Labour has a near-impossible job to do in Scotland

Every leader of Scottish Labour has, since 2007, felt they were turning the corner to recovery – only to discover they were actually on a roundabout. Every new dawn has proven itself to be sometimes agonisingly, and always painfully, false. But now, as the SNP is mired by scandal after scandal, Labour’s odds in Scotland are looking better, even if Labour cannot quite relax yet.

There are signs that at the next general election things could actually change – for real this time. Nicola Sturgeon has stepped down, her husband – the SNP’s former chief executive – is under police investigation and her successor as First Minister, Humza Yousaf, is clearly not up to the task.

Public dissatisfaction with issues like the state of the economy and gender reform has increased over the SNP’s time in office. In September 2021, polls by Redfield and Wilton found that, after removing the ‘don’t knows’, a third of people disapproved of the Scottish government’s performance on the economy; this had increased to 42 per cent by April this year. While a third of people disapproved of their performance on the NHS in 2021, this jumped to almost one in two by the start of April 2023. Meanwhile, 49 per cent of those surveyed disapprove of the Scottish government’s performance on gender reform compared with 26 per cent who approve. Far from being Greece without the sunshine, SNP Scotland – with the highest tax burden in the UK – looks more like Cuba without the health service.

Under Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour was already enjoying a mini resurgence, which has been turbocharged by the SNP’s recent woes. Labour is now solidly in second place in Scotland, consistently polling at or above 30 per cent. If such numbers were replicated at the next general election, it would put Labour within touching distance of perhaps a dozen seats, cementing a respectable but not overwhelming recovery. 

Even greater gains are tantalisingly close. A further swing of five points from the SNP to Labour could deliver as many as two dozen seats, helping Sir Keir Starmer to take a significant step towards Downing Street by reducing the need for gains elsewhere in the UK. Labour needs about a 15 per cent lead over the Conservatives to win a majority without gains in Scotland – but if Labour were to win 24 seats in Scotland, the party would need a swing of less than 10 per cent elsewhere in the UK. 

To secure these vital votes, Labour needs to continue to win back the soft-SNP supporters who are strongly anti-Conservative and who supported independence in 2014 – but who are also now tired of the constitutional debate and instead want a focus on public services and the cost of living. In Scotland, this means the party exposing the SNP’s woeful government record and reaffirming Yousaf’s reputation for incompetence. That this comes at a time when the new SNP leader is seriously distracted by the disarray in his own party only strengthens Labour’s message. In the meantime, Starmer needs to maintain Labour’s ascendency over the Conservatives in the national polls and build a sense he is a prime-minister-in-waiting. 

If all this sounds straightforward, it shouldn’t. As is well known, Starmer’s route to Downing Street does not lie just through Scotland, but also through Labour’s former heartlands in north and central England. This means he must not only persuade soft-SNP voters to return to the party but simultaneously those who left Labour for the Conservatives in 2019. 

Appealing to both these groups at the same time is not just difficult, but an almost impossible balancing act. Soft SNP voters tend to be socially liberal and pro-Remain; many of those that left the Labour party in 2019 are socially conservative and pro-Leave. By seeking to attract one, you almost inevitably alienate the other. 

Labour’s 2015 general election campaign was famously undermined by the spectre of a weak Ed Miliband beholden to a resurgent SNP, and the Conservatives could find a vulnerability in Labour’s Scottish flank again. They have already made a play on Starmer’s apparent inconsistency; this will only be accentuated should he attempt to appeal to both soft-SNP and 2019 Labour leavers simultaneously. It may also offer some succour for nervous SNP MPs, who will hope Starmer’s acquiescence on issues such as Brexit will help shore up their core support. 

Given the state of the SNP and the inadequacy of its new leader, it seems unlikely that these claims of inconsistency will be enough to stop the nationalists haemorrhaging support. And Scottish Labour’s experience of repeated setbacks over the last decade will, one would hope, surely protect the party from any excess complacency, especially given this delicate balancing act ahead. Will Labour finally succeed in turning a corner in Scotland? Everything hinges on their next general election campaign.