Anti-austerity Protests Against The Tories In London (Photos & Video) - Updated

[villager]

1. I wonder how long it will take until Tory overreach forces Scotland to make an actual break?

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The obverse of the Liberals in this election is the Scottish National Party (SNP). Every tendency in advanced post-democracy is being reversed in Scotland, where working-class electoral participation and party membership is rising, not falling.

The SNP took fifty-six seats, up from six in 2010. The tsunami-like proportions of this wipe-out may be exaggerated by the electoral system, but the swing is huge and signifies something far deeper than a shift in voter identifications or, god help us, a “protest vote.” Old right-wing Labour stalwarts like Tom Harris vaguely understand that since the referendum for Scottish independence, something at the deepest strata of Scottish working-class consciousness shifted. But he doesn’t get what shifted, or why.

The reality is that the referendum’s No coalition signified everything that was wrong with Westminster politics: all the main parties in it together, on the side of militarism and the multinationals. Despite Gordon Brown’s absurd “big beast” posturing, despite all the talk of the “UK pension” and the “UK NHS,” Labour attacked independence from the Right, from a position of loyalty to the state, to the war machine, and to the neoliberal doctrines of the civil service.

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https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/labour-miliband-conservatives-british-elections/