Contenders ready: Scottish Labour set for new leadership battle
well-oiled machine that is Scottish Labour’s leadership election process is once again back in action.
From today nominations are open, but only two people have thrown their hats into the ring to replace Richard Leonard: the man he defeated for the job in 2017, Anas Sarwar, and Monica Lennon, the woman who took over Sarwar’s former brief as party health spokesperson. The leadership campaign is on a tight timescale, with the winner announced on 27 February, as a result of fast-approaching Holyrood elections. But will either of them be able to transform the electoral chances of the party which was once the dominant force in Scottish politics until the advent of devolution?
Indeed since the Scottish Parliament came into existence there have been nine Scottish Labour leader as the party has cast about for the right person to prove its belief that devolution works for the people of Scotland and that having Labour in charge at Holyrood is a better future for the country than independence.
Yet it’s the constitutional question, one which many in the party had hoped to end with the creation of Holyrood, that has stymied Labour since it lost its grip on power in 2007. It has since slid from party of government to third place in the Scottish Parliament, has seen its representation at Westminster reduced to one MP, and lost all its MEPS at last years’ Euro elections. It’s not
putting too fine a point on it to say Scottish Labour is not in a good place.
So will the election of Sar
war or Lennon make any difference at all? Certainly it’s unlikely that either can stop the SNP winning in May’s electhe tion. However both potentially have a better recognition factor with the Scottish electorate than Richard Leonard achieved in three years and if they campaign smart the SNP lead could be slightly dented. A recent poll also suggested Labour could leapfrog the Tories into second place, becoming the official opposition again.
And once there, opinions and arguments are far more amplified than they can be when sitting third behind Nicola Sturgeon and Ruth Davidson. Whomever wins, if they do manage to scrape into second place, could also benefit from the fact that Davidson will no longer lead the Conservatives in Holyrood as Douglas Ross will likely return to Holyrood.