‘Phoney war’ between the SNP and Labour ends as they limber up for crucial Scottish byelection

A looming byelection on the edge of Glasgow has turned into a “must win” for the Labour Party as it strives to prove it can put its leader Keir Starmer in Downing Street next year with an overall majority, according to Britain’s top polling expert.

John Curtice, politics professor at the University of Strathclyde, says the contest for the seat formerly held by the Scottish National Party’s Margaret Ferrier will show if recent polls, which suggest a 10 per cent swing from the SNP to Scottish Labour, can be converted into seats.

The contest will also give the SNP the first indication under new leader Humza Yousaf of how much its previously-formidable electoral machine has diminished, following a financial scandal involving former leader Nicola Sturgeon and the stalling of its push for independence from the UK.

A swing of 5 per cent in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection expected in October is all that is required for Labour to retake what used to be a safe seat for the party, said Curtice in comments first made on GB News.

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“This ought to be well within Labour’s capabilities if they are doing as well as the polls suggest. If the party is enjoying a revival north of the border, which is what the polls are telling us, this almost becomes a must win by-election for Labour,” said Curtice, who has reached guru status in British politics for his ability to accurately call elections.

The contest, long expected, became inevitable this week after a recall petition by Ferrier’s constituents. Under rules brought in by former prime minister David Cameron, constituents can sign a petition to recall any MP suspended from parliament for more than 10 days.

Ferrier lost the SNP whip in October 2020 after she travelled from Scotland to London while awaiting a Covid test result. When the result came back positive, she took a train back to Scotland instead of isolating immediately for 14 days, as the rules required at the time.

The move infuriated her constituents. A parliamentary standards committee suspended her earlier this year for 30 days. This week, the results of the recall petition showed 15 per cent of constituents had signed it, breezing past the 10 per threshold set by Cameron.

Ferrier, who has sat as an independent for the past 2½ years, says she will not run again following her sacking as an MP: “[It has been] a taxing process that has now come to its conclusion and I do not wish to prolong it any further.”

Although Labour is up 20 per cent on the Tories in most national polls, it still faces a daunting task to overturn the huge majority won by Boris Johnson in 2019, when the Tories bagged the highest vote percentage for any party in 40 years.

For a majority, Labour needs a swing comparable to the landslide achieved by Tony Blair in 1997. Starmer’s road to Downing Street may well run through Scotland, where it is seeking to gain more than 20 of the 44 seats held by the SNP. Labour currently has just one Scottish MP.

Meanwhile, the SNP, which originally won 48 of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats before losing a handful through defections and suspensions, is rallying to staunch its losses. It is portraying Labour in Scotland as “Tory lite”, due to Starmer’s refusal to commit to rolling back Conservative party spending curbs such as a two-child benefits cap.

The first salvo of the long-awaited scrap between the SNP and Labour is now nigh, and the battleground will be in this diverse constituency south of Glasgow. “The phoney war is coming to an end,” says Scottish commentator Alex Massie. Starmer has visited the area regularly in recent months in anticipation of the fight to come.

Although it is second favourite in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, the SNP does retain one power over the contest: its timing. As the party whose MP was recalled, only the SNP can move the writ for the byelection. It cannot be moved before the current Westminster recess ends on September 4th.

The earliest possible date of the byelection is October 5th, which Labour is pushing for. “Give them a say and name the day,” Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie this week urged the SNP.

An October 5th byelection would, intriguingly, fall bang in the middle of the main political parties’ conference season, with the Tories’ annual gathering, in Manchester, due to conclude on October 4th, and Labour’s to begin in Liverpool four days later.

Massie says the party “must win and win well” to remove any worries over the strength of its crucial Scottish fightback next year. If Labour hammers the SNP, Starmer will gives his conference leader’s speech as a conquering hero, his troops rallied with the scent of a possible national victory to come.

But if Labour only barely wins in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, or if the SNP shocks everyone by holding on, then jitters could set in, especially as the party lost a byelection last month for Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, where it was expected to win.

[ UK byelection results paint truly ominous picture for Tories ]

The candidates in the constituency are local teacher Michael Shanks for Labour and SNP South Lanarkshire councillor Katy Loudon. Local issues, such as increased entry fees for local sports and leisure facilities, will play as much of a role as national themes.

The Tories, with less than 15 per cent of the vote locally, have no chance in what was a Labour stronghold until the SNP wrested the seat from them in recent years. But Scottish Conservative voters may yet play a crucial role. It is expected that many may choose to tactically vote for Labour to ensure the defeat of the Scottish Nationalist candidate and strike a blow to the independence movement.

This presents a problem for Tory leader and prime minister, Rishi Sunak. If his party’s supporters help to deliver a thumping Labour byelection victory, it will turbocharge his opponents’ heading into next year’s general election.