Shift in the wind

Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, a Scottish constituency north of Edinburgh, has long been a stronghold of the Labour Party. Even by the standards of Scotland, a reliable and crucial source of MPs for Labour in UK general elections, it has enjoyed the status of an ironclad safe seat, drawing on the solid support of voters who once worked in the local coal, linoleum and textile industries. In the past four UK general elections, Labour’s majority over the second largest party in the constituency never dipped below 23 per cent, while at the last election in 2010, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has represented the area since 1983, won a whopping 64.5 per cent of the vote.

But as the British general election set for May 7 draws close, a poll has predicted a major upset: the seat could be won by the Scottish National Party (SNP), with support for Labour falling to around 30 per cent. (Fortunately for Brown, he will not be the face of the defeat, having announced his decision to step down as an MP). This is not the only potential major electoral upset for Labour in Scotland, according to the survey conducted by Lord Ashcroft Polls: the party is also set to lose seats in Glasgow, once prime Labour territory. A separate poll last week predicted that the SNP could pretty much “wipe out” Labour in Scotland, winning a staggering 55 seats in the Westminster parliament, where it previously had six. A strong showing could give the SNP, and its charismatic leader Nicola Sturgeon, the role of kingmaker for the first time in the United Kingdom’s parliamentary history.

The significance of this for the UK cannot be overstated. For many decades British party politics has followed a predictable trajectory, with victory oscillating between Labour and the Conservatives. In 1950, over 85 per cent of voters opted for either the Conservatives or Labour; as recently as 2001, their combined support stood at 73 per cent. The Liberal Democrats picked up much of the remaining electorate while smaller parties, such as the Greens, garnered little support.

While the SNP has long held sway over Scottish politics (it leads the government in the Scottish Parliament, the devolved legislature created in 1999 giving Scotland power over health, education and the environment), it has thus far had little impact on Westminster politics.

The 2015 election seems set to change that. While Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour’s Ed Miliband remain the only realistic contenders to be prime minister, the shape and ideology of the government either would head remain hazy. With most polls putting the two main parties in a dead heat (indicating roughly a third of the vote each), a coalition government seems almost inevitable.

Adding to the uncertainty is the near-obliteration of the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative’s current coalition partner. Being part of the ruling coalition, a path that saw the party quickly execute a number of U-turns on pre-2010-election promises, has sounded their electoral death-knell.

The SNP is now expected to replace the Libdems as the third largest parliamentary party, with another regional party, the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland (DUP), also possibly playing a key role. DUP leaders have indicated their willingness to work alongside either Labour or the Conservatives, unlike the SNP, which has made it clear that its own anti-austerity agenda would align it only with the Labour party — and only under certain conditions.

Headline grabbers

Then of course there’s the party that has caught the most headlines globally: the UK Independence Party (UKIP), ferociously anti-immigration and anti-European Union. Forecasts differ wildly on their likely performance (between four and 30 seats), and there is even some doubt whether their leader, Nigel Farage, will win the seat he is contesting. While both main parties have stated their unwillingness to enter a governing coalition with UKIP, its influence over the election cannot be underestimated. For one thing, it continues to fan the widely held but misplaced notion that immigration is out of control. The SNP and the Green Party aside, none of the major parties have been willing to emphasise the positive role played by immigration, choosing instead to pander to fears that immigrants both take away jobs and seize the lion’s share of benefits (claims that contradict one another). Labour too seems to have jumped on the bandwagon: it has made an immigration limit one of its five main electoral pledges, and has been purveying on its website a campaign mug bearing the motto “immigration cap”.

There is, of course, no simple explanation for the shift that appears to be occurring in British party politics.

As in much of the world, changing class dynamics have meant that contemporary Britons are less tied to parties than were previous generations, but that has been a gradual shift.

While UKIP’s rise has often been attributed to a sharp rise in immigration — from the EU and beyond — since the start of the 21st century, the fact that many UKIP strongholds are towns or regions with low immigrant populations appears to belie this. Research suggests that UKIP draws its support not only from disenchanted Conservative voters but also Labour ranks.

The latter is, perhaps, more surprising, but points to that party’s increased focus in the past 20 years on middle-class voters, alienating working-class voters, many of whom have shared little in the economic revival that has taken place since the 2006/7 financial crisis. The Eurozone crisis that subsequently unfolded has strengthened anti-EU sentiment, with UKIP delivering a strong performance in last year’s European parliamentary elections.

The SNP’s rise is equally complex. According to John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, what is involved is not simply a surge in support for the SNP, which has performed very well in recent local and Scottish parliamentary elections. While voters in Scotland previously differentiated between what they thought was right for Scotland, and what was right for the UK as a whole, often voting in different ways in Scottish and Westminster parliamentary elections, that seems to have ended with last September’s ‘in-out’ referendum. “The referendum has turned the question of Scotland’s constitutional future into the principal dividing line between political parties,” he says. Those in favour of independence are no longer content to remain with Labour, which campaigned alongside the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats for Scotland to remain in the UK.

In addition, the referendum provided the SNP with an opportunity to highlight its wider messages on social justice and an end to the austerity programme brought in by the Conservatives in 2010 and largely supported by Labour. Combating austerity is welcomed by those in traditional Labour strongholds such as Glasgow, where deprivation is rife and many have felt abandoned by the political establishment, says Nighet Nasim Riaz, an SNP member and campaigner in the city. (A report last year suggested that as many as a third of children in Glasgow were living in poverty.) “We’ve set out our vision for a progressive Scotland — even though we didn’t get independence, we still want to work towards that vision of a nation of hope and progress where social justice is not sidelined,” she said.

Ripples in India

The repercussions of the coming elections will clearly be felt in India. The rise of UKIP has undoubtedly pushed immigration up the agenda and while the focus remains largely on incomers from the EU, neither of the two major parties seem likely to make life easier for those from India who wish to visit Britain or do business with it.

Then there’s the fact that the Conservatives have pledged, should they win the election, to hold an in-out EU referendum by 2017. Their initial promise to campaign in favour of Britain staying in the EU seems to be steadily morphing into the threat that Britain will leave in the absence of major reforms. This will not be music to the ears of the roughly 700 Indian businesses that have chosen to make the UK their European headquarters, in part because of access to the European common market.

In a recent seven-way televised debate between the leaders of the main political parties, SNP’s Sturgeon urged voters to opt for change. “You can vote for the same old parties and get the same old politics… or you can vote for something different, better and more progressive,” she said. Whether, and to what extent, British voters heed her call will not be apparent until May 8. But the times, it would seem, are a changin’.

COMMENT NOW