FORWARD? THE LIMITS OF LABOUR POLITICS IN SCOTLAND

Abstract

The arrival of the first single volume history of the Labour Party in Scotland is to be welcomed. But in many ways the essays compiled, and largely written, by Ian Donnachie and his colleagues must also count as a missed opportunity. And the nature of this missed opportunity is implicit in the title of the text itself. On the one hand, Forward! rightly celebrates the contribution of the popular socialist newspaper edited by Tom Johnston which did so much to establish Labour, and more particularly the Independent Labour Party, as a cohesive political force in pre-1914 Glasgow. On the other hand, the title implicitly recalls the style of labour history in which the 'forward march' of the Labour Party of ineffectual local socialisms to a great party of imperial and national government is depicted as a 'magnificent journey' presided over by Labour leaders. In such accounts this Odyssey was made all the more difficult by a fractious membership reluctant to jettison their beliefs in the pursuit of power. Perhaps this is to make too much of the title, but given that the editors' intention is to synthesise recent research on Scottish popular politics it is a disappointment that the authors concentrate on the panjandrums of the People's Party, largely ignoring the expanding body of work which examines the role of the ordinary Labour member in Party affairs. 1922 was the watershed for Scottish Labour: the election of the 'Clydesiders' to Westminster marked the end of the long Liberal hegemony in Scottish politics and the beginning of Labour's dominance. The reasons why this breakthrough occurred in 1922 have been the source ofmuch debate. Christopher Harvie subscribes to the view that 1922 was not an electoral reward for Labour's or, more specifically, the ILP's role in the industrial and political unrest of wartime Glasgow. Rather, 1922 represented the culmination of decades of street and industrial politics in which the ILP had become the hub of a dense network of working-class organisations. From 1888 Labour was not only becoming an electoral force but was slowly infiltrating itself into every nook and cranny of working-class life. Ironically, it was the consistent weakness of the Labour Party in Scotland which enabled the ILP to become the central player in building the broad 'labour alliance' which slowly eroded the Liberal hold on Scottish popular politics. But Harvie seems to shrink from the full implications ofhis argument by suggesting that short-term factors