IN EARLY July the newly elected Scottish Labour MPs started arriving in Westminster just a day or two after the general election.

The 34 first-time elected MPs were joining Douglas Alexander who, after nine years’ absence, found himself back in a front-bench position, along with Michael Shanks, an MP for less a year, who now had a post in the Department of Energy.

Ian Murray, unsurprisingly, had been quickly confirmed as the Secretary of State for Scotland. These three excepted, there were no old hands to teach the new MPs the ropes and guide them through the challenges of being a Scottish MP in the UK Parliament. 

Over the following days they attended any number of induction sessions with security staff, IT support, facilities, clerks in the Bill Office, and almost certainly a session with the government whips’ office. My guess is that the Labour chief whip would have been sure to clarify that in Westminster there was only one boss, and that was him. 

Twenty days after the general election, and a week after the King’s Speech, Labour MPs were faced with their first vote. There is no separate Scottish whip who could help mediate what the Scottish leader Anas Sarwar said he wanted, from a Scottish perspective, and the Westminster whips. 

Sarwar was quoted in the papers on July 10 saying that the Tory two-child benefit cap was “wrong” and needed to be scrapped by Keir Starmer’s government. Jackie Baillie, the Scottish Labour Party’s depute leader, had also gone on record: “Scottish Labour is very clear, we remain opposed to the two-child benefit cap and I will do everything in my power to encourage my party to do exactly that.”

Now, there are many reasonable arguments about why a newly elected MP would not want to break the whip just days into the job. For a Scottish Labour MP that would include the fact that the amendment had come from the SNP. But if it had been a back-bench Labour MP moving the same amendment, would they have voted differently? Probably not. All the Scottish MPs voted against the amendment except Katrina Murray, who didn’t vote.

This raises the question about whether being a Scottish Labour MP carries any commitment to the Scottish Labour Party which selected them to be Scottish Labour candidates. Or is it the case that once a Scottish MP walks through the portals of Westminster, they are just another Labour MP whose vote is at the command of the British Labour chief whip?

Not that many years ago, the question of who runs the Scottish Labour Party was a burning issue. After the SNP’s resounding victory in May 2011, Labour had to deal with an identity crisis. 

Under Ed Miliband, then leader of the British Labour Party, a review was set up with the aim of revitalising the Scottish Party. It was headed by Jim Murphy MP and Sarah Boyack MSP. Its most significant proposals were “the full devolution of the Scottish Labour Party” and the creation of a “Scottish Labour Party leader.” 

This made Johann Lamont the first leader of the Scottish Labour Party. That is, she was not just the leader of MSPs in the Scottish Parliament, but she was elected as the leader of the devolved Scottish Labour Party.

After a great fanfare welcoming the changes, things didn’t go so well. Lamont hit the headlines when she resigned in 2014, claiming that senior figures within the British Labour Party had undermined her attempts to reform the Scottish party, and treated it “like a branch office of London.”

But, nevertheless, just a year later at its conference in autumn 2015, Scottish Labour took a decisive step to show its independence in policy-making by passing a motion calling for the Trident missile system not to be renewed.

It was supported by an overwhelming majority of party members and with the unions voting 70 per cent in favour of the motion. The one Scottish MP, Ian Murray, argued that the party could have different policies on renewing Trident north and south of the border. In 2016 Labour MPs were given a free vote on the Tory plans for the renewal with 47 voting against — among them Ian Murray.

So where do we stand now? Instead of just one MP there are 37. Their first test on whether they are representing the Scottish Labour Party came early in most of their parliamentary careers, but there will be others.

Many of the new crop may have believed the whispers that the two-child cap was likely to be repealed within a few weeks. They should perhaps remember that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the very same shadow work and pensions secretary who, in 2011, said that Labour would be tougher than the Tories when it came to slashing the benefits bill. Yes, that was Rachel Reeves.

It is important that the Scottish Labour Party, once it has got over the justifiable celebrations of returning so many MPs, has a serious think about how it retains them in the future. Members can’t relax and naively believe that Labour has been restored to its rightful place as the leading party of Scotland. The shock of 2015 must surely remind them that what has been given can just as easily be taken away.

It is true that the SNP appears to be sinking in the political mire, both as a party and as a government. There isn’t the space here to list the disastrous history of the SNP in the past 16 months since Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation. The financial crisis in the party and the police investigation have been well covered. The resignation of Humza Yousaf, just barely over a year in office, exaggerated these difficulties. The loss of seats at the UK general election intensified the political grief. 

And now the Scottish government’s Finance Secretary, Shona Robison, has declared an economic crisis announcing that “emergency spending controls will now be introduced with immediate effect.” 

Just a year ago a new fiscal framework was agreed between the UK Treasury and the Scottish government. In response to it, Robison said: “This is a finely balanced agreement that gives us some extra flexibility to deal with unexpected shocks, against a background of continuing widespread concern about the sustainability of UK public finances.” 

Instead of sitting back with this small success, the SNP should have long ago joined the demands for greater powers for the Scottish Parliament and importantly much greater borrowing powers as well as implementing the STUC proposals for increased income through fairer taxation. Instead, it put creating the conditions to bolster independence in the future before the problems of today.

Labour leaders may sit back smugly and think it is all dropping into their laps, but complacency has caught them out before and this time the political consequences may be much worse. In less than two years’ time there will be Scottish parliamentary election. If Labour in Westminster only offers austerity mark 2, without a hint or resistance by the Scottish Labour MPs, even a wounded SNP may look like a better option, or worse still, the siren voices of the ultra-right. 

Pauline Bryan is a Labour peer and convener of Red Paper Collective.