Scotland can ‘lead the way’ to Downing Street for Labour, Starmer to say

The Labour leader will make his key conference speech on Tuesday

Scotland “can lead the way” to a Labour government, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to tell his party’s conference in Liverpool.

The Labour leader will address his party for the first time since their win in Rutherglen and Hamilton West last week, where new MP Michael Shanks got more than twice as many votes as the SNP’c candidate.

The win, which was hailed as “seismic” by Sir Keir, would catapult Labour to be the largest party in Scotland at the next general election if it was replicated elsewhere, according to analysts.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria take a walk by the River Mersey in Liverpool during the Labour Party Conference. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Sir Keir will say: “Scotland can lead the way to a Labour Government, but be under no illusions – we must earn every vote.

“And we must understand that the Scottish people are not just looking at us, they’re also looking at Britain.

“The challenge of change remains but, nonetheless, conference for the first time in a long time we can see a tide that is turning.”

“Four nations that are renewing.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) and Anas Sarwar, leader of Scottish Labour. Picture: PA

“Old wounds of division – exploited by the Tories and the SNP – beginning to heal.

“So let the message from Rutherglen and Hamilton West ring out across Britain.

”Labour serves working people in Scotland because Labour serves working people across all these islands.”

Sir Keir’s comments also come in the days after his party set its sights on the 2026 Holyrood election, with a Panelbase poll of more than 1,000 Scots, suggesting Scottish Labour could be the largest party, sending leader Anas Sarwar to Bute House.

Fabian Society analysis of a new YouGov poll today puts Labour at 31 per cent and the SNP at 33 per cent.

Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice has said that for every 12 seats Labour win in Scotland, it takes two points off the swing needed in the rest of the UK.

Speaking ahead of the speech, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said the people of Scotland “want to see real change and real help with the cost of living” and not “more Tory cuts imposed by a timid, Tory-lite Labour Party”.

He added: “Sir Keir Starmer has the opportunity today to change tack and back the SNP’s calls for a major cost-of-living support package at the autumn budget – including mortgage interest relief, a £400 energy bill rebate, and action to reduce food prices in supermarkets.

“These are the kind of bold measures needed to boost household incomes and reverse rising poverty – and governments around the world are already implementing them, showing what independent countries of Scotland’s size can achieve.

“The SNP will continue to push the Tories and Labour Party to back urgent help to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

“With every day Westminster fails to act, it is showing why Scotland needs independence to help families and boost the economy.”

Meanwhile, Anas Sarwar has ruled out a future coalition at Holyrood and insisted Scottish Labour would govern as a minority government.

Speaking at a Tony Blair Institute event on Securing Scotland's Future during Labour’s conference in Liverpool, Mr Sarwar pointed to how Alex Salmond governed as the benchmark which Labour could follow.

He said: “There will not be any kind of coalition, we are looking at 2026, we are still a long way, there’s still lots more work to do, lots more progress to make. We still have to set out what that 2026 election will mean in practice, around what the offer is, about how we transform Scotland.

“Every single institution is weaker after 16 years of SNP government. We will be looking to go into that election in our own right, so a minority Labour government.

“The SNP have done it before, and I think we wrongly viewed pre-2007 that we couldn’t do minority governments, so therefore got ourselves into difficulty.

“The SNP demonstrated, Alex Salmond demonstrated in 2007, you can have a nationalist minority in the government, and still form a minority government that is able to work on its own right and also where you can find issues of agreement, build a majority in the parliament to get things done.

“That is the kind of approach we would take, so on issues that we have a common thread with the SNP, around things around social justice, why wouldn’t they want to back individual ideas from a minority Labour government if it’s going to improve the life of people in Scotland. We will look to be a minority Labour government and look to challenge both the SNP and the Tories, ‘do you want to make things work for people in Scotland?’”.