The recent Scottish Labour Leadership contest saw the election of former deputy leader Johann Lamont to the role. With the endorsement of most MPs, MSPs and trade unions, she was the clear choice of the party leadership, and won with 51% of first preference votes.

Despite the failure of the party to support many left policies in the years that she was deputy leader, she went into the election being seen as a centre-left candidate as was fellow contender Ken McIntosh. The right-wing candidate, Tom Harris, supported the abolition of free education for Scottish students (which he announced at the Scottish Labour Students conference of all places) and a raft of other ‘Blairite’ policies including breaking the trade union link. He favours ending the right of trade union members to vote at leadership elections. He was completely rejected, garnering only 7.9% of the vote.

Significantly Ken McIntosh won 41% of the overall vote and a majority of the party membership. He described himself openly as a socialist and supported using the devolutionary powers of the Scottish parliament for leftwing policies such as public ownership of the railways. It is also important to note that all of the leadership candidates were present at the Glasgow rally on the day of the November 30th strike action.

This was conformation of growing pressure on Labour to respond to large sections of its support either being on strike or in support of the action. A BBC poll in the run up to the strike action found that nearly 70% of Scots supported the strike action and that 80% of 18-24 years olds across Britain did also. (BBC News 28/11/2011) Unlike on the day of action on June 30th, Scottish Labour openly supported the strike action with its MSPs refusing to cross picket lines and enter parliament. This stand must be welcomed but must also be understood in relation to growing pressure on the party leadership from its membership and trade unionists. This pressure must continue in the movement particularly as further action or the acceptance of a potentially disastrous agreement with the government is set to be hotly debated.

The stand taken by Scottish Labour on November 30th was in stark contrast to that of the SNP who crossed picket lines and entered the Scottish parliament that day to ironically pass a motion against Tory cuts. In reality the SNP will be implementing these cuts and with a majority government have no cover for doing so. This follows a deal between Alex Salmond and David Cameron which deferred budget cuts from this years’ pre-election budget to double them next financial year.

However, it is not enough to simply criticise the SNP from opposition without a viable alternative to offer. In reality Labour as it stands would be implementing the same cuts. At the Scottish elections in May the SNP at least presented in words a left sounding opposition to the Tories, promising to defend Scotland from the cuts. This is already starting to unravel; hidden at the back of their manifesto was a 5 year public sector pay freeze and corporation tax cuts. The pay freeze is now being implemented whilst it was discovered by The Scotsman in the run up to November 30th that the SNP were contemplating even more drastic cuts to public sector pensions than the Tories. Scottish Finance Minister John Swinney admitted that the proposed measures “will have significant and negative implications on the long-term retirement provision of some of the lowest-paid individuals in our society.” (The Scotsman website 29/11/2011)

Contrary to how they have presented themselves then, the SNP are not a left-wing party that will protect Scotland from the Tories. In reality, through policies around cutting corporation tax they are willing to put Scottish workers into a precarious ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of pay and conditions against workers in the rest of Britain and Europe. This reflects the fact that the SNP’s ideological vision was torn apart by the onset of economic crisis in 2008 and the subsequent deepening of that crisis more recently. Alex Salmond’s previous rhetoric of an independent Scotland joining a Nordic “arc of prosperity” built upon a financial services economy open to foreign business, based on the model of Iceland and Ireland, has fallen flat on its face. Within this a future based on “independence in Europe” also lies in tatters given there is now even no guarantee an independent Scotland would be found a place in the EU never mind the Euro itself!

Alongside this the question of Scottish independence itself and a referendum have been put into the long grass. Under the previous minority administration the SNP could rule out such a measure because of the “unionist majority” in parliament. However, now, despite the party’s reason d’être being Scottish independence and having a majority to call a referendum this has been put off until 2013 at the earliest. This is because Salmond hopes that as in the 1980s, a government dominated by Tories with minute levels of support in Scotland implementing unpopular measures will see rising support for devolution and independence. However, in doing so he is also running the risk of seeing mounting discontent with his party which will be passing on cuts from the parliament in Holyrood and in local authorities across Scotland in the meantime.

Labour has to seize this opportunity to put forward an openly socialist alternative to nationalism and austerity measures. As Labour historically did so under Keir Hardie and as gained popularity in the Scottish labour movement during the late 1960s and 1970s - following events such as the UCS work-in which openly challenged and contributed to the ousting of a Tory government - “home rule” on an openly socialist basis needs to be put forward. This means, in the language of the debate today, arguing not for crude unionism or nationalism but what is known as “devolution-max”. That means the Scottish parliament attaining full economic powers, including over oil revenues, and using these to implement a socialist program instead of administering Tory cuts. This can lay the basis for an appeal to young people and workers in the rest of Britain and across Europe who are currently looking for an alternative to a capitalist system in crisis that offers us no future.