Here's what Scottish Labour needs to do to beat the SNP

This will be a formative year in anticipation of the next Holyrood elections. Let’s hope that encourages some original thinking about how Scotland can advance from the tedium and torpor which, on so many fronts, have become the norm.

For any party capable of injecting enthusiasm and creativity, it is time to start producing lights from under bushels. After years of grand SNP announcements leading to nothing and the politics of grievance to deflect every failure, there is a very large market hoping for better. But they will need evidence.

It won’t happen just by relying on the incumbents’ obvious failures. Nationalist governments are notoriously hard to shift because they rely on a substantial core, loyal to the ideological objective. The SNP hold the levers of government for another 15 months. To get rid of them, the challenge will need to be strong and persuasive.

Anas Sarwar should remind people that the 2026 Holyrood election will be about issues devolved to the Scottish Government (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images

NHS the biggest issue

Six months ago, the landscape seemed promising for Labour to become the largest party and I think that remains the most likely outcome. The fundamentals haven’t gone away. There is still the same very widespread recognition of the need for change if we are ever to escape from the ruts in which so many aspects of Scottish life reside – notably, but by no means exclusively, the NHS, education and economic growth.

Part of Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s job will be to remind people that they will be voting in a Scottish election about issues devolved to the Scottish Government. While UK politics may contribute to the mood music, the dominant theme must be that political change at Holyrood will be the only question on the ballot paper.

For example, the NHS is the biggest issue for most Scottish voters. Last year, the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey showed satisfaction levels at an all-time low, with fewer than a quarter taking a positive view while seven in ten said NHS delivery had worsened over the previous 12 months. That kind of real-life experience drives votes – so long as there is reasonable confidence in the alternative on offer.

Scottish Labour is well-served by Jackie Baillie who has used her time to develop NHS reforms needed to ensure effective use of the vast amounts spent – 40 per cent of the Scottish budget. In contrast, Audit Scotland found in December that the Scottish Government has no clear plan to deliver NHS reform – despite 17 years for a procession of SNP ministers to think about it.

That is wholly dependent on decisions made and policies formulated in Scotland. I don’t think anyone really believes that the failures, from delayed discharges now at a record high to long A&E waiting times, are down to “Westminster doesn’t send enough money”. When it comes to Scottish elections, the argument must be that without major NHS reforms, there will be no improvement, and without a change at Holyrood, there will be no reforms.

‘Old broom’ Swinney

These messages apply in every policy area and the essential mood for change has not gone away. Just as people throughout Britain knew it was time to get rid of the Tories, in Scotland, the same attitude prevails towards the SNP.

The striking feature of council by-elections over recent months has been that whoever is best placed to beat them almost invariably does. Contrary to spin, the extremely old broom of John Swinney has not swept away memories of what went before or persuaded many of something better to follow.

Agreed, the context anticipated in July has changed. The reasoning went that, if the incoming Labour government was doing well, then the argument for having a Scottish Labour government working in harmony with it would be hard to argue against. Since then, that happy scenario has been placed in jeopardy by actual events but the obvious value of two governments working together holds good.

There has to be an expectation that Keir Starmer’s government will start to show some political nous in the months ahead and recognise that lowering expectations to accord with economic reality needs to be accompanied by a lot more in the way of delivering recognisable change. To some extent, Scottish Labour’s prospects will be tied to Starmer’s success or failure – but not entirely.

Bonfire of SNP’s quangos

Even more than before, Labour needs to formulate and communicate policies which are geared for Scotland alone in the huge areas which are devolved. It is often forgotten that, before devolution was heard of, this was perfectly normal and if Scottish policies differed from other parts of the UK, then nobody batted an eyelid. Where appropriate, that should be happening now.

Labour needs to be bold in its policy initiatives. It should be talking about getting rid of the quango statelet which the SNP has developed as instruments of its own control, at enormous cost in terms of both money and accountability. It should be talking about returning powers and resources wherever possible to local authorities in order to reverse the insidious reality that devolution to Edinburgh has meant centralisation within Scotland.

There are huge areas of economic policy which are entirely made in Scotland. Yet at present, many of them hold back the Scottish economy, rather than encourage it to flourish. This is an opportunity for Labour to lead. On planning, business rates, skills training and so on, there are good policies which need to be communicated, with no shortage of people sick and tired of what currently exists, and more than willing to help.

If Scottish Labour can get the policies right, and make the message of change urgent enough, it will pass the test set by the Scottish electorate which basically is: “Yes, the great majority want rid of the SNP but still need confidence that so many things that affect our lives can change for the better.” That is the challenge for 2025.