This article was first published on 20 September 2024 on Kirsty Hughes’s substack at https://kirstyhughes.substack.com/p/the-labour-government-scotland-and.
By Kirsty Hughes
As it heads into its party conference, after its July general election win, Labour should be riding high. But, while Keir Starmer’s government is three-quarters of the way through its first 100 days, you would struggle to find any clear, transformative strategy, bringing a new sense of dynamism, hope and constructive action to the UK. Rather, the doom and gloom message is winning out – exemplified by the winter fuel payment cut and warnings about Rachel Reeves upcoming budget. At this rate, the overviews of the first 100 days in mid-October are not going to be shining.
Keir Starmer’s mixture of technocracy and ‘telling it like it is’ – while bound by Labour’s constraining fiscal rules and hard Brexit approach – is not a political vote winner nor a recipe for achieving change. And while 49% thought Britain was heading in the wrong direction just after Labour’s election win, now 55% do – according to the latest Ipsos poll. This is still less than the 62% under the Tories at the end of June but it’s not heading in the right direction for Starmer.
With its 37 MPs in Scotland since the election, positive Labour messages for Scotland might have been expected ahead of the Liverpool conference. But Ian Murray, the UK government’s new secretary of state for Scotland, instead chose to underline that Labour has “a big hill to climb” to win power in the Holyrood elections in May 2026. This, he said, was due to Scotland having a “volatile” electorate and the bad economic situation.
This is not exactly upbeat either. But then recent polls don’t give Labour much reason to be that upbeat in Scotland. In a recent (11th September) Opinium poll for Scotland, only 25% of Scottish voters polled said they would vote Labour, to 32% for the SNP (and a disturbing 11% for Reform). Opinium also has Labour behind on polling for Holyrood though a late August Survation poll has Labour and the SNP neck and neck in both regional and constituency votes.
Independence and the EU?
Much of the commentary on the 10th anniversary of the 2014 independence referendum, this week, focused on the fact that opinion on independence remains broadly split 50:50 and on the support for independence amongst younger voters. YouGov found only 44% support for independence to 56% against. But in the same poll, 56% of voters aged 16-24 supported independence as did 53% of those aged 25-49. And an Opinium poll, for the Sunday Times, found ‘no’ at 51% and ‘yes’ at 49% with 63% of 16-34 year olds supporting independence.
These demographic trends are not new but they are central. And they also interact strongly with views on the EU. Those who are in favour of rejoining the EU or who would vote ‘remain’ in another EU referendum are also more likely to support independence. And once the independence question is linked to rejoining the EU, support (‘strongly support’ or ‘tend to support’) for independence heads to 56% in the YouGov poll (with 12% ‘don’t knows’). And that’s notably stronger in younger age groups. In the YouGov poll, 87% of voters 16-24 years old (excluding ‘don’t knows’) would support independence if it meant rejoining the EU. And only the over-65 age group then has a clear majority against independence.
But there are catches, not least when other detailed options are given – young voters stop supporting independence in the YouGov poll if there are border checks, a likely result of an independent Scotland joining the EU while the rest of the UK stayed outside. This tells us there’s a vital debate on substance to be had.
A new study this week, by Sir John Curtice, delved further into these details around what voters think would be the pros and cons of being either inside the UK and outside the EU or outside the UK (i.e. independent) and inside the EU. Overall, voters see positives for Scotland in the EU in terms of exporting goods, the economy and having a voice in the world. They are less keen on, and less sure whether to anticipate, passport checks and customs checks. There is much substantive detail to reflect on here.
Bringing the EU Back into the Debate
The Scottish government and SNP MPs are not exactly high profile nor bouncing around with great dynamism as they continue to absorb their July general election defeat. But Labour’s rather unimpressive start in government certainly gives the SNP an opportunity if it can pick itself up. And the EU is an obvious place to sustain a renewed debate.
Keir Starmer has moved constructively to mend fences with Brussels and key European capitals – with rather too much alacrity in the case of Italy’s far-right leader Giorgia Meloni. But, as experts queue up to point out, Starmer’s goals of improving UK-EU relations in a substantive way and reducing the hard Brexit border that continues to damage Britain’s economy, will take time and will be limited in effect given Starmer’s embrace of Tory red lines on the EU’s single market and customs union.
There is, then, much scope here for the Scottish government both to get back to making positive and in-depth arguments about independence in the EU – including facing up to some of the more challenging questions – and to start making clear demands around what the UK government could do now for EU-UK relations if it would only drop some of its red lines.
That could be estimates of the economic benefits of rejoining the customs union or the social, cultural and economic benefits of bringing back free movement for younger people. There are arguments to be made too around climate and biodiversity crises in EU-UK relations, though as the Scottish government retreated, this week, on its ban on wood burners in new builds, the SNP does not look to be leading over Labour on green issues for now.
Engage with Wider European Challenges
Brexit has driven any European debate in Britain, and in Scotland too, towards rather inward-looking, narrow discussion of EU-UK relations. But the EU is setting out its comprehensive plans for the next five years with a new Commission, Council and Parliament.
In Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen has established her new set of European Commissioners, with deliberately overlapping portfolios, including in environmental areas, to strengthen her own powers at the centre. The European Parliament has yet to confirm the Commissioners in post. But the EU is the heavyweight compared to the UK or Scotland on the many big challenges and crises on the European and global agenda.
In the absence of Brexit, the UK would be looking to what portfolio its European Commissioner had and be playing a big role in the EU’s strategic agenda for the next five years in the European Council. But it’s on the outside looking in.
The SNP could easily be listing all the portfolio areas given to Commissioners from smaller countries and asking which one Scotland might have had if independent in the EU. It could and should be aiming to contribute to wider EU debates albeit from the outside, from climate to security to equality to migration – and showing voters how all these impact on today’s domestic challenges, from cost of living to the state of our public services. Neither Scotland nor the UK are insulated from decisions and policies in the EU despite Brexit.
European Debate and Strategy Needed
The European debate should not be absent from British and Scottish politics. But the Labour government is determinedly continuing with its acceptance of Brexit, while building better political and diplomatic relations with the EU, and so does not want to engage in any serious debate on Brexit or on the EU’s wider strategies and policies. And the LibDems are focused on maintaining good relations with their once-Tory voter base and so avoid talking about their supposedly pro-EU outlook.
This means there is a huge space waiting to be filled. Civil society organisations are doing a lot here. But the Scottish government, and the SNP, could and should be stepping up too. A broad and deep, new European strategy from the Scottish government would be a start and give new dynamism and direction to European debate in Scotland.