Exclusive:Douglas Alexander interview: 'SNP's record in Westminster is a study in impotence and failure'

The New Labour grandee said people feel ‘really scunnered’ with the SNP and the Conservatives

The SNP's record in Westminster is “a study in impotence and failure", according to Douglas Alexander, the New Labour grandee who is seeking to make a dramatic return to frontline politics in Scotland.

Alexander, who served in the Cabinets of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, said people feel "really scunnered" with the SNP and the Conservatives.

Speaking exclusively to Scotland on Sunday, he accused the SNP of "trading in a currency of despair", and argued: "I think an awful lot of us are really tired of constitutional politics, and feel that a politics of flags, of borders and of grievance has left Scotland in a cul-de-sac."

Alexander is standing in East Lothian, one of Labour’s top target seats in Scotland at the next general election. He was previously the long-serving MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, but lost his seat to Mhairi Black in 2015 as part of the SNP’s historic landslide victory. This left Labour with just one MP in Scotland.

Asked how that wipe-out felt, Alexander joked: “Sub-optimal is the phrase that comes to mind.” He added: "I now look back and I think, what a wasted decade. What aspect of Scottish life is better since 2015? What achievements can those nationalist MPs point to in the years that they've been at Westminster?

"During the time that I served in Westminster, we delivered the country's first ever national minimum wage, we had record investment in schools and hospitals. It was transformative to the opportunities of millions of people across the country. The record of those SNP MPs is a study in impotence and failure."

Since leaving politics, Alexander has taught at universities, including the Harvard Kennedy School, where he is a senior fellow. He said his time away had hopefully made him a better politician.

"I last stood for Parliament three general elections and five prime ministers ago,” he said, sipping a cappuccino in a cafe on North Berwick’s High Street. “I've been out of politics for what will be almost a decade by the time of the next election.”

He said he was “hugely impressed” by Sir Keir Starmer and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. "Fundamentally, I love Scotland and I care about public service, and I think we can and we must do better than we're doing just now,” he said. “I think most people feel overwhelmingly that we're being let down at the moment.

"Since I was selected back in February, I must now have knocked on thousands of doors in East Lothian, because the team's been out every week. We'll be out again this afternoon. And I think the overriding sentiment is sadness about the SNP Government and anger about the Tory Government. In Scots terms, people just feel really scunnered and they sense that they want a change. That doesn't guarantee that they support Scottish Labour, but it does afford Scottish Labour an opportunity."

Alexander said people invested “a lot of hope” in the SNP when they won power in Scotland in 2007, adding: “I can't think of another party that has so effectively accumulated political capital to so little effect. What's the legacy of 16 years of SNP Government?"

He continued: "They've been in power for a long time. But when you talk to people, most of us can't think of a single aspect of Scottish life that's actually got better.

"If you're reliant on lifeline ferry services on the islands – I was in the Hebrides this summer – you feel badly let down. If you're the one in seven of us who is sitting on an NHS waiting list in Scotland, you feel desperately let down. So I think there's a real sense that it's just time for change."

East Lothian is held by former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, who left the SNP to join Alex Salmond's Alba Party in 2021. He has a majority of 3,886 and there is an expectation he will lose his seat due to the split in the nationalist vote. Alexander, who is in the process of moving to the constituency, said he is taking nothing for granted.

"I would be the very last person who would be complacent about Scottish Labour's prospects, having been part of a generation that saw our representation fall after the 2014 referendum,” he said. “So I come back with determination and also humility, because we need to work for every vote.

"The truth is, I think if people here in East Lothian give me their support, I'll come back a changed and hopefully better politician, having built a career outside of politics. As well as teaching in universities, I now advise a lot of companies internationally on the net zero transition, and I feel that time away lends perspective, and distance can lend perspective as well."

Asked if the police investigation into the SNP’s finances was coming up on the doorstep, Alexander said: "Of course, you can't have an image of a police tent in the former first minister's garden, looking like an episode of Taggart, without that burning itself into people's consciousness. Humza Yousaf, the First Minister, has admitted as much himself.

"Let's see what the police investigation yields in the weeks and months ahead, but undoubtedly it's added to a sense of just profound disappointment I sense from many former nationalists.

"I guess the other point I sense when talking to former SNP voters here is that, for a lot of them, their yes vote in 2014 was a vote for change, and since then the SNP have been very effective at corralling those voters by using a language of hope, but actually trading in a currency of despair. Despair that Labour will always lose, despair that the Conservatives will always win, and despair that change across the UK is never possible.

"That's been a really powerful vote-getting story for the SNP over the last ten or 12 years, but it's never been less true than it is today, with polls indicating that Scottish Labour is on the rise and Labour is significantly ahead of the Conservatives south of the border."

Alexander won’t say whether he is eyeing up any potential roles in Sir Keir’s Cabinet. "Listen, the job I want is to be the MP here in East Lothian, and if we're going to get a Labour Government at all, the road to Downing Street for Keir Starmer runs through a town like North Berwick or a town like Dunbar or Prestonpans,” he said. “We need to win this seat, and so my exclusive focus is in turning East Lothian into a Labour gain on the night of the election."

He also defended Sir Keir’s controversial decision not to commit to scrapping the two-child benefit cap. "I share Anas's impatience, but I understand and support Keir's judgement because I've seen this movie before,” he said. “I helped Gordon Brown write his first Budget, delivered on July 2, 1997, and at that point we were seriously constrained in the public expenditure commitments that we could make.”