The Scottish Labour Party may just have to wait for Nicola Sturgeon to fail

With Richard Leonard standing down as leader, John Rentoul asks if Labour will ever turn the tide against the SNP in Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon has now seen off her third Labour leader in the Scottish parliament (AFP/Getty Images)

Richard Leonard is only the latest in a line of Scottish Labour leaders to have been flattened by the juggernaut of identity politics. 

It is unfair and no fault of his that one of his most significant failings is that he has an English accent, a drawback in a culture in which Scottishness is now so important. 

But nor did he have other qualities sufficient to offset this lack. His formulaic Corbynism was useful, in that his leadership completed the rebuttal of the thesis that the answer to Labour’s problems in Scotland was a full-throated old-fashioned “socialist” programme. 

Corbyn supporters have now been disabused of the idea that Scotland is a left-wing nation waiting to be led out of the delusions of nationalism by the bold offer of nationalised broadband. 

Leonard’s leadership helped illuminate some of the things that won’t help Labour regain lost ground in Scotland, therefore, but did little to suggest what positive steps the party might take. Obviously, a more charismatic leader, with a more forceful style, would help, but Jim Murphy and Kezia Dugdale both had their moments and the juggernaut rolled over them as well. 

The problem faced by all the unionist parties in Scotland is fundamental: it is that “standing up for Scotland” now means “independence for Scotland”. The gamble that the Scottish Labour establishment took that devolution would satisfy the demand to “stand up for Scotland” has failed. It will be a hard and long task to push back against it, and it may not succeed. 

In my view, it is likely to succeed only if the Scottish National Party fails. However, there are signs that it might. I don’t mean Alex Salmond’s bitter campaign waged against Nicola Sturgeon, his successor as first minister. All the “he said, she said” procedural folderol is unlikely to be the undoing of a politician as adroit as Sturgeon. 

It may be that the worst thing that could happen to Sturgeon would be to win a clear majority on a clear independence mandate in the Scottish parliament elections in May (or whenever – although it strikes me as rather surprising that the Scottish parliament itself can decide to postpone its own democracy). 

Because then, when Boris Johnson says no to another Scottish referendum, the pressure within the SNP to go rogue will grow. Sturgeon is not going to hold an illegal referendum for three reasons. One is that unionists won’t take part, robbing it of moral authority. The second is that it wouldn’t secure independence, because the UK government would not accept it. And the third is that it would jeopardise Scotland’s relations with the EU: Spain, with its experience of Catalonia, would refuse to let Scotland rejoin the EU. 

Some in the SNP hope that pending court cases will establish the Scottish parliament’s legal right to hold a referendum, but I doubt that the Supreme Court is going to strike down the 1998 devolution legislation that reserved constitutional matters to the UK parliament. 

So although support for independence may remain high, driven by resentment against a Conservative government in London refusing to allow another referendum, the pressures on SNP unity will grow. 

The longer the SNP is in government in Scotland, too, the more its record is likely to disappoint people, and the more its leading figures will become sick of each other. 

In addition to charm, basic leadership ability and competence – and likely a Scottish accent – Leonard’s successor will need strategic patience.