Favourite Kezia Dugdale is now confirmed as the new leader of Scottish Labour and fellow MSP Alex Rowley as her deputy. The victory was an emphatic one with Kezia taking 72% of the vote versus 28% for her sole challenger for the post, Ken Macintosh. With the leadership election now decisively concluded, time for Scottish Labour to focus on how best to avoid a rout at next year’s Holyrood elections.
For Labour to recover from a disastrous general election result in May, strong leadership will be required both north and south of the border, as well as a believable and balanced partnership between the Scottish and UK tiers of the party. A story of three Scottish leaders in as many years included Johann Lamont’s monumental resignation speech where she accused the UK leadership of the party of undermining and thwarting her attempts to re-model the Scottish party by treating Scotland as nothing more than a branch office. Subsequently, Jim Murphy used his resignation as leader to settle old scores, attacking Len McCluskey for blaming all Labour’s problems on Scotland. Despite a disastrous election and the loss of his and all but one of Labour’s Scottish seats, Murphy left on a positive note declaring that Scottish Labour Party would rise again. Is new leader Kezia Dugdale the woman to save the sinking ship?
She may not have managed to reach the heights of Corbyn-mania, but persuaded the party faithful to elect her on the basis of an impressive CV, a good grasp of policy and values and a quiet confidence. This is symbolic of what Dugdale has planned for the party - no radical reform but a reinforcement of traditional Labour values and a focus on trust, seeking to rebuild relationships with lost voters in the hope that this will revive the party’s fortunes.
Latest polling suggests a Scottish National Party sweeping all before it with 62% of voters saying they will vote SNP in the constituency vote at next year’s Holyrood elections. If that were confirmed on election night, it suggests a clean sweep for the SNP, taking all 73 constituencies, with opposition parties left to scrabble what they can from the top-up regional list vote. Interestingly, those same polls found only around a third of voters were happy with the Scottish Government’s performance on key devolved policy areas such as education, health and justice.
Nothwithstanding her relative youth, Kezia is no novice. As deputy to Jim Murphy, she has been tackling the First Minister regularly at weekly FMQs and has tried her hardest to land blows on the Scottish Government, based on their record. Indeed, dubious performance on literacy and hospital waiting times coupled with some disastrous headlines for the newly established Police Scotland have made uncomfortable reading for the majority SNP administration at Holyrood over recent months.
For the moment, the critical fault line in Scottish politics remains the constitutional question. The SNP continues to enjoy the loyal support of most Yes voters while the No side, although still an overall majority of Scots voters, is fractured between at least four parties. Against that background, no matter how well argued, Scottish Labour’s scrutiny of the Scottish Government is not resonating with the public at large. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government is happy to see the constitutional question remain central to the public debate, knowing it remains on strong ground with its core support as long as it does. The challenge for Labour is to shift the focus back to the SNP’s record in government, particularly on those areas that have been entirely devolved since 1999 and where the SNP will have a 9-year record to defend come next year’s Scottish elections.
The future of Labour as a whole may very well rest on the shoulders of Ms Dugdale. All candidates for the UK leadership acknowledge that winning a UK election will remain unthinkable without a recovery of support for the party in what used to be its Scottish heartlands.
So what will Labour look like under Kezia Dugdale?
Recent history suggests that restructuring the UK Labour party and the Scottish party’s position within it must be a critical priority for the new leader in the short term. Only by shaking off her predecessor Johann Lamont’s description of the Scottish party as a ‘branch office’ of the UK party will Scottish Labour have the autonomy to withstand the aftershocks of the UK leadership race - no matter who is the winner.
Glasgow has always been considered a Labour city, a city of safe seats and easy votes. This is presumably why Scottish Labour HQ has always been located there. But generations of faithful Labour voters have now switched their allegiance to the SNP, first during the referendum and subsequently at the general election. To have any shot at recovery in Scotland, Labour will need to win back Glasgow. Unfortunately, Dugdale has now floated a plan to move the party headquarters to Edinburgh in what she describes as an attempt to show an acceptance of Holyrood as the centre of political life in Scotland. Understandable? Yes. Smart? No. It could well unsettle a city already disillusioned with the party and be a further obstacle to recovery.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn continues to ride high as favourite to win the UK Labour leadership, further complicating the election arithmetic for Scottish Labour. It would be easy to assume that a Corbyn win would be good news for Scottish Labour, given the number of Yes-voting former Labour voters flocking to his recent rallies in Scotland. Indeed, there may well be an immediate rebound in Labour support north of the border if Corbyn were to win.
But it remains to be seen how long Corbyn’s leadership would last. In reality, a failure to shift polling UK-wide is more than likely to mean that, even if he is successful, he is unlikely to lead Labour into the next UK General Election. That could provoke an even greater backlash against Labour here in Scotland as those voters initially won back to the fold abandon the party once more.
Indeed, it is ironic that a shift left could boost Labour’s prospects north of the border but, by making the party unelectable UK-wide, could at the same time hasten Scotland’s exit from the UK as it faces the prospect of the Conservatives permanently in government at Westminster.
In reality, for as long as the constitutional question remains central to political debate amongst the Scottish public, there is probably very little that a new leader of the party can do to turn the current tide.
Short term, a major scandal over the Scottish Government’s handling of health or education that prompts serious questions over its competence seems like the only thing that could potentially upset the apple cart. Longer term, hopes are best pinned on the devolution of further powers to Holyrood. With substantial new powers over tax and welfare, there will have to come a point where the SNP can no longer continue to pin all of the blame for Scotland’s failings on Westminster.
Against this background and as Scottish Labour’s eighth leader since devolution, Kezia Dugdale can be forgiven for taking a ‘steady as she goes’ approach to her new role. As with her predecessors, most of the political weather will not be of her making. In the current febrile political climate, the best she can hope for is to take full advantage of any fumbles by the SNP - and do whatever she can to stem the likely losses when May 2016 comes around.
This blog was first produced on the Orbit Communications website.