Labour's battle to reclaim Scotland just got more difficult

Anas Sarwar’s plan for victory in the 2026 Scottish elections will have factored in that two years into government at UK level, Keir Starmer might not be that popular. Competent, yes, but unpopular for taking tough if necessary decisions in the long-term national interest.

One hundred days in, and Starmer is ahead of the game in the unpopularity stakes but mainly for taking easy and unnecessary decisions to accept donations for his short-term personal gratification. Sarwar can’t have factored in that Labour’s first prime minister in fourteen years would be king of the freebies.

The contrast with his immediate predecessor as Labour PM couldn’t be more stark. Gordon Brown left office with substantial personal debts because he bought his own suits, paid even for his own breakfasts in Number Ten and stumped up for books for the Downing Street library.

Sarwar has taken it on the chin as Starmer delivered the electoral blows of the abolition of the Winter Fuel Payment, the retention of the two-child cap on welfare benefits and he even smiles as he braces himself for the VAT hike on his kids’ school fees.

He deserves a break from his colleagues at Westminster whether he is leader of a distinct Scottish Labour Party or minding the ‘branch office.’ He is, after all, facing a tougher task than they did in July.

In 2026, it is unlikely that Labour will get away with just saying the word, ‘change’ over and over again with scant detail on what it means as they did this year.

Then Scottish voters were keen to hand out a punishment beating both to the SNP and the Tories and Labour were beneficiaries. They’ve still got the club in their hands if local council election results are a judge, and they’re prepared to use it on all parties.

That wave of support for Scottish Labour in the UK general election wasn’t strong enough to knock over a sandcastle let alone for Sarwar to surf it by the time it reached the first opinion poll for Holyrood after the event, which put the SNP on 47 seats and Labour on just 33 MSPs.

The reality for Sarwar is that the mark he has to hit is higher than it was for Starmer. His offer of change needs to be more detailed and distinctive than the UK leader’s was, and it will likely need to be heard over the noise of opposition to the prime minister’s record.

Sarwar will face a question all his predecessors have faced in a scenario which, rather than being viewed as a practicality as it should be, they have each allowed to become a problem which is – how different can Scottish Labour policy be from Westminster?

The point of devolution is that Scotland can do things differently, but the Labour Party has always struggled with the concept. If Sarwar is to buck what is likely to be the trend running against his party’s UK brand in two years’ time, he has to be distinctively different from Westminster without being oppositionalist to it.

In a straight fight with John Swinney, Sarwar has energy and youth on his side. In the ten years since the referendum, which have been cruel to him at times, he has developed a steel which serves him well.

But by 2026, he will need to prove there is also a depth to him too. Starmer has made it more difficult for him to ask voters just to take him on trust, to believe he will do things better than the SNP just because he offers change. There needs to be a distinctive offer crowning a clear vision of a different direction for Scotland. And it has to be owned by Anas Sarwar.

The SNP will doubtless frame the debate as an opportunity for voters to ‘send a message’ to Westminster. In that contest Sarwar has to trump it with a direct message to voters with resonates more loudly that he will bring real change unlike the SNP. Voters will need to be able to feel they can see it and touch it.

How much leeway he is allowed to do so by his colleagues south of the border will depend on the state of Starmer’s premiership at the time.

If, as is likely, it is seen as a crucial test of the PM, Scottish Labour’s room for manoeuvre could be limited.

Starmer’s new chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney took a great interest in the Scottish campaign in July – his main home is in Scotland and his wife Imogen Walker is a Scottish Labour MP – and if 2026 is crucial to Starmer’s political health it will also be crucial to McSweeney’s.
That could box Sarwar in, just when he needs space to be his distinctive self.

The task of Labour recovery in Scotland looked daunting before the Rutherglen by-election. The result in the UK general election surpassed expectations.

But the path to power for Sarwar is much steeper, with many more hazards, than it was for Starmer.

Scottish Labour needs to ensure that the need to shore up support at Westminster and stand firm with UK Labour isn’t something that effectively blocks their way to taking back control of Holyrood after nearly two decades in the cold.