Labour should look to Scotland for reforms their MPs might support

The National

3 days ago

The Labour Westminster government is in a tizzy. Not enough money today; fiscal rules blocking more money tomorrow; a socialist party in power acting unlike a social reform party, abandoning all reforms because they cannot carry the vast majority of their MPs with them.
What's the answer?
Eh, Scotland – its tax structure; its social benefits programme; its growth agenda for the country.
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Westminster, were it to follow Scotland's lead and adopt a similar tax and social benefits programme, would provide improved social benefits and would have billions and billions of additional income to spend on growing the economy.
Will they do that? Of course not! Not invented here. Westminster knows best. Oh, and those fiscal rules!
Our debt is on short-term rates, effectively allowing the bond markets to determine what government action is or is not acceptable.
It's time to, eh, 'take back control'. Labour are looking lost for ideas that their MPs will support. Look to Scotland's example!
Gerry Tollan
via email
IN last Friday's National, in the article on 'Starmer's year of broken promises…', you told us that the Scottish Secretary, Ian Murray, has stated that 'millions of Scots are now better off than they were when Labour came to power.' I knew that was incorrect but I didn't comment on it because I could not tie down a specific instance to demonstrate the inaccuracy of his statement.
However, on Wednesday morning, in my local Premier Store, I saw the perfect example of how he is using nothing more than Labour propaganda to hide the truth from us. I fancied something sweet so I went and had a look in the section where the chocolate wafers and shortbreads are displayed. There on the shelf I saw some 'chocolate crispies'. The packs at the front had the sell-by date of August 5, but those in the back row had the sell-by date of August 22. Those for sale by August 5 are priced at £1.95, whereas those with the August 22 sell-by date are priced at £2.09.
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That represents a price rise £0.14, which is slightly more than 7%. It also happens to be fairly representative of the general price rises in all the shops that have happened since Labour brought in the increase in employers' contributions towards their employees' National Insurance. In some instances the price rises are even higher, at around 10 or 12%.
Now, my pension increased by 3.9% this year. So, how can I and millions of other pensioners be better off than I was before this additional tax, imposed on all employers and passed on by them to us, was introduced by Labour?
It seems to me that Ian Murray's arithmetic is as dodgy as his politics!
Charlie Kerr
Glenrothes
WITH all the recent furore regarding cuts to benefits as opposed to tax rises, the general public will be unaware of the biggest gift to the rich of all time by Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher, who cut the top tax rate from 83 pence to 60 pence in the pound in one full swoop. Subsequently she cut it again to 40 pence in the pound, only raised latterly by a Labour government to 50 pence in the pound.
Anybody who thinks we might see these rates again are living in cloud cuckoo land, as MPs are all in the top tax bracket and turkeys don't vote for Christmas. It's no wonder the gap between the rich and poor is getting bigger when this government will not even contemplate equalising tax on earned income and tax on unearned income.
Allan Jaap
via email
I FOUND Mike Wallace's Long Letter (Jul 7) interesting and well-constructed but, like many letters from independence supporters, it contains a false assumption, one which is significantly misleading and does not help us to develop a strategy that will allow us to use the sovereignty of the Scottish people effectively.
The assumption that the so-called UK Supreme Court has ruled that the Scottish people can't have a referendum on independence is not correct, although it is frequently asserted by people who should know better. The UKSC has ruled that the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to institute a referendum on that subject because it can only act within its allotted powers under the Scotland Act, and constitutional matters are reserved to Westminster.
This says nothing about the powers of the Scottish people, who in fact hold sovereign power in Scotland.
READ MORE: Scottish Tory claims SNP 'cutting funding from Unionist areas'
Calum Duncan's letter in the same issue effectively destroys that false assumption when he points out that the UKSC was focused on the powers of the devolved parliament as set out in the Scotland Act, and as Calum puts it, 'Scotland's jurisdiction outside the ambit of the Scotland Act was not touched on'.
So the Scottish people's rights, and their sovereign authority, are not and cannot be affected by any UKSC judgment.
Now the question that now needs to be considered is: can the sovereign Scottish people be given a legal voice, so that they can exert their sovereignty? Well yes, they can, and the Scottish Parliament can help them to achieve this. The Scottish people are entitled to the full range of UN human rights as set out in the UN Covenants on Human Rights, and we currently have a petition before the Scottish Parliament, Petition Number PE2135, which would put some of these rights into Scots law and therefore give the sovereign Scottish people a legal voice.
This can be done by the present Scottish Parliament and is not subject to 'reserved powers' so the UK Government and the UKSC have no power to stop this.
This is the clearest and most direct way to self-government, it just needs the present indy majority in parliament to support it and put it into Scots law. You can help by going online and voting for this petition.
Andy Anderson
Ardrossan