Rachel Watson
For years Labour’s problem in Scotland was existential. Reduced to a solitary MP, outflanked by the SNP on constitutional politics, and plagued by leadership churn, the party looked like it had lost the country for good.
The 2024 general election appeared to change everything. Thirty-seven Scottish MPs returned to Westminster, a party buzzing with confidence, and polls that suggested Anas Sarwar could plausibly walk into Bute House in 2026. For the first time in two decades, Labour looked like it had Scotland within reach.
Yet just eight months out from the Holyrood election, doubts are creeping back. Momentum from last year’s Westminster victory has ebbed. The SNP remains vulnerable, but Labour is showing signs of wasting its best chance in a generation.
Sarwar’s revival was built on a double wave of discontent. Scottish voters wanted rid of the Conservatives in Westminster, but they were also tired of SNP drift at Holyrood. Labour was suddenly the vehicle for change on both fronts.
The prospect of Sarwar as first minister – once unthinkable – started to look realistic. Party organisers quietly believed they could outflank the SNP on competence, reconnect with working-class voters, and build a manifesto centred on change. For a brief moment, Holyrood looked like an open race.
That momentum now feels fragile. Whatever work is done in Scotland, Labour’s fate remains tethered to Keir Starmer. And the prime minister is struggling. His failure to project a clear vision has left his government looking tired just a year in. His poll ratings in Scotland are dire – worse than Nigel Farage’s, according to Ipsos – while Sarwar’s personal numbers have slipped to their lowest since 2022.
Inside the party, frustration is mounting. Not just at decisions from Westminster, but at the perception that Scotland is again sliding down the list of priorities. The sense of grievance is familiar: Scottish Labour knows that when London loses focus, it pays the price.
Early signs were promising. Pat McFadden, steeped in Scottish Labour politics, was placed in the Cabinet Office with responsibility for the devolved nations. Sarwar and Starmer appeared joined at the hip. There was talk of coordination, shared strategy, and joint campaigning.
Fast forward and the picture has changed. McFadden has been shifted, Ian Murray dropped from the Scotland Office, and Starmer’s visits north have slowed. Douglas Alexander’s appointment to the Scotland Office, with Ross MacRae as adviser, was supposed to reassure Scottish Labour. But with the clock ticking, the risk is that structural tweaks won’t shift political perceptions.
The language from Westminster reveals the problem. Senior MPs brief that Starmer has until the “local elections” next year to turn things around – forgetting that Scotland and Wales go to the polls in contests that will determine governments, not councils. It is exactly the sort of blind spot that fuels the belief Scotland is treated as an afterthought.
For Labour, the timing could hardly be worse. The SNP is weakened but not finished. A new leader could plausibly regroup. Reform UK is eating into Starmer’s authority across Britain, muddying the sense of change. And Scottish voters, having been promised “real change” in 2024, may start to wonder what exactly it looks like.
The danger is not that Labour fails to make gains in Scotland – it will. The danger is that it falls short of the breakthrough required to form a government in Edinburgh. That would squander the best opening in two decades and entrench the perception that Scottish Labour remains hostage to decisions made in London.
The next eight months are critical. Sarwar needs to project independence, not just competence. His campaign must focus relentlessly on Scottish issues – health, education, the economy – while insulating itself from Westminster drift. He also needs to convert disillusion with the SNP into positive support for Labour, something his predecessors never managed.
For Starmer, the task is more basic: prove he has a plan, not just a mandate. Without clarity of purpose from Westminster, the Scottish campaign risks collapsing under the weight of national disappointment.
Labour was gifted a rare political opportunity – a tired SNP, a public hungry for change, and a leader in Sarwar who looked credible. Whether it seizes that chance will depend less on what happens in Edinburgh than in Downing Street.
Labour has waited 20 years for another shot at governing Scotland. The question is no longer whether the public wants change. It is whether Labour can embody it.