The Labour Party and Scotland
How does Keir Starmer win back crucial seats in Scotland whilst support for a second independence referendum continues to grow?
Keir Starmer’s acceptance speech as the newly elected Labour leader in April, conveyed well the magnitude of the challenge before his Party. “Be in no doubt” he assured the membership, “I understand the scale of the task, the gravity of the position that we’re in. We’ve got a mountain to climb.”
Simply put, to form a majority government of just one at the next General Election, Labour needs to win an additional 123 seats compared to those it holds now. That’s equivalent to a swing of over 10% nationally, a feat only achieved twice in modern times (by Labour, in 1945 and 1997). New voters will need to be won, not just in Labour’s metropolitan strongholds, nor just in the so called ‘traditional red wall’ seats of the midlands, north east and north west of England, but in the towns and in the ‘shires’ and, significantly, in Scotland.
As Andrew Harrop explains in his paper ‘Another mountain to climb: Labour’s electoral challenge in the 2020s’, “To secure a UK majority without regaining seats in Scotland, Labour will need to win 57 per cent of the constituencies in England and Wales…an electoral swing of over 12 percentage points...” To put it another way, that means winning Jacob Rees-Mogg’s seat in North East Somerset. He currently has a majority of 14,729.
Clearly, winning in Scotland is vital. However, at the 2019 election in December, Labour returned just one, solitary seat north of the border. This was down 6 seats from 2017, and way below the 41 seats they could boast prior to 2015. In just 9 years, Labour has descended from first Party in Scotland to third, not only behind the SNP but also the Tories, themselves not returning more than one Scottish seat in 5 of the last 7 General Elections.
There’s no doubting then, Scotland’s current political landscape presents a huge barrier for Starmer to hurdle. Yet, given Labour’s successful history in the nation, could it not find a way of winning support once again? Suddenly, that 123 seat figure would be somewhat cut down to size.
The answer to that question is, of course, complicated by many factors, not least of which 2016’s EU referendum, wrenching Scotland from Europe (62% voting to remain, a higher percentage than any other nation of the UK) and reigniting the campaign for independence. Now, more than ever, the polls show support for Scottish independence in the ascendancy (an Ipso Mori poll published on 14th October rated support for independence at a record 58%) and, dependent on the outcome of trade negotiations with the EU, it could rise further. It should be an extremely worrying trend for anyone associated with the Labour Party in any part of the UK.
Some argue Labour can never win back support in Scotland unless it allows Scots to decide their own destiny, especially given the mandate the SNP will likely have to pursue that outcome following next year’s Holyrood election. In that eventuality, Labour could endorse a referendum whilst maintaining support for the Union and campaigning for a ‘No’ vote. This, it is suggested, would show Labour taking the Scottish people seriously, empowering them in the process, whilst still allowing Labour to make the argument to Unionists they in no-way support the breaking up of the UK.
Starmer alluded to this in his interview with BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on the day of his first Party Conference speech. When pushed on the principle of Scottish independence, he was able to state he opposed ‘another divisive referendum’, but when confronted with a comment made prior to the 2019 General Election, that a majority for the SNP in 2021’s Holyrood election would provide a mandate for another vote, he rather dodged the question. “I am setting out the position that we will be taking going into the May election. We don’t know what will happen after that.”
The temptation to settle for a compromise is considerable, and it may even be the most valid position from an ethical and democratic point of view, but recent history suggests British voters are unlikely to look favourably upon such fence sitting, something Starmer should well know given his struggles with public and Party as Shadow Brexit Secretary.
Indeed, the Labour Together report reviewing the result of the 2019 election refers specifically to the damage caused by equivocation on the key issues of the day, “In Scotland, our lack of a clear position on the SNP’s proposal for a second independence referendum similarly damaged our prospects and, in the 2019 election, combined with our Brexit position to create the impression that Labour did not know where it stood on the most important questions of the election.”
Not being clear, or trusted, in terms of a position, whatever that position may be, appears to be the worst of all possible scenarios. Labour might do well to recognise an ‘honest broker’ approach has already proven unsuccessful, the old adage, ‘he who stands in the middle of the road will surely be knocked down’, appears particularly apposite here.
If Labour is serious about winning in 2024, it must avoid settling for a fudge that pleases nobody. Starmer is right to imply a risk in Labour being seen to support a referendum, sure to undermine gains already made in England since 2019. Opposing independence in principle and in defiance of any 2021 Scottish election result is the admittedly painful but, let’s face it, existential reality of the Party’s situation. Labour must be unequivocal, forthright and, as is the case for the vast majority of its MPs and members, back a union in which it can easily demonstrate it wholeheartedly believes. Starkly put, victory for the ‘Yes' campaign, were the referendum to be re-run, is tantamount to the death knell for the Labour Party as we know it.
There will be consequences of this hard-line stance. The SNP and those on the Labour left will decry such a position as undemocratic, the long arm of Westminster again putting Scotland in its place, and, to a certain extent, Labour will have to accept that criticism as valid. But in response, the Party must highlight the destructive nature of nationalism in principle, both in the case of the Tories Brexit at all costs jingoism and the SNPs ideological opposition to the Union. Conflating the two may be an over simplification but it would be a powerful one. Starmer should seek to position himself as a unifying leader, uniting the country as he has his Party and, crucially, begin making the case in Scotland, as he’s already done in the rest of the UK, that Labour is the only Party to be trusted to meet the challenges facing us in the 2020’s and beyond.
That does mean highlighting the SNPs failure on education and their inability to address levels of poverty and inequality in Scotland but it also means proving Labour’s own ability to lead, describing its vision of the future in terms that are both inspirational and aspirational. In doing so, Labour must make the persuasive argument for Britain as a whole nation, greater than the sum of its parts, and seriously and emphatically champion further devolution of powers to the home nations.
Starmer has not yet framed this argument to enable Scotland a vision of itself as a truly valued member of the UK. In fact, little of Starmer’s focus has been on Scotland at all. He has flirted with the idea of a federal Britain but he’s yet to speak to the hearts of Scots the same way he has middle England and his visits north of the border have done little to grab headlines.
Perhaps some blame can be laid at the feet of the all consuming coronavirus pandemic, but there’s also a suggestion Starmer’s relationship with Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard is far from ideal. Leonard has proved unable to breakthrough with Scottish voters and is very much seen as Corbyn’s man, an echo of a recent past Starmer has been at pains to put behind him. There have been calls from Labour MSPs for Leonard to step down and, most eye-catchingly, shadow cabinet member Rachel Reeves but Leonard has weathered the storm and, as evident in his recent interview with the New Statesman, remains defiantly in post, one suspects to the secret frustration of Starmer’s inner circle.
Yet, as we’ve learned from the Leave/Remain debate on Europe, the key to re-engaging with Scots may well be an emotional truth more than an intellectual case for the future of the Scottish economy or the personality and political persuasion of specific individuals. Labour has already spoken about finding a new “progressive patriotism” — Ironically, it was Corbyn ally, former Shadow Education Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey who quite rightly raised its importance during the Labour leadership campaign — Keir Starmer echoing the sentiment most recently during the climax of his first conference speech, “We love this country as you do. This is the country I grew up in and this is the country I will grow old in. And I want it to be the country I know it can be.” The country he refers to should place Scotland at the very heart of that belief.
Labour must instil a sense of pride in Britain and, by demonstrating its patriotic vision and credibility to the cities, towns and shires of England, it can begin making the case to Scotland that Tory rule is no longer an inevitability. Britain’s exit from the EU is, of course, one of the primary reasons support for independence has risen in Scotland but, at least according to YouGov, it’s not the most significant one. When polled on the question of independence, 34% of Scots chose ‘Scotland being able to stay in the EU’ as the greatest advantage, whereas 41% chose ‘Scotland no longer having to implement policies decided in London that most Scots reject’.
Clearly, there are many reasons Scots might vote ‘Yes’ to independence but one of the most significant is their dislike for the policies forced upon them by the Party in government at Westminster. Significantly, this poll is highlighting not an explicit anger that Westminster makes the rules — although that is of course a major factor I don’t intend to diminish — but that the nature of those rules is so objectionable to Scottish people’s values. They are Tory values, imposed by a Government whose policies have led to over a decade of austerity and whose respect for Parliament and even the Rule of Law itself would leave Thatcher reeling, let alone the majority of Scottish people.
If Scotland can be convinced Labour is a valid prospect for power, a Government in waiting, then not only might independence lose some of its allure but Scotland will have the chance to play a vital role in installing a Party in Westminster far more in line with Scottish values. A Government who can fundamentally change peoples lives in Scotland for the better — as part of a United Kingdom re-imagined as a once again respected player on the international stage — in a way the SNP could never do currently, nor even, perhaps, as an independent Government in its own right.
This assumption is not without risk of misunderstanding the strength of feeling about the Scottish desire for self-rule, but it is reasonable to ask how wedded Scots are to the concept of independence and how much they are simply sick to the back teeth of Tory rule? Perhaps, the mistake Labour supporters and activists make is to assume the routes to winning on either side of the border are mutually exclusive. Just as the hopes, aspirations and beliefs of the Scottish people and the rest of the UK are intertwined, so too is the desire for progressive change.
The spectre of coronavirus has refocused the nation on what is important to our future. The Tories, the SNP and the Labour Party all agree “we can’t return to business as usual”, that the recovery must be a ‘green’ one, investing in towns and regions across the whole of the UK. Even the Tories ‘Levelling up’ rhetoric is acknowledgement of this truth. Labour and Keir Starmer have to meet that call by proving they are best placed to understand these fundamentals and provide more than just rhetoric by bringing about a real change, rooted in people’s everyday lives, as well as giving Scots a sense of agency and pride in the ongoing, admittedly flawed, project that is the UK.
There is no silver bullet to Labour winning back support in Scotland but equally it is not beyond the realms of possibility that between now and the next General Election in 2024, the Party can turn around their fortunes in this part of the UK. If they are to do so, it will not be by supporting another referendum on Scottish independence but by demonstrating competence, an understanding of Scottish values and a pride in Britain and what it stands for.
It will be an incremental process, one that eventually persuades enough people both north and south of the border that Labour is the Party best placed to meet the needs of all nations and regions of the Union. Labour do indeed have a mountain to climb in convincing the Scottish people of their suitability for that esteemed role. It is a Ben Nevis like elevation to conquer. Yet, there is a visible, if treacherous, path towards the summit. And when it is reached, Keir Starmer should be proud of planting a Union flag at its peak.
