Relax, Sir Keir, nobody cares about socialism now

He is, by reasonable, modern, western European standards, what would be called a social democrat, rather than a socialist. He believes in capitalism with some form of social management; in the public and private spheres working together. In simplistic terms, he is closer to the centre of the political spectrum, and could fairly be described as a follower of the so-called "Third Way" politics of President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair, which sought to combine the sentiments of those mildly to the left of centre and those mildly to the right of centre.

It is rather a shame that Sir Keir feels our political discourse cannot handle the truth of that position, although it is more spiriting to find his would-be Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, rejecting the socialist label and calling herself a social democrat.

In any event, in the 21st century this ideological positioning is increasingly the preserve of the political bubble. Voters are already moving beyond the labels, and more significantly moving beyond the ideological construct as a way of defining themselves, their politics and their voting patterns.

Instead, this is the era of identity politics. Different countries around the world are at different stages of this era, and indeed Scotland and England are themselves at different stages.

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In Scotland, identity politics has been prevalent for the better part of 20 years, based around the question of our constitutional future. Scotland is largely devoid of debate around political or economic ideology. Voters’ ideological preferences (like most northern European countries broadly half of Scots report identifiably centre-right views to pollsters) are not reflected in their political preferences (the notionally centre-right Conservatives have never been in or near government). And the dominant Scottish National Party takes votes from right across the traditional political spectrum, from capitalist-bashing socialists to free-market firebrands (a hidden reality which was exposed by the Humza Yousaf/Kate Forbes leadership contest).

In England, identity politics is more complex and, in my estimation, has a longer journey ahead of it than we have here in Scotland. The Brexit referendums, for sure, shone a light on the changing nature of voting patterns, and at the 2019 General Election Boris Johnson (and, it is only fair to say, Dominic Cummings) expertly tapped into it. But it is less about Brexit and EU membership in itself than it is about disenfranchisement and disempowerment. From the global financial crisis to the Covid pandemic, and from the inter-related geo-political fractiousness to mass movement of immigrants and asylum seekers, English politics is becoming more tribal and has probably not reached the peak of it.

Sir Keir will most probably win this election in a "normal", cyclical way, but what will face him at the Opposition side of the House of Commons is a great unknown. Unlike other countries (obvious relatable examples include France and Canada), Britain has not had a genuine political rupture for some time, but the future of the Conservative Party and the nature of what emerges from it is a live issue.

The scope for a party of populism based on a combination of English nationalism, economic disenfranchisement and grievance, is clearly there. It is no surprise that Nigel Farage is holding his cards close to his chest; the peak of his political power may be in his future, not in his past, and he knows it, too.

Nigel Farage is keeping his cards close to his chest (Image: Getty)

England would suffer the negative consequences of identity politics, just as other countries around the world suffer it, and just as we have suffered it here in Scotland.

For us in the north, I see light at the end of the tunnel. Our identity era is closing. The day after the independence referendum in 2014, Alex Salmond famously said that the dream will never die, and he is almost certainly correct. But that dream is most certainly moribund, shows no signs of life, and may well be about to experience the defenestration of its strongest political advocate, the SNP. It all feels very early-century Quebec.

Nonetheless, Scotland lacks the political party construct to return to an era of ideological politics, largely because no party is able to combine a Scottish identity and a centre-right outlook.

Instead, Scotland’s future dividing lines are more likely to be based on geography. Devolution has seen a steady centralisation. Local authorities have been weakened. The Central Belt has swallowed resources, and people, with depopulation from remote and rural areas continuing apace. This is, to some degree, both justified (Edinburgh is the country’s indisputable economic powerhouse), and self-fulfilling.

Nonetheless the economic powerhouses of Scotland are going to change, and political patterns and powers will change with it. Renewable energy - particularly offshore wind and the grand prize of green hydrogen exports - will form the backbone of Scotland’s economy and society, and it will happen in and around Scotland’s remote and rural coastlines, not in the Central Belt.

Renewables are not the only show in town. The world will increasingly demand low-carbon-footprint protein, and all roads lead to fish. Rural Scotland has rather a lot of those, from farms and sea, white, oily and shell (and we’ll still have the red meat to put into that mix of proteins, too).

Clean air, tourism, whisky, space for housing and infrastructure investment. Urban Scotland may be sitting at the poker table with the biggest pile of chips, but rural Scotland has counted the cards and is going to start winning every hand.

In this, we may predict the next dividing line, after ideology and identity; the decentralisers against the centralisers. That’s a world away from Sir Keir’s ideological angst.