Inside the Rutherglen campaign: Is a new dawn breaking for Scottish Labour?

I joined members and party staff in Rutherglen earlier this month for what I was told was day 152 of the campaign.

The story of the by-election in Rutherglen – Margaret Ferrier’s suspension from the Commons, her appeal and its eventual denial, the naming of a candidate, and, lastly, the confirmation of polling day – has caught national attention sporadically over the course of the year.

There clearly has been, however, absolutely nothing sporadic about the work done on the ground by Labour candidate Michael Shanks, local members, and Labour Party staff. They have been doggedly pounding the pavements for many months, in the noble pursuit of doubling the number of Scottish Labour MPs come polling day on October 5th.

‘Shanks wouldn’t be any better if we’d made him in a test tube’

It’s time for a #FreshStart in Rutherglen and Hamilton West – and our candidate @mgshanks is ready to deliver it. pic.twitter.com/DV9G9es1yJ

— Scottish Labour (@ScottishLabour) September 19, 2023

Rutherglen is a suburb of Glasgow, and the constituency encompasses Rutherglen itself, along with Blantyre and Cambuslang. Down on the high street, a beautiful library displays 19th century football trophies, and a small exhibit on Rutherglen residents killed in the First World War. Across from the library, the Scottish Socialist Party are campaigning for their by-election candidate in a hail of flags. 

I start off in Rutherglen Central and North ward. Formerly represented on the council by the last Labour MP for the area, Ged Killen, it’s a leafier part of the constituency where big houses take in a panoramic view of Glasgow to the north.

The reception on the doorsteps is fair, if not exceptional, and I am told this is where we might pick up tactical votes. While there is enthusiasm and some name recognition for Shanks (a teacher and charity worker, Shanks is described in the session briefing as being a near-perfect candidate; “he wouldn’t be any better if we’d made him in a test tube”), there are also negative comments about Keir Starmer.

Day 153 of the campaign sees me on the doorstep in Cambuslang, a former mining area that is a key target for Labour’s campaign.

It is also home to the technically-still serving MP Margaret Ferrier, and many of the Scottish National Party voters Labour hopes to woo. I encounter one such woman on the doorstep, who tells me that she had stopped voting Labour under Tony Blair, but will be coming back to the party to vote for Shanks, who she knew was a “local teacher”.

‘I hate the SNP’

Listening to me report back, Nick Thomas Symonds, who was also there, commented that this seemed like the ideal voter. As we went on, canvassing and reminding voters that the by-election will be the first vote in Scotland to require photo ID, the most common response by far was that the residents would be supporting Michael Shanks. One older man muttered a terse, Emily Thornberry-style “I hate the SNP” before taking a postal vote registration form. 

“There’s a great energy in the Scottish party at the moment,” one organiser tells me as we head back to the campaign centre, discussing Labour’s chances in the island constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar, which are, he reckons, very good.

Much of the Scottish Labour Party’s staff has shifted to Rutherglen to work on the campaign, and when I visit four organisers from the London office are also busy campaigning, bolstering a CLP of around 300 members. 

In the grand tradition of by-election campaign centres, squares of white paper are tacked to the wall in the entrance hall, covered in the names of members and politicians who have visited (the GMB’s Gary Smith has an entire page to himself).

Baillie: “All our stats tell us that that change is real”

Another great morning on the doors with the @ScottishLabour team in Rutherglen and Hamilton West!

People are desperate for change and that is what our candidate @mgshanks is offering. pic.twitter.com/8R5cglmp8I

— Anas Sarwar (@AnasSarwar) September 16, 2023

In the kitchen, where one cupboard has been completely filled with party-branded mugs, Scottish Labour’s general secretary John Paul McHugh makes tea, while in a side room I talk to deputy Scottish Labour leader Jackie Baillie, who finds it hard to hide her enthusiasm and optimism (see more on that interview here).

Baillie thinks we’re going to win, and says as much, explaining her reasoning at length: “I have been around the Labour Party since 1982. I have seen us win, I know what that feels like on the doorsteps, and I have seen us lose. And I’ve seen us take our time to come back to a place where we are going to win again.

“I recognise what goes on on the doorstep with people and how the mood of the country is changing. Just now, it’s not just my instinct that tells me, or my engagement with people on the doorstep that tells me, there is something moving here. All our stats tell us that that change is real.”

I ask Baillie if a win here would be translatable to other seats, or if Ferrier’s behaviour makes the seat an anomaly. “People were angry with Margaret Ferrier. They were really angry if they suffered a loss during covid. It felt like a personal slight to them”, Baillie tells me.

But she adds: “since the recall position has ended…. very few people have mentioned Margaret Ferrier. They focus more on the SNP generally.” People know that Ferrier isn’t on the ballot paper, and they know the options and the context of the by-election. 

It is nerve wracking, as a member of a Labour party that’s lost the last four general elections in a row, to see people sincerely confident. Not complacent or hubristic, but quietly sure that the work they have put in will meet the mood of the current moment and the result will be in our favour.

On paper, Baillie is right: everything from the polling to the seat’s history suggests that a month from now Michael Shanks will be the new Labour MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, and that this means, after the annihilation of 2015, Labour might again look to win, and keep, significant numbers of seats in Scotland. Fingers crossed.