The Labour Party

For my first blog using wordpress I have decided to offer my views on the Labour Party. Please excuse any bad language that might just slip out.

The Labour Party was founded in or around 1900 , Keir Hardie being one of the fathers of the party. The Labour Party grew to be the party of the workers, the party for the poor and defenceless and possibly it was for a while as it was a joining of bodies such as the Fabian Society, Trade Unions and Independent Labour. The Labour Party Manifesto contained a famous clause which they removed in 1995.

Clause Four said:To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

Basically the Labour Party believed in nationalisation and workers having some form of ownership over the things they produced or the industries etc they worked in. The Party tried to represent the poor and had some success in getting their members elected to the Houses of Parliament. The election in 1910 saw 42 MPs elected which was a significant achievement for a new party at a time of anti-union feeling among the House of Lords. The Labour Party was then to go on and form governments in 1924, 1929, 1964 , 1974 and 1997.

Clause Four was replaced in 1995 with: The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.

The Labour Party also went through years of turmoil in the 70’s and years in the wilderness in the 80’s and most of the 90’s. The Labour Party then started to change, from giant men like Hardie and Ramsey McDonald it ended up with Kinnock, Blair, Brown and Milliband. In Scotland the Northern Branch of Labour got Dwer, McLeish, McConnell, Grey and Lamont. None of them great, all of them vacuous.

Labour in Scotland used to be a party that people trusted, I even thought in my younger years that they were for me. I very quickly learned that they are for themselves. Today this party have abandoned every belief they once held, and stood up for. Today Lamond proclaims that we live in a something for nothing Scotland and is more than happy to side with the Conservatives/Liberals in attacking the poor and vulnerable in Scotland. Her blind hatred for the SNP has shown her to be a loathsome character who is only interested in her personal ambition and the party rather than the interests of the Scottish people.

Today we are facing the biggest attack on our services and living standards since the 80’s, the Tories with the aid of the Liberals are trying to re-balance what they see is their legitimate order. The Liberals under Clegg, and Rennie in Scotland, either don’t want to see or can’t see that they are the patsies while Cameron and Osbourne are the men on the grassy knoll. We should be able to expect the Labour Party Scottish branch to stand up for its members, however,  what it’s members are getting are attacks on the things they worked hard for their whole lives, many will have fought for them.

What a sad day when the Labour Party no longer represents the poor but rather represents its own privileged selves. From the War in Iraq to the flipping of homes by the likes of Alister Darling, to the ermine in the House of Lords for the likes of Prescott and McConnell. Labour no longer represents the interests of the Scottish people or Scotland, Labour no longer stands up for community, for the redistribution of wealth, for fairness or social justice. Labour has given up every principle it has ever held for a shot of power and a blind hatred of the SNP, which also comes across as a hatred of Scotland itself, this party has chosen to side with the elite, the wealthy, big business, the war machines and a broken political union which works against the interests of Scotland.

I hate this party, I hate what it has become and what it’s members have been brainwashed into accepting. To Labour Party members with decency, with social justice as a belief, I ask you to take back your party. Take back the ideals that the likes of Lamont have stolen from you, take back the moral ground and along with those whose passion is a social democratic independent Scotland find common ground and realise the power you have and only have to reach out and take.

Someone in the Labour Party please save the Labour Party or just join with the other two Conservative Parties and make a third. We need a strong honest Labour Party with the morals of its founders, an Independent Scotland needs that party too.