Labour has won the third election landslide in its history. It’s a stunning turnaround for Sir Keir Starmer who, along with Anas Sarwar, has rescued Labour from the miserabilism of their 2019 defeat. Labour is now getting down to the business of delivering on its headline manifesto commitments. But what lessons might Scottish Labour and the SNP take from their contrasting fortunes this week?
The first is that “change” can be the most powerful message in modern politics, here and across the world. That spirit is what persuaded Labour to frame its entire campaign around the single question of “Is there anything working better in Britain today than it was 14 years ago?” Labour strategists stress-tested this plan to destruction before deploying it with the British public. As the months went on, they became increasingly convinced that the voters they most needed the support of would respond to Labour’s question with a frustrated: “No”.
The corollary of posing this simple question became the single word “change”. That one word was then allowed to define the second half of Labour’s entire campaign. It connected to a sense that after five Conservative prime ministers the country deserved better.
And if “change” was politically potent in challenging a 14-year UK incumbent government, Labour believes it has alighted on a strategy that can also help it to overcome a 19-year incumbent Scottish government in 2026. They’ll invite Scotland to ask itself a similar question: “Is there anything working better in Scotland than it was 19 years ago?” They anticipate that, without prompting, Scots will spontaneously think of the ferries debacle that we all hope might be sailing by then; school standards that have fallen so far that the Scottish government withdrew from international school league tables; and their relatives stuck on NHS waiting lists alongside one in six Scots.
The SNP lost much more than 38 seats this week; it also forfeited something less tangible but also strategically important. Momentum has been core to the SNP’s message for more than a decade; that sense of the inevitably of the political project of independence. They socialised the idea that Scotland was on a journey whose direction led to only one possible destination.
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That narrative has now been shattered. No one, including the SNP, believes that the party has moved independence a single step forward in more than a decade when it has been entirely dominant in Scottish politics and sought to be omnipotent in the Scottish cultural zeitgeist.
In this there are parallels with the identity crisis engulfing the British Conservatives. Successive prime ministers have struggled to identify what the Tories are for now that Brexit has been achieved. In a similar way, the SNP is now entering a prolonged search for a rationale now that independence feels far less achievable. They begin this period at a considerable strategic disadvantage, because over the past decade their record in government has closed off so many alternative policy personas.
It’s hard to be the pro-growth party when you’ve spent so little time backing Scottish business. How to credibly be the party of social justice when Scotland has repeatedly boasted the highest drug death rates in Europe alongside skyrocketing child poverty and plummeting life expectancy. And for obvious reasons they can’t pitch themselves as the party of lower taxes, reformed public services or even competent government.
They have squandered so much of the goodwill that Scotland had invested in them. And now they are a discombobulated party in search of a compelling political purpose.
So, what does this all mean for Scottish Labour? Two years ago, they dared to hope to hit double digits in the number of Scottish seats won — now the SNP have that same wish. But as they begin the long road towards the 2026 Scottish parliament contest, they travel with significant advantages. And, as well as their long-established trade union connections, they are building a new partnership with Scottish business and iconic Scottish brands.
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They will need to deliver on some of their big ideas quickly, including GB Energy based in Scotland and on rights at work. Their internal dynamics are positive as MSPs are so delighted to have Labour MP colleagues again that there’s every chance that they’ll avoid the frictions of the past, just as the Scottish Tories and SNP are about to be visited by fresh bouts of infighting.
The relationship between Starmer and Sarwar is now rock solid, and it will need to be because governing is much harder than campaigning. For the first time in almost two decades, Scottish Labour carries the demeanour of having a credible shot at forming the Scottish government. This is a generation of Labour politicians not used to winning, and a group of SNP politicians unaccustomed to losing. The outcome of the next Scottish parliament election will now depend on what lessons Labour learns from its victory and whether the SNP is open to learning from its defeat.
Jim Murphy is a former leader of Scottish Labour
