The New Sub-National Politics of the British Labour Party
Abstract
The response of national, state-level political parties to the challenges of competing for power at the devolved, regional levels is a neglected research topic. This article seeks to remedy this by analysing how the British Labour Party has responded to these challenges at the sub-national level following UK devolution. British Labour remains formally a unitary party despite devolution. Nonetheless, the national party leadership has allowed the Scottish and Welsh Labour Parties considerable freedom, in practice, to select candidates, conduct regional-level elections and implement some distinctive policies. Meanwhile, the Scottish and Welsh Labour Parties have shifted significantly from being traditional, centralized parties with a single hierarchical organization towards being more pluralist, less hierarchical organizations.
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1.
1 This article draws on the findings of the study ‘The Role of the Parties in Inter-governmental Relations after Devolution’ supported by the Economic and Social Research Council’s Devolution and Constitutional Change Programme: Grant No. L219252116 (D279), conducted during 2002-2004. Accordingly, it draws on interviews with Scottish and Welsh General Secretaries and their staff, about 35 interviews with Westminster MPs (including former ministers) and over 30 interviews with Scottish and Welsh ministers and Members of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Two of the authors attended meetings of the Labour Policy Forums in Scotland and Wales. The article also draws on extensive documentary analysis of newspaper reports, party documents and policy papers published by the Scottish Executive and Welsh Assembly Government.
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2 One MSP, however, complained ‘London can’t let go... Unofficially we have to pass policy developments past London. Even for devolved issues. We still don’t have power to settle the manifesto without London’s approval’ (interview). Other MSPs disagreed.
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3 Our research also indicates that the national Labour Party leadership would resist such a federalization, not least as they see Scotland and Wales as peripheral to the main challenge of sustaining their electoral support in ‘Middle England’ (Laffin and Shaw, forthcoming).
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4 In Scotland and Wales, the balance of political forces tilts significantly more to the left than in England, reflecting the electoral frailty of the Conservative Party and rising competition from the left (especially in Scotland -in the 2003 elections the total Green and Scottish Socialist Party representation rose from 2 to 13).
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