The Tartanisation of Labour is over

I wish I could be as enthusiastic about the prospects of Labour becoming a party of England as Denis MacShane MP.

Labour under Ed Miliband is now poised to become again a party of England, indeed a party of Yorkshire. If David Miliband stays in the shadow Cabinet and Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper are given top jobs, the future of Labour will be decided by two families of MPs on the train north from King's Cross every Friday. Other stellar Yorkshire Labour MPs like Rosie Winterton, John Healey, Hilary Benn, Caroline Flint, and Alan Johnson are all running for the shadow Cabinet. It is goodbye to the dominance of Labour by its Scottish tribe. After 1979, Labour became a Scottish party. Two of its leaders, John Smith and Gordon Brown, were Scots. Tony Blair was educated in Edinburgh. The stars of New Labour were Robin Cook, John Reid, Alistair Darling or Douglas Alexander. The Tartanisation of Labour is over.

For 20 years, Labour has dodged the question of a policy for England and the English question will now have to be addressed as the Government pushes ahead with its plan to cut the number of seats in the Commons and create new constituency boundaries that will disadvantage Labour.

According to the Campaign for an English Parliament members that attended the Labour conference, the cry of "Connect with the voters of England" prompted Labour delegates to snatch up CEP leaflets at such an astonishing rate that an entire suitcase full of leaflets was distributed - a phenomenon without precedence in the history of the CEP's attendence at Labour events. So perhaps they are no longer scared by the English flag and we can soon look forward to a Labour Party that wraps itself in the Cross of St George and speaks to England with the same sense of patriotism that it attempts in Scotland.

Ultimately any party which asserts popular sovereignty on behalf of the Scottish people, but does not do so for the English, must resign itself to accusations that it is anti-English. The election of Ed Miliband raises little prospect of Labour reversing that discriminatory treatment.

UPDATE

And as if to prove my suspicions correct, David brings us What’s missing?