There have been rumours flying around all evening about Labour spokesmen saying they'd rather see the Tories in power in Westminster than come to any agreement with the SNP. This is crystallising to Tom Harris (Glasgow South) on Newsnight saying pretty much that, and/or that he and his colleagues would never under any circumstances sit on the same benches as the SNP.
Labour are also apparently saying that they won't offer PR but merely a switch to the AV system, which is what the Conservatives were offering to Clegg as well. The main difference is that the Conservatives were offering a referendum on the proposal while Labour say they'll just buldoze it through.
Labour have invented a myth for themselves that the SNP were responsible for bringing down the Callaghan government in 1979 and letting in Margaret Thatcher. This isn't of course the whole truth, but it seems to have become their version of canon.
In 1979 we had the first referendum on devolution for Scotland. Labour officially supported a yes vote, but didn't campaign for that on the ground and in fact there was some campaigning against it. The Conservatives supported a no vote - but not because they opposed devolution, but because they said the powers offered were insufficient (which they were) and the best thing to do was to vote no, then an incoming Conservative government would put forward a much better bill with significantly wider powers. The SNP was left running the "yes" campaign almost single-handed. I know of SNP activists who took off their party identification and went to Labour offices to offer to deliver their "yes" literature that was sitting untouched in the printer's boxes, then pushed both that and the SNP's literature through the doors together.
The vote was scuppered by an English Labour MP who proposed an amendment that 40% of the registered electorate had to vote Yes or the bill would fall. Despite the obvious problems with the electoral roll (double registration, dead people and so on), this was passed. In the end although the yes vote was over 50% it wasn't over 40% of the notional electorate, and the Labour government announced no devolution.
As the Callaghan government began to shake, the SNP demanded that the will of the majority of voters be honoured and that the Scotland Act be passed, as their price for supporting Callaghan in a
vote of confidence. Labour refused. The SNP votes were instrumental in the loss of that vote, but so were the Liberals.
In 1979, nobody imagined what Thatcher was going to be like. She had in fact promised a better and stronger devolution settlement if voters rejected Labour's bill. Nobody knows how many no votes were cast on that understanding. The SNP saw Labour as having betrayed the Scottish popular vote, and themselves as under no obligation to go on supporting the Labour government.
However, this is spun as the treacherous SNP knowingly delivering Scotland into the hands of the Iron Lady. Actually, if the Labour devolution bill had been passed and a Scottish parliament been in existence, Scotland might have resisted the worst depredations of Thatcherism - which was going to come anyway, nothing Labour or the SNP could have done would have avoided it. But Labour rigged the vote, and refused to keep its promise to Scottish voters, so Scotland was left defenceless through the 1980s.
Every time any question of co-operation comes up (or even any time Labour need a quick insult to throw at the SNP), this supposed "opening of the door to Thatcher" is brought up. Now, it seems, it is to be the reason why Labour would rather see a Tory government in power than come to any arrangement with a perfectly amenable SNP. And yet they'd be happy with a coalition with the LibDems, when the Liberal party also voted for that no confidence motion.
Nice one, guys.
Rolfe.
