Scottish Labour has a chance to gain great autonomy

abour’s review team, set up to reorganise and refresh the Scottish party after its crushing defeat in May’s Holyrood elections, has confronted the flaw that played a large part in that debacle. It is that while it was the party that devolved much governing power to the Scottish Parliament it created, it retained much central control in London over the Scottish party.

That weakened the ability of Labour’s Scottish leader, who was in reality only the leader of the MSPs, to formulate policy appropriate to Scottish needs. In both constitutional and practical terms, the leader of Labour in Scotland was the leader of the party in the UK. The Scottish leader was, in effect, unable to lead.

This meant that the divisions which weakened the party were not just those of policy differences north and south of the Border, but within the party between MPs and MSPs and between MSPs and councillors. It did not make for unity and allowed the SNP to set the agenda north of the Border. These divisions were allowed to fester because the Scottish leader had no authority to knock heads together. The next Scottish leader however, should the proposals be ratified, will have that authority though whether an MP or MEP, when Scottish politics is firmly focused on Holyrood, is right for the job is questionable. Nevertheless, whomever replaces Iain Gray should take the review findings as Scottish Labour’s Clause IV moment when it publicly casts off the past and embraces a new future. Anything less, and the party will deservedly remain in the wilderness.