Herald letter: A CLASH OF PHILOSOPHIES

THE many responses (Letters, May 16) to my own contribution (Letters, May 13) regarding the Labour Party and Scottish independence boil down to a clash of philosophies.

Your correspondents portray the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the UK as (and I quote) like being on the dole and as parasitism. The question we need to ask is whether we see interdependence and mutual support as a weakness or as a strength. Should the better-off contribute to the well-being of the less well-off? Does it create a better society if we love our neighbour – or should we walk by on the other side? Labour believes that we achieve more by our common endeavour than we do alone.

In contrast, the idea that a relationship based on sharing resources and risks is demeaning and debilitating – that we should all stand on our own two feet – belongs to right-wing Tories like Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher. And to nationalists.

Peter A Russell, Glasgow.

Independence would do huge damage to the poor. That’s why Labour opposes it

IT is touching that so many of your correspondents have the best interests of the Labour Party at heart (Letters, May 10, 11 & 12), although I suspect they probably neglect to express that concern in the best way that they could – namely by actually voting for it in elections.

On the question of where Labour has gone wrong, it is clear that the party’s support nosedived in the 2014 referendum campaign. My view – from inside both the Better Together campaign and the party itself – is not that Labour suffered because it did not support independence. Rather, the opposite was the case – it suffered because it did not champion its own past achievements in Scotland, which were part of its many achievements in the UK as whole. Furthermore, by 2014, Labour was the only party whose USP was that it was the party of the whole of the mainland UK; this was both a potential vote-winner for the party and a responsibility to be upheld. Sadly, the then leadership recognised neither that opportunity nor that duty, and responsibility for much of what followed must be laid at the door of Ed Miliband, and of whatever genius strategists were advising him.

With regard to the question of Labour supporting independence, I previously offered my advice on how to approach the membership of one’s local party but that seems to have been missed or ignored. To set it out more simply for the hard of understanding, the best way to achieve this end is for activists to follow the route taken by those who successfully advocated devolution in the 1980s. They set up a genuine campaigning movement within the party, and proceeded to persuade their comrades from the grassroots up. Comrades like the late Bob McLean and others tirelessly spoke to constituency parties, they held fringe meetings at annual conference, and they sought to change minds with argument and reason.

It is true that those who want Labour to be a nationalist party will have more of an uphill struggle. This is because independence would mean an end to redistribution from the wealthy south-east of England and London to Scotland, and in turn massive cuts in public expenditure. This would bring about extensive losses of jobs and services for the least well-off, and would be to reject the very DNA of a party founded on mutual support and solidarity. But they of course are always welcome to try.

Peter A Russell, Glasgow.