Douglas Alexander: We 'misjudged' how popular the SNP would be

Douglas Alexander, the UK Scottish Secretary, co-chaired the campaign to make Anas Sarwar first minister alongside deputy leader Jackie Baillie.

But the campaign was a disaster with Scottish Labour recording its worst ever Holyrood election result.

Speaking at a recording of Matt Forde’s Political Party podcast at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Mr Alexander was asked why Labour has been unable to break through at Holyrood.

Mr Alexander admitted that Scottish Labour has misjudged how popular John Swinney’s party would be despite questions raised over the SNP’s record in government, and blamed the Holyrood arithmetic and voting system for being a potential barrier to his party winning power.

“You have about 30 per cent of the Scottish population who now see voting SNP as both a habit and an identity”, Mr Alexander said.

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“It is about who they are more than what the SNP do.”

He added: “One of the things I think we misjudged in the May elections was assuming that because of the really poor government outcomes the SNP has had in recent years, that would have a dampening effect on their support.

“The reality is, and you need to have the humility if you’re opposing them to understand the Holyrood system if you’ve got 30 per cent of the population and that natural anti-SNP majority.”

Meanwhile, the two candidates vying to replace Anas Sarwar have denied Scottish Labour no longer stands up for LGBTQ rights after the frontrunner claimed he had defied the party whip and “refused” to back the SNP’s gender reforms.

Michael Marra and Joe Fagan, the two candidates in the running to become the next Scottish Labour leader, told a hustings event in Edinburgh that under their leadership, the party would no longer support gender self-ID, but denied it has abandoned the LGBTQ community.

The party supported the Scottish government’s gender recognition reforms (GRR) in 2022 and whipped its MSPs to back the proposals, which were overwhelmingly backed by Holyrood before being blocked by the UK government.

Mr Marra, who did not turn up to the crunch Holyrood vote on the legislation, told the event that he “refused” to support the SNP’s gender reforms - despite the fact he supported the plans at the first Holyrood vote.

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At the first stage of the legislation, on the general principles of the gender reforms, Mr Marra voted in favour of Shona Robison’s proposals.

Mr Sarwar, under pressure from so-called gender critical campaigners, claimed he had regretted supporting the legislation that is in place in several other European countries that allows transgender people to self-ID in their lived gender with safeguards. But the change in direction ahead of May’s Holyrood election did little to revive his hopes of ousting the SNP from power.

Duncan Hothersall, who runs the Scottish Labour Against Bigotry group, told the candidates from the audience that “we used to be the party that was the champion of LGBT rights in Scotland”.

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He added: “We are now a party where a candidate for leadership can openly equate trans issues to women being in fear.

“I’m asking as a gay man and as a member of the LGBT community, why should I stay in this party?”

Mr Fagan claimed “the Labour party is the party of equality” but pointed to the “toxic debate”.

He added that there was a need to “protect those on the basis of biological spaces” alongside “a politics of which there is compassion and understanding”.

Mr Marra told members that “women’s rights were being set up against trans people’s rights”.

He added that he “refused to support the GRR bill”, claiming that it “didn’t protect women’s rights”.