Labour must take a breath before mistakes made

Labour has no need to be rushed into making decisions on its future organisation in Scotland or who can stand for the leadership here – decisions that it is essential to get right if the union is to be defended.

Iain Gray is perfectly capable of holding the ring in Holyrood for as long as it takes to get the right solution. He has shown himself able to stand up to the SNP in the parliament. It was as an election leader that he fell down and there isn’t going to be an election. There is no need to impose an artificial deadline. Labour has more breathing space than some would give it credit for.

Labour has much more to do than simply pick a new front person. It has to sort out its whole organisational structure here. For a start and most importantly, the grassroots must relate directly to MSPs. At the moment the constituency parties are geared around getting the MP elected. The MSPs can be reporting to two or more with many finding themselves footloose. Labour has to reorganise constituency parties to conform to the Holyrood, not Westminster boundaries so that their priority is to work for and with the MSP or prospective candidate. Boring and bureaucratic, this change will attract no media coverage. (The Tories have been forced into promising hari-kiri as an attention seeking device.) Yet it is fundamental to shift the focus firmly on to the political challenge – returning Labour to first place in Scotland and through that seeing off separation.

Too many senior elected politicians do not seem to see that as the challenge they are prepared to become involved in. Thus Tom Harris’s brave announcement of his candidacy for leader in Scotland has been followed by a dearth of MPs throwing their hats in the ring. This may in part be due to the self-denying ordinance that Labour imposed. When the review was announced everyone was asked to refrain from public comment until it was completed. Hence the frustration of many MSPs in particular at the press criticism that they have not been willing to indulge in debate. It’s not because none of them have anything to say. It’s because they agreed not to say it until the review was published.

Equally, MPs may be delaying the announcement of their candidacies until they know, in fact, that they will be allowed under new rules to put themselves forward.

But I doubt it. There are two reasons why leading MPs such as, to point the finger, Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander are refusing to become involved. First, many Westminster MPs are, to put it bluntly, afraid. They are apprehensive about taking on such a formidable political strategist and debater as Alex Salmond. Should they confront him and lose, their political careers would be seriously damaged, if not over. Did Gordon Brown ever enter a debate with him?

Second, all of the high flyers see their careers as UK Cabinet ministers. This has been the problem since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. It has been seen, rightly, as the second division. Why exile yourself to Holyrood when to you can play with the big boys and the big issues on a world stage?

That, of course, was based on the assumption that devolution would settle the question of independence. That Holyrood would happily content itself with legislating and administrating away in the areas allocated to it and would stop bugging the rest of us. Anyone who thought about it could see that was an implausible scenario. Give any group of politicians a platform and they will build it out. When I was in Glasgow Corporation we spent time discussing and passing motions on the world events of the day. The fact that we were supposed to be looking after the bins never held us back.

Holyrood with its majority of SNP members has become not a place from where this corner of the UK can be better governed. It is now an engine for independence determined to conduct a referendum which is clearly ultra vires but which no-one at UK level dares to challenge in the courts. It is thus in Edinburgh that the decisive battles are going to be fought. Labour, therefore, must have its best generals there.

Few of the candidates currently being touted as leader in Scotland inspire total confidence that they can successfully lead this defence of the Union. Johann Lamont is a dedicated, principled worker, but the image is wrong in a television era. Tom Harris was one of the few Labour MPs to tell Gordon Brown to quit and to give his party a chance of winning the general election. He’s got the strength, but he is finding it difficult to secure support among MSPs. Ken Macintosh – intelligent, articulate, a committed home ruler – would be by far the best of the MSPs, but has he the steely edge to face down Salmond?

It is taking time for the party to adjust its thinking and realise that, as a whole, it must take ownership of the fight against separation. It needs MPs, MSPs and councillors to be agreed on the priority which is simply winning the referendum. It also needs the enthusiastic participation of the unions. Their main interest, legislation-wise, is in labour law, a reserved matter. However, the size of the public sector in Scotland dictates their involvement.

The Labour Party is capable of making radical changes in response to perceived dangers. Witness the current purge of sitting Glasgow councillors as the party prepares the strongest possible list of candidates for the expected SNP assault on the city next May. But the party also has democratic structures and change has to be agreed thoughtfully. Rather than rush through a solution for a National Conference at the end of this month, it is better to think more deeply, consult more widely and to demand of the Alexanders and the Murphys that they do their duty to their country and to their party.