Will a Labour win in this key battle ground send the SNP to think again about their independence plans or will a SNP victory catapult their plans to go it alone?
The General Election 2024 was called for July 4, a date which in the USA marks Independence Day. While the Scottish National Party (SNP) would like to see it as a signifier of Scottish independence, recent polls suggest the opposite. Nearly a decade after the Labour Party lost 40 seats to the SNP, history is likely to come full circle. According to Electoral Calculus, the SNP, which currently holds 43 out of 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons, is projected to retain only 22. The Labour Party is looking at increasing the number of seats held from 2 to 29. Is this the end of the dream for the nationalists?
Paisley, Scotland’s largest town, is a perfect example of the political overturn likely to take place across parliamentary constituencies in Scotland. “When Labour wins, Scotland wins… when Labour wins, Renfrewshire wins as well,” says Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland. His words echo round the Scottish Labour Party’s Mile End Mill office. In this historic six-story mill if you listen carefully, you could probably hear the voices of the ancestors, who once worked in these rooms.
The town that previously thrived from its thread and cotton industry and made its name known around the world thanks to the production of shawls, the pattern of which is known as the Paisley pattern, is now facing political change. The years of prosperity are long gone. With the closure of local mills, the town has fallen into decline. While ongoing regeneration projects aim to bring new jobs and visitors, there is still a long way to go before the town can return to its former glory.
Nearly seven hours’ drive from the House of Commons, during the 2015 General Election, in Paisley and Renfrewshire South, Mhairi Black, at 20, defeated Labour’s former foreign secretary Douglas Alexander. By ousting this mogul politician, who had been Paisley’s MP for 18 years, she became the youngest person elected to Parliament in over 300 years.
Less than eight months after 55% of Scots voted ‘No’ in the Independence Referendum, this passionate and hopeful newcomer was ready to represent her constituents, advocate for those in need, and make their voices heard.
Black described the reasons behind her landslide win as, “a key moment in Scotland… we’d just lost the referendum and there was all this residual energy and hope.” SNP’s victory in Paisley mirrored the situation across 56 other constituencies. SNP effectively outed The Labour Party MPs for nearly a decade. During her maiden speech she emphasized her traditional socialist Labour family background and expressed her disappointment in it. “It is the Labour party that left me,” she said, “not the other way about”.
“The SNP did not triumph on a wave of nationalism… We triumphed on a wave of hope, hope that there was something different, something better to the Thatcherite neo-liberal policies that are produced from this chamber. Hope that representatives genuinely could give a voice to those who don’t have one.”
To many Scots and in particular younger Scots, she became an icon, offering a new style of politics and a different way of communicating in parliament – something which caused shockwaves across the political spectrum. Nine years later, disillusioned and tired of “constantly having to argue,” she decided to step down. The signboard with her name, which had been hanging above her office on Wellmeadow Street in Paisley’s West End, had been taken down. She is withdrawing from the fight, leaving the seat up for grabs. To some, it may look like a defeat; to others, including Black, it is simply self-preservation. Can the voices of the people of Paisley still be carried 400 miles away to Westminster in this time of political turbulence?
To anyone standing, she will not “sell a fake dream”. “It is a really challenging and difficult job,” Black admits. “If you’ve got the passion and you think you, “can advocate for folk, then go for it”.
It hasn’t been long since Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made news for comparing Scottish nationalists to extremists during his speech on security. The statement was met with a significant backlash and understandably infuriated many Scots, including Stephen Flynn, the SNP Westminster leader, who during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQ) on May 15, angrily demanded an apology and pointed out that Sunak: “Proactively compared almost half of the Scottish population with a war criminal like Vladimir Putin, and he did so as their Prime Minister, as the man who represents them on the world stage and the man who on these isles is tasked with defending their liberties and their democracy.”
There may be no need for the Conservative Prime Minister to weigh his words when addressing Scots; it is not their vote that his party depends on. But he sees them as a threat to the Union.
At the UK level, the race is between the Conservatives and the Labour Party, here in Paisley, the Conservatives don’t stand a chance. Black says that she would be “amazed” if the Tories had a prospect in this constituency. She then adds: “How are we in a position where Scotland as a country, the second largest country in this union, has not voted Conservative since 1955? So, we’re pushing 70 years, and yet for the vast majority of the time, we’ve had Conservative governments. That’s not democracy to me.”
According to John Denham, who served as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government under Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, as he wrote for The Constitution Society in 2021: “The Conservative UK majority depends entirely on its English majority, which the current government believes provides a mandate to impose an English perspective on the devolved nations.”
Sunak describes Scottish Nationalists as a threat to the Union. Is the SNP’s “obsession” with independence simply perceived as a way of protecting Scotland from the Tory government? According to Neil Bibby, ” Labour passed the Scotland Act of 1998 to create the Scottish Parliament… To protect Scotland,” and he proclaims to: “look to see what reforms need to be made in order to not just strengthen devolution but to strengthen the UK as a whole.
“If you’ve got two people in positions of government who want to work together and cooperate, there will be cooperation. If you have a government run by the SNP who’s hell-bent on just trying to break up the UK, it doesn’t actually matter who’s in power at the UK level,” adds Bibby. Can having the Labour Party in power in the UK and in Scotland bring unity to the nations? If so, then how long will it last? “Paisley needs a Labour government, Paisley needs investment, Paisley needs economic growth,” he explains.
There is a clear similarity in the way Mhairi Black puts it: “We need investment, we need money, we need a fairer redistribution of wealth.” However, she doesn’t believe that the Labour party can deliver it; she says: “I know from first-hand experience, the only way that Scotland’s interests are even talked about in Westminster is when the SNP is there… Two Labour MPs that are currently in Parliament, when it comes to listening to the Scottish Labour Party or going with the UK Labour Party, they always go with Keir Starmer, they always go with the London preference.
“I feel anger a lot of the time at Labour when they present themselves as being different to the Conservatives, but then you look at the finer detail and you realise you’re not that different,” adds Black.
Not being “that different” from Conservatives is one of the key arguments against opposition party leader Keir Starmer. Can this criticism of not having a plan, lacking optimism, and having a dull personality stop people from voting Labour? As Keir Starmer’s party points out, after the 14 years of conservative government that brought the UK to its knees, the country needs change.
A glimpse of hope to Scottish voters, Starmer’s words offered during the opposition party’s campaign in Glasgow, as he emphasized the importance of Scotland: “There is no change without Scotland, there is no Labour without Scotland, Scotland is central to the mission of the next Labour government.”
The Labour Party has repetitively been calling SNP voters to lend them their vote to “get the Tories out.” With the various scandals of the past months attached, the SNP is in turmoil. It has only been few weeks since John Swinney was appointed First Minister of Scotland. As he is leading the SNP campaign, aware of how challenging this year’s election is going to be, he warns against voting Labour. “Keir Starmer is an intelligent man. He knows this is the effect of austerity and Brexit. But he’s still willing to impose all that damage on Scotland – whatever the cost – so he can win power.”
Mhairi Black feels that out of the two major parties, Labour will be better but still not good enough. Scotland and Renfrewshire deserve more. “People are right to want to get rid of the Tories, but we’re also right to demand better from our opposition. “Take your act together… Be in opposition,” she would like to tell them.
“There’s so much pain being felt in Scotland, that not only are you not offering anything radically different, but when push comes to shove, you already have form for forgetting Scotland and forgetting the people you’re supposed to represent and just going with whatever the London-centric viewpoint is, which won’t benefit anyone in this constituency” continued Black.
According to a YouGov poll conducted after the election was called, Labour holds a strong position at 40 points which is double the Tory voters. Their dominant position is not limited to the UK. Based on the Electoral Calculus forecast, in Paisley, Labour, currently three points ahead of the SNP, stands a 62% chance of winning.
Neil Bibby believes the SNP stopped trying to fight for Scotland, describes them as “arrogant” and “not concerned about particular issues.” In Bibby’s opinion it’s, “critically important” for Paisley in Renfrewshire that Labour wins the seat.
While Mhairi Black finds polls to be, “fascinating because they’re not a guarantee by any means”, considering the challenges that SNP faced in the last year and damaged perception of the party, it is likely that there won’t be many surprises, and The Labour party will regain its influence, in Paisley and across Scotland.
Is this the end to the SNP’s dream of Scotland becoming sovereign state? There may be a setback in their pursuit of independence, but the party is not giving up, out on the streets talking to constituents to prove the fight is not over. Will they get a chance to fulfil the promise John Swinney made to the people of Scotland? “I am here to serve you all. I am here to work hard to win your trust and your confidence. I am here to give everything I have, to secure the best future for our country.”
Here is the full list of candidates standing in the Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat on Thursday 4th July:
Johanna Baxter – Labour
Athol Bond – Scottish Greens
Jacqueline Cameron – SNP
Jack Clark – Scottish Liberal Democrats
Alec Leishman – Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Paul Mack – Independent
Jim McIlroy – Reform UK
Mark Turnbull – Freedom Alliance
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