Rutherglen by-election win: Can Labour become Scotland’s biggest party again?

Times are a’changin’ (back)?

Labour’s stonking victory in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election has opened up inevitable questions about what the result means for Labour’s prospects across Scotland – and, by extension, the rest of the UK – at the next general election. The party’s candidate Michael Shanks took the seat with 58.6% of the vote and a majority of 9,446 votes ahead of the SNP’s Katy Loudon (whose party won the seat with a majority of 5,230 votes in 2019) on 27.6% of the vote.

The result represented a swing from the SNP to Labour of 20.4%, according to BBC News, with polling guru John Curtice arguing that Labour could win as many as 40 seats in Scotland if that was replicated across the country at a general election. The extent of Labour’s victory is certainly remarkable; Curtice commented before the result that the party could say “job done” if it managed to turn the SNP’s ten-point lead in 2019 into a ten-point Labour lead. Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar both described it as “seismic”, with the Scottish Labour leader declaring that the result was a “turning point in Scottish politics” and showed that “the SNP and the Tories can be beaten”. Shanks said his victory proved “there’s no part of this country where Labour can’t win”.

But there are reasons to resist reading too much into the result. The turnout of 37.2% – though far from the lowest seen at a by-election – gives a limited picture, making it difficult to extrapolate to a general election (the turnout for this seat was 66.5% in 2019, for example). The constituency itself is also far from a safe SNP seat, having switched back and forth between the nationalists and Labour since 2010 – making it a weaker indicator of the extent of Labour’s resurgence and the SNP’s troubles. It is also worth bearing in mind the circumstances that led to the by-election – brought about as a result of former MP Margaret Ferrier’s suspension from the House of Commons for breaching Covid rules – which may also have contributed to the SNP’s poor showing.

Deputy Scottish Labour leader Jackie Baillie argued that, if extrapolated across Scotland, the result means the party is competitive in 42 seats. But others within Labour are thought to be taking a more cautious line, with senior UK party figures understood to believe around two dozen seats are now in play in Scotland. Even that, it must be remembered, would be a remarkable turnaround from the one seat the party won north of the border last time around. Does the result indicate Labour is on track to once again be Scotland’s largest party? It’s probably too soon to tell. But the huge swing to Labour in this by-election would suggest that the long-discussed green shoots of revival in Scotland may be beginning to flower.

Red in tooth and class

Labour has pledged to provide an extra 700,000 urgent dentist appointments and reform the NHS dental contract as part of a wider plan to address the crisis in dentistry – in the first of the party’s policy announcements ahead of its annual conference. Labour has said it will also introduce supervised toothbrushing in schools for three- to five-year-olds, targeted at the areas with highest childhood tooth decay, as well as incentivising new dentists to work in underserved areas.

Commenting on the plans, Starmer said “horror stories of DIY dentistry are too frequent”, declaring: “My Labour government will not stand for millions of people being denied basic healthcare.” The party said its proposals would cost £111m a year in total, with the funding coming, like much else, from the abolition of the non-dom tax status.

In other Labour news…

ISLINGTON NORTH: Labour is planning to run down the clock on picking a candidate to run in Islington North until the election, according to Politico, after Jeremy Corbyn was blocked from standing for the party earlier this year (Politico).

HIGH COURT BATTLE: Labour has reportedly spent £1.4m in legal fees on a dispute with five former staff accused of leaking an internal report, according to a court document seen by the Financial Times and Sky News, and expects to spend another £868,000. The individuals deny leaking the report, and a party spokesperson said the party was “confident” of its case following a “wide-ranging and appropriately thorough” probe (Financial Times).

HS2: Keir Starmer has said Labour cannot commit to reversing the cancellation of HS2’s northern leg, accusing the government of having “blown up the project” and left a “mess” for any incoming government (BBC News).

MORE BY-ELECTIONS: In less noticed by-election results overnight, Labour has held the Vauxhall ward in Lambeth, south London, and Amington ward in Tamworth, where a parliamentary by-election is looming too. But a little concerningly for Labour, its vote share slid 11.1% in Vauxhall, which saw a Lib Dem revival, and fell 7.8% in Amington, though the Tories slumped 15.8% too (Mark Pack).

REEVES INTERRUPTED: According to the Times, Rachel Reeves has dropped a major announcement from her conference speech – the creation of a British infrastructure council made up of leading companies – after the companies pulled out following interventions by the Tories (The Times).

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