UK

The Forward March of Nationalism Halted? 

OCTOBER 8, 2023LABOUR HUB EDITORS

The result of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election has far more to do with Nationalist decline than Labour advance – but the impact could still be huge, argues Stephen Low

By-elections are traditionally discussed in terms of swings – and there were a few big ones to shout here. It’s entirely of a piece with current Scottish politics that the biggest and most significant one got the least discussion. That was the swing from ‘voter’ to ‘non-voter’.

The reality is that Labour’s victory stems not from any sort of advance but from SNP failure. Labour claimed victory on Thursday with fewer votes than the party obtained when losing the seat in 2019.  

That makes Anas Sarwar’s description of it as “seismic” a bit  hyperbolic. That said, It wasn’t the most eyebrow-raising reaction from a party leader. The SNP’s Humza Yousaf takes that prize with “disappointing”. Monty Python’s Black Knight declaring “it’s only a flesh wound” springs to mind.

This was a by-election that was called for rather than called, being the result not of a death or resignation – but a recall petition. This in itself put the SNP on the back foot before the start.

Labour selected in May. As is now standard, various strong local candidates were ruled out before shortlisting. This allowed the emergence of Michael Shanks. There were some raised eyebrows that someone who had left the party and voted for the Lib Dems at the last general election should be the candidate.

While we were out trying to elect a Labour government committed to tackling fundamental problems, Mr Shanks was voting for privatisation and against better rights at work. Knowing this might incline people to develop a dim view of his capacities. This would be unfair. As mild as Fairy Liquid, he managed to go through a long by-election without saying anything at all that was either noteworthy or memorable – no small achievement. He now becomes Scottish Labour’s second MP, joining Ian Murray – best known for practising a speech at the rehearsal of the launch of the defecting Labour MP group TIG (The Independent Group) – but failing to turn up at the actual event.

The scale of Labour’s win took everyone, including those running the campaign by surprise. However, it isn’t based on Labour’s achievement but rather a quite breathtaking drop in SNP support. Turnout in the seat dropped from 66.5% in 2019 to a mere 37.2% this week. This scarcely impacted on Labour whose vote dropped by a mere 700. The SNP, however, were in freefall dropping 15 376 votes. The Tories – never in contention here – dropped from 8,094 to a deposit-losing 1,192.

Humza Yousaf points to the what we could charitably call the unfortunate circumstances of Margaret Ferrier’s departure , the recent police investigation into the SNP’s finances and tactical voting as factors. That schools in the constituency  – and across three-quarters of Scotland  – were closed by striking UNISON members for three days the week before probably didn’t help.

There are any number of local  and even national factors that can be pleaded in mitigation, although if anyone can discern significant  tactical voting in that result, it means Labour’s capacity to enthuse its own support is in a very bad way. Those local and national events may even be sufficient to explain a defeat. They can’t, though, explain a catastrophic failure on this level.

It goes without saying that anyone saying ‘If this swing were repeated…” after a by-election is fantasising, not forecasting. It is also the case though that by-elections can highlight things  – and what was highlighted on Thursday is the nature of the trouble the SNP are in – and hint at its scale.

SNP travails aren’t anything to do with a drop in support for Independence. Polling indicates Scotland remains almost equally divided between ‘Fannies for Freedom’ and ‘Bawheids for Britain’ with a small but crucial number of ‘don’t knows’ denying either side a convincing, or any, majority. What has changed is the salience of that issue. It is now an issue rather than the issue. Indy supporters still want to wrap themselves in saltires, but many of them are now prepared to put other issues ahead of that – things like tackling the cost of living crisis, or getting rid of the Tories.

There are doubtless several reasons for this. One of them, though, is the prospect of Independence has receded. The SNP have at every parliamentary election since 2015 promised that a vote for them will deliver another Indyref. They won these elections – but made little to no effort to fulfil this promise.

That tactic has run its course and as I’ve argued here before – it was an understanding of that more than any other issue that prompted Nicola Sturgeon’s departure. The SNP now have no real plan for how independence will be achieved. The “independence strategy” motion being put to their conference next week lacks credibility and coherence. The electoral consequences of this could be massive.

Without the motivational tool of imminent Independence there is a real prospect of, as they did on Thursday, the nationalist electorate sitting on its hands. This could have an impact across the UK as it puts many Scottish seats in Labour’s grasp. We have seen on a smaller scale how this plays out.

In 2017 Labour saw the ‘Corbyn surge’ across the UK. This didn’t happen in Scotland  – the then leadership did everything possible to distance themselves from JC. We did, however, go from one seat to seven. This had little to do with Labour efforts – it was achieved with a grand total of 9,200 extra votes in the whole of Scotland. What happened was that over 400 000 previously SNP voters stayed at home. This is the pattern of the Rutherglen result.

If this indicates a trend and Labour can gain even homeopathic levels of support away from other parties, then dozens of seats across the central belt of Scotland where Labour are challengers begin to look very winnable indeed. If that’s the case, winning at a UK level is much, much easier.

 Stephen Low is a member of Glasgow Southside CLP. He is a former member of Labour’s Scottish Executive and part of the Red Paper Collective 

Image: Anas Sarwar. https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishlabour/3931524913. Creator: Scottish Labour  Copyright: GUS CAMPBELL PHOTOGRAPHY. Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic