If Labour and SNP won't push for change, populists will

The Herald Scotland

5 days ago

What mainstream parties lack is the bite. The impetus to be unashamedly radical with the powers of the parliament to introduce wealth taxes on income, property and assets.
But there's some new players in the game. 'New' is perhaps stretching it a bit given Jeremy Corbyn is hardly a fresh face to political proceedings. But his new party may be. And in the other corner, we have the Reform steam train pulling into town.
Announced a few weeks ago by former Labour MP Zarah Sultana, the ex-Labour leader and Ms Sultana look set to lead a new left leaning political party.
We have few details, if any, on the policy platform this party will stand on. We don't even have a name. But that's hardly been a barrier when, according to YouGov, 18% of Britons would consider voting for them already and other polls put them neck and neck with Labour at a UK level.
Will voters flock to a new party led by Jeremy Corbyn? (Image: PA) That tells us two things that should send alarm bells ringing in Labour HQ. Firstly, yes, polls are fickle and being the party of government is never a popularity contest but if you're neck and neck with a party of no-name and the haunting spectre of your ex-leader is looming large over you, you've got some serious reflecting to do.
Secondly, in the process of that reflection, the penny may finally drop that appeasing the right-wing of the electorate isn't where electoral salvation will be found. Becoming a pale imitation of the Tories or Reform, with the Prime Minister himself cosplaying their patter with his 'island of strangers' immigration speech – words he has since admitted regret over – won't turn his ship around.
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It's been abundantly clear that working people are searching for a radical solution to their ills. Look at the rallies that we saw the length and breadth of the country during the cost-of-living crisis demanding an urgent solution to sky-high bills, increasing inflation and rising mortgage payments.
The Enough is Enough movement lit a fire in folks' bellies. The momentum was there. The people turned out. Rallies in every city and town, from village hall to community centre, clearly looked for an alternative to what is being served by mainstream politicians in Westminster and in Holyrood. It was a tremendous, heartening collective of energised working class people looking for an alternative, but rallies alone can't maintain the momentum, and those who turned out in their thousands drifted back to either voting for one of the mainstream or not voting at all.
Perhaps this new project can be different. Time will tell. But this could have implications as we hurtle towards the Scottish Parliament elections next year.
Scottish Labour and the SNP now find themselves at a crossroads. They can either step forward with a bold, progressive vision that speaks to working people, or retreat into the familiar comfort of caution.
If they choose the latter, they risk not only losing ground to Reform UK on the right but potentially ceding space on the left to a new political force that may well speak the language of trade unionists, campaigners and working-class communities more vociferously than they do.
For Anas Sarwar, if he wishes to be the next First Minister and stave off the threat of Reform and a potential challenge from a new left project then he must act as the workers' champion. [[Scottish Labour]] must show that it is ready not just to manage [[Holyrood]] but to lead in the interests of Scotland's working-class. That it will build a Scotland where workers' rights are protected – through the devolution of employment law; where unions are seen as partners in progress, not problems to be sidelined; and where public services are fully funded and [[pub]]licly owned.
Is it time for John Swinney to reflect on the SNP's current policies? (Image: Gordon Terris) For John Swinney, if he wants to be seen as more than a First Minister that steadied the ship, then he must be bolder. In an era of low-growth and stagnant living standards it isn't enough to be all things to all sides. You can't bring down energy bills while giving unconditional support to the private companies that run our energy system. You can't bring down rents while exempting developers from rent controls; and you can't build first-class [[pub]]lic services while cutting more than 12,000 [[pub]]lic sector workers.
It's about offering hope. Hope means confronting inequality. It means redistributing wealth. It means building homes, raising wages, investing in care and green unionised jobs and giving people real power over their lives and communities. It means collective bargaining, workplace democracy and an end to exploitative employment.
If Labour and the SNP won't lead that charge, then others will. We're already bearing witness to it. Reform has stolen some of the clothes of the left. Farage's bombastic promises on re-opening mining pits and nationalising steelworks, whilst pledging to reinvigorate high streets and bring jobs into local communities that have been left behind by deindustrialisation, is striking a chord with folk who, otherwise, were disposed to voting for left-leaning parties.
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Now, of course, this is the quintessential privately educated, super-rich career politician trying to speak the language of working people. But understandably when someone who isn't Labour, Tory or the SNP promises the world to folk who are feeling disenfranchised or sick of politicians not delivering change, people will gravitate.
The message is therefore simple: to those drafting Scottish Labour's and SNP's 2026 manifesto: you are running out of time to show you're serious. You can't defeat the far-right by chasing their rhetoric. Nor can you dismiss demands from the left as irrelevant. The only path forward is to offer a vision worth voting for: a Scotland of fairness, dignity and collective strength.
Roz Foyer is the general secretary of the STUC