By stewartb
The BBC News website’s Wales section today has this headline: ‘Low Welsh voter turnout appalling, says Kinnock’.
It reports that: ‘In Wales, only 56% of voters filled out their ballot papers, compared to 60% across the UK, and 67% in Wales last time out in 2019.’ (In Scotland the overall turnout was 59%, down 8.4% from 2019.)
And: ‘Despite winning the majority of seats, Labour’s vote share in Wales actually dropped, down from 40% to 37%.’
‘… every Welsh constituency saw a decline compared to the previous election.’
So the impact on the 2024 GE of Labour having a long record in government in Cardiff whether on (I) on voter engagement in what was a GE election to get rid of a Tory government; or (ii) on positive expressions of popular support for the Labour Party, was hardly a ringing endorsement! Despite this, Labour in Wales won 27 seats,, up nine compared to 2019.
Labour’s share of the vote in Wales dropped by 3.9% since the 2019 GE: Plaid Cymru’s share went up 4.9%.
The Scotland page of the BBC News website today has this: ‘Starmer sets his sights on Scotland’. James Cook tells us that Starmer’s plan for the Holyrood election is (in terms) to ask voters here: ‘ “is your life better after 19 years under the SNP?”
If the response of the electorate in documented above is anything to go by, voters in Wales are less than convinced about Labour’s track record in government in Cardiff.
But then – unlike in Scotland of course – Wales and its Labour government over more than a decade now have been very badly impacted by actions and inactions of the Tories in Westminster. Or so Labour tells us!
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Believe this at your pearl.
Sir Keir Starmer promises to ‘serve entirety of Scotland’ during first visit to Edinburgh as PM
He cant even use the front door when visiting the FM.
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The danger Scotland now faces is the manipulation by Labour of SNP success figures. These figures will be taking as Labour success over the coming year despite Labour doing nothing, this will be done via the influence of the media. Labour will also focus on SNP failures which there are many. The resent train driver strike immediately after an election appears to be the start of this manipulation. We are on to a hiding to nothing unless the SNP has a mutiny and changes the leadership.
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COME ON INDY SCOTS
lets take our freedom SOON
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O/T – shifting from Wales to NI. The BBC News website is reporting (8 July) on the Labour PM’s visit to NI: ‘Starmer says meetings with NI parties a reset’. The article includes an ‘Analysis’ by a BBC political editor which tells us:
‘On a day when reset was the buzz word, Prime Minister Keir Starmer appears to have reset his position on a border poll. Having previously told the BBC in 2021 he would campaign for Northern Ireland to remain in the UK he has now changed his mind. Instead he said his government would adopt the role of “honest broker” in any constitutional debate.‘
‘That, he said, is in keeping with the Good Friday Agreement which states it is for those on the island of Ireland to decide their fate.’
A shift in position as a consequence of NOT having an electoral mandate in NI (notwithstanding his recent claim to the contrary) or an explicit endorsement of the democratic principle concerning the right to self-determination or just taking up a position deemed tactically convenient for the moment? Who can tell!
If the PM is accepting ‘the principle’ – that the people living in NI have the right to determine their constitutional future – then this same principle applies to Scotland. How could it not?
In a 21st century democracy, it surely cannot be Starmer’s position that Scotland (or Wales for that matter) must put themselves through decades of internal violent conflict before arriving at something equivalent to the Good Friday Agreement and before gaining the right to benefit from the same principle of self determination enjoyed today by the people of NI?
Some argue that the absence of a clear, feasible, legal and democratic pathway to self-determination for Scotland causes disillusionment and disengagement amongst potential pro-indy voters. Moreover, its absence is something that also stimulates deep, diverting and damaging divisions within the Yes movement.
So continued avoidance of explicit acceptance by Labour and other Unionists that the same democratic principle of self-determination which applies in NI must apply in Scotland (and Wales) is of electoral benefit to Unionist parties.
Unionist arguments that Scotland no longer wants independence so there is no need to address this in-principle issue are specious. Wanting something deemed not to be feasible is for all but diehards, not sustainable.
Cross-party agreement on how legally and democratically Scotland can determine its constitutional future could be a hugely motivating outcome – and for the Yes movement, a ‘healing’ one. These are things Unionists will fear and therefore Starmer and others will continue to avoid the issue – avoid the in-principle comparison with the rights enjoyed by the people of NI – with of course mainstream media assistance!
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