unoriginalname38 – the blog of Dave Cole

The road to socialism

As I posted here, I believe it was Aneurin Bevan who said that he supported states' rights in the USA as the only way to reach socialism and a unitary state in the UK as the only way to reach socialism. I wonder if the same would now hold - three of the four devolved areas could reasonably be described as to the left of the Westminster government - Wales, Scotland and London. While London is to the left because of the popularity of Ken Livingstone and could conceivably return a non-Labour mayor (and even now the London Assembly sees the Conservatives as the largest party), it's harder to see Labour not being at least a coalition partner in Scotland and Wales.

What would Nye say now? Would further devolution also mean that some areas would be become rather more right wing? What areas would be devolved to? It appears that an independence referendum in Scotland could well result in independence from the rest of the UK.

While Scotland is probably more socialist than the remainder of the country, the loss of Scotland to Britain would result in a rightward shift. There are 39 Scottish Labour MPs while the Conservatives' lone representative is David Mundell. The Government's majority is 62, and would be reduced to 24. The desire of the left-leaning SNP, SSP, Solidarity and so on suddenly appear less useful. Scotland can and is benefitting from more left-wing positions already. For the rest of the UK - which would presumably retain the UN Security Council Seat etc. - to move to the right would not be desirable.

Maybe Nye was right?

xD.

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