At Scottish Labour’s gala dinner in Glasgow last November, in what was supposed to be triumphant celebration of a stunning General Election win, instead of addressing the faithful, Keir Starmer was “interviewed” on his first six months as Prime Minister.
It was a strange choice. The questions were mostly of the “can you tell us just how great you are?” variety and the Prime Minister, with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar sitting alongside him, failed to excite the room.
At one point, trying to emphasise Scotland’s important role in his plan to turbo charge investment in renewables, Starmer said he’d been instrumental in ensuring a new facility for building turbines was going to be based in Hull. Unless he’s secretly planning to lead a rerun of 1745 Jacobite rebellion, Hull is going to be in England for a good while yet.
What will this year’s annual conference be like?
It was indicative of a weirdly low-key and distracted performance from Starmer. He looked tired, sounded exhausted and went on for far too long. As the audience grew ever hungrier for their dinner, Sarwar, who was, by contrast, his usual energetic and Tiggerish self, tried to lift the mood but as the interview, ended, the feeling in the room remained decidedly downbeat.
Scottish Labour goes into its annual conference this weekend with a similar feeling. Polls suggest next year’s Holyrood elections are going to be a disaster. If they stay as they are, never mind beating the incumbent SNP, they won’t overtake the somnambulant Tories and only just nudge ahead of Reform whose best known Scottish figure isn’t even a household name in his own household.
After 18 years in power and a series of recent difficult moments, the Nats should be easy fodder for a resurgent Labour, right? Sarwar is the most impressive Scottish Labour leader in the last 20 years yet he’s on course to do worse than he did in the dark days of 2021. How has it come to this and can he turn it around?
Why is Sarwar struggling?
Firstly, he has done little wrong. Sarwar is a personable, intelligent and redoubtable politician who has quietly rebuilt the Scottish party’s standing. He has good ideas, a strong team and his double act with business spokesperson Daniel Johnson has done much to swing many in business to being more favourable to Labour. As the SNP imploded around Humza Yousaf’s leadership last year, Sarwar seemed a sensible and plausible FM in waiting and if he wasn’t actually measuring for curtains at Bute House, he was at least planning a trip to First Ministerial Curtains R Us.
But then Yousaf fell on his sword. The experienced and respected John Swinney made a surprise return to front line politics and steadied the SNP ship. Then came the moment, that has possibly done for Sarwar – the UK election took place much earlier than people had anticipated and Labour won.
You’d think that would have been a turbo boost for the party in Scotland – they routed the SNP in that Westminster poll – but, instead, it’s quickly transformed into an anchor dragging Scottish Labour down. Starmer as PM faltered quite quickly, the first Budget went down badly and a series of other mishaps saw Labour‘s popularity plummet.
Sarwar tried to mitigate this as much as he could, pledging to restore the cut to the winter fuel allowance for example, but the feeling was that the Scottish party’s fortunes meant little to Labour at UK level.
For example, GB Energy was supposed to be a great boost to Scotland but so far it’s still produced little more than a vague mission statement and will create far fewer jobs than promised.
Sarwar has remained resolutely upbeat during all this but Swinney’s return presents a real challenge. A seasoned and enthusiastic campaigner, it’s unlikely Swinney and his deputy Kate Forbes will make the mistake of their immediate predecessors in coming up with ideological policies that could alienate some Labour voters.
Is anyone in No10 worried about this? It’s not clear. Labour seems more focused on the threat from Reform at UK level but those messages won’t win over wavering SNP voters in Scotland.
