The Alliance to Liberate Scotland today reaches out to the many traditional Labour supporters who feel abandoned by a party that once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Scotland’s working communities. We remember the proud history of the Labour movement in Scotland – a history of fighting not just for better wages and conditions, but for the right of ordinary Scots to govern their own affairs.
From its earliest days, the Scottish Labour Party, founded in 1888 by visionaries like Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, championed Scottish Home Rule. Keir Hardie, the founder of the broader Labour movement and a son of Scotland, stood as a Labour and Home Rule candidate. Hardie believed in the power of the people to shape their destiny, writing that he was convinced “the people of Scotland desire a Parliament of their own.” He and fellow socialists saw self-government as essential to building a fairer society, free from distant elites who cared little for the hardships faced in mining villages, shipyards, and factory towns.
James Maxton and others in the Independent Labour Party carried this flame, arguing that Scotland’s working class deserved the tools to tackle poverty, land ownership, and economic justice on their own terms.
These were not abstract constitutional debates – they were practical, moral fights for dignity and control over daily life.
For generations, Labour in Scotland gave voice to that radical tradition. It delivered real gains for working people while keeping alive the dream of Home Rule.
Yet today’s Labour Party has turned its back on those roots. It has betrayed the very communities that built it – the shipbuilders, miners, steelworkers, and their families who expected solidarity, not surrender to a Westminster system rigged in favour of the rich, the City of London, and an upper-class elite that views Scotland as a resource to be managed, not a nation with its own sovereign rights.
Instead of championing self-determination, modern Labour clings to the status quo, defending an economic order that concentrates power and wealth far from the people it claims to serve. It has sidelined the aspirations of Scottish working-class communities for genuine control over their economy, resources, and future.
This is not the party of Keir Hardie.
It is a shadow that has lost its way.
We say this not with anger, but with the sympathy of fellow travellers who know the pain of seeing a once-great movement drift from its principles. Many lifelong Labour supporters feel the same disillusionment – they remember the values of fairness, community, and empowerment that first drew them to the cause. Those values live on, but they can no longer be realised within a party that has chosen Westminster loyalty over Scottish self-determination.
The Alliance to Liberate Scotland offers a pragmatic path forward: independence as the essential foundation for real change.
Only with control of our own resources, decisions, and destiny can we build the fairer, more equal Scotland that Labour’s pioneers dreamed of – one where working people truly come first.
To every traditional Labour supporter, every trade unionist, every socialist who still believes in the dignity of labour and the right to self-government: you are welcome here.
Your history is our history.
Your values are our values.
Come and join us in the Alliance to Liberate Scotland.
Together, we can build a better future – a fairer future – where Scotland’s working people finally hold the power to shape our own society.
Independence. Nothing More. Nothing Less