That Rarest of Things

Somehow, the Guardian managed to publish that rarest of things: an actually astute article on Scottish and Welsh independence in a unionist-leaning paper. It takes as its central thesis that it's likely that the upcoming Scottish and Welsh elections are predicted to lead to pro-independence majorities, while the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly is already in favour of leaving the UK. It then argues that this should serve as a major wake-up call to Westminster that things need to be done differently.

It won't, of course, but never mind.

Probably the key statement, though, and one that seems to have sailed blissfully behind the commentators (who are rehearsing the usual pro- and anti-independence talking points), is this: "This doesn’t work for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, but it also doesn’t work for many parts of England." (emphasis mine)

That is, the UK fundamentally isn't working for any part of the UK.

I've spoken about this before, more than a decade ago, and it's even more true now: for a very long time, voters in the UK have had the choice of a Labour (or Labour-led) government, or a Tory (or Tory-led) government. Worse, the Labour and Tory parties actually agree on the vast majority of their policies, disagreeing in a fairly narrow range of areas and on some implementation details.

This has manifested itself in a massively-unpopular Tory government getting voted out and replaced with a Labour landslide that has collapsed to even worse levels of unpopularity in an unprecedentedly short period of time.

Look to the future and the next election has one of three possible outcomes: either Labour somehow manage to turn this around and get a second term and we get more of the same (as far as I can see this is the least-worst option, but I really can't see it happening), or the Tories somehow manage to recover in the polls and come back into power and we get more of the same, or (horror of horrors) we end up with a Reform government, probably elected on a fairly narrow subset of the electorate.

That's a horrifying prospect, and it's probably just as horrifying for a great many people in England, just as it is in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

The only real difference? Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have (at least in theory) the option of leaving the UK. England don't have that option - in theory, they could eject the rest of us, but that still leaves them with the same broken Westminster system of government.

So what is the solution?

The answer to that is actually the same, whether the question is now to stop the rise of Reform or countering the pro-independence parties in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland: make the UK actually work for the people of the UK.

That includes, but is not limited to, a better voting system, a better caliber of MPs (of all parties), an end to the cozy consensus that leads to all our parties agreeing on almost everything. And it mean finding a way to improve the economy... but not just "the economy" (which typically measures things that are only important to the very rich) but the economy as it is felt by regular people - jobs, wages, inflation (especially food inflation)... we need to find a way to end the dependence of so many on food banks (it's good that they're there, but they should also be a mark of shame for a supposedly-rich country).

And all of which needs done before the next election. Which means two things: firstly, the timescale is absurdly unrealistic such that it's almost certainly too late.

Secondly, it means that only Labour can stop Reform. Not as an election slogan (which is almost certainly will be), but because they're currently the only ones with the power to actually do anything.