On July 4, the United Kingdom (UK) went through general elections. The results speak volumes about what happened in the UK in the past few years.
Of a total of 650 constituencies, the center-left Labour Party won 411 seats, compared to 209 seats in the 2019 elections. The party added 202 seats to its tally. The center-right Conservative Party (aka the Tories) won 121 seats, compared to 365 seats in the 2019 elections. The party lost 244 seats. The Liberal Democrat Party won 72 seats, compared to 11 seats in the 2019 elections. The party added 61 seats to its count. The Scottish National Party (SNP) won just 9 seats, compared to 48 in the 2019 elections. The party lost 39 seats in Scotland.
The Labour Party has a 174-seat majority in the parliament, rendering the Opposition insignificant. A landslide victory of the Labour Party ended 14 years of the Conservatives’ rule since 2010. Conservatism along with populism stood defeated.
The result shows two significant developments: the electoral gain of the Labour Party, and the electoral loss of the SNP. During the era of Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997-2007), who represented the Labour Party, relations between London (England, in the south) and Edinburgh (Scotland, in the north) had gone sour. There surfaced differences in the distribution of financial resources. After the end of the Cold War (1949-1991), Scotland witnessed a sharp decline in its two main industries, shipbuilding and coal mining, which were closed by 2001. The left-over industries are seafood processing and packing, and manufacturing whiskies. To their horror, the Scots discovered that they were illiterate, and hence laggard, in the modern age of information technology. Their overreliance on manual work had rendered them redundant. Hence, a wave of unemployment hit Scotland flaring up right-wing conservatism, called Scottish nationalism, which emboldened the SNP into raising slogans for Scotland’s independence by holding a referendum.
After 2001, four factors worsened the UK’s economy. First, the UK went eagerly into war on Iraq in 2003. War expenditures brought a drain on financial resources. Second, the persistence of the war on terror (2001-2021) sapped the financial resources of the UK, though George W Bush, President of the United States (US), pledged to compensate the UK by offering contracts to earn from the US economy. Third, in December 2001, the US permitted China to join the World Trade Organisation. The policy was political, advised by Henry Kissinger to engage China, as the US did during the Cold War on his advice, but the fallout this time was economic. Resultantly, whereas both the US and the UK remained busy fighting the war on terror in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan), Chinese manufacturers swept through their economies, leaving indigenous manufacturers bankrupt. Fourth, after 2001, Canada accelerated the speed of immigration of educated and skilled workers from across the world, irrespective of an immigrant’s race, colour, ethnicity, or religion. Further, Canada presented itself as a peaceful and secure destination for investment. Consequently, funds from both US and UK funneled into Canada to help it expand cities and establish mega-industrial hubs. Being a smaller country, the UK suffered financially more than the US.
In the UK, after 2001, whereas the English found themselves deprived of financial resources to manage the country, the Scots found themselves incongruent with new ways of earning. Hence, unemployment hit both parts of the UK, straining the already tenuous London-Edinburgh relations.
During the Conservatives’ rule (2010-2024) over the UK, the center-right SNP remained an exciting character in Scotland. Whereas in London, the Conservative Party wanted the UK to come out of the European Union (EU), in Edinburgh, the SNP opposed the exit (Brexit). The SNP did so to secure its reach to the EU in case Scotland won independence. Nevertheless, on the question of independence, the SNP lost the referendum held in September 2014. Interestingly, by invoking Article 50 of the EU, under the spell of English nationalism, the UK left the EU in January 2020 only to realize immediately afterwards that it was a wrong democratic decision, prompted mostly by the youth, who had little understanding of the connection between economy and politics. Whereas Scottish nationalism harmed Scotland, English nationalism harmed the whole of the UK.
After losing 39 seats to the Labour Party, the SNP is now boiled down to just 9 seats to apprehend that it squandered almost two decades in disseminating Scottish nationalism. The nationalist Scots kept on devising ways to extract money from the only foreigners, who happened to be overseas (non-EU national) students seeking admission to Scotland’s universities. Ironically, when Scotland was fraught with economic maladies, the Scottish government announced that overseas students obtaining post-graduate degrees from Scotland’s universities would be offered a work permit of two years, under a scheme, The Fresh Talent, introduced in 2005. Consequently, Scotland’s universities got swamped with overseas students, including Pakistani students. At this juncture, the Scottish universities committed undignified acts: they ran bogus courses (offering attractive titles but discreditable and deceptive contents), just to mint money, in the name of buttressing the Scottish economy. The University of Glasgow spearheaded the drive: in the middle of post-graduation research courses, the university would convey to overseas students that they had to change subjects and research projects. If an overseas student filed a complaint, the complaint process was delayed for four to six months to discourage the student. If one persisted, the university had hired the services of disreputable Glasgowian lawyers to entangle the case. Dozens of overseas students (including Pakistani students) could not finish their post-grad research courses because of the insidious strategy of the university, which failed to realize that an overseas student never had been to Scotland to contest a legal case but to finish a degree. The Scottish government and media observed silence on the malpractice.
In short, whereas the Labour Party initiated the financial undoing of the UK, the Conservative Party hastened the downfall subsequently. The dice is back to the Labour Party with a chance to construct the London-Edinburgh Bridge.
Dr Qaisar Rashid
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com