Lessons of the Glasgow North East by-election

Tommy Sheridan hit the nail on the head in his interviews to both channels on the night of the count in Glasgow North East. The most worrying aspect for democracy and for anyone who wants to see working class people organised and acting in their own rational interest was this: that in the middle of the biggest post war recession, the MP’s expenses scandal, an unpopular war in Afghanistan, and at the fag end of 12 years of Labour government that has entrenched inequality and seen Labour abandon its working class roots to chase the joys of the market and ‘middle England’, only about a third of the electorate bothered to turn out to vote.

1 in 3 of the electorate voting?  The BNP coming fourth and nearly holding its deposit?  A bad night for democracy barely covers it.  Clearly many working class people are not going out to vote because they don’t believe it will achieve anything – and after 12 years of a Labour government in Westminster that has acted differently from the Tories only in degree, who can blame them?

The corollary of this negative is a positive, however, if the left has the courage to see it. If a majority of working class voters are scunnered with establishment politics and the status quo, conversely they may be open for change to a principled, united and broad left party that reconnects with their real concerns, engages their imagination in a constructive and fresh way, and offers real pragmatic hope of electoral success.

The selection by the SNP of a parachute candidate with extremely reactionary social views alienated some potential SNP voters and Labour’s negative scaremongering campaigning ensured Labour were never in any doubt of losing one of their safest seats in Scotland. Tommy Sheridan and Solidarity ran a vigorous campaign around poverty and inequality that saw Solidarity emerge with four times the vote of the other explicitly socialist parties put together.

Undoubtedly, any joy at being ‘the best of the left’ would have been soured at the fact that the BNP pipped Tommy for fourth place with just over 1000 votes.  It’s important that socialists take a balanced view, however. Any advance for the racist, fascist BNP is to be deplored and countered, but, given what was essentially a week long party political broadcast for the BNP courtesy of Question Time, the BBC and other deluded ‘liberals’ in the media bang in the middle of the campaign, their advance from 4.4% in the Euro elections to 4.9% - or to use another measuring stick, from 920 votes at the last General Election to 1013 on 12^th November - was scarcely the advance their leadership had hoped for, or some irresponsible journalists were predicting.

The point that Labour’s abandonment of its traditional working class base and socialist values is the prime reason for the advance of the BNP has been made elsewhere, and we concur. The media however, must also shoulder some of the responsibility for providing the racists with the oxygen of publicity over the past few years. No-one will object to the carrying of genuine news stories but Nick Griffin only seems to need to turn up someplace and fart for a battery of cameras and headline hungry journalists to gather round, like flies round dung.

Liberal media commentators who call for Griffin and the BNP to be ‘dragged into the light’ so their vile policies can be exposed fail to understand that it is precisely these vile policies that attract some people. Treating the BNP as a legitimate political party merely legitimises the internalised extreme racism held by a minority in society and encourages them to express it at the ballot box.  If the BNP were to get the publicity they actually deserve – that is to say, none – then their support would gradually dwindle back to a hardcore 1% racist vote.

Of course, the other part of this equation is the left has to provide an electoral alternative that gives substantial numbers of people real hope. All the progressive minority party votes taken together – Solidarity, the Greens, the SSP and the SLP – would have produced a stunning third place result for progressive politics in Glasgow North East.

Of course, it can be objected that not all of these votes would have translated into votes for a unity candidate, and that is undoubtedly true (not all the green vote would go to a left party, for instance). But we’re willing to bet that most would, and it’s also equally true to say that a genuine united electoral alliance that ensured only one left- green candidate stands in any one seat would be more than the sum of its parts, attracting fresh layers of working class people and active trade unionists.

We’re not naive at DGS. We know that such a thing is a long way away, but as we’ve pointed out previously, with 50 seats in Scotland and over 600 UK wide up for grabs at the forthcoming General Election, surely its not beyond people of goodwill and reason on the left, whatever their party or tradition, to ensure a single left candidacy in most seats. Solidarity was right to try and get agreement on a unity candidate prior to the Glasgow North East by-election. It is a pity their overtures were rebuffed. We trust however, that they will continue to try and build a wider left unity, and we would urge others to now follow their example.

With the Holyrood elections in Scotland only eighteen months away a special responsibility now descends on lefts and progressives in Scotland. The BNP will be emboldened to try and win a list seat in Glasgow. What a tragedy it would be if they got one because the left couldn’t get its act together.