Labour's lukewarm devosomething prospectus

When not indulging in sentimental British nationalist storytelling, Scottish Labour's case for the Union tends to rest on what Colin Kidd has usefully described as "instrumental unionism". The metaphors and tropes will doubtless be familiar to you. The pooling of resources and the sharing of risk; social solidarity; marching on a shared mission of social justice in these islands. Not fluttering union jacks and the trooping of the colour, but an argument that the Union is:

"... as Gordon Brown has suggested, founded on a moral purpose – that no matter where you reside and what your background is, every citizen enjoys the dignity of not just equal civil and political rights, but the same basic social and economic rights. Because we pool and share our resources, the moral purpose of the union is to deliver opportunity and security for all UK citizens irrespective of race, gender or religion – or location" (p.3)

Unsurprisingly, these arguments are well to the fore in today's report from the party's Devolution Commission, charged by Johann with dreaming up a compelling alternative vista to tempt Scots to vote against separation in September. The proposals are already being criticised by the usual suspects, but I wanted to pick up just one curious strand of argument running through the document.  Justifying their decision to rule out the devolution of "the core of the Welfare state", the commission revisit the theme, emphasising the importance of maintaining:

"... common UK-wide pensions, common UK social insurance, common UK benefits, a common UK minimum wage, and a UK system of equalising resources, so that everyone irrespective of where they stay benefits from fundamental political, social and economic rights."

Continuing:

"... in this union, we pool and share resources to ensure hard-working people, pensioners and those in need have equal economic, social and political rights throughout the entire UK. This is an idea – founded on solidarity, community and fairness – that is much greater than any notion of creating an independent state."

As grounds to justify their refusal to transfer key benefits, this argument is not without its allure. An instrumental politics of the union in this line is only possible if we are held together by the redistribution and exchange of resources across the whole country.  Invest Holyrood with responsibility for great tranches of welfare, and the Labour party is left making the instrumental case for Union on the basis of reserved forms of taxation - good luck with that one - or by appealing to the lip-quivering patriotism recently espoused by the Prime Minister in London. 

The husk of an instrumental case for the union can survive Iain Duncan Smith's parsimonious tenure in the Department for Work and Pensions; devolution of great tranches of welfare decision-making to the Scottish Parliament would reduce it to dust. It is not a surprise, therefore, that Johann's commission has declined to endorse it. 

I do wonder, however, how far this "solidarity and fairness" logic can really be taken. The Commission state boldly that it is integral to the stability and ethical purpose of the union that folk have access to the same "social and economic" rights irrespective of "location". But is this even true under the current devolution settlement? For example, education is widely considered to be a core social right, yet the English undergraduate must sink £9,000 into debt to fund her degree each year, while her Glaswegian cousin studies for free. This has been widely criticised as an inequity in parts of the media, and by politicians like Boris Johnson, but is fundamentally what devolution is all about, allowing spending to be allocated differently according to different political preferences, giving different substance to key social and economic rights which citizens have access to in different parts of the UK. 

There are other examples. The right to access to health care is another core social right, but there are already cross-border differences. If your Aunt Peg needs regular statins for her dicky ticker, the Scottish Government will foot the bill, but your Yorkshire cousin with a lardy tooth will have to stump up for his own pills. NHS England maintains a cancer drugs fund, the Scottish government has decided not to, to criticism in Holyrood from Ruth Davidson. A right to housing is another social right, but if you live in Berwick and find yourself impoverished by the Bedroom Tax, you're on your own; if you're north of the border, by hook or by crook, compensation for the reduced housing benefit will be found.  

From the citizen's perspective, your location in the UK already has significant implications for the scope of key social and economic rights available to you. Jobseeker's allowance may be identical, but it is a gross overstatement to claim that we currently enjoy the same basic social and economic rights in this country from John O'Groats to Land's end. Conceptually, welfare devolution isn't so readily insulated from these wider issues. If we are, as Ed Miliband insistently proclaims, "one nation", what justify these differences in treatment? If the integrity of the Union relies on having the same civil, political, economic rights everywhere in these islands, how can devolution and its outcomes be justified? Do tuition fees and free prescriptions not, at least to some extent, undermine the sameness and solidarity cited to keep almost all of social security reserved?

One of the curiosities of the referendum debate is that many of the writers who are explicitly keenest on a federal solution to Britain's current constitutional crisis - the Scotland on Sunday's Kenny Farquharson and David Torrance come to mind - are also enthusiastic proponents of the idea that political opinion among the wildling tribes of Scotland is more or less similar to those living south of the wall. As Gary Dunion observes in a piece on the European elections this morning, of Better Together:

"Crucial to their campaign is the argument that Scotland is politically no different to the rest of the UK, that our apparent predilection for more progressive policies is nothing more than an illusion brought on by our lack of fiscal responsibilities, a symptom of our subsidy junkiehood."

What bemuses me about the Torrance-Farquarson position is that, if true, it undermines not only the case for independence, but also for maintaining the current devolution settlement. If our political values and preferences are seamlessly of a piece across the country, what's the point in having an expensive assembly at the bottom of the Royal Mile to follow the English lead at a slower pace? If we don't have distinctive political aspirations in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, why enshrine or extend the powers of these institutions at all? It is a question to which I am yet to hear a tolerably satisfactory answer. 

Scottish Labour's invocation of the values of equality, solidarity and fairness to reject devolution of welfare will serve for today's rearguard action in defence of their lukewarm prospectus for more powers. It does not answer the more fundamental question. Labour always insists that they are "the party of devolution". But why? To what end? Today's report is entitled "powers for the purpose", yet the party has struggled since 1999 to produce a compelling and sustained sense of what to do, having completed John Smith's "unfinished business".

Under Miliband's Westminster-centric "one nation" vision, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Labour Party's political imagination is fired primarily by a unitary vision of the British state, leaving their flailing northern functionaries at a loss as what to do with this awkward institution they helped found. 

For A' That, Episode 4 ... Hypothetically Speaking...

I'm told that - like grief and alcoholism, and here there may be overlaps between the three - completing your doctoral thesis is a process with many stages, from bright-eyed initial enthusiasm, to grinding, alienated despair, as the prose accumulates, and the months and years tick by.  It's like Stockholm syndrome, where it is impossible to tell whether you or the thesis is the kidnapper. I've been sunk deep up to my eyeballs in this unforgiving endeavour: I hope you'll forgive my quietness here these past two weeks. 

I'm happy to say, however, that we are keeping up the momentum up on our For A' That podcast, recorded with my co-host, Michael Greenwell of the Scottish independence podcast (most recently recorded with Patrick Harvie MSP), and interesting folk from the world of Scottish social and political commentary.  Our guest on this, the fourth episode of the show, was Gary Dunion, currently one of the editors of Bright Green Scotland blog, former candidate and chief press officer for the Green Party in England and Wales.  

Today's discussion covered a range of topics, from Vodafone and Starbucks' interrogation by a Committee of the House of Commons on their economical tax arrangements, and the potential efficacy of protest to effect political change, to yesterday's (unconfirmed) allegations that police were stripping Celtic fans of Palestinian flags as an entre into a broader discussion of policing football, the law recently passed by Holyrood, to criminalise "offensive behaviour" on the terraces and how that may relate to fundamental rights, including free expression, which is protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, incorporated into domestic law by the Human Rights Act 1998.

We closed off our chat with a brief look at the latest independence referendum issues, including the House of Lords Constitutional Affairs Committee's report, published this week, reported in the Telegraph under the inflammatory headline, Lords: Scottish independence referendum deal could be declared "unlawful". Gary also makes an interesting point about campaign funding: is the SNP government actually proposing an overly abstemious regulation of the independence referendum? Is there not a case for nationalists to raise and spend a substantial amount of cash, making the best, most detailed case for independence which can be conceived? We also considered the situation of the civil service in this process: will the state bureaucracy in Scotland and the UK strain at the seams, as a nationalist Scottish Government, and a unionist Westminster Government, use their governmental resources to pursue their constitutional preferences?

In perhaps the podcast's inflammatory admission thus far, I also reveal that, unlike the First Minister, I cannot survey a Tunnocks' teacake with equanimity, nevermind culinary enthusiasm. Lend the podcast your ears here:

For those of you who'd prefer to ferret the show away for later like a concealed, larcenously-acquired teacake in a greedy schoolboy's pocket, you can also download the show via iTunes or Spreaker.  All observations, comments or criticisms on the show, or anything we discussed, very gratefully received.  We'll be back next week with another show, with another guest, and a new range of issues to blether about. Unforeseen, but happily, I'll also be up in Glasgow next week and have squeezed Saturday's Radical Independence Conference into my schedule.  I dare say I might bump into a few of you there.