What has become of the Labour Party in Scotland?

One of the more serious casualties of the Labour government’s troubles and consequent unpopularity is Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour Party since 2021. Through no fault of his own, Sarwar has gone from being the favourite to end SNP rule in Scotland and become the first Labour first minister since 2007, to a point where he’ll be lucky if he manages to beat Reform UK into second place in next year’s elections for the Scottish parliament. A painful turn of events. He might be forgiven for wondering how this happened...

Well, they are running at about 17 per cent in the polls, half the level enjoyed by the SNP, and there have been unhelpful stories in the press about divisions between the party at Westminster and its Holyrood presence.

The current Scottish secretary, Douglas Alexander, a close ally of Keir Starmer, returned to the Commons last year, and was soon put in charge of the next Scottish parliament election campaign. In the last reshuffle he replaced the popular and blameless Ian Murray, which prompted some discomfiture in Scottish Labour circles and at Westminster, even though there was also some friction between Sarwar and Murray. Scottish Labour has long suffered from the perception that London treats it as a “branch office”.

For much the same reasons as Labour has slumped in England and in Wales – a tough economic backdrop and social tensions, exacerbated by avoidable scandals and mistakes.

The basic problem is that the sometimes chaotic scene in London, coupled with the perception that Scottish Labour MPs lack influence, has indeed damaged Sarwar’s appeal in Scotland, and it is frustrating him and his team, understandably. He said recently: “I am the candidate for first minister. Keir Starmer is not standing to be first minister, Wes Streeting is not standing to be first minister. Rachel Reeves is not standing to be first minister. I’m standing to be first minister. John Swinney is standing to be first minister, and the choice people face is a third decade of SNP incompetence or a new direction.”

No, but it is making Scottish Labour MPs just as nervous as their MSP colleagues about their chances of holding on to their own jobs at the next general election. After the landslide at the July 2024 general election, Labour felt it could look forward to a long spell in power in Westminster, easily retaining Wales, and winning back Scotland plus scores of mayoralties and councils. Now, such confident hopes of Starmerite hegemony seem distant indeed.

It’s possible. Reform UK, being an overwhelmingly English-based, pro-union and anti-EU party (don’t forget Scotland voted Remain in 2016), looked poorly placed to make much progress there. However, such is the polarisation and fragmentation within the traditional party system – a plight that has spread to virtually every part of Great Britain – it’s possible that Reform could indeed become the second force in Scottish politics, squeezing Labour and the Conservatives out of contention.

With the aid of a more proportional voting system in Scotland (and also in Wales), it is conceivable that Nigel Farage’s party could indeed eclipse Labour and the Conservatives to win second place in the chamber.

So, the last seats projection from Ballot Box Scotland (ballot box.scot), for example, puts the SNP on 62 seats, close to an overall majority, with Reform winning 21 and Labour in third place on 17. The other significance of this is that the opposition to the SNP is now very neatly and evenly divided. So, far from near-certain defeat, Swinney and his colleagues, including Westminster leader Stephen Flynn as a possible successor as first minister, can look forward to many more years of domination. An unlikely recovery from the divisions, scandals and crises of the Salmond-Sturgeon era seems at hand.

Surprisingly little, given the radical shifts in popularity of the various parties. Voter sentiment remains fairly evenly split, and the consensus, both in the SNP and more widely, is that the SNP would be unlikely to press for another referendum if they couldn’t be confident of winning it.

At the Westminster end of the argument, the Labour government will argue that the polling, along with the likely outcome of the election (the SNP will probably win about a third of the vote – far from a landslide), doesn’t justify holding a referendum. Such a plebiscite on Scotland becoming an independent nation could only take place if approved by the House of Commons.

Arguably, and compared to the last referendum in 2014, Brexit now means that the independence project is more complicated. Scotland would have to apply to join the EU, and have some sort of economic border with England and the rest of the UK, with all that implies. There would also be big questions about currency and sovereignty.