Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation presents a longed-for opportunity for the Labour Party, but it’s not going to be easy
When delegates arrived in Edinburgh on Friday 17 February for Scottish Labour’s Annual Conference, they had a spring in their step and a feeling of optimism not seen in over a decade. As Nicola Sturgeon closes the door on her time as First Minister, Labour sees a window of opportunity opening to it. There are two equally important strands to this optimism.
Firstly, Nicola Sturgeon has outshone, outmanoeuvred, and outclassed every political rival whether inside or outside her party. She and her team have been brilliant at PR stunts. Her communication skills came to the fore during the pandemic. Being aware of impending developments, she would call a media briefing before the UK announcement and either take credit for the development or express opposition to it, thereby dominating the headlines and appearing to demonstrate she was in control of events.
More importantly for Labour than a change of personality at the top of the SNP are the reasons for it. Nicola Sturgeon appears to have read the runes for her party and Independence. Scottish Labour has long criticised the SNP Government’s failures on health, education, transport, and a host of other issues but for years appeared to be shouting into a void. However, as is often the case in politics, when one brick in the wall goes the whole wall starts to crumble. In Nicola’s case two bricks were critical. Firstly, her misstep within her Party of declaring (without consultation) that the next General Election would be a de facto referendum on independence and secondly her disastrous handling of the Gender Recognition debate. The scales suddenly appear to have dropped from the public’s eyes and even some long-standing nationalists are now asking if too much attention has been paid to arguing for Independence as opposed to delivering for the people of Scotland.
The next Scottish Parliament elections are not until May 2026 so whoever the SNP elect as their next leader on the 27 March will have a decent period to establish themselves before then. However, Labour is for now focused on what this might mean for the next General Election. Some in the party are now excitedly talking about going from the one seat they hold in Scotland to twenty. This might be rather ambitious, but it now seems possible Labour could at least get back into double figures. This would be a massive boost to Keir Starmer’s chance of having a workable majority in the next Parliament.
Anas Sarwar, Labour’s Leader in Scotland, has done a tremendous job in steadying Labour’s ship in Scotland. His task now is to demonstrate that Labour has better answers to the problems facing Scotland’s economy and public services than the SNP and their next Leader have. This will not be all plain sailing. A snap poll suggested that 16% of people are less likely to vote SNP because of Sturgeon’s demise but 9% are more likely to vote for them. A new SNP leader is likely to drop the de facto referendum policy and quietly allow the gender recognition issue to slip into the background and, who knows, might even be more focused on “the day job” of running the country.
Introducing Keir Starmer to Labour’s Conference on the Sunday, 19 February, the Chair asked the delegates to welcome Keir as the next UK Prime Minister and Anas as Scotland’s next First Minister. Not long ago this would have had the audience looking at its feet in embarrassment. Now delegates really believe it not only possible but highly likely. Starmer himself was keen to avoid any sense of complacency emphasising that “we won’t change any hearts or minds by sitting back and watching a battle for power within the SNP”, he said, “we have to go out there and earn it. Prove that Labour can be the change that Scotland needs.” Nevertheless, Scottish Labour’s conference has been awash with talk of a political comeback.
