The Huddle: Can a new leader turn things around for Scottish Labour?

With Scottish Labour about to elect its eleventh leader since 1999, Holyrood asks: 
Where have things gone wrong for the party post-devolution and what can a new leader do to turn it around?

John McTernan, former chief-of-staff to Jim Murphy
Scottish Labour needs to learn from Jeremy Corbyn. His success in the 2017 general election is under-recognised. Not only did he rob the Tories of a UK wide 20-point poll lead and a majority, he turned the tide on the SNP landslide with seven wins and more near misses. 

In politics you win when you set the terms of debate with a better vision of the future. Corbyn offered socialism in opposition to the separatism of the nationalists. Learning from that moment of disruption, Scottish Labour needs to change the conversation. Andy Burnham’s policy mantra would be a start: devolution, which should see power distributed beyond St Andrew’s House; a National Care Service, which needs a Scottish parallel; and reindustrialisation, fuelled by a new generation of nuclear power stations in East Lothian and North Ayrshire. Nationalist politics of grievance can be beaten by socialist politics of optimism.

Alan Roden, former Scottish Labour spin doctor
The main challenge has been the constitutional divide. Labour members simply aren’t motivated by that binary question, and the party will always be squeezed in any debate about independence.

The party has also been dealt a bad hand by politics at Westminster. Had the Holyrood election been in late 2023 then Anas Sarwar would be first minister now, but he was a victim of the unpopularity of Keir Starmer come 2026. What can turn things around? Labour needs to stop framing everything about ‘Scotland’ as if we all share identical views. In the public’s eye, nobody ‘stands up for Scotland’ better than the SNP – so ‘Sarwar for Scotland’ was never going to work.

But where Labour can win is by focusing on local communities. Scottish Labour should try to be the party that ‘stands up for Edinburgh’ or ‘stands up for Dundee’. It needs to reframe the debate on its own terms.
 

Catherine MacLeod, former UK Government special adviser
Authenticity, tested core beliefs, and an ability to unerringly focus on what matters to the lives of people living in Scotland must underpin the strategic plan of the next Scottish Labour leader. Keir Starmer may get much of the blame for Labour’s dismal showing in the polls but his lacklustre political touch must only be part of the problem. Had Scottish Labour set out an imaginative, gripping, empathetic, positive manifesto they may have fared better.
Life in Scotland is changing fast. The SNP focuses on constitutional change. It wasn’t the answer in 2007. It isn’t now. 

Scottish Labour should face up to the real problems: sort out its policies on AI, the changing demographic, the ageing population, and how to deliver work and employment. The Scottish electorate must hear its message. No triangulation, no false promises. Rather, an optimistic vision of a better future.

John Curtice, University of Strathclyde
In some respects, there’s very little to say. Rises and falls in Labour support in Scotland largely depends on popularity of the party at Westminster. The deep unpopularity of the Starmer government in May was reflected in the party’s dire performance across the whole of GB. Bridging the constitutional divide (as Labour was wont to do) has been more difficult since indyref put the constitutional question at the forefront of Scots voting behaviour, albeit a bit easier when the SNP is in trouble. 

The party has lost its working-class base, as in the rest of the UK, while it does less well among pro-EU social liberals north of the border than in England (too much competition from SNP).
What the Scottish leader could do is set out a vision of the Scotland they would like to create rather than relying mainly on trashing the SNP – but that will not solve all the structural challenges facing the party.

Brian Taylor, political journalist
Politics is too complex to sum up in a single word. And the Scottish Labour Party is no exception. However, I might have a go. Right now, they are bewildered. 

Its Holyrood defeat left it dazed and confused. Anas Sarwar’s escape to the Lords and UK office provoked anger and dismay. The party faces a leadership contest with no clear parameters. Indeed, it is uncertain as to its role in Scottish politics. Is it needed at all? 

This existential crisis has resurrected past divisions. Apocalyptic warnings of splits on the left. Claims of misogyny. Talk of a breakaway party, likely to go nowhere. 

Labour won in 2024 because voters were seeking a conduit to punish the loathed Tories. Right now, in Scotland, it faces a different enemy. Yes, there is a Burnham bounce – but it is limited. 
Scottish Labour will survive but needs a new narrative. More intuitively Scottish. Less futile aggression. And with an agreed position on Scotland’s future.

Fraser McMillan, Scottish Election Study
Things have gone wrong for Scottish Labour since 1999 because all pro-Union parties – unforeseen to themselves before devolution – suffer a structural disadvantage at Holyrood. The SNP got its foot in the door in the first place because support for the New Labour project had waned by 2007, and from that point on the nationalists made the political weather, riding a reputation for “standing up for Scotland” to the independence referendum and reaping the rewards of a polarised constitutional debate thereafter. 

Both Scottish Labour leadership candidates are capable people who are unlikely to alienate middle Scotland with their positions, but the party’s fortunes are ultimately tethered to the mast of UK Labour and how its performance stacks up against the SNP. They have little ability to set the political agenda, so all they can do is emphasise policy differences where they can and put themselves in a position to take advantage if and when the space opens up.

Jim Sillars, former SNP depute leader
Scottish Labour is Labour in Scotland. These are not the same thing and therein lies its fundamental flaw. Even in the devolved scenario, Labour in Scotland is wholly dependent for electoral success or failure on the perceived performance of UK Labour, whose main constituency is England. Labour in Scotland is a small branch of a much larger English tree. It is not a genuine Scottish Labour Party, and the people instinctively, post-2014, know that to be the truth. 

As long ago as 2014 Johann Lamont, in her resignation outburst, admitted the “branch” character of Labour in Scotland. Members and subsequent leaders have pretended to themselves and the people that reality isn’t so. 

Without being a real Scottish Labour Party, independent and finally free of external influence on its fate, Labour’s future in Scotland will be a repeat of its recent past. 

Paul Sinclair, former chief-of-staff to Johann Lamont
The Scottish Labour Party has taken neither itself, nor the Scottish Parliament, seriously enough since it delivered devolution.

Donald Dewar was the last leader with a truly separate Scottish agenda. Since then Scottish Labour leaders have declined to – or been stopped from – setting their own agenda.

As an institution the party still regards Westminster as superior. Few Labour MPs would countenance standing for Holyrood. And MSPs have slowly declined into the tactics of Holyrood rather than lifting their eyes and having a strategy for Scotland.

Yet the sense of entitlement is as embedded as it is corrosive. Since losing to the SNP in 2007, Scottish Labour seems to have been in the huff with the Scottish people, expecting them one day to repent and return to them.

But while the Scottish people have moved on, the party hasn’t. Scottish Labour is obsessed with itself – yet terrified of being either Scottish or Labour.

Mark Diffley, pollster
Labour’s disastrous performance at May’s elections confirmed the party’s long-term decline, losing support at every Holyrood poll in the devolved era. The result cannot be put squarely at the door of Keir Starmer’s unpopularity; voters put the SNP far ahead of Labour in terms of the key devolved policy areas and Anas Sarwar’s favourability ratings were barely more positive than Starmer’s, all of which points to an inability to convince voters even at a time when the SNP was far from popular and coming through turbulent internal issues. 

A significant problem for Labour is that it is squeezed on the constitutional question, with the SNP cleaning up the vast majority of independence supporters, while the other half of the electorate has four major parties to choose from. Labour’s new leader must find a nuanced answer to Scotland’s constitutional future, put forward convincing policies to help Scots with the cost of living, and develop strategies to secure the long-term future of our public services.

James Mitchell, University of Edinburgh
Immediate responses to defeat often fall into two categories: scapegoating and quick fixes. Calm analysis is needed to avoid making matters worse. That analysis starts with avoiding ‘fighting the last war’. If Andy Burnham proves popular, then distancing Scottish Labour from ‘London Labour’ would be a mistake. There is a fine balance to be struck on Scottish Labour autonomy. 
Labour also must take greater account of its opponents. The SNP shows no qualms in making promises its leaders know will not be delivered – John Swinney will keep banging the independence drum knowing there is no prospect of another referendum any time soon. Reform attracts support from people seeking an outlet for frustrations and anger. 

One clear need is for Labour to ‘own’ issues through relentless, forceful and repetitive campaigning so that when people hear ‘Scottish Labour’ they equate it with an issue, a policy and a better future. n