Scottish Labour Party

Backlash after unions’ trans-rights vote

On 18 February Scottish Labour Party conference voted down a motion submitted via the Scottish Labour women’s conference which had urged it to “acknowledge the principle of women’s sex-based rights” (established code words for trans exclusion). The large unions used their votes to block policy seeking to push Labour further from trans inclusion. On a card vote , 69.3% of Constituency Labour Party (CLP) delegates’ votes were for the motion. Votes are weighted equally between CLP delegates and party affiliates. The motion fell because 77% of affiliate votes were against it. The motion had urged...

After Rutherglen by-election: organise the left!

In percentage terms, Scottish Labour romped home to victory in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election on 5 October 2023. Labour won the seat with nearly 60% of the vote (compared with 34% of the vote in the 2019 general election). The SNP’s share of the vote slumped from 44% in 2019 to 28%. The overall swing from SNP to Labour was just over 20%. If the result were repeated across Scotland in a general election – although it certainly will not be – Labour would win 42 seats and the SNP would hold on to just six seats. Even so, the result strengthens the more realistic prospect of Labour...

Hope and despair at Holyrood

The last decade in Scottish politics saw every issue from “dog shit on the streets to international trade viewed through the prism of the constitutional debate” writes former Labour MSP Neil Findlay in his poignant new book. Hope and Despair is set against the backdrop of the cesspit of the SNP’s tight grip on the Scottish state, during which Findlay kept “class” politics firmly on the agenda for his 10 years at Holyrood. A successful campaign to secure automatic legal pardons for miners convicted during the 1984-85 strike, to which the SNP had to be dragged kicking and screaming after years...

Rutherglen Labour stitch-up may backfire

Michael Shanks, who resigned from the Labour Party in 2019, was selected on 9 May to be the Labour Westminster candidate for the Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency.

Sturgeon step-down unlikely to lead to Scottish Labour revival

Nicola Sturgeon resigned as leader of the SNP and Scotland’s First Minster on 15 February 2023. She has held both posts since 2014. Sturgeon will continue to hold both posts until a successor has been elected – with the process due to be complete by the end of March – and will continue to sit as an MSP until at least the next Holyrood election in 2026. There has been a lot of speculation in the media and social media about the ‘real reason’ for her resignation. But maybe Sturgeon resigned for the same reason that millions of other people jack in their jobs. She’d simply had enough, and there...

Glasgow Labour bars workers' leader, okays council leader who attacked workers

Shona Thomson, Glasgow workers' leader, barred from Glasgow Labour selection Presiding over a pay scheme which discriminates against women workers is no barrier to being selected as Labour candidate for election to Westminster. But being a leader of the strike which put an end the scheme does not prevent you from being disqualified at the first stage of selection. And you can be old enough to join the army and kill people – but simultaneously be too young to be selected as a Labour candidate. The decision of Glasgow Shettleston and Glasgow Provan Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) to hold...

Glasgow Labour's death wish

On Monday 16 May Glasgow City Council’s Labour Group wrote a postscript to Gerry Hassan and Eric Shaw’s The Strange Death of Labour Scotland (published as long as 2012, but Scottish Labour has died a lot more since then). The first post-5-May Group meeting elected George Redmond as Group Leader, with Frank McAveety filling the post of Business Manager. Redmond stood down as a councillor in 2017 and re-emerged from nowhere to be re-elected earlier this month. It’s a pity he didn’t stay where he was. In his previous spell on the Council Redmond was one of three councillors who voted to give...

Scotland and the "second referendum"

The SNP victory – or SNP-Green victory – in the Holyrood election of 6 May 2021 was a mandate for a second referendum on Scottish independence. The fact that the SNP did not get an absolute majority of seats or an absolute majority of the popular vote is irrelevant. The Holyrood voting system is designed to stop one party gaining an absolute majority of seats (and the SNP fell only seat short of that). And no one ever argued that the 1945 Labour government had no mandate because it failed to win 50% of the popular vote. The elections held on 6 May also strengthened Sturgeon’s position in three...

Scotland: a weak Labour campaign

Sections of the media and the right wing of Scottish Labour have hailed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar for having run “a good campaign” in the 6 May Scottish election. But Scottish Labour lost seats in the election, and ended up with a (slightly) lower share of constituency and regional list votes. Its overall score of 20% was only slightly higher than its poll ratings before Sarwar became leader. Sarwar did not make any election gaffes and was articulate in the televised party leader debates. But the lack of improvement is the surprising thing, given that between 2017 (when Richard...

Sarwar disrupts Scottish Labour

Anas Sarwar was elected Scottish Labour leader at the end of February. Within a fortnight he had ousted Hollie Cameron as the Labour candidate for Glasgow Kelvin constituency and appointed Kate Watson as a campaign manager for the Holyrood election in May. In an interview with the pro-SNP (and indie-fundamentalist) National newspaper Cameron had said that if the people of Scotland wanted a second referendum, then they should have one. That referendum might take place during the next five years, she continued, as the need to ‘rebuild Scotland’ after the Covid-19 pandemic did not preclude the...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.