Labouring under a delusion? Scotland’s national questions and the crisis of the Scottish Labour Party

Abstract

In recent years, the Scottish Labour Party has lost its once dominant position in Scottish politics. Its support has collapsed and it now faces multiple political challenges, relating both to cleavages in Scottish politics over the constitution and Brexit, and to divisions within the party over its leadership and direction. Employing semi-structured elite interviews with key figures within the party hierarchy and focus groups with grassroots activists, this article examines the causes of this crisis through an analysis of party members' views. It identifies sources of the decline of Scottish Labour in unresolved disagreements over strategy and identity. Unable to coalesce around a distinctly Scottish strategy for competing in a multi-dimensional, multi-level political space with both civic nationalist challengers and conservative defenders of the constitutional status quo, in 2017, Scottish Labour reasserted a classbased identity, seeking to compete largely on the left-right economic dimension of politics. Instead of marking out a Scottish political identity, the Scottish Labour Party chose leftward national alignment with the Corbyn leadership of the UK Labour Party. The electoral and political failure of this strategy offers important lessons for understanding the prospects of multi-level social-democratic parties.

‘We Can’t Afford to be a Branch Office’: The Territorial Dynamics of the British Labour Party, 2015–2019

“…No references to the UK constitutional arrangements were made. of nationalist sentiments, allowing the party to sidestep pressing constitutional debates (Bennett et al, 2020;Brown Swan, 2022). But in resolving one problemsecuring a more stable alignment with the UK party-Scottish Labour now encountered another, as internal opposition to the party's subordinate status to London again became a divisive issue.…”

“…Denied much political room for manoeuvre by debates over a second referendum, senior figures in Scottish Labour fell back on the radical-sounding, but largely undefined, idea of putting the UK on an entirely new, 'federal' footing. According to Bennett et al (2020), those emphasising a federalist platform were overwhelmingly grassroots activists and trade union officials, whereas politicians and advisors were less keen. In Westminster, Baroness Bryan was charged with developing Labour's constitutional offering, but the completion and publication of a report on the subject was forestalled by the 2019 election, and Corbyn's resignation.…”

“…Elections aside, organisational change was the central medium through which relationships with the central party were negotiated in this period. In their study of Scottish Labour, Bennett et al (2020) found that this topic recurred regularly in interviews and was addressed at length by party grandees, politicians, advisors, and activists alike. Some of their respondents argued that a reluctance to meet these demands reflected Westminster's ignorance of Scottish politics, whereas others believed that a more deliberate hostility to enhanced powers for the devolved party from current and former Scottish Labour MPs was an important factor.…”

“…The British Labour Party's response to the introduction of devolution to Scotland and Wales has been the subject of extensive scholarly analysis (Hassan, 2002;Bradbury, 2006;Hopkin and Bradbury, 2006;Laffin and Shaw, 2007;Hassan and Shaw, 2012;Bennie and Clark, 2020;Hassan and Shaw, 2019;Bennett et al, 2020;Henderson et al, 2020). However, the Corbyn era has been viewed as a distinct period in the party's history, not least amongst Scottish and Welsh Labour members and representatives, who, when interviewed in the summer of 2019, offered opposing views on Corbyn's leadership and its impact on the political fortunes of the Scottish and Welsh parties.…”

Back to the future?

“…As a result, the party has become a catch-all party in Wales, attracting support from a variety of different identities and interests. 30 This contrasts with the fortunes of Labour in Scotland, where the party has failed to articulate a 'Scottish' brand of Labour politics, 31 as well as in England, where, as Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones argue, Keir Starmer needs to take identity seriously if he is to successfully respond to the growing force of Englishness. 32 Welsh Labour has shown that articulating progressive values in nation-bounded terms, as well as invoking traditions, myths and symbols that resonate with the public imagination, can help to construct this type of distinct identity.…”