The Thelma and Louise of Scottish politics

Yet another Scottish opinion poll, this time by Norstat (formerly known as Panelbase) for the Sunday Times has confirmed the picture that is becoming clear from other recent opinion polling, Anas Sarwar and the Labour party in Scotland are in deep, deep trouble and unless there is some miracle between now and May 2026, Labour is in for a hammering at the next Scottish elections. For Labour’s electoral prospect’s in Scotland, Sarwar hitching himself to Starmer has been as mutually destructive as Thelma and Louise. Labour in Scotland has now reached the Starmer driving the car off the cliff part of their ruinous tale.

You didn’t need to be Nostradamus to see this was always going to be the outcome of the Labour party in Scotland selling out the last vestiges of traditional left wing and socialist principles in order to throw its lot in with the neo-Blairite project of the intensely opportunistic Keir Starmer, who lies as glibly as a time-share salesman in a care home for the elderly. The only surprising thing is the speed with which the Starmer project has imploded. But then Starmer is a moral vacuum, a leader who ruthlessly crushes all internal opposition but who is bereft of any clear vision of what he wants to achieve with the power he so single-mindedly sought to achieve. Starmer is simply a cipher, a frontman for the corporate interests represented by Labour Together whose former director Morgan McSweeney is now Starmer’s chief of staff, having ousted his predecessor Sue Gray in an internal putsch. Labour Together is the right wing Labour think tank which orchestrates and directs party policy.

Labour Together was once dismissed as a fringe group in early 2024 by Anas Sarwar in another of his many lies when another of its former directors, Josh Simons, who is now a Labour MP, suggested putting migrants who crossed the English Channel in small boats on a barge and shipping them to the north of Scotland. Simons also averred that his sole issue with the then Conservative government’s cruel, immoral, and unlawful Rwanda policy was that it was not good value for money. Labour Together has vastly more influence on Starmer than Sarwar does. But then the cast of the Traitors have more influence on Starmer than Sarwar does, the show is where Starmer takes his cues for dealing with back bench Labour MPs.

The Norstat poll makes truly grim reading for Labour in Scotland. If replicated in 2026’s election it would be Labour’s worst electoral result in Holyrood ever, reducing them to 18 MSPs, the same as the Tories. There would again be a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament, with the SNP taking 55 seats and the Scottish Greens 10. The ghouls of Reform UK would take 15 seats, while the Lib Dems would make substantial gains and win 13. Reform is taking support from all parties but its main effect lies in fracturing the opposition to independence.

The poll also showed support for independence tied 50-50 with opposition to it, but it should be noted that Norstat/Panelbase have for some time been amongst those polling companies which reports unfavourable results for Yes and continues the increasingly indefensible practice of weighting by the outcome of a referendum that took place over ten years ago.

The company is also one which has previously reported much better results for Alba than other polling companies, if replicated in the May 2026 the results of this new poll would leave Alba without any representation in the Scottish Parliament and failing to have won any seats in any of the four elections that it has contested since it was founded early in 2021. This suggests that the recent Find Out Now poll which suggested Alba was on track to win as many as eight Holyrood seats was a rogue poll.

In none of the seats Alba has actually contested has it come anywhere close to winning under its own banner. A repetition of this in 2026 will confirm the final failure of the Alba project and it will be hard to see how it can continue as a party with serious pretensions to shape the discourse of the independence movement. For all the vehemence directed by Alba supporters towards the Scottish Greens, often exceeding that they direct to the SNP, the Scottish Greens are actually successful in getting elected, proving that their brand of politics is considerably more popular than Alba’s.

Labour’s problem is equally existential. Starmerism is a form of political opportunism designed and incubated in a different political age, the era of the transatlantic alliance. With Trump cosying up to Putin and other far-right authoritarian regimes, pivoting to forcing unilateral concessions on democracies in order to appease the dictator Putin, we have entered a new, uncertain, and dangerous age. With a Brexit which is a sacred cow to Labour and the Tories no matter how damaging and destructive it has proven to be, the UK is alone, uniquely exposed and vulnerable.

Despite Trump’s claims to be a brilliant negotiator, he conceded everything to Putin before negotiations on the war in Ukraine even started and now seeks to unilaterally impose Putin’s terms on Ukraine without involving Ukraine or Europe. There are reports that the US is pressurising Ukraine to sign over 50% of the rights to its valuable rare earth mineral deposits, the same thing that attracted Putin’s interests. Don’t listen to any of the cant about Putin standing up for Russians in Ukraine. Putin doesn’t care about Russians in Russia.

Most Russian speakers in Ukraine are in any case ethnic Ukrainians, who in Russian occupied territory are now being subjected to a purge of Ukrainian language and identity far more aggressive and thorough-going than what Russia and its propagandists accuse Ukraine of doing to Russians. Like his puppet Trump, Putin cares only about money, power, and control.

Last week we had the spectacle of JD Vance coming to Europe to lecture us on the threat to democracy, when his boss literally tried to overthrow the US government on Jan 6 2021. Vance’s speech could have been written by the Kremlin and was stuffed full of far right culture wars talking points and lies, including an attempt to spread misinformation about the Scottish law on protection zones around abortion clinics. Trump, Vance and Hegseth essentially want all of Europe to become a Putin satrapy.

Failure to prepare for the rise of Trumpism and its consequences for democracy is a damning indictment of the European and particularly the British political class. Even now with the threat of Musk trying to buy British democracy starkly apparent, Starmer is still resisting calls to restrict donations from the super-rich distorting the political landscape.

British politicians still delude themselves that there’s a special relationship with the USA and even after Vance’s speech, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has said the the UK hopes to act as a bridge between Europe and Donald Trump’s America. There was never a special relationship, there is even less of one now.

With the US Government captured by MAGA, what the UK needs is a Prime Minister with principles, a sense of humanity and compassion, and the moral backbone to stand up for what is good and decent. Instead we have the opportunistic right-wing enabling morality-free zone that is the charlatan Starmer.

Only the SNP, the Greens, and on the anti-indy side to some extent the Lib Dems, are still standing up for the values and principles of social democracy, social inclusion, and putting the interests of the many ahead of the interests of the rich. Scotland needs a strong pro independence and pro social democracy voice in the next Scottish Parliament to articulate the case that Scotland’s future lies as an independent nation aligned firmly with Europe, not as a back seat passenger the Thelma and Louise of British and Scottish politics drive Scotland off a cliff for its bones to be picked clean by the vultures in the White House and the Kremlin.

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