Tag: Election

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Labour concede election

Question Time in Fort William presented a small glimpse of what may come to be the next chapter of the Scottish Independence partnering, but first we need to look back a bit.

The Scottish Greens found themselves with a lot of power without much real preparation for being saddled with it, sadly this manifested in some of the oddest and widely unpopular legislation the Scottish Parliament has enacted.

Nicola Sturgeon found herself evicted from office in the severely damaging defence and promotion of ideas that found no traction with the electorate. It’ll now come to pass that Sturgeon may also have led the most ineffective and support losing Parliament due in part to the stranglehold the Greens exerted. 

However it’s largely pointless to dwell on what has gone past us and instead focus on the future. 

Humza at some point will have to jettison the old guard – still battering on as though the whole saga was just a bad dream – or be jettisoned himself, there are only really two options available to the SNP just now. 

However what was striking was that Mairi McAllan, who in the past has been a very effective friend and repeater of Nicola Sturgeon has decided to refocus on being more conciliatory and focussing on echoing what people actually say to her. It was amusing to see the change. 

Likewise Alex Salmond, seemed to have risen above any real fight with the SNP, and instead went back to pronouncing the benefits Scotland already has. Watch closely – and if he hadn’t mentioned ALBA, you could be forgiven for thinking he was still in the SNP, the stats and arguments he was making were straight from his former playbook. Indeed they might even be. 

Alex has obviously concluded Humza will sooner or later be forced to exorcise bad omens from the SNP cog-works and has moved a little ahead into the phase where we have one movement, albeit with distinct voices. 

Diverse voices with varying tones and messages is what the movement needed last time round but lacked in the political arena – but enjoyed on the community level. This time round it does seem at least we will enjoy that improvement. 

The standout though – is exactly what will end with the Labour Party (in disbelief), presented in a neat little package by Jackie Baillie. 

You see Jackie went on the attack about how she campaigned in 2019 for remaining within the EU. However thats not Labours current position, it does not seek to solve the European problem, instead as Jackie said, much the same as currently dished up will be delivered by Labour, but with friendlier smiles. 

While the independence movement bolsters on, debating the merits or demerits of full membership, EFTA and single market access – the Labour Party won’t actually have anything with any substance to add. This isn’t going to delivery any fruit to the Labour Party, in part because they can’t help secure the future of fruit workers. 

The electorate will maybe vote Labour in some places as a kick to the Tories but theres no resounding message the Labour Party have found to share. Bereft of talent or substance – it’s the same old folks making the same old noise and Scotland has moved on from it. 

Outrage from Ian Murray followed the day after – he was upset the SNP’s condition of support will be for a referendum on Scottish Independence. 

Amusingly in being aggrieved – Ian Murray had already conceded Labour won’t win the next general election without the SNP’s help. How pathetic. They can’t even pretend they’ll succeed because it’s that unlikely. 

If the only choices of Conservative Party Policy are whether you want the red or blue set – is it any wonder why Labour can’t beat the SNP when it should be at its weakest? Furthermore not expecting to beat a terribly weak Tory performance?

In the next few weeks and months, the SNP will learn some lessons, as will ALBA, they’ll tune and hone.

The SNP have worked out behind the scenes that the Greens are an anchor rather than a propeller. Despite knowing folks like Mairi and Alex share no desire to work together – they’ll find an equitable platform to stand on to push the cause – while Labour languish in the polls. 

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Podcast: SNP Leadership Election Special

https://youtu.be/aG8jEF_hVfo

SNP Leadership Election Special Episode, our review of the race, coverage of the voting mechanism and our suggestion for independence.

Available on Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon via: https://anchor.fm/vive-ecosse

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Shuffling the deckchairs

Every few years the political boundaries for elections are redrawn in an effort to ensure the voting pools are mostly equal. This ensures the grid of people you goto vote with is approximately the same size as everyone else.

Political parties dislike it as it will favour one or other opponent. MP’s dislike it because they like the stability. People dislike it because it often comes as an attack to their sense of place.

However much bureaucracy is spent on consistently updating the lines drawn on the ground.

The 2018 reviews of boundaries were ignored.

The 2013 reviews of boundaries were ignored.

It was around 2004 we last bothered to follow them. Amusingly we actually have two quangos, or commissions, who specifically look at Scotland. (Arguably there is a third when you include councils).

The Boundary Commission for Scotland

Scottish Boundary Commission

I am not kidding. There is plenty overlap between the people involved. The websites. The formats. It’s all very similar. One handles Westminster and one handles Holyrood.

However the real star of the boundary show is Allan from BallotBox Scotland who actually makes sense of it and produces wonderful graphics. Sadly his work is not funded by government, so donate if you can.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you, but here is the point. The perceived inequality of variance in population density of each seat is of absolutely no significance compared to the inadequacy of our voting system.

‘Linlithgow and East Falkirk’ is our largest capita constituency at 88,506 and will therefore have the lowest ‘strength per person’ vs ‘Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross’ at 46,924 which is our smallest capita constituency. A full 41,582 difference. The mean difference between all the non protected constituencies is about 12,000 people.

However have you ever heard anyone arguing about the disparity in power of vote? Probably not.

Let’s look though at how many people voted in each constituency but got no Westminster representation.

In Linlithgow and Falkirk East – 32,224 people did not get a representative they voted for despite being the majority of voters.

In Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross – 19,752 people did not get a representative they voted for despite being the majority of voters.

Even with the most extreme example of difference in voter attribution between areas. More people, who actually went and voted, are lost – 51,976. Or rather their vote was then useless after the result.

This is remedied in the Scottish Parliament with the Additional Member System equalising out those who voted for parties that did not win a constituency, so that representation is correct.

Now, this blog doesn’t call for the abolition of the boundary commissions, as they carry out essential and good work, even if they could really be one unit.

It does however point out, it is somewhat pointless to do the boundary reviews without considering whether the voting system isn’t actually a bigger elephant in the room when it comes to a fair electoral system. First Past The Post has had its day and needs replaced.

It isn’t a horse race, its democracy.

The myth of ‘strong, stable government’ from FPTP has been busted.

Usefully Allan at BallotBox Scotland has considered replacement in much more depth than I’d ever do.

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All hail the winners but then…

‘SNP held Glasgow’ was trumpeted after the local council count by a Scottish media with very little to work with from a pretty non eventful election.

The ‘hold’ was true but the ‘grip’ is fragile. The previous shockwave win of SNP from the long incumbent Labour stronghold in 2017 was seen by many as a seismic democratic change for Scotland’s largest city. The reality though from pals from my home City and visits to friends and family is that not much changed and many of the changes are not largely positive.

This is disappointing as Scotland’s ‘Dear Green Place’ has so much going for it in both its architecture, green spaces, vibrant culture and of course it’s indomitable people.

The fragility of last week’s results is that a slim majority leaves open the very real possibility of losing control from by-elections, where those is power tend to be at a disadvantage when constituents are angry. The machinations of forming administrations is not always straightforward but it can be telling as to who is willing to work with who and why!

A fragile majority on any administration puts pressure on those who were elected to demonstrably deliver! Given the need for serious work from our local authorities at anytime never mind a cost of living crisis, stability and focus is key.

The last Glasgow SNP administration was beset with early bad press from the Lady Provosts’s spending, leading to her stepping down from role, to a series of resignations from SNP councillors, claiming issues with group leader and overall discipline within the group.

One week on from the election we saw front page of Glasgow Evening times with a splash story on a recently re-elected SNP councillor who they have now ‘fact checked’ statements he made at recent election hustings as evidently ‘untrue’. This relates to excuses he made when attempting to explain his 84th of 85 position on council meeting attendance – not ideal when seeking re-election. He was re-elected, so, where does that leave his voters? 

It’s interesting this story broke a week after his constituents cast their votes so it’s a moot point as to whether it would have made any impact if voters had been made aware before the vote but it does raise a wider, serious issue. 

How do voters know what’s true? I’ll explore this in next part of this blog:  How do voters know what’s true?

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In defence of democracy

Let us begin by looking at the what the election for local government was, how the results stacked up, and how some people have chosen to respond – and ultimately why our defence of democracy is needed.

To quote the Electoral Reform Society

“STV (single transferable vote) is a preferential voting system which produces results that are approximately proportional to votes cast.”

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/latest-news-and-research/publications/the-power-of-preferences-stv-in-scottish-local-elections/#sub-section-3

Wikipedia offers this as an explainer, this is what will show if you search what is an STV election is.

Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner ranked-choice voting method, an electoral system in which voters rank candidates according to their preferences, with their single vote transferred to other candidates based on these rankings if their preferred candidate is eliminated, so that their vote still counts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote

What we establish here – is that coming ‘first’ or being ‘largest party’ isn’t the aim of the system.

The aim is to get any many people elected that share the views of the electorate.

The STV voting system is the preferred voting system of the party of government in Scotland, which at this time is the SNP.

So it surprised us today to see a Scottish Government minister say ‘a sad day for democracy’, following a council administration forming.

https://twitter.com/MairiMcAllan/status/1526875308586041344

Let’s take a look at how the result stacked up, thanks to the incredible work of BallotBox Scotland and its license we can bring you this visual

https://ballotbox.scot/le22/south-lanarkshire

The ‘issue’ seems to be the pro-Indy councillors seemed to get 28 councillors, the pro-Union councillors got 34 – and subsequently have chosen to form an administration.

This is exactly what STV is designed to do. Force people to seek coalition and understanding from likeminded others.

The SNP even decided to put forward itself for administration in minority.

67% of the vote, the majority, went to non SNP councillors, and thus democracy in action – the elected representatives rejected the SNP minority, favouring a broader represented coalition.

Much hysteria follows by politically engaged people, who know and understand voting systems and result sets compounded by the realities of coalitions. Which makes it all the more ridiculous.

This is incredible. One government minister called it a ‘sad day for democracy’. Another government minister decries the result as a ‘disgrace’.

While its always a bit horrible to see your political opponents form administration and work together against you. It is neither disgraceful or sad for democracy. This is what is supposed to happen.

Stories like this are occurring all over Scotland as administrations form and individual supporters or activists may be angry and vent.

However government ministers must hold themselves to a higher standard. We have a proportional representation system in Scotland and it has delivered its verdict. To suggest otherwise in an attempt to discredit the democratic system we sit on is callous, naive and dangerous.

We must have respect for our political opponents and the mandate they carry from their electorate. We must defend the democratic systems and institutions we are fortunate to have. You cannot rail against Scotland having governments in Westminster it did not elect if you utterly disrespect the result of the democratic elections held under proportional systems in our own councils.