Scottish Labour leadership: what does the SNP want to happen?

The first winter storms arrived in Scotland over the weekend. Downpours, gales, landslips, the usual curtain-raisers for the festive season. But for the SNP, it was a time to relax, draw up a deck chair and savour the view. And what a gloriously sunny, heart-warming view it was for Alex Salmond and First minister-elect Nicola Sturgeon.

The word "crisis" is often over-used in politics. But after Johann Lamont’s resignation as leader on Friday, it is merely an opening bid to describe the current state of the Scottish Labour Party.

Her bitter exit after three underwhelming years laid bare a party in paralysis—a nightmarish club in which internal feuding and voter neglect have replaced policy ideas and electoral appeal.

Since devolution, voters have come to think of Scottish politics—and Scottish politicians—in terms of Holyrood, not Westminster. Labour’s Scottish MPs, who after all still vote on the budget, welfare and going to war, resent being eclipsed by what they see as a subordinate parliament of second-raters. Labour MSPs, meanwhile, want more respect and power, and are frustrated by Westminster denying them greater autonomy. The result has been years of cross-border sniping and wasteful infighting.

And that was before the referendum. Already traumatised by losing to the SNP in 2007 and 2011, the Scottish Labour Party is now frozen with terror at the loss of support it suffered on September 18, when around a third of its voters backed separation, and Dundee, Glasgow, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire recorded majority votes for Yes. Many Labour voters saw the party as having betrayed its principles and preferred the SNP’s left-wing rhetoric on social justice.

It means Scottish Labour is now a party without a heartland. Meanwhile the SNP has tripled in size and looks set to make gains in May’s general election and win a third term in the 2016 Scottish election. MPs and MSPs naturally disagree over who is to blame and what to do next. Labour’s submission to the Smith Commission on greater devolution, for instance, was the most cautious of the three from the Unionist parties because MPs watered down its tax plans.

It’s a deep-rooted, multi-faceted mess for Labour with no obvious fix.

From the SNP’s perspective, it’s hard to identify a credible worst-case scenario in which Labour rediscovers its mojo and regains power in 18 months’ time. That is too fanciful right now.

Instead, the SNP can only pinch themselves in disbelief as Scottish Labour wrestles between bad and very bad options.

The very bad route is a leadership contest which exacerbates the feud between Westminster and Holyrood, and between the left and right of the party, with no unity candidate.

Happily for Salmond and Sturgeon, this looks like the scenario Scottish Labour are heading for, with the Blairite MP Jim Murphy likely pitted against a left-wing MSP, probably Neil Findlay, although Sarah Boyack is also being touted today.

Murphy, a former Scottish Secretary and shadow international development secretary, is the “big beast” the SNP would most fear. He has talent, charm, ruthless ambition and is already well-known to the public. He would be the first Scottish Labour leader since Wendy Alexander took over in 2007 one could imagine being First Minister. Neither Lamont or her predecessor, Iain Gray, had the hunger for the role or the personality to fill it, but Murphy has both. He would attract talented people into his team, and would be a worthy opponent for Sturgeon.

What better then, for the SNP, to have Murphy damaged in a contest? Because for all the hype around him, he is no shoo-in. When Ed Miliband became UK Labour leader he replaced the electoral college system which elected him with one-member one-vote, but in Scotland, Lamont kept it. So Murphy faces a three-headed electorate for the leadership, with one third of college votes going to the membership, one third to Scottish MPs, MSPs and MEPs, and one third to trade unions and other affiliated societies.

The members, who voted for Lamont’s bland opponent Ken Macintosh in 2011, shouldn’t be a problem for Murphy, whose prescient “100 towns in 100 days” tour during the referendum let him schmooze Labour activists round the country. But the parliamentarians are more evenly divided, and the unions are downright hostile towards Murphy, who they see as a right-winger out of step with Scotland’s leftward journey in the referendum. Many union leaders would happily back Findlay, a former brickie and a member of the Campaign for Socialism, as the “Stop Murphy” candidate.

The odds still favour Murphy, but it would not be a straightforward or pretty fight.

A less welcome scenario for the SNP would be for Murphy to become leader uncontested (Sturgeon could hardly complain about a coronation), and then get to work attacking the SNP’s record. A lot of problems, particularly in the NHS, were put on the backburner during the referendum, and a more alert and aggressive Labour opposition could damage the Nationalists' reputation for competence.

But in the end, the SNP would still make hay with the splits in Labour’s ranks, and the fact it had to turn to London to send in the cavalry. Assuming he won, Murphy would inherit a divided party which would stay divided, its MSPs still clashing with its MPs, its left and right wings still snarling, its gung-ho and more cautious devolution factions still arguing.

Scottish Labour have even supplied the Nationalists with some ready-made attack lines. “If we have an MP as leader, we will turn a crisis into a catastrophe,” said MSP Malcolm Chisholm at the weekend. “If we get a London-based careerist as Scottish leader, we will be finished,” added the left-wing MSP, and deputy presiding officer, Elaine Smith yesterday.

The SNP still has its problems of course. It may yet suffer a slow-motion split over when to call the next referendum. But for now, the view from the Nationalist side remains just gorgeous.