The left's defence of the UK

Ed Miliband visited Scotland this week to make an intervention into the referendum debate, in order to defend the union on vaguely left-leaning grounds.

Labour's defence of the union in the Miliband era echoes the kind of line used by Neil Kinnock in Wales in the past. The union state is necessary to fight against inequality and for social justice, and to defend pan-British creations such as the NHS and welfare state.

It is effectively a unionist version of my own position. Miliband is moving away from the emotional connection to Britain that other unionists have, and staking out a more materialist stance based on actual practical benefits he believes Scotland either receives or could receive from being part of the union.

This is the only hope unionists in Scotland have because using David Cameron to campaign there will be a waste of time. Every time Cameron or his Lib Dem partners make an appearance the poll support for independence seems to go up.

Miliband was therefore careful to suggest that Scotland "can survive" outside the UK, but that there are social justice and class reasons for Scotland to stay within the state. Namely, the welfare state and the NHS.

The problem though is that on the BBC News website today two of the main stories are the NHS being dismantled, and the welfare system being "reformed". The institutions that Labour wants to hold up as examples of British progress are disappearing because of reforms initiated by Blair and Brown, governments which Ed Miliband supported.

It isn't enough to simply say the Tories and Lib Dems are carrying out these attacks on what is left of the welfare state (which even in its present form in the UK is not that generous by European standards). Labour put everything in place for this to happen and did alot of the hard work to normalise the idea that these services should be handed over to the markets.

Miliband's message this week was that-

"I say let us confront the real divide in our society.

"Not between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, but between the haves and the have-nots."

"...I am here to tell you that we need to make Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, a fairer, more just, place to live...and we can do this best together."

What happened to the "real divide" in our society during Labour's thirteen year rule across the British state? It ballooned.

Attempts to outflank the SNP from the left will not work, because of Labour's appalling record in office. Their so-called aspirational politics have in fact ruined the ambitions of the current younger generations who are facing record levels of unemployment. This is why in his interview with Jeremy Paxman, Alex Salmond said that the Green Party for example is progressive, but Labour had "sometimes been progressive in the past" and definitely isn't anymore.

I will always defend patriotism and national sentiment to the hilt; and in fact, outside of the narrow-minded British Left it is completely normal for socialists in Ireland, the Basque Country, Sweden, Catalonia or Iceland (this is without even mentioning Latin America or Asia) to have a patriotic as well as a class outlook. For some reason this is allowed in all of those areas but in the UK we inexplicably have to support the union state for class reasons (or so goes the Labour logic). Alot of people will never be convinced by romantic nationalism alone and need to see material evidence that their interests will be advanced by nationalist parties. In Scotland, I simply don't see public services and the welfare state being safer under Labour- and neither does the electorate.