Keir Starmer believes Scotland poses a problem to his party – but there is an easy solution

I know I’m a Blairite, but it seems defeatist for Labour to imagine that it cannot possibly have such a wide appeal to the voters of England and Wales ever again, writes John Rentoul

Keir Starmer has only one MP north of the border (AFP/Getty)

Keir Starmer went to Scotland last week, to hold a “Call Keir” Zoom meeting with people in Glasgow. Two weeks earlier, he held a similar event in the nearby Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency held by Margaret Ferrier, the MP suspended from the Scottish National Party for breaking coronavirus rules.  

It is no secret that the Labour leader is worried about Scotland, which until 2015 provided his party with a large number of MPs in the House of Commons. Since then, Labour has been reduced to a single MP in the whole of Scotland, while the SNP sends so many MPs to Westminster that it is the third party there.  

The conventional view is that Labour has to gain seats in Scotland if it is to have a chance of winning a UK general election. Even Jeremy Corbyn subscribed to this doctrine, promising to spend his time campaigning in Scotland, confident in the belief that the good people of a left-wing country would rally to his bold socialist programme. Labour secured seven seats there in 2017, which looked like progress at least, but after the even bolder programme of 2019, it secured the same result as before. One MP.  

The Corbyn argument was that Labour had lost Scotland by being too centrist, so at least he did the party the service of proving that this was not true. The Scots like to think of themselves as more left-wing than the English, but social attitudes surveys find that their views are pretty similar. The real reason Scottish voters turned away from Labour was the huge success of the SNP after independence sentiment was radicalised by defeat in the 2014 referendum.  

It is hard to see how any of the parties who want to keep Britain together can fight back against this. The most successful so far was Ruth Davidson of the Scottish Tories, and that surge did not last long.  

However, it is worth remembering that winning seats in Scotland is not an absolute requirement for Labour to win nationally. In 1997 and 2001, Tony Blair won elections by such large margins that he did not need Scottish seats to have a majority in the Commons.  

I know I’m a Blairite, but it seems defeatist for Labour to imagine that it cannot possibly have such a wide appeal to the voters of England and Wales ever again. Because I’m a Blairite, I would say that the best way to win is to present policies that everyone in the UK could vote for, wherever they live. That would win people over in Scotland, but it could also win over enough voters in the rest of the UK to make up for the inroads of the SNP.  

Yours,

John Rentoul

Chief political commentator