Whereas a year ago an average of opinion polls gave Labour a projected majority in 2015 of about eighty, its lead has now dropped to a tiny projected sixteen. This is the wrong direction of travel for Milliband and Balls. Moreover English voters are determined that the fifty nine MPs in the Commons elected from Scottish constituencies should, in the light of the greater devolution promised to Scotland by all parties to gain a win for NO, should end. Forty-one of them are Labour. Without their votes Labour will not have a majority in England. The Tories know this. The Tories also know that the fear which stalks them in every waking hour, UKIP, and which beat them in the European elections, has seized the moment and its leader, Nigel Farage, has overnight become an English Nationalist. This is an entirely new kind of politics and English nationalism, for long unspoken, is now out in the open.
These new politics are complicated by the fact that the Thatcher era was popular in England (and very popular in the U.S.), but less so elsewhere. Eventually the Tories have become the party of England. Their sister party in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionists have no seats at Westminster, Welsh Tories have eight and Scottish Tories have one. English Tories have two hundred and five. In other words the Tories lose only one vote in Scotland if Scottish MPs are banned from voting on English matters but Labour loses forty-one. That means no Labour majority in England for a Labour Government. But if Labour comes out against the English votes for English matters against the tide of opinion, it stands to lose many of its existing English seats and Milliband can kiss goodbye to any thought of winning the next general election.
Labour now is in a mess just when it should be strong. It messed up its campaign in the Scottish referendum and had to be rescued by a re-born Gordon Brown promising more devolution. It has made a mess of its economic policy so that few understand it and nobody trusts it. It lacks a big narrative and a message of hope. It is prone to policy initiatives which nobody can remember the day after. This is its last Conference before 2015. There are only two outcomes possible. The eve of victory or the eve of defeat. To avoid the latter Ed Milliband now has to step up to the plate. For defeat in 2015 would most certainly be the end of Ed. This could be, even may be, his last conference as Leader.
The question of devolution of the the most centralised power in the West is one which cannot be solved just with a ban on Scottish MPs voting on English matters, but the British way is to effect constitutional change in bite size pieces. Eventually there must be a wider constitutional settlement, greater devolution within England itself and even a written constitution drawing together all the various measures in a coherent and accessible form. But there has to be that first bite and the tide of opinion is that the time for that is now. Failure to grasp this will drive frustrated voters to UKIP. Farage will become England’s Salmond.