A party like it's 1999: Scottish Labour hasn't changed since devolution

The Scottish Labour membership would have to be as magnanimous as Agamemnon to heartily shake Anas Sarwar by the hand two months after a disastrous election campaign and thank him as he skips off to the House of Lords and a place in Andy Burnham’s government, as if some reward for failure.

But then it’s a dwindling membership that has done a lot of forgiving and forgetting over the years as the party has struggled to find its place in a post-devolutionary Scotland that, ironically, it helped create but that the SNP came to dominate. 

And as it prepares to elect its eleventh leader since 1999, and rushes once again to try and redefine who it is and what it is for, perhaps the answer lies not with more separation from Westminster but within a greater embrace of a Burnham-led UK party which could, in the end, be its USP.

Counterintuitive, maybe, in a political landscape where the constitutional question is to the fore, where ‘standing up for Scotland’ has become the propriety of the SNP, and while some in the party remain stung by accusations of a branch office. But that was before Andy Burnham, and without canonising the man he does bring fresh hope, a deeper understanding of the power of devolution, a championing of localism, and a reframing of the north-south divide.

For the first time since 2010, Labour is in power at Westminster and with a leader that chimes more with the Scottish electorate than Starmer. So, is this not the moment to stop seeing the answer to the Scottish Labour Party’s travails through the prism of the independence debate and therefore an intuitive move to greater separation, but rather time to recognise the strength in solidarity? And be unashamed of what should be a collective endeavor to lift up the whole country, while also being unapologetic for policy differences in different circumstances where needs diverge?

Let’s face it, Scotland has changed since the heady days of 1999. But Scottish Labour has not. A miasma of grief continues to settle over a party that once maintained hegemonic control over the governance of Scotland. It hasn’t got over the loss. Caught in the dilemma of optimism for the future and a pessimism about the past, it is a party so shackled by its history that it is in danger of being strangled by its roots.

And while a leadership contest inevitably sees a party turn inward, what Labour in Scotland does not need now is an increasingly parochial approach of half-baked or rehashed policy ideas that have already lost it an election. It needs to lift its horizons, have a big vision, reconnect with communities, and show its purpose. It’s nowhere near a sniff of government, so be bold, be adventurous. Show us your mettle and be Labour. 

Devolution, the Scottish Parliament and a sense of who we are as Scots, have all moved the dial on Scottish politics. But the inflection point for Labour was baked in from the start. Donald Dewar might have birthed devolution, delivered a parliament and painted a mighty vision, but he possibly also overlooked the gift this offered to the SNP. 

Dewar’s tenure was sadly short, but it was powerful. He introduced free bus passes and fuel poverty relief for pensioners, abolished up-front tuition fees, introduced ground-breaking land reforms, created the first national parks, abolished Clause 28, and transferred Glasgow’s housing stock into community ownership. All of this was, as you might say in the west, pure, dead Labour. But that success also helped build a sense of growing nationhood that became the SNP’s Trojan horse. 

The party is nowhere near a sniff of government, so be bold, be adventurous. Show us your mettle and be Labour. 

Dewar, and every leader of the party since, underestimated the rising support for the SNP and in doing so became the architects of their own demise.

And I can well understand why Sarwar described being the leader of Scottish Labour as the “hardest job in politics”. I also think it entirely reasonable he was more attracted to being part of a UK Government than continuing to lead a party of opposition in a Scottish Parliament where he was outnumbered by more than three to one by the SNP, constantly facing jibes about following orders from London, and stuck in a thankless Groundhog Day of legitimately attacking serious policy failures by the SNP but finding it got no traction at the ballot box. How miserable that task must have come to be.

Naturally, Sarwar has been criticised from all sides for leaving. But who can blame a politician for seeking a taste of power and a chance to enact change? And don’t tell me that Stephen Flynn would have left Westminster to sit in Holyrood if his party had not been in charge. Being in power was the seduction for Flynn to come to Holyrood from Westminster and the same is true in reverse for Sarwar. Like moths to a flame.

Power is concentrated in government both at Holyrood and Westminster and Labour in Scotland has an opportunity to rebirth and start to look like a credible alternative to the SNP under the mantle of a currently popular, Burnham-led government. 

And it matters that it gets this right because Sarwar’s departure isn’t just an existential problem for the Scottish Labour Party, it is one for the whole devolution exercise. It raises uncomfortable questions about the parliament’s efficacy and the point of opposition in a parliament where one party has become so dominant and one cause so preeminent that it can simply stifle any other debate.

It also matters because Scotland needs a left-leaning party that can take on the SNP and not be so timid that it gets swamped by a constitutional argument that it is afraid to face off. This is the time for Labour in Scotland to heal thyself, to examine how to rebuild a hollowed-out MSP group, to fix the malcontents and look at the structural problems that have frustrated attempts to pick only the best as its parliamentarians. And it is time to demonstrate that, as part of that wider Labour family, it can improve life for all so that the vision of independence becomes one for the SNP to try and make and not for Labour to dance around. That’s not a quick fix – it’s a 10-year plan.