There is a period, shortly after the halfway point between elections, when pollsters and party staffers start inventing meaningless demographics and geographies, from Workington Man to the Conservative Celtic Fringe, to make a name for themselves as the next political genius.

We are deep into the silly season for political strategy. Every swing seat in the UK seems to belong to a wall of one colour or another. In Scotland's case, an entire nation is reduced to the First Red Wall.

The Scottish Fabians – a Labour-aligned, membership-based think tank – recently published a report arguing that Labour could and should attempt to win 25 Scottish seats in the next General Election.

The Fabians have taken a step in the right strategic direction for Scottish Labour but failed to reach the right destination. The Fabians’ report admits that Labour cannot make a Scottish comeback without winning left-leaning, pro-independence voters back from the SNP. But it seems to suggest they can do so by reaching out “across the constitutional divide.”

This is wishful thinking, at best. It is a regression to Scottish Labour’s fundamental strategic conceit of the past decade: that they can convince voters that independence doesn’t matter.

This won’t happen. That genie was released in 2014 and will not be rebottled. However, it is also true that independence will not forever be the overwhelming driver of voter behaviour that it is today. I have previously written that, in the wake of failed campaigns for secession, secessionist parties can often lose momentum and the faith of their voter coalition.

At some point – perhaps in the next five to ten years – the importance of independence as a driver of voting behaviour could begin to wane. That will not mean it will cease to matter, nor that currently pro-independence voters – the same voters who the Fabians identified as having Labour as their second or third preference – will cease to support independence.

Labour will need to be a safe alternative for pro-independence, left-leaning SNP voters for it to capitalise. An overhaul of its constitutional politics is desperately needed if it wants to be in that position.

Labour’s relationship to Scottish nationalism is a historically varied one. In the early 20th century, it accommodated Scottish nationalism and the Home Rule movement as it built its electoral base. Later, it rejected the nationalism of parties like the SNP whilst still engaging in a form of Unionist nationalism – bending the resources of the British state to satisfy Scottish demands. In the late 20th century, as its working-class base began to erode, it embraced devolution and its earlier commitments to political autonomy within the Union.

By learning to handle territorial politics and by accommodating Scottish nationalism, Scottish Labour maintained its electoral stranglehold in Scotland as the 20th century came to a close.

Today’s Scottish Labour seems to have forgotten those lessons. In light of the SNP’s electoral successes, Scottish Labour seems to believe that accommodating nationalism within its political project is an act of appeasement which will be punished. Ignoring that whenever it has commanded the support of the Scottish electorate, accommodation of that electorate’s nationalist instincts has been vital.

They do not need to embrace independence, but the past decade has shifted the constitutional Overton Window far from where it had been. As long as Scottish Labour remains opposed to even a framework within which an independence referendum may be held, it is not a safe alternative for the kinds of voters it needs to win back from the SNP.

Not all nationalism is secessionist. Look to the Basque Country, Flanders, or dozens of other national minorities globally. Nationalism aimed at political autonomy within a union is as common as nationalism aimed at secession.

Nor is nationalism incompatible with labour politics or socialism. Scottish Labour’s history is sufficient evidence of this, as is the success of Welsh Labour.

Scottish Labour’s efforts to compete with the Conservatives have failed, leaving the party in a poor position from which to capitalise if the salience of independence begins to wane.

It needs radical alternatives to independence. Not consultations or conventions, but hard policies couched in language the SNP are far more comfortable with – protecting Scotland’s interests against a profoundly unpopular set of Westminster institutions.

Committing to federalise the United Kingdom with a powerful and constitutionally guaranteed Scottish Parliament, and mechanisms under which a future independence referendum might be held, would place Scottish Labour squarely where it needs to be to win back lost left-leaning, pro-independence voters – if not in 2024, then by the next Scottish elections.

The Fabians are right that Scottish Labour has the space to make a comeback by competing with the SNP. They are woefully equipped to take advantage. To win again, they must re-occupy the centre-ground of Scottish constitutional politics – a little nationalism may go a long way.

Mark McGeoghegan is a postgraduate researcher in politics and international relations at Glasgow University.

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