The Hamilton by-election was not a turning point for Scottish Labour, it is merely respite

It was Dunkirk, not D-Day. The verdict of a senior Labour figure on the victory at the Hamilton by-election.

It certainly was a heroic last-ditch action when more than three hundred Labour activists on polling day managed to turn eight and a half thousand promises into actual votes.

But if Labour has a serious chance of becoming the Scottish Government next May, then Hamilton – the third most winnable target seat – should have fallen into its lap comfortably.

The fact it was a fistfight in which Labour felt happy when the polls closed that they weren’t going to come third but didn’t think they were going to win does not suggest a party on the brink of government.

But like Dunkirk it is respite, a chance to regroup.

First, they should ask themselves what they got wrong and not feel sorry for themselves. That Keir Starmer’s accident-prone government made life difficult for them should be a given not an excuse. The mistakes from the winter fuel allowance, to Waspi women, to the two-child benefit cap should have been factored in to a Scottish Labour strategy rather than used as reasons for failure.

Scottish Labour cannot use the errors of head office as a reason why they are failing in their own branch.

Anas Sarwar was wrong to go along with John Swinney’s ‘summit’ against Reform. That was never going to be to Labour’s benefit. When Nigel Farage accused him of being essentially a Pakistani nationalist he also fell into a trap by feeling he had to justify his own identity.

The difference between Sarwar and Farage is not the colour of their skin, nor the fact that Sarwar is a Scot and Farage an Englishman. It is that Sarwar’s values meant that when he and his wife left university, they committed themselves to public service in the NHS, while Farage left school and went into the city to make money for himself. 

Reform is a bucket that should not be dismissed for people angry at a political elite that does not deliver. Do not condemn them but also do not engage on their terms. Offer something they do not – hope.

When they go low, we go high, as someone once said.

The day after Hamilton, Gordon Brown’s Our Scottish Future think tank held a day at Glasgow University on the jobs of the future for Scotland. It was a remarkable event in which people from around the globe came to share something Scotland used to be famous for, but which now seem in short supply – ideas.

It was the kind of thing that if I was Sarwar I would just adopt as my manifesto. He spoke at it late in the afternoon and I turned to the person I was with and remarked that he is probably the best communicator Scottish Labour has had since Donald Dewar. My companion agreed, but added: “Can you remember anything he said?”

Sarwar needs to have something to say and if he had that message, distinct but not necessarily at odds with Starmer, Hamilton could have been easier.

Scottish Labour needs to have a vision for Scotland and a policy prescription that is their own. It is time they had the guts to be themselves, whatever that is.

In last year’s general election, they surfed the wave of anger against the Tories with the vacuous policy free phrase, ‘The change Scotland needs.’ It turns out Scotland doesn’t like the change that has been delivered.

To try to repeat the trick with another policy free slogan, ‘New direction,’ is insultingly stupid. Give us a reason to be Labour.

The idea that a Labour landslide last summer would lead to another next May stands no scrutiny.

The UK landslide of 1997 led to a decent win for Donald Dewar at Holyrood two years later but no more than that. The landslide of 2001 was followed by Jack McConnell losing seats in 2003. Labour’s UK victory in 2005 was followed by defeat in 2007. The landslide in Scotland for Gordon Brown in 2010 was followed by a landslide for Alex Salmond in 2011.

The Scottish Labour strategists who thought last July would seamlessly lead to victory next May should spend more time with their families.

Instead of looking over their own shoulders at Starmer for excuses for their failures, Scottish Labour should look their real opponent, John Swinney, dead in the eye.

He was an abject failure when he last led the SNP. He bleeds SNP votes and always has. His own party does not believe in him, and he was only turned to by a Sturgeonista establishment to block Kate Forbes. 

In 20 years of government, it is difficult to think of any achievement that could be put down to him.

Rather than rail about how difficult Starmer’s Number 10 makes the political weather for Scottish Labour, the party might think about making political weather of its own.

Perhaps they should think of having a consistent detailed narrative about the SNP, rather than just saying that after 20 years it is Labour’s turn. Maybe they should have a vision of what a Labour Scotland would look like. An offer of how they would make life different for Scots in the next five years. Have a message and a machine to deliver it.

After Hamilton, Sarwar said he had proved the bookies, the commentators and the pundits who were saying he would come third wrong.

He ought to address that the bookies, the commentators and the pundits weren’t making it up. They were getting their information from his own side who were knocking the same doors as him.

Hamilton was not a turning point. It could have been a disaster for Labour, but it was not.
It is respite. And how they use this precious time will be crucial to what happens next May.