Labour in Crisis in Scotland

The report will make grim reading for Keir Starmer and Richard Leonard. It claims that if Labour “does not reverse its fortunes in Scotland in a significant way” and win at least 15 seats currently held by the SNP, it would need to win big in England, to the point where it could take the Tory stronghold of North East Somerset from Jacob Rees Mogg.

At the last election Labour retained just 51 per cent of its 2017 vote in Scotland, collapsing to its worst ever vote share.

The report says Scots didn’t like Corbyn’s “perceived equivocation on Brexit” and his “political reputation, which alienated more traditional, especially older, Labour voters.”

It also says “apparent disagreements around Labour’s position on a second independence referendum added to the confused message around key election issues.”

Scottish Labour’s position, the report adds, appealed only “to a tiny proportion of Scotland’s electorate.”

The party’s lack of research meant “Labour’s identification of potentially winnable seats was not properly evidence-based, for example in Scotland, where insufficient resource was being directed to constituencies which might, under different circumstances, have offered opportunities for advance.”

It also criticises the “high level of churn of staff and teams” in party HQ which had a “destabilising impact on the Scottish Party and meant that new staff, who had never run a national campaign before, were immediately expected to run a General Election campaign.”