Rutherglen by-election: What vote share should Labour be happy with?

By-election stations

Today’s the day! Voters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West head to the polls today for the long-awaited by-election, with Scottish Labour’s Michael Shanks hoping to overturn the SNP’s majority of 5,230 from 2019. A seat-by-seat analysis last week from the Stonehaven research and strategy consultancy put Labour on track to reclaim the seat, which has ping-ponged back and forth between Labour and the SNP since 2010, as well as downplaying Rutherglen’s significance as a litmus test for Labour’s revival north of the border.

Polling expert John Curtice has echoed this sentiment, telling Politico that winning the seat narrowly as the party did in 2017 would be a “bit of a disappointment”, adding: “We would go ‘so what,’ this is no more than you would have expected Labour to achieve six months ago.” Curtice argued that a good result for Labour would be to turn the SNP’s ten-point lead into a ten-point Labour lead. Much more than that would be “potentially quite a spectacular result”, Curtice said. “We’d be asking ourselves whether the Labour Party really could compete with the SNP to become the largest party in Scotland.”

Labour has been showing its dedication to message discipline this morning, with Keir Starmer, Anas Sarwar and Shanks himself tweeting about the “fresh start” that the Labour candidate offers. Keen to play your part in delivering that fresh start? Details of polling day canvassing can be found here. Alternatively, you could sign up to take part in the party’s ringathon here.

Rutherglen and Hamilton West!

Vote ➡️ to make work pay.
Vote ➡️ to fix our NHS.
Vote ➡️ to put money back in your pocket.
Vote ➡️ for an MP who will stand up for you.

Vote Michael Shanks. #FreshStart pic.twitter.com/WiCfN7sOxD

— Scottish Labour (@ScottishLabour) October 5, 2023

But Labour’s got no policies…

On LabourList this morning, we’ve published a summary of the document signed off by Labour’s National Policy Forum (NPF) earlier this year, which will be voted on at conference next week and subsequently inform the party’s next general election manifesto. I’ve spent the best part of a week trawling through the 116-page document pulling together this in-depth summary, and we hope it will be a useful resource for readers ahead of conference and beyond.

A fair bit has changed or been expanded upon compared to the earlier policy document (which we also covered in detail here), including notable changes to Labour’s New Deal for Working People and efforts to address tensions around hot-button issues of recent months, such as achieving a just transition for workers and artificial intelligence.

Fight for your rights

Disability Labour, Young Labour and Labour Women Leading will today announce a rally outside conference on Sunday at 1pm, LabourList can exclusively reveal, against the proposed rule change on equality positions. The rally, backed by campaign groups Compass and Momentum, among others, will see ex-Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and others speak out against making equality roles on Constituency Labour Party executives non-mandatory, ahead of a vote at conference.

Help spread the word about and shape LabourList’s conference coverage

Finally, a favour. Could you share our conference events programme and daily email sign-up link with four people you know who you think might be interested? It helps us, it helps them and it helps the party spread the word about all things Labour – so get forwarding!

Our daily email briefing, read by you and 10s of 1000s of other Labour supporters from the shadow cabinet to the grassroots, will of course be a must-read during conference, highlighting the day’s upcoming motions, speeches, top events, news, comment and the highs, lows, fun and quirks of conference itself – for supporters there and supporters who can’t be.

In other Labour news…

HS2: Pat McFadden said the cancellation of HS2’s northern leg was the “culmination of a Tory fiasco” but did not explicitly commit Labour to reversing the decision, saying: “We’ve always supported building the line. In the wake of this announcement, and this cancellation, we’re going to have to look at the numbers and see what we inherit.” (Sky News).

SMOKE-FREE BRITAIN: Labour said it would lend Rishi Sunak the votes to get his proposed ban on smoking for younger generations passed and would “not play politics with public health”, noting that its own health mission includes a commitment to a smoke-free Britain (not online).

BOLTON: Two councillors from the hyperlocal One Kearsley party have announced that they are joining the Labour group on Bolton council – increasing Labour’s total number of councillors to 28 ahead of the opposition Tories on 15 (Bolton News).

SHEFFIELD: Seven Sheffield councillors who were suspended by Labour last month have quit the party, including former city council leader Terry Fox. According to BBC News, their suspensions in September related to their refusal to vote with Labour at a meeting discussing the city’s Local Plan (BBC News).

EUROPE: The Foundation for European Progressive Studies has a new report out on what Labour can learn from the European centre-left, and we have a piece from the report’s authors, Andrew Pakes and Frederick Harry Pitts, on the LabourList site this morning (FEPS).