SNP's anti-Labour strategy may backfire as public flock to Keir Starmer's party – Brian Wilson

Labour under its current leadership is a serious, electable alternative to the Tories, unlike the days when Jeremy Corbyn was in charge

No party winning a by-election ever undersold its historic implications. Even against that caveat, the result announced at 2am yesterday was stunning in scale and impact. Nobody expected a 20 per cent swing. Yet a quiet mood had taken hold to express a message that could not have been clearer. Change and hope are desperately needed and electing Labour governments in Scotland and the UK is the only plausible way of delivering them.

I am no starry-eyed optimist and recognise this could change. Labour’s momentum in Scotland is closely tied to the expectation of a Labour government at Westminster. It is now very likely, if that condition is maintained, the Scottish pendulum will continue to move in the same direction.

If the most the SNP can offer is to prevent the formation of a majority Labour government of the United Kingdom, that is going to be a hard sell – and the louder their anti-Labour rhetoric, the more voters will shake their heads and turn away. I kept hearing nationalists talking yesterday about the need to link a “change” narrative to support for independence. Their problem is that no such narrative exists within any definable timescale, if at all. If people can vote with confidence for change, why would they opt for a hypothesis that is as unprovable and remote as ever?

A hard core will continue to do so but one conclusion to be drawn from the by-election result is that maybe that hard core is smaller than previously suspected. In Rutherglen and Hamilton West, it was just 24 per cent. The result signified Scotland’s return to what I would call real politics – about living standards, quality of life, aspirations for our families, ambitions for a fairer society. For too long, these were subordinated to a dead-end obsession with the constitution, while Scotland stagnated along with its governance.

Before her political demise, Nicola Sturgeon named October 19, 2023, as Scotland’s next date with referendum destiny. Like so much of her grandstanding, it was baseless nonsense to humour the faithful which duly evaporated along with the headlines. With sweet irony, events did deliver an October referendum of sorts with Rutherglen and Hamilton West voters as surrogates for Scotland as a whole. Critically, however, it was the voters who set the referendum question – and it was far removed from the one Ms Sturgeon envisaged.

In effect, the question on the Rutherglen and Hamilton West ballot paper was: “Do you want to get rid of both the current Scottish government and the current UK government in the hope and expectation that something better can emerge?” To which 59 per cent of voters answered: “Yes, please.” The force of that response is now transformational, for Scotland and the UK.

It is sometimes overlooked that Labour occupies an unnaturally low starting point because of disastrous leadership in the years of opposition. That was a gift to the SNP in Scotland and the Tories in England. Jeremy Corbyn, every bit as much as Boris Johnson, was the architect of the Tories’ success in former Labour heartlands.

When Labour re-entered the real world, there was still time to demolish the yellow wall in Scotland and recapture the red one in England – but only if Labour could re-establish its own credibility. In that respect, nobody should underestimate the scale of achievement so far on the part of both Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar. To be elected, a party must first become electable and both leaders have comfortably cleared that barrier within a remarkably short timescale – abetted, of course, by who they are up against.

While this was a Westminster by-election, the implications will pervade Holyrood with the heightened impression that the SNP in general, and Humza Yousaf in particular, are living on borrowed time. Opponents will be emboldened to call out the sheer mediocrity of what passes for devolved government. Mr Sarwar will continue to grow in stature.

The SNP has flourished by positioning itself as an anti-Labour party. The more likelihood there is of a Labour government, the higher the level of denigration because that is the outcome the nationalists know will set them back decades. If they learn anything from the by-election result, it might be that this is not a great strategy when the public mood is moving towards Labour. Yet where else do they have to go? You can’t teach old dogs new tricks which brings me to the SNP’s chief miserabilist, Keith Brown, on the BBC by-election programme.

Poor Keith was peddling the tired old line about Tories having voted Labour in a great unionist coalition. Well, of course some did, just as Labour supporters vote Lib Dem in parts of England to defeat Tories. Tactical voting takes place everywhere without anyone having to be instructed.

It is particularly rich for the nationalists, who owe their success to having divided Scotland between positions on independence, to complain when some voters take them at their word and prioritise defeating them for that very reason. So get used to it, Mr Brown, if the beast you’ve created starts to work against you.

There is another lesson from Rutherglen and Hamilton West. It is that candidates matter and Labour should apply the same rigour of selection in every constituency, by-election or general election. They chose an exceptional one in Michael Shanks and I have no doubt this contributed to the scale of victory. His speech after the declaration was as good an advert for Labour representation and values as I can recall on such an occasion.

The constituency will have an excellent representative for many years to come – articulate, committed and patently decent. When the cameras have departed, that is exactly what the good people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West voted for and deserve.