planning their pregnancies. Agencies say that almost half of that number have already had some interface with the health system, typically when giving birth, and have been offered contraception but are not using it. UNFPA calls this category unmet need.
Unmet need will have to be met, and that requires a range of approaches. Making sure the distribution and supply of materials is up to scratch and women can get the right product at the right time is one. That’s the easy bit.
Much harder is trying to overcome the attitudes embedded in communities steeped in a strong culture which keeps myths alive. This is most intense in the more rural areas and amongst nomadic communities where the birth rate is considerably higher.
Many young women still believe that using contraception will make them infertile. We heard stories of women ostracised from their villages because they have chosen to use contraception – the social pressure not to is intense. Nonsense about contraception reducing sexual desire – for men and women – is also commonplace.
There is still a strong belief amongst these harder to reach communities that bigger families are better. They see more mouths to feed as more than offset by more youngsters to work the land.
Sometimes this is enforced by more than ideas. Agencies working with women who have suffered domestic violence report how they will be more of a target if they are known to be using contraception. There are stories of men cutting implants out of their wives’ arms leaving them to be patched up by mobile clinics.
Until not so long ago these attitudes were tolerated by the government. The former president John Magufuli was well known as a sceptic when it came to family planning, seeming at times to promote procreation as a form of personal and national virility.
That’s changed. Serious work is now underway to reach those not already being offered birth control. We saw a range of creative and imaginative approaches to both increasing services and encouraging their take-up.
Mary is a retired nurse. She now works as a community outreach volunteer in a village health facility run by Marie Stopes Tanzania (MST). She talked to me about her job knocking on doors and speak directly with women to encourage them to come to facilities like hers. Between the health ministry and the main NGOs there are around twenty thousand Marys and they are reaching hundreds of thousands of women every month.
There is a particular problem with teenage pregnancies – 22% of young women pregnant before eighteen. Impressive work is going on at a granular level to reach them. UMATI is an NGO which runs a number of youth centres offering recreational activities combined with sexual health education and direct provision of contraception. The clinic we visited sees 35 young people every day. On Saturdays they take over the local health service clinic and run it specially for young people who are in school through the week. Sadly, that’s now under threat as a result of our foreign office stopping funding last December.
Suzana Mkanzabi runs UMATI. “key to success is the empowerment of young women” she tells me, “we know once they reach 18 they have more agency and confidence to make their own decisions, to have choice.”
Government policy is now being directed towards that end. In 2015 the law changed to mandate seven years primary and four years secondary education for all. So, although there is no legal school leaving age, since primary usually starts at seven this should keep most in the system to around 18. But it is taking time, parents keep kids home saying they cannot afford the associated costs of uniform and materials, and enforcement varies amongst the 25 regions.
Campaigners also hope this year to see the age of marriage consent raised from fourteen to eighteen, a move which many say will push the average age of pregnancy upwards.
Things are moving in the right direction but there is a race to reach, educate and service the country’s sixteen million women of reproductive age before it is too late – to build a virtuous cycle instead of a vicious one. And in doing that the many passionate Tanzanians we met need our help.
This is the sharp end of the debate on aid funding. This is where the cut form 0.7% of GDP to 0.5% kicks in. It’s time to reverse this Conservative mantra and for this rich country to once again be seen as a leader rather than a shirker when it comes to doing the right thing.
This week we witnessed another act in the ongoing pantomime of elected members of parliament trying to hold the UK government to account for its policy on the Middle East. The man in charge, David, now Lord, Cameron isn’t there of course, not having been elected by anyone himself. The rest of us are supposed to dutifully accept this grotesque contempt of democratic norms and make do with his platitudinous deputy Andrew Mitchell.
Mitchell, for those not too scunnered to listen, delivered a restatement of the UK’s belief in a two-state solution with Israel staying within its 1967 borders and the Palestinian territories it currently occupies transformed into a viable new state. This mantra is now so divorced from reality on the ground, and so at odds with the government’s actions, that you don’t have to be a cynic to question whether the FCDO officials who write this stuff even believe it anymore.
This matters. The horror of the last four months in Gaza has forced everyone to confront what happens when it stops. Talks about a ceasefire are underway as I write and might possibly have produced a halt in the war by now. As well as getting humanitarian aid into Gaza this could create the space for the world to intervene and assist in constructing a political solution which will remove the cause of the violence.
And if that happens Britain’s intentions are of consequence. Yet never has there been a government policy which has been pursued with such a lack of effort or sincerity. Worse, the actions of the UK government seem designed to actively undermine its own stated objectives.
To be clear, the political leadership of Israel does not want a two-state solution. Has not wanted it for some time. Has done everything it possibly could to prevent it. Has one state control of all the land in question and is deepening its foundations with every brick laid on every new illegal settlement. And for decades Israel has exercised coercive control of the occupied Palestinian communities designed to break their ability to exercise political agency. For decades.
Throughout it all successive UK governments have stood by and allowed this to happen. Worse, they have aided and abetted. Weasel words are uttered about the settlements being illegal but never a sanction has been considered. Trade agreements get signed, weapons and technology get sent, diplomats are instructed to frustrate international agencies in their criticism.
For many years, the Israeli government has been allowed to pursue a policy of expansion and suppression of the Palestinians without challenge or consequence. This has to change for the simple reason that no lasting peace is possible until it does.
We can start by recognising the State of Palestine. 139 counties have done so. Why not this one? A lot of confusion surrounds this. Recognition is not to say that Palestine exists and functions as a normal state should. It clearly doesn’t, indeed, is actively prevented by Israel from so doing. Recognition is about agreeing in law that the Palestinian people have the right to statehood, about enabling for them the same agency that the Israelis already have. Recognition is about giving Palestinians the right to a voice, a seat at the negotiating table. It is a logical nonsense to claim that you support a two-state solution, but then refuse to recognise one of the states.
Andrew Mitchell parroted the usual nonsense again last Tuesday, that Britain would recognise Palestine when “it best serves the interests of peace”. It is a meaningless statement, designed to be so. Worse, it suggests to many that a Palestinian state is not a right, but a reward to be granted in return for some undefined action, the promise used as leverage. That is what gets the UK a bad name.
If Scotland had the ability to speak for itself on the world stage, I have no doubt that we would join an increasing number of European countries in recognising Palestine. In the meantime, it is a case we will prosecute with vigour in the union parliament.
Of course, the UK can apparently move with speed and purpose when it wants to on the other side of this debate. Last week Israel alleged that 12 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) were involved in the October 7th Hamas attacks. UNRWA has 13,000 workers in Gaza and provides a vast range of essential services. Within hours of the allegations the UK had announced that it would suspend funding for the whole organisation. It’s akin to closing down funding for the whole NHS because Harold Shipman was found guilty of murder.
Now of course, UNRWA employees should be held to account if they were involved the horrific attacks in early October, and these allegations must be investigated. But by any measure the response of the UK and other western funders was an overreaction. Once again, the entire civilian population of Gaza are set to be punished for the actions of a few. It is, as the SNP spokesperson Brendan O’Hara rightly observed, another round of collective punishment on a people already teetering on the brink of survival.
Britain’s speed of response is highly selective. They were not so quick off the mark when it came to dealing with the recent judgements of the International Court of Justice in respect of South Africa’s charge of genocide against Israel. Whilst it will take a year or more for the ICJ to determine the case, they announced a series of interim measures insisting that action is taken now to prevent genocide occurring in Gaza. Were the UK government really concerned about the rule of international law they ought to have immediately reviewed policy to ensure compliance with the court. Instead, and to the alarm of much of the rest of the world, they claimed the case should not have been brought and acted to undermine the authority and judgment of the court.
UK ministers are less than convincing when they claim that they encourage Israel to uphold international law. To prove genocide is a high bar but there can surely be no question that Israel is in obvious breach of international humanitarian law.
Too many people are letting this pass. It’s not okay to shoot and kill unarmed civilians approaching under cover of a white flag. It is not okay to send special forces into hospitals and execute people in hospital beds whilst they are getting treatment. When did we dispense with arrest and trial?
Most of all the massive and continuing attacks on civilian infrastructure and the mass deaths of unarmed non-combatants is not okay. I had an argument with a senior Tory last week who thought it was. He argued international law justified civilian casualties if the overall military objective was being met. He is wrong. Legally and morally.
To demonstrate compliance the UK government ought to have made sure that it could not be accused of complicity in genocide. Given that this country is one of the biggest arms exporters to Israel and that those armaments and systems rare now being used against the civilian population an obvious and logical response would be to immediately suspend arms exports until there can be certainty about their deployment.
Components for this weaponry are being made here. The Italian firm Leonardo employs 1800 people in Edinburgh making guidance systems for F35 fighters being used against Gazans by the IDF. It has multiple other licenses to supply armaments to Israel. I believe that the government should halt these licenses right now. And while the UK reviews licenses, I have written to the company suggesting that it would help their own reputation and protect them legally if they were to voluntarily stop supplying the IDF whilst genocide is being investigated.
In the midst of the terrors and chaos unfolding in the Middle East the only response of democrats can be to insist on the universal application of international law. It’s difficult. It’s not trendy. But it is the only way to get through.
WELL now, my last column seems to have touched a nerve for many.
Usually, I don’t get a lot of reaction to my musings on the topics de jour, but my suggestion last time that people who support independence should vote SNP at the coming election, and an observation that the cause will be set back if they don’t, seems to have caused more than a little excitement.
Not amongst my parliamentary colleagues and party members, it should be said, most of whom thought it was fair enough, but among opponents of independence of every hue.
The proposition was restated in similar terms by the First Minister when launching the party’s election campaign. He said that if Scottish Labour get their feet under the table, they will swiftly take independence off it. Keir Starmer will claim every vote as one for shutting down and shutting out those who believe Scotland would be better off as an independent state.
The BBC suggested that the FM got his inspiration for this from my column earlier in the week. Hardly. Humza has many better sources of inspiration than me. It’s not even a matter of great minds thinking alike. It is, frankly, just a statement of the blindingly obvious.
I like to think that my political arguments – although nurtured by an ideological credo – can be backed up by evidence. So here goes. I present exhibit A. Last Tuesday, the Alba MP Neale Hanvey introduced his Scotland (Self-Determination) Bill to the House of Commons which sought to change the law to allow the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a referendum on independence.
Much as I agree with the sentiment behind Neale’s case and I firmly believe in the principle of self-determination, I don’t think conferring a specific power on Holyrood is the best way to achieve it. I would have preferred changing the schedule of reserved powers to remove or qualify Westminster’s exclusive right to deal with constitutional matters, thereby creating a competence for the Scottish Parliament to act within the constraints of existing constitutional law.
But that’s not the point. The vote on Tuesday was not on whether people agreed with Neale’s proposal but whether he should be allowed to introduce the bill for debate. And of course, we should have. Which is why my SNP colleagues and I voted for it.
Not surprisingly in a chamber where Scotland’s interests are at best peripheral, the vote was 228 to 48 against discussing the matter further. But what’s instructive is to look at who voted in which way. Most of the Tories didn’t bother; two even voted for the bill. But every Labour and LibDem MP present was instructed to vote against. Strange behaviour, this. The nature of these private members’ bills is that very few are opposed as they are unlikely to get anywhere in the legislative machinery of the parliament anyway. On this occasion, however, Labour went out of their way to vote against it.
It was to make a point.
My suggestion that if the SNP lose the election then the debate on indy stalls was predictably seized upon by hardline Unionists. From Brian Wilson to Douglas Ross (below), they leapt on it with glee to suggest this was the way to deny and defeat the aspiration to control our own affairs.
But not so fast, guys. I wasn’t suggesting this was going to happen, just warning of the dangers that it might, particularly if many indy supporters stay at home. It works the other way around. If we don’t lose the election, our ability to prosecute the case for independence is enhanced and energised. I trust Messrs Wilson and Ross will accept that.
I firmly believe we can win this election. Now, I know many people are getting mightily pissed off at the fact that voting for the SNP in the past hasn’t produced independence. That is principally because the Conservative government at Westminster has been determined to deny our mandate in the hope that it will go away.
Our determination must be to not let it go away. And that’s the thing about mandates – each one only lasts until the next. So that is why it matters. That is why anyone who supports independence – or even the right to have a choice on independence – should vote SNP.
I seemed to have provoked a reaction from some elsewhere in the Yes movement too; shot by both sides. Alba’s Ash Regan commented that “the independence movement is bigger than one person or one political party”. If she had actually read the article, she would have found me agreeing with her.
Of course, different parties and many voices must build our movement. But 2024 isn’t the final vote to declare our independence – it’s an election for members of the Westminster Parliament. There will be several steps yet to becoming independent, this is just the next one. Given the corrupt first-past-the-post system, only the SNP can win seats for the movement in this election. The movement should take advantage of the party to make that happen.
I even got taken to task by my old friend Iain Macwhirter. Iain is extremely vexed at some of the policies of the Scottish Government, and he writes these days for a different demographic. Nonetheless, he is guilty of several unforced errors of logic in his recent Times column.
He quotes me stating my central proposition and says: “If this is so, the great constitutional debate may be over because the latest opinion poll suggests the SNP are on to a loser.” Leaving aside the wisdom of basing a political argument on one opinion poll, he has just made a great leap from me suggesting an election defeat might halt progress towards indy to him implying the matter is closed. Woah!
The debate will only be over either when independence is achieved or when everyone stops wanting it. Every SNP MP elected – even if only one – will argue the case for Scotland’s independence. I’m only saying that if we don’t win a majority, we cannot claim a national mandate. If that happens, you can be assured, we won’t be shutting up and we will set about the task of getting that majority next time round.
The “SNP bad” brigade, including some influential commentators, repeatedly decontextualise the actions of the Scottish Government. Ignoring the good, highlighting the bad. Leaving no dysphemism unused, they believe the party needs to get a kicking and they’re happy to hold the coats.
And some of our hitherto supporters will even go so far as to explicitly endorse the principal party of the Union in Scotland. How else can we explain Iain’s statement: “It has long been accepted that the road to Number 10 runs through Scotland.” Does it? Does it really? Didn’t Tony Blair win three elections in a row, each one with a bigger majority than the total number of Scottish MPs?
The only thing voting Labour in Scotland will achieve is stacking up a bigger majority for the least radical, least ambitious opposition party in history, giving Starmer a blank cheque and setting the cause of independence back until the next time. I mean, do that if you want – it’s a free country – but don’t claim you’re supporting independence when you do.
It’s 2024. Election year. And it really is all to play for.
Under the UK’s unfit-for-purpose constitution, the incumbent gets to decide on polling day. Opposition parties talk up a May election. They will claim the Tories are running scared if they don’t call it then. But unless the gap between the Tories and Labour gets close to single figures, it’s difficult to see why the Government would go early.
It doesn’t really matter, the result is already clear. Labour are so far ahead in England as to be uncatchable. Pollsters predict that if a General Election were held tomorrow, Sir Keir Starmer would romp home with a majority of between 100 and 200 seats. It won’t be held tomorrow, and the majority won’t be that big, but even with their track record of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Labour cannot lose in England.
The reasons for Tory oblivion are pretty clear. There’s been no Brexit dividend, and the unified right which made it happen is splitting down the middle. Although Reform aren’t quite inflicting the damage Farage did in 2017, they are getting there. Real incomes are falling; most people feel worse off. Westminster’s catastrophic management of Covid continues to unfold with questions mounting as to why they spent so much more than comparable countries only to preside over many more deaths.
Labour just need to stand aside and let the Tories fall apart. That is precisely what those around Starmer will do. Every one of the 44 red wall seats is already toast. You can see it in the eyes of the incumbents; the likes of Lee Anderson and Jonathan Gullis know they are well past their sell-by date. But Labour will oust more than 100 Tories from their own heartlands too.
Now you might argue that with the Tories in such disarray, now might be the time for Labour to champion a revitalised British social democracy. Comparisons are made with 1997.
Say what you want about New Labour – and I could say plenty – they did at least have a bunch of stuff – devolution, tax credits, international aid – that added up to a different vision from the tired John Major government.
But today’s new, new Labour have given up on pretty much everything the party ever stood for. There’ll be no attempt to make the wealthy pay more. Even those at the very bottom subsisting on state pensions and benefits can’t be sure Labour would be more generous. Inequality will remain the scourge that it is without any conviction or plan to change it.
There’ll be no new money for the NHS. No acceleration to green energy. No return to Europe. Every hare-brained right-wing populist idea the Tories come up with is top trumped by Labour.
The Labour strategy isn’t pretty but as a short-term device to win seats, it is effective. I feel for the many lifelong Labour activists in England now abandoned by their party. Some will stay at home, some will vote Green, but most will go along with it. Turnouts will be low, disillusion will be high, feeding a dangerous legacy of alienation and apathy. That’s the price Labour seem content to pay to win Tory support.
This is Labour’s strategy for England. But it won’t play well in Scotland where desire and demography are different.
Against that backdrop, we should consider how this election campaign is fought here. A generation of Labour activists – of which I am one – made a conscious decision to embrace independence as a political strategy not because we were nationalists, but because we believed it offered a better prospect for achieving the social and economic change we desired.
A medium-sized European country north of Britain seemed just more able to deliver a just and equitable future than a vestigial imperial power avoiding coming to terms with its past. And the very idea of running our economy in the public interest sat well with the character and psyche of the Scottish electorate whereas it grated against England’s small C conservative majority.
Every statement Starmer makes, every abandoned promise, every reassurance to the rich and powerful demonstrates that we were right. This is not to say that the right has taken over Labour – although that is clearly the case. It’s more that for Labour to win electorally in England, they must compromise so much that they cannot achieve real change. Independence offers Scotland the chance not to have its ambition thwarted by another country’s political reality.
Given that the prospect of the Conservatives winning this year is practically inconceivable, two things follow. Firstly, what is the best way to influence an alternative UK Government into being something better than a low-calorie version of what it replaces? Secondly, how can we make sure this country’s journey to having autonomy over its own affairs and resources does not stop after two decades of remarkable progress?
There are many decent people in Scotland contemplating voting Labour simply because of a desperation to get rid of the Tories. I understand that. But the Tories have already lost, and the SNP are a more anti-Tory party than Labour. I have lost count of the number of times we have voted against proposed Tory legislation whilst Labour sat on their hands for fear of upsetting some swing voters somewhere.
More to the point, on pretty much every social and economic policy you can think of, the SNP will press for the things that Labour used to believe in and have now abandoned. So, anyone wanting real change at a UK level would do better to send representatives to Westminster who will force Labour to be different, rather than give Starmer a blank cheque.
There is a bigger question for Scottish voters. Will they simply be ignored by a Starmer government? If the SNP lose this election, the answer is yes.
Around half of the population believes that Scotland should be an independent country. The desire has not – and will not – go away. At some stage, we will vote to establish a new independent country – and the campaign to win that vote must be broad and diverse involving every party and organisation in the movement for national autonomy.
But that is not where we are now and that is not what we are voting for in this year’s General Election.
We need to be very clear with the electorate – this year’s vote is about whether the journey continues, whether we can create circumstances to move towards our independence. And with a corrupt first-past-the-post system, the only way to do that is to vote SNP.
The Daily Record, in a hardening of its editorial stance against the party, last week questioned whether the SNP can still represent the political ambition of independence. The point is we don’t have a choice. If the SNP lose the election in Scotland, the debate on independence stops. That is why we must put aside our differences and unite.
If we win, we will use every means to press that mandate against a British state under new management. Crucially, we will demand that this decision must be made in Scotland and that the UK constitution is changed to respect that principle. That is why anyone who believes Scotland should become independent, or even that we should have the choice to do so, ought to vote SNP.
The stakes are high. We must win. It will not be easy. But it can be done.
Was last Wednesday’s economic statement from Chancellor Hunt devised with the coming general election in mind? Of course it was. But whether it works in bolstering Tory fortunes is anyone’s guess. It was certainly a very Tory budget: tax cuts, attacks on public spending, and the demonisation of a new target group in the shape of those suffering long term illness.
Let’s start with National Insurance. We persist in the myth in this country that this is not a tax but a contribution to a pension fund. It isn’t. There is no fund where NI contributions go to be invested so that returns can benefit the contributors in later years – there’s just the treasury. Increases in the basic state pension don’t happen because fund managers made a good return in the previous year – but because of policy. And the state pension isn’t paid for just from NI contributions but from general exchequer spending.
So, the cut in the rate of NI people pay is to all intents and purposes a cut in the tax on their income. The cut of 2% will benefit 27 million people, that’s half the electorate. And to make sure everyone notices, the cut is being fast-tracked to January so that the effect is not lost in other changes.
Will the bribe work? Probably not. For four reasons. The first is that just as imposing flat rates on everyone is regressive, so too is cutting them. Clearly 2% of £50k is a lot more than 2% of £25k. So, the more people are struggling on low incomes, the less benefit the 2% cut will have.
Secondly, the reduction in NI is a lot less than the extra income tax pretty much everyone is paying due to thresholds having been frozen – estimates suggest about a quarter. And while the Tories try to pull the wool over people’s eyes, when it comes to studying their wage slip most aren’t daft and can see what’s happening. The centre-right Resolution Foundation predicts that average household will be £1900 poorer at the end of this parliament than they were at the beginning. That’s an historical first.
Thirdly, and speaking of not being stupid, most people will feel that the small increase in their bottom line that this change will bring still falls far short of the rising costs they are being squeezed by. The overall rate of inflation may be falling but many costs for low- and middle-income families are still going through the roof. The Bank of England estimates the four million UK households who will move onto a new mortgage deal in the next three years face average increases of £220 a month. Energy prices are two or three times higher than two years ago and set to rise again, just as the government refuses to offer any support with bills.
Fourthly, the government is giving with one hand and taking away with the other. This minor cut is tax is to be funding by another squeeze on public spending, achieved mainly by cutting real term wages.
Perhaps choosing NI as a mechanism may throw some scrutiny on just how strange this levy on earnings is. Because of the fiction that it funds the state pension, NI contributions stop when you get to pension age – even though you can keep on working, or in some cases, receive considerable earnings from investments without working at all. This ceased to be fair a long time ago and it is time we had an honest discussion towards building for a decent income in retirement, which everyone gets because they are a citizen, not because they have contributed to the NI scheme.
NI is completely reserved to Westminster, but we ought to be thinking now about how we can design and find a better, fairer system of social insurance in an independent Scotland. It wouldn’t be hard to do better than what we currently have.
Back to the budget, sorry, statement. Much has been made about boosting productivity by changing business taxation, particularly by exempting capital expenditure from corporation tax. Just before we examine that claim, a word about corporation tax itself.
The UK has one of the lowest rates of tax on business profits of any advanced capitalist economy. This is not a tax on business, only a tax on the profits they make after everything else is paid for. A fairer, more progressive system would mean not only that new small and medium size businesses could be better supported, but that the big corporations would be expected to put more back into the communities which helped them generate their surpluses in the first place. That is what we could do if we had power over taxing business profits – the power that comes with being a normalindependent country.
The UK’s regressive approach to taxing business profits runs through the latest wheeze on capital spending exemptions. Of course, business should be incentivised to invest in becoming more productive and just as importantly, in becoming more sustainable. But that would require a plan, a set of targets about what the country wanted its businesses to do. There is no plan.
Instead, businesses can simply offset pretty much any spending on buildings, plant and vehicles for tax purposes. And it doesn’t have to have any impact on productivity. You could replace a machine that makes ten widgets an hour with a new one that only makes eight. You would still get the tax relief. In truth this is just a bung to businesses to get them to vote Tory, a bung which will cost taxpayers billions.
This is desperate stuff from the Tories, trying to pose as the party of business but without the first clue as to how to actually support and develop manufacturing. We can do better than this.
But the most desperate ploy of all in the chancellor’s statement is the creation of yet another Tory target. People to blame when the Tories won’t accept the blame themselves. Enter the long-term sick, particularly those suffering from mental illness.
They say the sign of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable. By that measure we are heading for barbarism. The proposal to “close the file” on claimants who cannot jump through the myriad of hoops in their path to subsistence payments is beyond anything Thatcher and Tebbit ever conceived. It won’t work, how could it? And it won’t save any money. It’s not designed to. It’s the ultimate dead cat. We know we have messed up, made you poorer, less safe, more miserable, say the Tories. But hey, look at these disabled “scroungers” taking your money. Vile and reprehensible. The sooner they’re gone the better.
With the UK media obsessed by Boris Johnson’s appearance at the Covid enquiry and Tory infighting over immigration, the war on Gaza has slid down the headlines. And yet, the past week since the pause in the fighting collapsed has been one of the heaviest yet in terms of the death and destruction.
More than seven hundred Palestinians were killed in one day last week, the highest daily toll so far. The aerial bombardment has continued unabated. The targets are now in the south, especially around the city of Khan Younis, a place where tens of thousands of civilians have fled from the north.
For people on the ground the situation is increasingly desperate. Many have moved repeatedly over the last two months, fleeing danger only to become a new target. The health service is on its knees, able only to provide the most basic help. One doctor reported that 80% of patients were now receiving amputations. Facilities are now effectively field hospitals in a war zone.
More than eight out of ten Gazans have been displaced. More than 60% of homes destroyed. People are living in tents on streets surrounded by rubble. Food is in short supply. Water is dirty. It is a recipe for disease to spread on an epidemic scale. Aid agencies report that humanitarian assistance is impossible.
The worry now is that Israeli forces will flatten southern Gaza as they have the north. The World Health Organisation has appealed for protection for the two remaining major hospitals in Khan Younis which are now the hub of what is left of the health service.
You might wonder why this scale of aerial bombardment is continuing as Israeli ground forces now occupy all parts of Gaza? Israel claims it is only fighting Hamas. It also claims that the Hamas military operation operates from a network of underground tunnels which they are trying to destroy.
I confess I am not an engineer, nor do I have any experience of explosives. But I am pretty sure than the best way to destroy a tunnel is to detonate an explosion inside it in order toachieve its collapse. Aerial bombardment seems particularly ineffective in achieving this. If anything, you would think that layers of rubble five or ten metres thick would provide additional protection to anything underneath.
No wonder Palestinians and most observers conclude that the objective of Israel’s military operations is in large part to do with rendering Gaza uninhabitable, displacing its Palestinian residents into Egypt.
There are plenty of Israeli politicians who are quite open about this aim. “We are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” says Avi Dichter, Israel’s Minister for Agriculture and former head of Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency.
Many others support and amplify this view. There is no pretence about precision attacks, just total destruction.
Underpinning these views are a series of anti-Arab attitudes growing in force in Israeli civil society and media. Chris Doyle, the Director of the respected Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) provides a compelling and forensic examination of this. He says there is a trend to portray Palestinians as animals, a stark process of dehumanization that is necessary if you are going to get involved in ethnic cleansing and war crimes. He cites Sara Netanyahu, the powerful wife of the PM, saying “I really hope that our revenge, that of the state of Israel, on the cruel enemy — will be a very big revenge. I don’t call them human animals because that would be insulting to animals.”
As Doyle points out there has of course, been a long history of vile, bloodthirsty anti-Semitic comments from Hamas. The difference is that whilst these are called out by Western political leaders, there is silence about genocidal remarks against Palestinians.
This hardening ideology provides cover and context not just for the indiscriminate destruction of Gaza, but for the increasing attacks on Palestinian villages by armed settlers in the West Bank too. There have now been over three hundred such attacks documented since October 7th, with over 250 Palestinians killed and more than a thousand displaced.
Anti-Arab narrative has always been part of Israeli political discourse. The difference is that today it has become mainstream. This is also leading to a crackdown on dissent both within the occupied territories where more than one thousand Palestinians have been detained and within Israel itself where alternative voices are silenced.
The problem for the Israeli government is that it is difficult to see how this strategy will work, either in eradicating Hamas or other armed Palestinian groups, or in providing security for Israel itself.
There are 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, more than three million in the occupied Palestinians territories in the West bank and Jerusalem. As many again are refugees in neighbouring countries. They are not going away. At some stage Israel will have to come to terms with the necessity of sharing the place we once called the Holy Land with ten million Palestinians.
Imagine the effect the current war is having on the Palestinian population. More than seventeen thousand dead, seven thousand of them children. Tens of thousands injured. Severe collective trauma the consequence of this collective punishment. Does anyone imagine this will be anything other than disastrous in the long term. Their families will not forget about the events of the last two months. The IDF says it has killed five thousand Hamas fighters. The real question is how many more thousand is it creating by its actions.
But what if Israel could annex the areas it occupies by force and displace all Palestinians into neighbouring countries? What sort of future is that? A fortress state constantly vigilant against a minority of its own population living in continuous tension with its neighbours. That is the vision the right-wing extremists aspire to, but it offers little for most ordinary Israelis who crave peace and security.
There is only one way out of this which offers hope for Israelis and Palestinians alike. The war must stop and talking must start. That will require considerable international pressure and intervention. A ceasefire could lead to a managed truce and de-escalation with international arrangements for the temporary administration of Gaza and brokering new talks aimed at long term solutions.
Sadly, we are a long way from that. Our own government and that of the US mouth platitudes but do nothing. They talk of upholding international law but stay silent when presented with prima facie evidence of its breach.
“I must admit I sense that the prime minister feels zero pressure, and that we will do whatever it takes to achieve our military goals,” Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk told Reuters last week when asked about the international pressure on Israel.
Those of us trying to offer solidarity with a Palestinian people under existential threat need to make that pressure rise. That is why we are debating arms sales to Israel this Tuesday in the UK parliament.
Meanwhile Christian churches in Bethlehem have cancelled Christmas celebrations in solidarity with Gaza. The Lutheran church has a new nativity with a baby Jesus set amongst a pile of rubble. It is a poignant representation of the suffering of Gaza’s children who find themselves buried under what is left of their own homes. Its pastor, Reverend Munther Isaac says “If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble and Israeli shelling.”
COP28 is on right now. The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, to give it its full name, is currently grinding through its agenda in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I suppose it is better that this event happens than it doesn’t, but many are giving up hope of real change happening fast enough to avoid a worsening climate catastrophe.
You would be forgiven some cynicism in thinking the UAE is an odd place to hold a climate change conference. They are after all the world’s seventh largest oil producer and currently committed to a massive expansion of that industry.
And yet the central discussion this weekend is whether to agree to phase out the production of fossil fuels in decades ahead. Not immediately. Just a target in years to come.
Astonishingly, this isn’t already the case. Pretty much everyone accepts that burning fossil fuels is why we are in the mess we are, and yet there are plenty who say we don’t need an outright ban. Just cut down a bit, they say.
Big oil is sort of going through the phase big tobacco was in 20 years ago. They accept their product is bad for you but rather than simply stop, they are promoting ways to mitigate its effect. Pretty much the same thing happened when the cigarettemanufacturers said they weren’t advertising cigarettes but promoting smokers to switch to lower tar brands.
It was nonsense then. It’s nonsense now. There is of course a role for technologies like carbon capture, being pioneered in our own fair city. But the worst role for it would be create an excuse for the continued development of more oil and gas.
We need to get over it. The fossil fuel era needs to end.
You would hope that our government might take the lead in this switch. I was one of several MPs in the climate group who wrote to Rishi Sunak in the summer asking him to do just that. A week later, he announced that the Rosebank oil field – bigger than any we have had before – would get the green light. So, it’s not going well.
Too many people at this weekend’s conference will be bumping their gums. Going through he motions. Saying one thing. Doing another. Something gotta change.
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