13.05.1999

English backlash?

Devolution and nationalism

As expected, Labour emerged as the biggest party in both the Scottish and Welsh devolution elections last week. While Blair hoped to win an overall majority, especially in Wales, ironically the fact that he will now be forced to work as a minority government with the aid of unofficial coalition partners - not only the Liberal Democrats, but the nationalists - will not be too much of a disappointment.

After all, had Blair wanted to ensure an exclusively Labour administrations, he would not have introduced a proportional element into the electoral system for the new bodies. Both PR and coalition politics herald the kind of arrangement envisaged for Westminster itself. Under Blair’s constitutional revolution from above, the centre - with New Labour at its heart - will hold permanent sway.

The Hague Tories will be consigned to a powerless rump and the Conservative left wing continually tempted to split away. It is no coincidence that PR for local elections is also on the table as a Labour bargaining chip in its negotiations with the Lib Dems over the programmes of both the Scottish and Welsh administrations.

Thus, while Blair aims to permanently sideline the Tories, paradoxically the means used at least ensures they will retain some residual representation. Nevertheless the Conservative vote in Scotland dropped to just 16% last week - its lowest ever - yet the top-up, second-ballot system ensured that 18 Tory MSPs were elected, despite the party’s failure to win a single constituency seat. In Wales the Tories lost a further four percent, compared to the 1997 general election, yet saw six members returned (five in the second ballot).

Although New Labour also lost ground, Blair will undoubtedly be pleased that the Tories lost more. So long as the nationalist surge represents no more than a mid-term blip, he is counting on being able to strengthen the UK constitutional monarchy, while his position at the next general election will be secure. The main Conservative opposition, despite gaining a half respectable vote in the local elections, looks in no shape to pose any threat.

The success of Dennis Canavan, who won the Falkirk West seat with a huge 55% majority, humiliating the official Labour candidate, was a blow that could have been avoided. However, the loss of the Labour left as a whole, in a general realignment of politics, would be more than compensated for by the new allies Blair hopes to gain from the right, in the shape of Lib-Dem coalition partners, and perhaps the Heseltine-Clarke Tories too.

Blair believes that he has beaten the left for good and, like the Tories, the working class as a movement is permanently marginalised. Plaid Cymru’s victories in the Welsh valleys, where Labour support dropped an incredible 29 points, would no doubt have confirmed in Blair’s mind that the old certainties are dissolving. For the revolutionary left itself the fact that so many Welsh workers have rejected what they traditionally viewed as their party, only to turn to the nationalists, is a deeply contradictory development.

As for the Tories, a germ of an alternative strategy is starting to emerge. The slight percentage increase in support for the party, compared to 1997, gives Hague a breathing space after the recent private-public finance furore. But, more importantly, devolution has opened up new opportunities. While in Scotland and Wales the Tories seem to face extinction, in the rest of the country a section of the Conservatives is already talking the language of English nationalism. De facto the Tories are now the English National Party.

Philip Johnson, the home affairs editor of The Daily Telegraph, pointed to the disparity between government spending in England and Scotland: “Every Scottish resident gets 19% more public money than the United Kingdom average, and 24% more than people in England” (May 8). He added:

“The disparity in spending per capita between north and south of the border will come under scrutiny at a time when Scotland has become more prosperous than many of the English regions that receive proportionately less money.”

Regarding the possibility that students in Scotland may not have to pay the same tuition fees as those elsewhere in the UK, Johnson stated: “English MPs and voters will start to ask serious questions as to why their Scottish counterparts at Westminster can vote on education matters affecting England when they are not even responsible for the policy in their own constituency.” David Davis, Tory MP for Haltemprice and Howden, was reported as saying: “It would be frankly disgraceful if this sort of discrimination continued against other parts of the UK.”

Johnson quoted other “Tory MPs, who are ready to mount a campaign for an English parliament with the same powers as Scotland” - as though the English cannot exercise self-determination within the UK state. It is entirely possible that Hague himself may seek salvation and a niche through such politics.

This would represent a new and potentially dangerous development. A Tory-inspired English nationalism would be utterly reactionary.

Alan Fox