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Caught in a trap
VINCE MILLS looks at how UK Labour’s backpedalling on policy has left Scottish Labour with nothing to offer its own electorate
POURING FROM AN EMPTY CUP: Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar at The University of Glasgow calling for a new political direction in Scotland

IT MUST have felt like a nightmare for Anas Sarwar last Sunday morning. The very week that the Scottish Labour Party is to meet and in effect launch its bid for power in the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, the Sunday Times published a Norstat poll that would give Scottish Labour its worst result in the forthcoming elections since the inception of the Scottish parliament in 1999.  

According to the poll, only 18 per cent of the Scottish electorate said they would vote for Labour, giving them 18 seats, four fewer than they currently have.

By contrast the SNP would win 55 seats, and the Greens 10, giving a narrow pro-independence majority of one. The good news is the Tories would lose 13 of their 31 MSPs, giving them, like Labour, 18 seats.

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