by Sue Lyons
This Conservative Government is in a complete guddle. Everything they touch they are making worse. Nothing they are doing is helping the poorest and the most vulnerable in our society and indeed, they are feathering their own nests and those of their rich friends. It is clear that they have not the slightest bit of interest in Scotland. We heard from Nicola Sturgeon that Liz Truss has not even been in touch with her as First Minister – or for that matter with Mark Drakeford in Wales. What does that tell us? Even Boris Johnson made an effort to LOOK like he was taking Scotland seriously in the early days, but this bunch of charlatans and clowns are not even looking our way. It’s like they have their fingers in their ears and are la-la-laaaing to drown us out.
Labour is no better, Keir Starmer says that he will not engage with the SNP. We know that – we have seen Labour ally themselves with the Tories all over Scotland. Unionist coalitions to keep those pesky Nats out. Labour politicians holding hands with Tories in several councils in Scotland – because that’s a vote winning strategy I’m sure.
So here we are, Scotland, sitting here with the worst cost of living crisis many of us have ever seen and both the UK Government and the opposition are avoiding dealing with Scotland and our Scottish Government. Scotland is reaping the dubious rewards of this deliberate isolation. We have energy costs soaring, food costs soaring, threats of harsher benefit rules – increasing sanctions and cuts to benefit levels, a new austerity programme and Scotland can do NOTHING about any of it. None of these issues are devolved. Energy, trade, universal credit. Our whole budget depends on the UK Government deciding what they will give us. We can’t even speak to them apparently and if His Majesty’s opposition aren’t even talking to us either how on earth does Scotland have its voice heard or change things at all.
For all of us but particularly women in Scotland who are already in poverty or close to it, this is really worrying. Many of us are struggling to keep our heads above water, we are drowning under the weight of poverty and worry. The Women’s Budget Group described women as “the shock absorbers of poverty” and so we are. We often carry the responsibility for robbing Peter to pay Paul, for ensuring the bills are paid, for going without food, shivering during the day so that we can give the kids a bit of warmth at night, working in the low paid, low status jobs that everyone needs but no one gives a shit about. How the reliance on us as cleaners, care workers, shop workers, during the pandemic has paled into insignificance as the Tories pushed everyone back to the office.
Women are more likely to be poor, more likely to rely on social security, more likely to have high energy needs as carers, single parents, disabled people. Here in rural Scotland, they are more likely to rely on public transport and their mental health is more likely to be affected if they are in rural poverty. Women can work fewer hours because of caring responsibilities or the cost of childcare, and as a result we have less savings, more debt and smaller pensions than men. All through our lives women are vulnerable to economic shocks in a way that men are not.
And now, the cost of living crisis we are currently experiencing is making everything worse. I heard from one woman who is checking her smart meter all the time, her anxiety is through the roof. She worries about how long her children take to shower, how much cooking dinner is costing, how much washing clothes will cost. She is unable to sleep, watching the news for any hope of help that will make a difference, up at 3am to check that she has enough electricity to make sure the kids get breakfast. The toll this is taking on her mental health is huge.
Another woman I know is too frightened to turn on her gas, even the wee bit of gas she uses for heating hot water feels out of her reach. Without an electric shower she is reliant on strip washes at her kitchen sink with water she has boiled in her kettle. As a wee girl 50 years ago, I remember my grandma had no hot water, she had a wee hot water boiler thing that she could use at her kitchen sink to heat enough water for a wash. She also had a tin bath, hung in her pantry and a toilet down the yard but we don’t expect people to be going back to that. Is that really where we are? Where elderly disabled women can’t afford to heat their hot water?
I say often in these blogs that poverty is a political choice. Our politicians choose to leave people in the situations we have just spoken about and we vote for them. There is no escaping that fact. People voted the Conservatives into power despite knowing that they hate the poor, will make life worse for everyone that is not rich and don’t give a shit about Scotland. And it’s no good telling me that Labour would be better. They have said repeatedly that they would be tougher on social security, they would be tougher on immigration. At their conference the motions voted for included a £15 minimum wage, better employment protection and “adequate social security” (whatever that means) but this rhetoric has not been matched by the leaders for years. Jeremy Corbyn came close, but sadly he was taken down with such ire and hatred that you have to wonder what Labour are actually for.
So what do we do? Well for me, and for Women for Independence, the best opportunities for improving lives of us all and for women in particular will come with a vote for Independence. We have seen for a long time now that Scotland is heading down a different path. The changes Scotland has made to Social Security – the Scottish Child payment, the Disability Payments, The Best Start grants – these are designed to be less stigmatising, more dignified and more generous, recognising the actual needs for support and kindness, that people have who are often facing the toughest of times in their lives. Where Scotland has the devolved power to set legislation, their focus is on people not profit. Where Scotland has the power to act, it does so. Sometimes not quickly enough, sometimes not radically enough – but without Independence, their hands are often tied.
Scotland is unable to borrow to fund the policies we would like our government to deliver. Scotland is only able to spend what the UK Government allows us to spend.
Independence would allow us to head further down the road of compassionate Government. It gives us an opportunity to elect a socially focused, economically coherent government, moving away from the chants of growth, growth, growth at all costs and no matter who we leave behind. In an Independent Scotland we could place the economic levers in a Government voted in by the people of Scotland to deliver priorities which we as the electorate, decide are those that matter to us.
That can’t happen as part of the Union. We currently have a UK Government that Scotland did not vote for, with Tory MPs that represent a few Scottish Constituencies and who are likely to lose their seats at the next election if the recent polls are to be believed. Votes cast in Scotland rarely make a difference to who is elected at Westminster. It is votes cast elsewhere that choose the government. In the last general election even if Labour had won every single seat in Scotland we would still have seen this Tory Government. Independence will ensure that we get the Government that Scotland votes for every single time.
But what about the risks? Well, there are risks in everything, but for Women for Independence, the risks of remaining part of the Union pale into insignificance when compared to the risks faced by those in poverty heading into a cost of living crisis which we could have avoided. Women already shamed, humbled, desperate will likely face a harsher and colder, more hungry winter than any of us have experienced in our lifetimes. The cost of this will be that people will die. If poverty is a political choice then we can make our own political choice to work towards eradicating it. An Independent Scotland gives us the opportunity to make that a reality in a way that doesn’t exist today. We need to grasp it with both hands.
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Sue Lyons is a blogger, PhD student and political activist. She has sat on the National Committee of Women for Independence as well as contributing to the Scottish Poverty & Inequality Research Unit. If you enjoyed this article, you can read more from her over here: https://imnotawriterbut.wordpress.com/ and follow her on Twitter @Squidge142.