If Scottish Labour don't break away from London, SNP will just go on and on and on – Murdo Fraser
Scottish Labour should set up a separate, distinct party if they want to win power
On a personal level, it is hard not to sympathise with Anas Sarwar, who has resigned as an MSP and Scottish Labour leader to take a peerage and a role in Andy Burnham’s government. All politicians want to be in power where they can actually get things done, and it is widely accepted that Sarwar’s failure in Scotland was not his doing, but the result of the unpopularity of Keir Starmer’s administration.
That said, the optics of Sarwar’s move are ruinous for his party, amounting to an admission that there is no credible route to power for them in Scotland for the foreseeable future. After Labour’s worst ever result in a Holyrood election, whoever takes over as leader from him has a thankless task.
It is not surprising, therefore, that some in Labour are talking about a more independent party which is not so closely tied to London. I proposed something similar for the Scottish Conservatives back in 2011 and can see the attractions for a leader who is not forever judged on what they do and say, but on the actions of a leader or Prime Minister in Westminster over which they have no control. But the practical challenges of such a move are significant.
The Canadian model
Central to the issue is the role of Scottish MPs. In 2011, we had just one Tory MP in Scotland; today Labour has 37. Every one of those has their political futures, including prospects of advancement, determined by the UK leader, not the one in Scotland. In the event of a dispute between the two leaders, those MPs whose careers depend on the Westminster leader are unlikely to line up behind the Holyrood one, as Sarwar found to his cost when he called for Starmer’s resignation.
There is little point in having a distinct Scottish party unless it allows for differences in policy north and south of the Border, yet those differences make it difficult for Scottish MPs to play a role in a Labour government which they are elected to support. The arrangement simply doesn’t work.
There is an alternative approach which is more practical, which draws on the experience in Canada. There, the parties which contest elections in the provinces are distinct from those which operate at a federal level, with parallel memberships and political organisations.
The best example of this is in Quebec, where historically the strongest federalist party in opposition to separation from Canada was the Quebec Liberal party. Despite the name, it had no connection to the federal Liberal party of the Trudeaus and had a very different political outlook.
This is illustrated in the career of the Quebec politician Jean Charest, who served first in the Progressive Conservatives of Canada in the federal parliament in Ottawa, a party which he led for a short time. He then transferred to the National Assembly of Quebec where he became leader of the Liberals, and was a successful premier of the province for more than decade.
On my visits to Quebec, I found both political volunteers and voters unfazed by this arrangement. It was entirely possible to support, vote for and campaign for different parties in provincial and federal elections. And it meant that the premier of Quebec – the equivalent to our First Minister – did not have his political fortunes tied to a leader of his party in distant Ottawa, and thus did not suffer the same fate as poor Sarwar.
Unlikely to happen
It is a model that could work for Scottish Labour, and the advantages are clear. Labour would still exist and contest Westminster elections in Scotland, and Labour MPs would play a full part in Labour governments. But for Holyrood there would be an entirely new social democratic party in Scotland with a warm relationship, but no formal link, to UK Labour, a distinct membership, and probably a new name. And it would potentially provide the SNP with a credible challenger on the centre-left, which would only be good for Scottish politics.
All that said, the chances of this actually happening are vanishingly small. Radical change in politics is hard to deliver, as I know to my cost. There are strong vested interests in the current model of UK political parties, including amongst the party members who would need to endorse such a change.
Political party memberships today are a fraction of what they were in the past and are entirely unrepresentative even of the voters for each party. Political parties are now like families where everyone knows each other, and the prospect of ‘splitting away’ – as some would paint it – is viewed as akin to divorce.
It would take a potential Labour leader of real vision to propose such a dramatic change for the Scottish party, and so far there are few signs of one emerging. Indications to date suggest that the likely candidates are pinning all their hopes on Andy Burnham turning out to be a popular Prime Minister who can relied upon to revive Scottish Labour’s fortunes. We’ve all seen this movie before and we know how it ends.
We are left with the conclusion that Labour in Scotland will continue to decline as the living embodiment of the definition of insanity often misattributed to Einstein – doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different outcome. But there won’t be, and whoever becomes their leader already seems destined to fail.
In the meantime, a tired, inept and failing SNP will, like Father Ted’s Mrs Doyle, go on, go on, go on, undeservedly winning elections in Scotland due to the lack of a credible centre-left challenger. And that is no laughing matter.
Murdo Fraser is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife
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