IN NOVEMBER 1922 thousands gathered to cheer off the new group of Glasgow Labour MPs (they were all members of the ILP) as they took the train to London from St Enoch’s railway station.

James Maxton, the newly elected MP for Bridgeton, famously told the crowd that “they would see the atmosphere of the Clyde getting the better of the House of Commons.” He was referring to the culture of the Red Clydeside which emerged during the first world war. It had fostered industrial unrest, rent strikes and revolutionary figures like John Maclean. 

There was no such expectation or excitement surrounding the departure of the 35 new and two returning Scottish Labour MPs heading to London this July. To begin with, only one had been identified — by The Times, no less — as a likely recruit for the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs: Brian Leishman.

His presence is remarkable given that all potential candidates had been subjected to a selection process based on the commercial production of bread: it was designed to extract any flavour or roughage and in favour of the unchallenging blandness of a Scottish plain loaf.

And hardly had the newbies got their bags unpacked in their overpriced, undersized London gaffs, when the SNP launched its first attempt at making them toast.

The SNP’s amendment to the King’s Speech which would have removed the two-child benefit cap was as predictable as it was cynical. It was cynical because the SNP government in Scotland could, under existing powers, eliminate the cap, as Gordon Munro has argued in this paper. 

Low-income families are paid up to £3,455 per year as part of their universal credit payment, for each of the first two children they have. Legislation brought in by the Tories in 2017 limits this extra cash to the first two children in the family only — the two-child cap. This policy is indeed reserved to Westminster, so it is the case that the Scottish government does not have the ability to scrap it completely. 

However, under powers devolved in 2016 which gave Scotland the power to top up benefits (including universal credit) “discretionary top-up payments” can now be made to people in Scotland who are entitled to UK-wide benefits.

The SNP does not deny this. Instead, it argues that the Scottish government already spends money “mitigating” what, until recently, were Conservative policies like the bedroom tax.

It argues that money spent in this way means reducing spending on other services in Scotland — rejecting the STUC proposals to raise more income through, for example, wealth taxes. 

Despite this, the defeated and depleted SNP group in Westminster saw an opportunity to put the new Scottish Labour MPs on the spot. After all, had not the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called the cap “heinous” and promised to push Prime Minister Keir Starmer to scrap it?

And had not Michael Shanks, the new parliamentary undersecretary of state (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) promised to campaign against it, in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, which he won? 

And had not Kirsty McNeil, the new Labour MP for Midlothian, and the new parliamentary undersecretary of state, in the Office of Secretary of State for Scotland, made the same commitment while in her previous role as executive director of policy, advocacy and campaigns at Save the Children? 

That is the organisation which under McNeil’s leadership was arguing: “Not only is scrapping the two-child limit the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty but it would lift 250,000 children out of poverty — something we should want to strive for as a society. 

“We urge the Labour Party to make scrapping the two-child limit one of their first priorities if they were to get into government, to reduce child poverty, and improve the lives of over a million children, and their families.”

It is strange how even the lowest step on the stairway to high office can induce the severest political amnesia, or perhaps we should just call it as it is, hypocrisy. Because in the event 36 Scottish Labour MPs voted against the SNP amendment to the King’s speech while Katrina Murray did not record a vote.

The new cohort of Scottish Labour MPs would do well to remember that Scottish Labour has been here before. In 1987 it won 50 out of 72 Westminster seats and in 1997, as part of the New Labour era, it managed 56 out of 72 seats. Note the similarity: these victories were won on a minority of the vote (42.4 per cent 1987; 45.6 per cent 1997, 35.3 per cent 2024) and at a time when eliminating the Tories was an absolute priority. 

The Scottish Labour MPs have emerged from this first engagement with little to show for it. There was no distinctive Scottish Labour position and certainly no public or private opposition by them, to a deeply unpopular policy in Scotland, as far as can be discerned.

The SNP will now be dusting down the allegations of “branch office” and “fearty fifty” as the SNP described the 50 MPs of the 1987 election even though Labour was in opposition. If the new group of Scottish MPs is to play a part in building a better Scotland, they will have to use their collective strength to influence the direction of Starmer’s government, including insisting on more powers for the Scottish Parliament, if they are ever to see crowds of Scots gathering to send them to London in the hope of better days.