Victory for Labour in Rutherglen and Hamilton West gives party renewed hope for Westminster battle ahead, despite caveats
Labour went big on the earthquake metaphors after winning the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection with a 20% swing.Once the largest party in Scotland for half a century, with a Scottish prime minister, Gordon Brown, and chancellor, Alistair Darling, Labour had crashed to potential electoral oblivion with just one seat in the House of Commons by 2015.
Labour won in Rutherglen with a crushing 58.6% vote share by shifting itself rightwards, moving much closer to the political centre in. The party attacked the SNP for allowing councils to raise council tax rates, for a congestion charge mooted by SNP councillors to enter neighbouring Glasgow, and for suggestions income tax might go up again.
But he injected a key note of caution that there was still “uncertain” support for the Labour leader. There are also the usual caveats that lower turnout at a byelection of around 40% means it is difficult to draw wider conclusions – and Rutherglen had its own particular circumstances of being an election to replace an SNP politician, Margaret Ferrier, who was being booted out for flouting Covid rules.
Analysis by the Scottish Election Study has found that Labour’s reputation in Scotland has changed. It is now, in essence, the least disliked party; it attracts voters from the other major parties in a way it failed to do a decade ago. Its report found that while support for independence had not gone away, there was a recognition across Scotland that it is currently a more remote prospect.
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