North of the border, the long-anticipated by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West has finally been confirmed. This constituency is classic SNP-Labour swing territory, and though an SNP-held seat until recently, polls have shown that Labour support in Scotland is on the rise. The by-election will put these predictions to the test: can Labour’s candidate Michael Shanks not just win, but win well and capture the mood for change? Possibly, but for this to happen, Labour needs to present Scottish voters with a better vision — instead of continuing to rely on SNP failures.
We can be assured that the longstanding SNP-Labour rivalry will come out in full force as the by-election date nears. The same tactics have all been used before. For years, the Labour party used to invoke the SNP’s role in bringing down Jim Callaghan’s Labour government in 1979, while another Labour mantra is to talk about ‘Scotland’s two failing governments’ — hereby establishing an equivalence between the UK Tories and SNP in charge in Scotland. But these clever soundbites don’t quite cut through as well as the party thinks, given Scottish centre-left politics is all about outdoing ones’ opponents in their hatred for the Tories.
We know what the Labour party is against: the SNP, the Tories and a second independence referendum. But trying to find anything positive that they represent is much more difficult.
SNP folk have found a special line in sneering at Labour in Scotland as ‘red Tories’ being ‘under the control of London’. The latest evidence supporting this perspective is the Electoral Commission assessment that Labour in Scotland is not completely autonomous, but is allowed to put the word ‘Scottish’ in front of their legal name (describing the party as an ‘accounting unit’ of the UK Labour party). Yet more proof, claim SNP supporters, that there is no such thing as ‘the Scottish Labour party’ and it is all a trick to hoodwink voters.
Meanwhile, the nationalists have seized on a series of Labour policy u-turns as proof that there is no difference between Keir Starmer’s party and the Tories. They have been given fresh ammunition by Starmer’s refusal to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a policy that Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has himself called ‘heinous’ — but one that is he is unable to do anything about. Not that the SNP don’t have problems of their own: their candidate Katy Loudon has to answer questions about whether Nicola Sturgeon is an electoral ‘asset’, and whether Loudon would welcome her campaigning in the seat.
Yet the bigger challenge is that the laws of political gravity are catching up: after the SNP’s 16 years in office, voters are getting bored. The nationalists have little positive fuel left in the tank; their record in government is filled with holes, they are reduced to desperate whataboutery in relation to Westminster and the independence road has run out of tread for now. All the SNP have left, it seems, is their age-old grudge with Labour.
And what of the Scottish Labour offer? ‘Scottish Labour can be the change,’ the party claims, uniting a Scottish and UK message. Michael Shanks, the Labour candidate for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, has chosen a variant of this message — ‘a fresh start’ — for his own campaign tagline. After this, what is the Labour offer to Rutherglen and Hamilton West — and beyond? We know what the party is against: the SNP, the Tories and a second independence referendum. But trying to find anything positive that they represent is much more difficult.
To win this by-election well, to create momentum and a story, the Labour party needs to stand for something. The potential Labour terrain in Scotland is an obvious one. It needs to challenge the SNP on social justice (not too hard), question Scotland about exactly how centre-left it really is (a bit more difficult) and pose the Scottish Party as a battering ram for change across an increasingly divided and unequal UK (much more challenging).
Scotland needs a distinctive, positive Labour message — but Labour seems reluctant to provide one. While Starmer and Sarwar’s minimalist politics may be just enough to get their Labour candidate over the line in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, it seems unlikely they will convince voters to back them in a Westminster election. Oddly, Labour still believes that its age-old antagonism with the SNP should be enough for their successful return to their natural place as the rightful establishment party. It is strange that, even after 16 years in opposition, the party still finds being a convincing insurgent uncomfortable.
Both the Labour party and the SNP posture as the natural inheritors of anti-Tory Scotland, yet what this anti-Toryism positively stands for is never quite made clear by either side. Both have shown a sense of entitlement in office, believing that they have a divine right to rule. They appear to think of voters as permanently in their camp, as ‘their voters’ come what may — a complacency that never ends well.
Above all, both Labour and SNP have become embodiments of conservative principles while pretending, rhetorically, otherwise. Eventually one of these two political forces will dare to break out of this dance and pose a more substantive politics. Just don’t expect it to happen in time for this by-election.
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