How Scottish Labour is hamstrung by their Westminster bosses

The SNP, the party declared with confidence, was done for and Labour's great Scottish renaissance had arrived. The Champagne was on ice in London, and a Labour government – so went the story – would propel Anas Sarwar to Bute House after defeating its rivals last July.

But politics is never that simple and canny Scottish voters are appalled by Labour’s start in office: attacks on pensioners by cutting their winter fuel payments, failing the 1950s-born Waspi women, joining in a race to the bottom on immigration and doing nothing to reverse the economic madness of Brexit. Labour thought it could get away with all of this and no one in Scotland would notice.

Westminster’s increasing populism

After what was an impressive parliamentary election for Labour just seven months ago – albeit on a low turnout and very low share of the vote – Scottish voters have been let down by a shambolic start. But although recent polling trends show a collapse in Labour’s support and an uptick for my own party, the SNP, there should be no complacency and we know that we still have a job to do in rebuilding our concord with voters once again – something I will come back to.

Poor Anas Sarwar has been caught between a Westminster consensus that is increasingly populist and its divergence with Scottish reality. His crusade to convince us that Scottish Labour is somehow different from London Labour has been shown to be utterly transparent.

Not only have his Scottish MPs backed a whole host of Starmer’s worst policies but, far from having any influence at the heart of government, Downing Street has shown that it is all too happy to ignore their Scottish outpost. For example, the Scottish visa idea was shot down by Scottish Labour’s Whitehall bosses less than 24 hours after the announcement.

Labour’s imitation policies flatter SNP

With each passing day, Scottish Labour’s smile gets a little more strained and the miasma of despair across the party grows. We saw evidence of the panic this week, after a story leaked to the media revealed that the Scottish Labour leader plans to “name and shame” his party colleagues who he believes to be underperforming and outed in ‘league tables’. Such a measure is hardly likely to inspire a sense of unity in Labour ranks, not least when most Labour MPs will be in the league’s relegation area.

Indeed, so out of ideas is Scottish Labour that just this week they said that they would keep a whole raft of SNP policies – policies they spent years voting and arguing against – should they enter government next May. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Labour's problem, fundamentally, is that they're trying to sell Scotland a vision of the future that looks suspiciously like the past. They're promising change while desperately clinging to the worst parts of the status quo.

The polling trends make clear that Scottish voters have seen through this, and it turns out that people aren't easily won over by a party that keeps insisting that what Scotland really needs is slightly better management from London. It’s the definition of a poverty of ambition.

Slightly less offensive than Tories

Whether it’s the national insurance hike, the attack on farmers, or the devastating blow to Grangemouth workers who, after being told an incoming Labour government would save every job, are now opening P45s, Starmer has shown that he might lead a government that’s slightly less offensive than the Tories but is certainly no more interested in Scotland’s needs.

As we look ahead to the next Holyrood election, Labour in Scotland finds itself utterly cornered by bosses in London, who are panicked by losing support to both Reform and the Tories, and seem to have no real plan that doesn’t involve emulating their hostile agenda. It's a juggling act that would be impressive if it weren't so predictable.

For my party’s part, we are far from perfect, but after a rocky few years, John Swinney has set about rebuilding our relationship with voters. The First Minister is deep in the weeds of fixing the problems in our public services and our economy.

He’s taken the issues in our NHS head on, ensuring our most valued public service gets the resources and policies it needs so that it can deliver a modern system of healthcare across the country.

On the economy, the Scottish Government is working within the restrictions of its extremely limited powers to seek to deliver economic growth and job creation. The work is paying off: just last month, Scotland surged up the league table of UK nations and regions in terms of the performance of its private sector economy. The RBS growth tracker report showed the private sector economy in Scotland climbed from 11th in December to sixth in January.

After Labour’s hapless seven months in government, my party will continue to hold them to account in London and deliver for people here in Scotland. The choice for voters next May is a simple one: do you want an SNP First Minister who answers solely to the people of this country, or do you want a Labour leader who is denied permission for every initiative by Downing Street while he’s in opposition and would spend every day in Bute House answering to Whitehall? It really is a no-brainer.

Stephen Gethins is the MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry