A WIN discussion October 2024. Listen HERE. From the mid-2000s the Scottish Nationalist Party has dominated Scottish politics – it was able to negotiate a referendum on Scottish Independence in 2014 and sweep aside all other parties in the 2015 British General Election. Prior to that the Labour Party was the dominant force in Scottish politics from the 1960s onwards. Why was there a move to nationalism? Is it correct that Scotland is in some way an oppressed country? Should the left support the creation of a new Scottish state? in this year’s British General Election the SNP was cut down to 9 seats with the Labour Party making a comeback of sorts – why did that happen? All these questions and more were up for debate.
The discussion was led off by IAN DRUMMOND, a political activist of 20 years standing, involved in the left No campaign in the 2014 independence referendum, and a Labour Party activist during the Corbyn years, one of the few Scottish members expelled for opposing the witch hunt, and MATTHEW JONES, political activist in Scotland for well over 30 years, at times an activist in the Scottish Socialist Party and also the Scottish Labour Party during the Corbyn period.