The dilemma facing Scottish Labour MPs

For Scottish Labour’s significant crop of new MPs, the heady summer of electoral triumph is already a distant memory. In the days following the general election – where Anas Sarwar’s party swept the Central Belt, gaining a whopping 36 seats – it seemed Scottish Labour’s recovery was not only inevitable but already underway.

In the months since that has all changed, with Scottish Labour’s popularity declining as much – if not more – than its UK counterpart. A Norstat poll in December, for instance, had Scottish Labour at its lowest ebb in three years and the SNP, remarkably, on course to once again form the Scottish Government following devolved elections in May 2026. 

In Scottish Labour circles, there is no doubt that the blame for this malaise lies firmly with Keir Starmer and his faltering premiership. The Prime Minister – once a great electoral asset in Scotland – is now a liability, with fewer than one in five people in Scotland believing he is doing a good job, according to the same December poll. In such circumstances, many Scottish Labour MPs are growing increasingly agitated about the government’s direction and, particularly, its controversial policy choices.

A good case in point is the decision to refuse compensation to the Waspi women. This announcement caused consternation among many Scottish members, who felt it would cause an unnecessary and vocal backlash in their constituencies. In an indication of the strength of feeling, many of those who complained about the decision were from the moderate wing of the party and would normally be expected to remain loyal to the Starmer project.

And yet it is not just the government’s decisions that are giving Scottish Labour MPs the jitters, but those of the leadership in Scotland too. In mid-November, Sarwar unexpectedly broke ranks with Starmer and Rachel Reeves by vowing to restore the winter fuel payment for pensioners in Scotland, albeit with more caveats about who would be eligible to receive it. With a coming SNP budget that was almost certain to restore the payment in some form (the final budget published after Sarwar’s announcement, in fact, restored it in its entirety), this may have been good politics, but it left many Scottish Labour MPs enraged.

The Scottish parliamentary Labour party had, after all, only weeks earlier trudged through the lobbies to support the very decision the leadership in Scotland was now opposing. Perhaps more pertinently, the majority of Scottish Labour MPs were utterly blindsided by the announcement, having not been informed about Sarwar’s decision in advance and being left to respond as it happened.

Allies of Sarwar point out that it would have been practically impossible to inform all 37 Scottish Labour MPs about the announcement in advance without risking it leaking into the public domain but that has hardly stemmed their distress. In fact the winter fuel announcement is just one of a series of recent decisions by Sarwar that have caused concern, with many MPs baffled by his very public decision to abstain on the SNP’s coming budget, for instance.

Meanwhile, the popularity of Sarwar himself also appears to be on the wane, with a recent Survation poll for Holyrood Sources suggesting 35 per cent of people in Scotland disapprove of his leadership. Perhaps more worryingly for the Scottish Labour leader, more than fifth of those who voted for his party at the general election now believe he is doing a bad job. As he attempts to restore his reputation among those voters, the temptation to diverge from the Westminster leadership will surely be greater than ever.  

Of course, for Scottish Labour MPs there was always going to be a tension between remaining loyal to the boss in Edinburgh or the boss in London. After all, while it was Sarwar who led the campaign in Scotland that got them elected, it is for now Starmer – and particularly his senior advisors – who control the parliamentary and ministerial futures of those same MPs.

Sarwar and his team would argue that the ability of Labour MPs to hold their seats at the next general election is closely tied to his ability to win power at Holyrood next May and that he should therefore be given their full support. But many MPs may understandably feel their fortunes are more closely tied to Starmer and that having another Labour government making controversial decisions at a devolved level will only make their re-election harder.

The ultimate issue, however, is not so much that these tensions exist, but that they are likely to be exacerbated in the coming weeks and months. Sarwar has already indicated his willingness to diverge from Starmer’s more unpopular policies and this will only happen more frequently and more vehemently should the Prime Minister’s premiership continue to falter. In such circumstances, Scottish Labour MPs will face an increasingly difficult choice as to where their ultimate loyalties lie.