What Labour’s Rutherglen victory means for SNP and UK politics

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, had used the word “earthquake” last week to foreshadow Labour’s remarkable victory in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, where its 30% winning margin exceeded even its predictions.

He did it cheekily, stealing one of the favourite lines often used by the former Scottish National party leader Alex Salmond when the nationalists were crushing Labour at repeated elections in the past. That theft of Salmond’s phrase has additional resonance. It points to a change in Scottish political alignments that spells danger for the SNP and its current leader, Humza Yousaf.

Labour won with a crushing 58.6% vote share by shifting itself rightwards, moving much closer to the political centre in Scotland. That positioning was key to Salmond’s victories in the run-up to 2014, when he won and held power by freezing council taxes and small business rates Scotland-wide.

This time, Labour ran its campaign attacking the SNP for allowing councils to raise council tax rates, for a planned congestion charge mooted by SNP councillors to enter neighbouring Glasgow (ignoring the implicit rejection of Labour’s support for London’s congestion charge), and for suggestions income tax might go up again.

It attacked Yousaf’s government, shackled with 16 years of incumbency and mounting crises in public services. Its campaign was very much in the mould set by Keir Starmer’s middle-ground strategy, repudiating the party’s own recent support for targeted tax rises, which pulled in Tory and Liberal Democrat voters too, and quite likely attracted voters who in previous years backed the SNP. Those are the “suburban strivers” who often live in Scotland’s urban new towns who, 16 years ago, switched en masse to the SNP under Salmond.

The Conservative share of the vote fell by 11.1% and the Lib Dems by 2.3%. Both lost their deposits. This was clear evidence of tactical voting to reject the incumbent government, typical in byelections. It was also perhaps revenge against Margaret Ferrier, the former SNP MP whose decision in 2021 to travel by train to London and to visit shops in the seat while suspecting she was ill with Covid triggered this contest.

Key too was Labour’s desire to win. This long-running byelection campaign effectively began on 30 March when MPs recommended Ferrier served a 30-day suspension. When her appeal was eventually dismissed, that suspension triggered the first recall petition in a Scottish Westminster seat.

Since then, UK Labour invested heavily in resources and expertise in this contest. It turbo-charged the recall petition, leafletting and door-knocking, while pump-priming its byelection campaign. It visited 80,000 homes and spoke to 30,000 voters; Michael Shanks, Labour’s new MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, claims to have spoken to 20,000 voters.

That exposed the SNP’s greatest problem: it is in dire financial straits, scrabbling for money and with the least experienced party leadership in Scotland. Some weeks ago, unable to muster enough activists, it had to hire a courier firm to deliver campaign leaflets.

Even so, in private Labour is unlikely to assume it can repeat a 20% swing at Scotland level in the general election. The turnout in Rutherglen, a seat traditionally known for high turnouts, was 37.2%. There was bad weather on Thursday certainly, but there was also voter apathy and antagonism towards mainstream politics, driven by Conservative turmoil at UK level, the cost of living crisis and the open divisions within the SNP. Many SNP sympathisers are likely to have stayed at home – a question that poses further challenges for Yousaf.

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This result will be used by increasingly vocal internal critics to confirm their claims he is too insubstantial and centre-left to protect their seats and the SNP’s majority. He does not have the authority or the power of Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, and has been unable to enforce discipline among SNP backbenchers, with rebellions over the Holyrood alliance with the Scottish Greens brokered by Sturgeon gathering strength. Many are rallying around Yousaf’s leadership rival Kate Forbes, his most likely successor.

The scale and manner of Labour’s victory in Rutherglen and Hamilton West could well increase the fears of SNP MPs in other vulnerable central belt seats they face defeat while Yousaf remains in charge. That suggests his first SNP national conference as party leader, due to take start in nine days’ time in Aberdeen, will be tense and rebellious.

In contrast, Keir Starmer will be delighted as he goes into Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool on Sunday. Michael Shanks, the party’s newest MP, will be paraded on the main stage to rapturous applause from delegates.