“Keir Starmer was just one reason for our failure. Another was a meagre political offering that has been a hallmark of Scottish Labour.”
Brian Leishman MP wrote a piece for the Socialist Campaign Group’s 2026 pamphlet ‘The Socialist Policies We Need’. You can read the pamphlet in full below.
The efforts of Scottish Labour Party members who go out leafleting, knocking doors and supporting candidates are never anything less than incredible.
They go out in all weathers because they believe that our party represents the best chance we have of making the country a place where people from every background have the chance to get on in life.
The same goes for the many terrific candidates who stood for us across Scotland in May at the Holyrood elections. It was a pleasure to go out and campaign with many of them. Their passion to represent their communities and to put themselves forward to serve the public was inspiring. They are a credit to themselves and our party.
However, that commitment did not translate into a change in government. The results mean we face another five years in opposition. Now we must analyse another poor result.
We in the Scottish Labour Party must undertake some soul-searching, look inwards and ask ourselves tough questions and acknowledge the painful truth.
Since devolution in 1999, Scotland has gone to the polls seven times. In every election, Scottish Labour has returned fewer MSPs. Yet again this year, Scots shunned what we had to offer.
There is no denying that the mistakes and errors of judgement made by Keir Starmer contributed to the disastrous results we suffered in Scotland.
His shortcomings are widely recognised, and I reiterate here what I have said many times before: his resignation was necessary in the interests of both the country and our party.
However, Keir Starmer should not be used as a shield against examining why Scotland rejected us. There are other reasons why the people of Scotland once again turned elsewhere.
We regularly hear people say they used to vote Scottish Labour and that they grew up in a “good Labour house” but now don’t vote for us. They say they don’t know what we stand for or who we stand for anymore. Until the Scottish Labour Party acknowledges that a sizeable element of our old core support now sees their political home in the SNP, we will never recover.
The SNP have been allowed to replace Scottish Labour in the people’s eyes as the party of progressive and, dare I say, left-wing views.
But the SNP are no left-wing party, nor are they a friend to the Scottish working class. But in the absence of a genuinely left-wing Scottish Labour alternative then people will continue to look to the SNP or, even more alarmingly, Reform UK.
Keir Starmer was just one reason for our failure. Another was a meagre political offering that has been a hallmark of Scottish Labour. In February this year, we did not present an alternative to the SNP Budget, which was littered with cuts and job losses. We made no demands. The Scottish Labour Party should never be silent.
Another was a wafer-thin election manifesto that offered nothing for the Scottish working class. There was no major policy declaration that would redistribute power, wealth or opportunity and nothing tangible that would transform living conditions after nearly two decades of SNP austerity and cuts. In short, people had no reason to vote for us.
Instead, our vision consisted of “getting the basics right”. Scotland desperately needed us to be a lot bolder than that.
Make no mistake: Scotland is in the doldrums. We face deepening poverty and deteriorating living standards for millions of people, while diseases we thought had been consigned to history are returning because of destitution.
We have suffered from austerity, then a pandemic in which the richest got even richer and a cost-of-living crisis that, for so many, feels like it will never end.
It is clear that our country needs more than better management. What Scotland needs is radical transformation. And so does Scottish Labour.
What I want is simple: for the Scottish Labour Party to be clear about who we are, what we stand for and who we will represent.
That means sticking our flag in the ground and saying that we will champion the needs of working-class Scots no matter where they live. That we will radically change Scotland so adults and children are lifted out of poverty and that we will transform our economy so that it works for the millions and not the select few.
In short, it means being the real Scottish Labour Party.
We must shed the language of “tough choices”. No more timidity. Let’s present a positive programme of policies that will make Scotland a more prosperous place.
Let’s once again embrace the original values our party was founded on because while they might be over a century old, they are as relevant today as at any time before.
Do we Scots believe that our NHS should be free? That education should be funded properly so everyone can improve themselves?
That Councils should be adequately resourced to provide the public services we rely on and need?
That the most disadvantaged amongst us should be looked after?
That it is in our national interest for us to be in charge of our vital industries so that workers, communities and the nation have security?
That it is political failure that leaves anyone in the awful position of deciding whether to eat a meal or heat their home?
Of course we do.
Across Scotland, millions feel that they have nowhere to go and that no party is there for them. They exist in dire circumstances, abandoned by a society that has forgotten them.
The Scottish Labour Party should always stand for those people.
Just as we should also stand for the nurses and doctors who look after us, the teachers who shape our children’s futures and the workers who keep our country moving and functioning.
If the party I love does not change, then I fear we will fade into obscurity, and the chance of making a more vibrant and equal Scotland will go with us. Both the Scottish Labour Party and our country must change.
- Brian Leishman is the MP for Alloa and Grangemouth. You can follow him on X/Twitter, Bluesky and Facebook.
- You can read the SCG pamphlet ‘The Socialist Policies We Need’ in full here. The foreword says that “We hope this contributes to a debate across the Labour Party, trade unions and the wider movement about the political programme needed to deliver the change people voted for, to build a better future for our communities and to prevent the rise of a Trump-style government here in Britain.“
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