Rutherglen by-election: A Labour win would send a message to the failing Tories and SNP – Jackie Baillie

The Tories’ cost-of-living crisis, not independence, is the top priority for voters

Next Thursday the voters of Rutherglen and Hamilton West go to the polls in one of the most crucial by-elections of this parliament. People there have waited a long time to pass judgement on Margaret Ferrier, the former SNP MP who endangered others by flouting Covid rules. I know from doorstep conversations that the anger has not subsided although Mrs Ferrier has faced the political and legal consequences of her reckless actions.

Voters will also be delivering a verdict on two governments which have failed them for over a decade and weighing the prospects of Labour replacing the Tories at Westminster and, in time, the SNP at Holyrood. No party should take anything for granted.

We in Labour will work hard to earn every single vote. If people put their trust in us, it will send a signal to two governments that have been failing people across Scotland. It would send a clear message to the Tories who have been in charge for 13 years and have burdened people with a cost-of-living crisis and mortgage payments which are eating up their income.

The Tories have bequeathed us Brexit, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and now Rishi Sunak, whose priority this week is to abolish inheritance tax, which only effects a tiny percentage of the population. He doesn’t have the interests of the majority at heart, and voters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West know it.

Voters also go to the polls knowing they have been failed by 16 years of the SNP. You see that on the doorstep too from those who have a sincere belief in independence but are disappointed that the SNP do not have a clear path to even holding another referendum, never mind a plan for independence.

They are also disillusioned with the SNP’s record in government – the one-in-seven people on NHS waiting lists – and not convinced that after 16 years it has made many improvements to their lives, which is why they are thinking of switching their vote.

What comes through clearly is that the cost-of-living crisis is the top priority, not independence. People want to get rid of the Tory government and think Labour has a good chance of doing so under Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar.

This last decade in Scotland has been difficult for Labour, we have had to relearn how to properly represent people. The reception on the doors is totally different now. People want conversations and to engage with us. It feels like a moment of change.

Rutherglen and Hamilton West has always been a weathervane seat. Winnie Ewing made history in 1967 in a by-election that signalled the arrival of the SNP in Westminster. Next week the constituency’s people have the opportunity to set the weather again with Labour’s Michael Shanks, a decent, honest man who will restore the battered faith of people in politics and politicians.

If Labour win, he will properly represent the local community in which he lives. If Labour win, it opens the opportunity to take similar seats across Scotland. It will signal that the Labour party is ready to serve for the whole of the United Kingdom. And it will signal that change is coming.

Jackie Baillie is MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader and her party’s spokesperson for health