Labour right to blame for failure in Scotland

22nd June 2017 Socialist Action 0

By Robin Jackson

The failure of Scottish Labour to match the spectacular General Election advance of Corbyn’s Labour in England and Wales allowed the Tories to benefit from a sharp fall in support for the SNP. The 12 new seats that the Tories won in Scotland were the margin which has allowed Theresa May to project a putative House of Commons majority in alliance with the DUP, rather than be forced to handover to Corbyn or call a new General Election. Although Scottish Labour made some small recovery over 2015, it nonetheless polled less than the Tories and the SNP, meaning Labour came third in vote share for the first time in a general election in Scotland since 1918.

Corbyn’s Labour is leading a general left advance in Britain

21st June 2017 Socialist Action 0

The 2017 British General Election was of course most spectacularly marked by the advance of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and the loss of the Tories’ overall majority. But it also saw a shift to the left of the main part of the political spectrum and an increased polarisation with a decline of forces outside the two main left (Labour) and right (Tory) political parties. Votes for the main centre party (Liberal Democrats) continued to decline.

Two key reasons for Corbyn’s stunning advance

19th June 2017 Socialist Action 0

The following article by Tom O’Leary, on Labour’s General Election campaign, was previously published by Socialist Economic Bulletin.

Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership the Labour Party has staged a stunning revival, prevented Theresa May achieving a landslide which she would have claimed as a mandate for ‘Hard Brexit’ and has caused a crisis of Tory government which will make it harder to make new cuts in public spending, apart from rising inflation. None of Corbyn’s opponents could have possibly achieved that outcome.

DUP dawdles behind Tories into cul-de-sac

16th June 2017 Socialist Action 0

By Stephen Bell

At the time of writing, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Arlene Foster, has stated that: ‘Discussions are going well with the government and we hope soon to be able to bring this work to a successful conclusion’. Providing the essential number of MPs to maintain a minority Tory government gives a degree influence which the DUP probably did not anticipate.