Scotland deserves better, so.....

......On polling day…….May 2016

…what chance Labour voters will hold their noses and vote Tory, just to give SNP and independence a bloody nose and to luxuriate in the ‘morning after headlines? Imagine that! ’SNP fail at the polls. Proof independence is off the agenda’. 

But various comments and murmurings indicate this might happen in an effort to lessen the SNP hold. Would a Tory ‘bounce’ then enable Labour to ditch a failed leader with a view to regrouping in time for next year’s local elections and beyond? 

Ok Labour has more than ‘lost its way’. What does it stand for? Is it sufficiently left wing? What does printing its manifesto so late in the day say about its organisational, strategical capabilities and its view of the voters? Who truly knows, since the Labour Party doesn’t! 

But that shouldn’t make the Tory Party worth of a vote, not even a protest vote. 

And Lib Demmers? They too know their credibility is so far gone, thanks in no small part to firstly Cleg, but most definitely due to Carmichael. Maybe LibDemmers could switch votes to Tory; they’ve done it in the past. So take a moment Labour LibDem voters and weigh it up. 

Post war 1945, would a Tory Govt have enabled, struggled for and set up an NHS? No way! They would have knocked down any suggestions as being..’too expensive, post war’. There are many on the right who would argue and still do that Attlee’s government were wrong to bring many of our largest industries under state control: coal mining and the railways. But they were left-wing, manifesto pledges that Labour made and kept. And Bevin as Foreign Secretary helped start de colonisation:  India, Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon and Jordan, whilst Churchill (and the Tories) hummed and hawed with him asserting he had not come to oversee the dismantling of the British Empire.

So how can you possibly vote Tory and (further) abandon your commitments to socialism, equality, solidarity?

But  if post war is too far back, too historical, what of now? Take 2014 and just one pledge: for ship building on the Clyde: allegedly ‘secure’ within the Union. Where are we now with that? That’s what the Tories do to you, to me, to Scotland; say one thing, do another. How could you possibly vote for them, even with a ‘tactical’ tag attached to your votes? There may have been food rationing long after the end of WW2, but it’s only with Tory, propped up by Lib Dems,  that we saw the need for food banks, now a very visible sign of the failure of Tory policies.

And if that doesn’t stick in the craw, think of the young, vulnerable refugee children, abandoned by the Tory party last week. How does that sit with the Attlee government’s commitment to the UN? Take that into consideration along with various, current Tory positioning : T May, Home Secretary; her recent speech on ‘human rights, workers’ rights; the Government’s  relationship with junior doctors.  

But wait, a smarmy speech yesterday, Wed 4^th May from Cameron and an apparent change in Tory policy towards child refugees? Watch for the details, as they play the numbers/age/country of origins game.

Tories don’t change their ways, but they want Labour Lib Dem voters to. So, weight it up, please.

Endorsing Tory party dictate as passed from Westminster via one solitary MP, then on to Davidson, won’t benefit Scotland.  

A vote for the Tories will only prolong austerity, and weaken the next Scottish Government’s ability to challenge and mitigate Tory policies. Policies that include furthering neo liberalism and the continuing transfer of monies, resources to the private sector away from the public sector.

Scotland deserves better. 

And with this vote and emerging inde parties, such as RISE, and hike in popularity of the Greens, there could be a real ‘bounce’ in our Parliament, headed up by a strong Government, that takes us even closer to independence.

Selma Rahman