Tom Gordon: Scottish Labour’s position is worse than you thought

The latest contains some fascinating nuggets about the 2019 vote in Scotland, especially about Labour’s fortunes.

The party’s Scottish executive, which meets in Glasgow today to discuss its response to that thrashing, might want a stiff drink before reading it.

For Scottish Labour’s result is even worse than it looked at first glance.

The headlines were the loss of six of seven MPs, saved from a total wipe-out by Ian Murray in Edinburgh South, and its vote share falling from 27.1 per cent to 18.6%, putting it third behind the Tories.

While Labour only just came third in 2017, it was decisively beaten by the Tories in 2019, the gap between the two widening from 1.5 to 7.5 per cent.

But look deeper and you really see how far the party has sunk.

There have been five general elections in Scotland on the same boundaries, so some gruesome trends are discernible.

In 2005 and 2010, Labour won 40 and 41 of Scotland’s 59 seats with vote shares of 38.9% and 42.9% respectively.

Many of the safest Labour seats in the UK were then in Scotland. The party’s biggest majority in 2005 was 19,519 in Coatbridge. Tony Blair’s majority in Sedgefield was only the third largest.

In every Scottish seat, Labour candidates always polled at least 10%

The SNP tsunami of 2015 obviously changed that, but not just by washing away every Labour MP bar Mr Murray.

There was new phenomenon.

Labour effectively became electorally irrelevant in several Scottish seats.

Candidates started losing deposits for the first time in decades.

Labour lost three deposits - after polling less than 5% - across the entire UK in 2015. All three were in Scotland.

Labour’s share of the vote also fell below 10% in a dozen Scottish seats.

The picture briefly improved in Mr Corbyn’s half-decent loss of 2017.

There were no lost deposits in the UK, and Labour’s vote share was down to single figures in only three Scottish seats.

But last month those worrying trends for Labour reasserted themselves.

In 2010, Labour won 1m votes in Scotland. Last month it was half that.

The party lost 12 deposits across the UK. Seven were in Scotland.

Its vote fell in all 59 Scottish seats, and went below 10% in 20 - single figure support in a third of the country.

The Tories also lost seats and vote share in Scotland. But in only two seats did they drop into single figures, and there were no lost deposits.

The SNP, which had an overall vote share of 45%, only fell below 30% in a single seat, Mr Murray’s, and even there they managed a respectable 25.4%.

Labour’s vote was squeezed left, right and centre. It lost deposits in seats won by the SNP, the Tories and LibDems.

It previous supporters abandoned it to vote tactically or just plain abandoned it.

In Dumfries & Galloway, which it won in 2010 with 45.9% of the vote, Labour was down to a humbling 9.2%.

In large parts of Scotland, Labour is disappearing from the electoral map.

A fallen giant, its carcass is being systematically stripped clean by other parties scavenging for votes.

So what to do? Scottish leader Richard Leonard has announced he is leading a review of the election, with the party told to expect some “hard lessons”.

Here’s a hard lesson for him. He should step aside from the review because he’s part of the problem.

In two colourless years as leader, he has lost both his MEPs, six of his MPs, and if he carries on as before, a good lot of his MSPs in 2021 as well.

He has just not connected with voters.

He never tried to step out of Mr Corbyn’s shadow. Worse, he seems more fired up by Labour party history than your tomorrow.

I’ve yet to hear his big vision for Scotland in the 21st century. But I’ve lost count of his reveries about Mary Barbour and the Glasgow rent strikes of 100 years ago, or eulogies for Keir Hardie and other sepia-tinted ghosts.

It’s a comfort blanket. There’s not a single vote in any of it. Not one.

The review will also cover the party’s “constitutional offer”. This boils down to whether it supports a second referendum on independence.

Mr Leonard was initially opposed to Indyref2, then caved in to Mr Corbyn and John McDonnell when they said Labour shouldn’t stand in the way of it.

But now party members may be asked whether to actively embrace Indyref2, as the outgoing general secretary of the STUC, Grahame Smith, has advised.

There has been some harking back to the 1990s, when Labour’s offer was a Scottish Parliament subject to a referendum. Back then the party was behind both the end and the means.

However for Scottish Labour to back Indyref2, but not back independence, would be a far harder trick to pull off.

Hence Mr Leonard floating the idea of a multiple-choice referendum, with independence and devo max or federalism against the status quo.

This might seem like a clever fudge.

The SNP and Greens would back independence in such a scenario, Labour and the LibDems more devolution, leaving the Tories as the party offering Scotland an empty plate.

But would voters really be bowled over by it? Ever greater devolution is already the direction of travel for Holyrood. The public expects it.

Presenting it as a great leap forward requiring yet another trip to the polls is unlikely to earn much thanks.

The setting up of Holyrood was a huge change. Independence obviously would be. But more powers?

Federalism would also require parallel devolution in England’s regions. Scottish Labour can’t guarantee that.

Kezia Dugdale tried it, touting a “new Act of Union” as a federal riposte to independence. It sank without trace.

Then there are the mechanics of a three-way vote, and the row over them.

A first-past-the-post system could, in theory, deliver independence if just over a third of voters backed it. Under the single transferable vote, it could win out with even fewer first preferences.

In the end, the need for a clear and authoritative result would make a re-run of 2014’s binary choice between independence or the Union inevitable.

Labour members shouldn’t be gulled into thinking there is a soft third-way option if Indyref2 ever comes to pass.

Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t want Devo Max on the ballot. A decade ago, it might have seemed akin to a win for SNP, but not after Brexit. A Devo Max Scotland would still be outside the EU.

In the panicky aftermath of defeat, a new constitutional offer might seem a key step in Scottish Labour’s recovery. But its problems are not so easily fixed.

Its fall owes more to socio-economic and demographic change eroding its base and a decade of inadequate leadership both sides of the border.

Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t cut it. Iain Gray and Johann Lamont couldn’t dent Alex Salmond, and Ms Dugdale and Mr Leonard have been no match for Nicola Sturgeon.

Scottish Labour’s best hope is an electable UK leader who can earn the party a second look from voters.

Adopting a new position on Indyref2 didn’t help Mr Corbyn and it won’t make a winner out of Mr Leonard.