Eddie Barnes: Grasping the thistle

Over in the Scottish Labour camp, there are no petitions to save the party. Yet. There is, however, a distinct sense of resignation among senior figures who were brought up in a party which forged its moral steel from the Thatcherite cuts of the 80s, but which now is on its knees. “There isn’t a movement any more,” said one senior figure last week. Others predict that while it hasn’t got to the Tory hari-kiri stage just yet, it is only a matter of time before it too should be put gently to sleep and allow something else to take its place.

These are not good times for the Scottish branches of the Conservative and Labour parties. In the former case, May’s election result, which marked another fall in support, was further confirmation that it is slowly ebbing away. For the latter, the sudden catastrophic loss of previously safe seats to the SNP, and the growing fear that Fortress Glasgow may now go at next year’s local elections, the fall is more rapid. This weekend, Scottish Labour publishes its own solution to its woes – not quite as radical as Fraser’s for the Tories, but not far off. Alex Salmond’s remarkable victory in May has been the clear trigger for this bout of soul-searching – but look more deeply and the true reasons for reform have been developing for a number of years.

The 12 years since devolution have unsurprisingly marked a growing change in the way Scots approach their politics, research has shown. The settlement has become better established, the profile of devolved politicians has risen and the reach of the Scottish Government has gone deeper into people’s lives. Consequently, people are now voting on a different range of issues to those that motivated them in 1999: How good at governing have the devolved parties proven themselves? Have they stood up for Scottish interests?

Will the leader represent the country well? All of these issues have focused minds on what’s going on internally, here in Scotland. In 2007, people were asked by the Scottish Election Study (SES) whether they voted mostly according to what was going on in Scotland, or according to what was going on in Britain as a whole: 70.6 per cent said on Scotland while just 29.4 per cent said on Britain. In other words, say researchers, that election proved beyond doubt that when it comes to Holyrood, people – not surprisingly – are first and foremost looking for a party which can best advance the country’s interests. John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, which runs the study, declares: “You have to give people something distinctively Scottish.”

What the SES found in 2007 and even more so in 2011 was that the Conservatives and, to a lesser extent, Labour failed to prove to voters they were doing this. In 2007, the SES’s verdict on why Alex Salmond won was that people were unimpressed by Jack McConnell’s term in office, thought Labour’s campaign was too negative and Westminster-centric, were persuaded that the SNP could do better and trusted them to govern in the country’s interests. 2011 was effectively 2007 with bells on. The SES found that the SNP went into the election with a remarkably positive approval rating of +36 per cent; one built by having won people’s trust that it stood up for Scotland’s interests. This trust ensured that while people overwhelmingly felt that their standard of living had fallen during the SNP’s period in office, almost all of them thought Westminster was to blame, not Edinburgh. A sign of how far ahead the SNP had come on the crucial issue.

In one test in which people were asked to rank the parties on how closely they looked after the Scottish interest, where 1 was “not at all”, and 4 was “very”. The SNP scored 3.5; Labour 2.5; the LibDems 1.2; and the poor Scottish Conservatives a mere 0.75. And despite the fact that the SNP’s central aim of independence remains a minority pursuit, it is now clear after the 2011 election that this has little effect on deterring opponents of independence from backing the SNP. In fact, so long as the plans for independence remain in the medium to long term, it actually helps them.

The SES researchers concluded this was because people take a “cue” from the party’s constitutional positions to help them weigh up which one is best at standing up for Scotland. The Conservatives’ devo-sceptic position, cemented by their opposition to devolution prior to 1999, has been used as a cue to place them as anti-Scottish. By contrast, the SNP’s support for independence, even among people who don’t back it, is seen as a sign they absolutely backed the country. Scottish Labour’s opposition to independence, meanwhile, ended up making them seem negative about Scotland, damaging its pro-Scottish credentials. Allied to that, Labour patently failed – and now openly concedes that – at the last election to come up with a series of ideas to show it could boost the country’s interests. Curtice adds: “Labour’s basic problem is that it hasn’t succeeded in creating policy ideas that give some people an idea of how it will form a government in Scotland’s interests.” On the wrong side of this crucial dividing line, it appears that both Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives have finally decided something must be done.

Over in the Conservative corner, Fraser last week decided on the nuclear option. Weighed down by the toxic legacy, he told his stunned party that the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party had “no future in its present form”. Explaining it that evening, he said that the penny finally dropped at last year’s General Election. In the run-up to the campaign, hopes had been high.

A total of 11 seats had been identified as targets, resources were made available, and potential voters were identified. A major effort and a lot of money was spent. But then, in the final 48 hours, campaign chiefs watched helplessly as all that support melted away. In short, sympathetic people who had told the party they were thinking of voting Tory, just didn’t. The party remained stuck on its pitiful return of a single MP.

The continued fall in support in May’s Scottish election confirmed Fraser’s view that things were only going one way. His allies say that the party’s reputation – particularly that from the immediate pre-devolution days – has become the ball and chain holding it back. “We are seen as an English party,” said former candidate Miles Briggs on Newsnight last week. “It is quite clear that our opposition to devolution shaped that thinking.”

Fraser’s move has turned a stately election contest into a battle for the party’s future. Carlaw accused him of “recklessness”. Coming through the middle, between the two men, is newcomer Ruth Davidson, who has emerged as a genuine contender in the wake of Fraser’s gamble. Her approach is identifiably the Cameronian one: it isn’t the party that needs over-hauling, but the people leading it, she said on Thursday. “Real change, real progress, will come when we start talking to people about the issues that really matter to them. Real change will come when the party unites behind a dynamic, modern leader.”

For Labour, the polling evidence shows that the party is still seen positively when it comes to looking after the Scottish interest – although far less so than the SNP. But senior figures have conceded since May’s result that the SNP has now effectively muscled in on Labour’s former role as Scotland’s social-democratic party of choice. It has left Scottish Labour hollowed out, say some figures.

The in-fighting over which power base – Westminster or Edinburgh – takes pre-eminence has continued. And, add party insiders, the leader of MSPs at Holyrood has long lacked authority. Yesterday, the party signed off what the conclusions of a four-man review, led by MP Jim Murphy and MSP Sarah Boyack, which are aimed at tackling these long standing issues. As revealed in Scotland on Sunday in June, there will be a genuine leader of the Scottish party, with control over the party’s entire operation. Also highly significant is a move to shift constituency parties to Holyrood boundaries, not Westminster ones. To the outside world, it may not seem much, but it signals a major shift in priorities and power that MSPs have been wanting for years. One Scottish Labour MP, Brian Donohoe, yesterday described it as an act of “crass stupidity”.

The review also recommends weekly meetings between the heads of the party’s MP, MSP, MEP and councillor group – a call which hints at the previous failure of those in the party to actually talk to one another. It is the kind of root-and-branch reforms that were recommended after they lost in 2007, but were studiously avoided. The shock of 2011 has now brought them about. The problem for Labour – which isn’t there with the Conservatives – is that power and patronage in Scotland is split between Holyrood and Westminster. Donohoe’s comments suggest some MPs will not take kindly to any internal change that disadvantages them.

While MPs and MEPs can stand for the new job, most party figures yesterday said they expected the new leader to be an MSP, with two little-known figures, Johann Lamont and Ken Macintosh, preparing to run. MP Tom Harris said yesterday he was still keen to run, but may struggle to gain MSP backing. As for the return of one of the party’s better-known figures such as Murphy, Douglas Alexander or Alistair Darling, that prospect seems dead in the water.

The hope within both Labour and the Tories will be that reforms to their structure will be the catalyst for a comeback. But both know that simply giving the parties a more Scottish focus is not the total solution. The Scottish LibDems have long had a federal relationship with their UK party.

A fat lot of good the separate lines did them earlier this year, in the wake of Nick Clegg’s decision to enter coalition with David Cameron. Curtice notes: “The lesson of the Liberal Democrats is that organisational independence doesn’t guarantee that people will see you as being different from the party in England.” The way back for Labour and the Tories can only begin when the right people and the right policies are in place.

Both Labour and the Conservatives have not solved their problems in Scotland this weekend. But, one way or the other, they may have at least shown that they know what the problem is. For two parties bludgeoned by the experiences of the last few months, that marks some kind of progress.