Labour bids to pick up the pieces… but polls point to another election catastrophe
LABOUR began the year still reeling from a dismal General Election result in 2019. Since then it has installed a new leader, attempted to oust the head of its Scottish party and is facing a potential disaster at May’s Holyrood poll.
After a woeful performance at the polls in December 2019, which left Ian Murray as the party’s sole MP in Scotland, Jeremy Corbyn eventually agreed to step aside as party leader.
But Sir Keir Starmer was not named the party’s new leader until April, leading to months of in-fighting and squabbling over the direction Labour should take, including over Scottish independence.
In January, Scotland’s most senior trade unionist called for Labour to back Nicola Sturgeon’s calls for a second independence referendum to be held.
STUC general secretary Grahame Smith warned that the democratic wishes of the Scottish public should be acknowledged, following the SNP’S impressive General Election performance.
It wasn’t long before front-bench
MSP Monica Lennon pleaded with Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard to break ranks with the UK party in a bid to end a “long-term losing streak” at the polls.
At Holyrood, Jackie Baillie was elected deputy leader of Scottish Labour, replacing Lesley Laird, who lost her seat at Westminster following December’s General Election. Ms Baillie was later named the party’s finance spokesperson by Mr Leonard, 18 months after he had sacked her for briefing against him.
At Westminster, Sir Keir swept aside Rebecca Long-bailey and Lisa Nandy to replace Mr Corbyn as leader of UK Labour, and immediately pledged to stamp out anti- Semitism in the party – asking for all outstanding investigations to be “on my desk at the end of the week”.
Angela Rayner was elected as his deputy.
The first test of Sir Keir’s commitment came two months later when he sacked Ms Long-bailey, who he had appointed his shadow education secretary, after she retweeted an interview with actor Maxime Peake which contained an anti-semitic conspiracy theory.
Under a new leader, Labour closed the gap in the UK polls on the Conservatives as Boris Johnson’s Government struggled to keep a handle on the Covid-19 pandemic, but the boost did not appear to have spread north of the Border.
With polls indicating Scottish Labour was set for annihilation at the 2021 Holyrood election, some MSPS tried to take matters into their own hands by attempting to oust Mr Leonard as leader in September.
MSPS Daniel Johnson, James Kelly, Jenny Marra and Mark Griffin went public with their frustration with Mr Leonard’s leadership – claiming he had failed to listen to their concerns and fearing they would lose their jobs at May’s election.
But the attempted coup ended in embarrassment after a failure to win enough support and confusion over whether MSPS have the authority to remove their leader.
In October, the long-awaited Equalities and Human Rights Commission report found Labour had a “culture which, at best, did not do enough to prevent anti-semitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it”.
Mr Corbyn was dramatically suspended by his successor for claiming anti-semitism had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons”, a response Sir Keir said was “just about as bad as you could get”.
The former Labour leader was later re-instated as a party member by the National Executive Committee, but Sir Keir has not restored the Labour whip – meaning Mr Corbyn cannot sit as a Labour MP.
In an attempt to harden Scottish Labour’s opposition to another independence referendum, Mr Leonard appointed Anas Sarwar as the party’s constitutional spokesperson, who doubled down on a vow there would be no support for another independence referendum until at least 2026.
But Mr Leonard was dealt a further blow earlier this month when Michael Sharpe, one of his close allies, announced he was quitting as general secretary due to the demands of a young family. Former MSP Drew Smith has been appointed as Mr Sharpe’s temporary replacement until May’s Holyrood election.
But it’s not been all doom and gloom for Scottish Labour in 2020.
The Scottish Government signed up to the party’s long-held call for an Nhs-type national care service to be established.
The party also won international acclaim for the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill, brought forward by Ms Lennon, the party’s health spokesperson. The groundbreaking and world-leading law means that there is a legal duty to ensure that free items such as tampons and sanitary pads are available to “anyone who needs them”.
Sir Keir ended the year by beefing up his dedication to a “third way” on independence, pledging “real devolution”, not just in Scotland, but across the entire United Kingdom in an attempt to allay fears that support for Scottish independence has risen to record levels.