Keir Starmer’s popularity is declining in Scotland

Once upon a time, Sir Keir Starmer was Scottish Labour’s greatest asset. In the dark days following the party’s 2019 general election drubbing, the party in Scotland remained an unlikely redoubt of Corbynism, languishing in the polls under the uninspiring leadership of trade unionist Richard Leonard. In such a context, Starmer’s election as Labour leader in March 2020 was a boon to the Scottish party, which many considered was in terminal decline. 

As well as manoeuvring the ineffectual Leonard out of office and replacing him with the modernising Anas Sarwar, Starmer himself also proved an immediate hit with Scottish voters. In October 2020, for instance, Ipsos recorded an approval rating of 16 per cent for Starmer, with almost half of Scots who expressed an opinion saying they were satisfied with his leadership. Among Scottish voters, only the seemingly untouchable Nicola Sturgeon – at the peak of her pandemic pinnacle – was more popular. 

Fast-forward three years, however, and it seems Starmer’s honeymoon with Scottish voters may be coming to an abrupt end. While Scottish Labour’s fortunes have significantly improved under his and Sarwar’s direction, there is growing evidence that Starmer himself is no longer an asset to the Scottish party – and may soon become a liability. 

The UK Labour leader’s recent comments on Margaret Thatcher are a case in point. Few things can unite Scottish Labour’s left and right factions, but they were unanimous in thinking Starmer’s intervention would damage the party in Scotland. Former Scottish Labour MSP and hardcore Corbynista Neil Findlay dubbed Starmer’s intervention an ‘insult’, while John McTernan, the former Scottish Labour strategist and arch-Blairite, branded the comments a ‘really bad’ misjudgement. Even Sarwar himself – understandably reluctant to add fuel to the fire by directly criticising the UK Labour leader – gave a frustrated interview where he condemned Thatcher and pointedly refused to defend Starmer’s comments. 

Certainly, this disagreement is not an aberration but one of a series of recent splits between the Scottish and UK parties that reflect a growing frustration with Starmer’s determination to appeal to former Conservative voters in England. The parties have most recently clashed over calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and the two-child benefit cap, while other differences – such as EU relations – continue to bubble beneath the surface. 

Most worryingly for Labour, there is growing evidence that such interventions are damaging Starmer’s standing among Scottish voters, albeit not in the way the party’s opponents would hope. A recent poll by Redfield and Wilton, published on 29 November, showed Starmer’s approval rating in Scotland had collapsed by 10 points over the previous month. That echoed similar findings by Ipsos on November 26, which showed for the first time that a majority of people in Scotland (52 per cent) disapproved of Starmer’s leadership.

The positive for Scottish Labour, and the issue for its opponents, is that the decline in Starmer’s popularity is not yet translating into a fall in support for his party in Scotland – in fact, quite the opposite. For instance, the same poll that recorded Starmer’s approval rating falling by 10 points also put Scottish Labour ahead of the SNP in voting intention for the first time, while they also won the recent Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election from the SNP by a huge margin. 

This could be explained by the fact that, as Sarwar has grown in stature and status, so has Starmer’s importance declined in the mind of Scottish voters. More probably, the rank incompetence of the current SNP administration is forcing voters to back Scottish Labour, regardless of their growing reticence about Starmer. 

Nevertheless, it is clear that Starmer is increasingly no longer the electoral asset to Scottish Labour he once was and that – as we get closer to a general election – the divisions between the UK and Scottish parties are likely to only become more apparent.