>The Glasgow MSP was sure to be “the next king of Scotland”, predicted POLITICO.
>Three months later, however, Scottish Labour’s polling has slumped and Sarwar’s ascendence has been thrown into doubt.
>Seen as lacking a distinct identity or policy agenda and tagged by the UK Government’s faltering efforts to ‘fix broken Britain’, the Scottish Labour Party has proved incapable of capitalising on the Scottish Government’s stasis. The biggest obstacle to a Labour-led Holyrood is not John Swinney – it’s Keir Starmer and Scottish Labour’s refusal to reckon with this reality.
…
>Such dependence on otherwise Conservative voters is what prevents Anas Sarwar’s party from putting ‘clear red water’ between themselves and UK Labour.
>Successfully deployed in Wales, this strategy saw Welsh Labour devolve the national party’s rule book and sign a co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru. **Faced with this electoral contradiction, the Scottish Labour leadership would rather pledge loyalty to an unpopular UK Government than make meaningful overtures to the 50% of the Scottish population who do not share their constitutional stance.**
>Already, Labour’s 36 new Scottish MPs have been offered ample opportunity to “stand up to Starmer” – a promise Anas Sarwar made on the front page of the Daily Record during the general election campaign. Instead, they have almost unanimously fallen into line.
>The group voted to retain the two-child cap despite Sarwar’s apparent opposition to this “heinous” policy. They also voted to means-test the Winter Fuel Payment just as Scottish Labour slammed the SNP for cutting the benefit north of the border – only to later blame the UK Government’s decision, and by extension their own MPs’ vote, for defeat in two critical local by-elections.
>To the delight of his opponents, **the incoherence of these positions has revealed the limits of Sarwar’s influence on Downing Street.** Rather than leveraging the Westminster group to illustrate Scottish Labour’s independence, Scotland’s Labour MPs have done the opposite, adding renewed impetus to the SNP’s ‘branch office’ allegations.
>**Scottish Labour’s proximity to the national party has come to substitute for a coherent policy platform in Holyrood**. The party’s positions are defined less by the issues facing households across Scotland than by the UK Government’s message calendar.
>More often than not, Scottish Labour’s critique of the SNP is not political, but managerial. Sarwar, for example, has promised not to raise taxes if elected in 2026, arguing that if only the Scottish Government had better managed the public finances, spending cuts would be unnecessary. Earlier this year, the Scottish Labour leader backed the SNP’s council tax freeze on the proviso that it was ‘fully funded’ but offered nothing as to how this might be achieved.
>**On a whole host of questions, what Scottish Labour would do differently to the incumbent administration is anyone’s guess.** For as long as this remains the case, Scottish Labour’s fortunes will rise and fall with Keir Starmer’s – a brave strategy given the Prime Minister’s net favourability in Scotland dropped to -23 in late September.
(Highlighting done by me)
It’s a bit long of an article, but I think it’s worth a read.
Personally, I do agree (particularly with the highlighted bits). I wish ScotLab would show more independence from UK Labour, and set out ways in which they’d improve the country beyond words – what specific change they would implement. Hopefully, we’ll see more in their Holyrood campaign.
Isn’t at least part of the decline of Scottish Labour the fact that Labour won the general election? Everyone hates incumbents right now and Scottish Labour is now, at least partially, as an incumbent. Where as before Labour could say “both the SNP and the Tories are rubbish and we would handle things so much better” but now they are in office and are having to make the tough choices which kills their sparkle a bit.
Having seen UK labour in action a few time, this was always on the cards. Scottish labour are useless in their own right, clear policy was never their strong point.
Fuck Labour. I voted for the SNP 😁😁😁
They’re all shite. SNP, labour, tories etc
Labour doesn’t have a Scotland problem.
It has a problem with its working class voters, which is a UK wide problem.
We seen this in England with a ‘popular’ Labour government that won by only gathering 9m votes and by losing 5 seats to left wing alternative groups.
Returning to the Branch Office, when it comes to election time they’ll be found out and suffer the same fate as their fellow liberals in the USA. They have no policies, no ideas on how to fix things other than the reheated policies from the Blair years that worked sooo well. Policies the Labour MP’s will press for Sarwar to adopt (as they’re all highly invested in the Starmer/McSweeney project).
If the SNP somehow get their act together, or the Scottish Socialists learn how to make noise again, the Scottish Branch office are fucked. And like with the Dems, nobody to blame but themselves.
Sarwar was never going to be anything other than Starmer’s mouthpiece in Scotland, the way things stand.
He’s got one choice, really – embrace independence. He can do that either by breaking Scottish Labour’s links with the UK party, and then trying to move left of the SNP, or he can actually support Scottish independence. Or both!
As it is, there is a large proportion of voters who will vote SNP because they support indy, or who wont vote Labour because they don’t. Rock and a hard place for Sarwar.
It’s a real shame the SNP are so incompetent because if Labour get full control of Scotland we will desperately miss a party representing Scotland before Westminster.
I don’t think that’s an Independence issue either, voters on both sides would want that counter when necessary.
Ultimately the actual Labour Party calls the shots and nobody would ever be willing to risk their safe career to push back enough against them.
Sarwar will be a disaster.
A charisma void from a dodgy family, with dodgy connections.
He also made an unwise ‘white’ speech, which while not as bad in delivery as Yousaf’s tirade, will also go viral at the next holyrood election.
The biggest question is who’s running the U.K. government Starmer or Reeves? It’s Blair/Brown all over again.
I keep forgetting Sarwar exists.
Sir Keir and his cavalry are too busy firefighting and lining their pockets to worry about Scotland. Let sleeping dogs lie. Woof!
Labour’s problem isn’t Scotland, it’s with their credibility. You can only spout so much pish before everyone stops believing you.
“Scottish” Labour are massive, massive hypocrites. Truly repugnant cunts.
It’s not a problem when UK Labour don’t need a single vote in Scotland in order to rule.
15 comments
>The Glasgow MSP was sure to be “the next king of Scotland”, predicted POLITICO.
>Three months later, however, Scottish Labour’s polling has slumped and Sarwar’s ascendence has been thrown into doubt.
>Seen as lacking a distinct identity or policy agenda and tagged by the UK Government’s faltering efforts to ‘fix broken Britain’, the Scottish Labour Party has proved incapable of capitalising on the Scottish Government’s stasis. The biggest obstacle to a Labour-led Holyrood is not John Swinney – it’s Keir Starmer and Scottish Labour’s refusal to reckon with this reality.
…
>Such dependence on otherwise Conservative voters is what prevents Anas Sarwar’s party from putting ‘clear red water’ between themselves and UK Labour.
>Successfully deployed in Wales, this strategy saw Welsh Labour devolve the national party’s rule book and sign a co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru. **Faced with this electoral contradiction, the Scottish Labour leadership would rather pledge loyalty to an unpopular UK Government than make meaningful overtures to the 50% of the Scottish population who do not share their constitutional stance.**
>Already, Labour’s 36 new Scottish MPs have been offered ample opportunity to “stand up to Starmer” – a promise Anas Sarwar made on the front page of the Daily Record during the general election campaign. Instead, they have almost unanimously fallen into line.
>The group voted to retain the two-child cap despite Sarwar’s apparent opposition to this “heinous” policy. They also voted to means-test the Winter Fuel Payment just as Scottish Labour slammed the SNP for cutting the benefit north of the border – only to later blame the UK Government’s decision, and by extension their own MPs’ vote, for defeat in two critical local by-elections.
>To the delight of his opponents, **the incoherence of these positions has revealed the limits of Sarwar’s influence on Downing Street.** Rather than leveraging the Westminster group to illustrate Scottish Labour’s independence, Scotland’s Labour MPs have done the opposite, adding renewed impetus to the SNP’s ‘branch office’ allegations.
>**Scottish Labour’s proximity to the national party has come to substitute for a coherent policy platform in Holyrood**. The party’s positions are defined less by the issues facing households across Scotland than by the UK Government’s message calendar.
>More often than not, Scottish Labour’s critique of the SNP is not political, but managerial. Sarwar, for example, has promised not to raise taxes if elected in 2026, arguing that if only the Scottish Government had better managed the public finances, spending cuts would be unnecessary. Earlier this year, the Scottish Labour leader backed the SNP’s council tax freeze on the proviso that it was ‘fully funded’ but offered nothing as to how this might be achieved.
>**On a whole host of questions, what Scottish Labour would do differently to the incumbent administration is anyone’s guess.** For as long as this remains the case, Scottish Labour’s fortunes will rise and fall with Keir Starmer’s – a brave strategy given the Prime Minister’s net favourability in Scotland dropped to -23 in late September.
(Highlighting done by me)
It’s a bit long of an article, but I think it’s worth a read.
Personally, I do agree (particularly with the highlighted bits). I wish ScotLab would show more independence from UK Labour, and set out ways in which they’d improve the country beyond words – what specific change they would implement. Hopefully, we’ll see more in their Holyrood campaign.
Isn’t at least part of the decline of Scottish Labour the fact that Labour won the general election? Everyone hates incumbents right now and Scottish Labour is now, at least partially, as an incumbent. Where as before Labour could say “both the SNP and the Tories are rubbish and we would handle things so much better” but now they are in office and are having to make the tough choices which kills their sparkle a bit.
Having seen UK labour in action a few time, this was always on the cards. Scottish labour are useless in their own right, clear policy was never their strong point.
Fuck Labour. I voted for the SNP 😁😁😁
They’re all shite. SNP, labour, tories etc
Labour doesn’t have a Scotland problem.
It has a problem with its working class voters, which is a UK wide problem.
We seen this in England with a ‘popular’ Labour government that won by only gathering 9m votes and by losing 5 seats to left wing alternative groups.
Returning to the Branch Office, when it comes to election time they’ll be found out and suffer the same fate as their fellow liberals in the USA. They have no policies, no ideas on how to fix things other than the reheated policies from the Blair years that worked sooo well. Policies the Labour MP’s will press for Sarwar to adopt (as they’re all highly invested in the Starmer/McSweeney project).
If the SNP somehow get their act together, or the Scottish Socialists learn how to make noise again, the Scottish Branch office are fucked. And like with the Dems, nobody to blame but themselves.
Sarwar was never going to be anything other than Starmer’s mouthpiece in Scotland, the way things stand.
He’s got one choice, really – embrace independence. He can do that either by breaking Scottish Labour’s links with the UK party, and then trying to move left of the SNP, or he can actually support Scottish independence. Or both!
As it is, there is a large proportion of voters who will vote SNP because they support indy, or who wont vote Labour because they don’t. Rock and a hard place for Sarwar.
It’s a real shame the SNP are so incompetent because if Labour get full control of Scotland we will desperately miss a party representing Scotland before Westminster.
I don’t think that’s an Independence issue either, voters on both sides would want that counter when necessary.
Ultimately the actual Labour Party calls the shots and nobody would ever be willing to risk their safe career to push back enough against them.
Sarwar will be a disaster.
A charisma void from a dodgy family, with dodgy connections.
He also made an unwise ‘white’ speech, which while not as bad in delivery as Yousaf’s tirade, will also go viral at the next holyrood election.
The biggest question is who’s running the U.K. government Starmer or Reeves? It’s Blair/Brown all over again.
I keep forgetting Sarwar exists.
Sir Keir and his cavalry are too busy firefighting and lining their pockets to worry about Scotland. Let sleeping dogs lie. Woof!
Labour’s problem isn’t Scotland, it’s with their credibility. You can only spout so much pish before everyone stops believing you.
“Scottish” Labour are massive, massive hypocrites. Truly repugnant cunts.
It’s not a problem when UK Labour don’t need a single vote in Scotland in order to rule.
Comments are closed.