More analysis of the Dundee by-elections

Just a quick note to let you know I've written a short analysis piece for The National about the SNP's victories in yesterday's two Dundee by-elections - you can read it HERE.

Dundee DEVASTATION for Sarwar as SNP humiliate Labour TWICE in by-election double-header - they don't call it Bash Street for nothing

Strathmartine by-election result, first preferences (3rd October 2024):

SNP 35.0% (-10.3)

Liberal Democrats 26.9% (+8.2)

Labour 26.9% (+4.0)

Conservatives 4.2% (-1.7)

Greens 3.6% (+0.2)

TUSC 3.4% (+2.7)

Lochee by-election result, first preferences (3rd October 2024):

SNP 37.3% (-5.9)

Labour 35.6% (-0.2)

Conservatives 6.8% (-1.6)

Alba 5.5% (+2.4)

Greens 5.5% (+1.3)

Liberal Democrats 4.8% (+1.7)

Workers Party of Britain 4.4% (n/a)

Local by-elections are often mainly about symbolism and momentum, but these two really did matter because the SNP's overall majority on Dundee City Council was at stake - and has survived.  In fact Lochee is technically a gain from Labour, although the SNP were defending a lead in both wards from last time around.  The SNP's 1.7% lead on first preferences in Lochee was tight enough that Labour could potentially have won with transfers from other unionist parties - the combined vote for the Tories, the Lib Dems and the Workers Party exceeded the combined vote for the Greens and Alba.  So it's intriguing that it didn't happen, and it'll be interesting to find out why from the detailed numbers.

Can the SNP still be considered to have had good results even though their vote fell?  Yes.  The percentage changes are measured from the 2022 local elections, when the SNP's national lead over Labour in the popular vote was 12.3%.  The average swing from SNP to Labour in the two by-elections was 5%, which would leave the SNP about two points ahead nationally.  That's not too shabby only a few weeks after finishing five points behind Labour at the general election.  In practice it's probably even better than it appears, because the SNP's vote share in local elections is often on the low side compared to other elections.

For the second week in a row, Alba have had an OK-ish result in a by-election, although I suspect that's mainly about improved organisation and a more effective get-out-the-vote effort rather than any increase in Alba's underlying national support, which probably remains at roughly the very familiar 2% level.  Indeed, there's a potential danger in getting half-decent results in low-turnout local by-elections, because Alex Salmond was very quick last week to suggest that Alba's 6% showing in Perth meant that they were on 6% across Scotland and were therefore on course for list seats.  That's plainly not the case, but many Alba members are all too hungry to believe in that kind of statement.  If the party effectively hypnotises itself into thinking a breakthrough is just around the corner, the deep-seated problems that in practice will prevent Alba from winning any list seats at all may not be tackled or resolved.

And it can't go without note that Lochee is yet another election in which the Workers Party of Britain, for which Craig Murray stood at the general election, put up a candidate directly against the Alba Party, of which to the best of my knowledge Craig Murray is also still a member.  Let me reiterate yet again that this is not a jibe against Craig personally, and in fact I have the highest admiration for both his politics and his personal courage.  The point is about Alba itself.  Craig has driven a coach and horses through the most important commandment in the Alba rule-book by standing for a party in direct competition with Alba.  And yet somehow it's as if that never happened - Craig's membership remains untouched and no disciplinary action has been taken against him.  By contrast, my own Alba membership is currently arbitrarily suspended on the whim of one man (Chris McEleny, the non-elected General Secretary), which is preventing me from exercising my right as a paid-up party member to stand in internal elections.  Later this month, I will face a so-called "disciplinary" hearing in which I could be expelled from the party altogether for essentially two things - a) using my elected position on an internal Alba working group to push for democratisation of the party's internal structures in a way that the leadership apparently has no intention of tolerating, and b) making certain limited criticisms of the leadership in posts on this blog.  I am far from being the first member to face this kind of treatment - other expulsions and lengthy suspensions have already occurred.

The double-standard, and the difference of treatment for the favoured and the unfavoured, is blatant.  It's overwhelming proof of a disciplinary machinery that is not functioning as advertised, but is instead being shamelessly abused as a tool to suppress dissent and deter the free expression of views within the party.  I will be taking a stand at the disciplinary hearing and at the likely subsequent appeal hearing, because frankly Scotland has no need of a carbon-copy of the authoritarian party that expelled Grouse Beater for no good reason, that suspended Neale Hanvey for no good reason, and that bullied Denise Findlay into a public resignation for no good reason.  Alba needs to be a lot, lot better than that, otherwise what is the point of it being there?

Britain's "Little Empire of Leftovers" is gradually breaking up - and it would be naive of unionists to think that Scotland is immune to the process

I suspect that when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the UK assumed that its remaining "Little Empire of Leftovers" would be its to keep in perpetuity, because the territories that were left had either fiercely pro-British populations (as in the case of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar), or were too geographically remote for other countries to plausibly stake a claim on them and too small to be plausible contenders for full independence (as in the case of Pitcairn).  Well, the handing over of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, albeit with all the imperfections of a 99-year lease back to the UK and US of Diego Garcia, is a massive jolt to that complacency, because the UK has been forced to this point by a brilliant diplomatic campaign by the government of Mauritius.  It's entirely possible to see how that could be a model for picking off some of the other UK overseas dependencies.

Next in line is surely Cyprus, which is the most comparable to the Chagos situation, because the UK simply decided to confiscate 4% of Cypriot territory as a condition for the country becoming independent.  The military bases on that retained territory have seemingly been used recently to assist Israel in its genocidal campaign in Gaza.  The precedent of Diego Garcia surely means that those bases must revert to Cypriot sovereignty and any continued UK military presence there would only be acceptable as the result of an agreed settlement.

I've never taken the view that Spain has a legitimate claim on Gibraltar or that Argentina has a legitimate claim on the Falklands.  Both territories have stable populations which have exactly the same right to self-determination as the people of Scotland, and they have exercised that right by decisively rejecting Spanish and Argentinian rule.  But I do think in time those populations, probably starting with Gibraltar, may come to see the value of essentially keeping their current system but changing the title deeds, ie. becoming nominally independent but entering into a free association agreement with the UK to allow London to continue controlling their foreign affairs and defence.  That would demonstrate to the world that decolonisation has occurred and make them masters of their own house.  In the case of Gibraltar it would require Spanish cooperation to circumvent the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht, but one day there might be a Spanish government with the foresight to realise that decolonisation of Gibraltar is actually in Spanish interests.

In the case of the small Caribbean dependencies, the increasing development of pan-Caribbean governance structures may eventually provide the architecture that would make it viable to shake off the London link.

Meanwhile, there are also broader "Little Empires", covering the independent states where King Charles is still monarch, or where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council still has jurisdiction as the final court of appeal.  Both of those empires are continuing to contract, with Barbados recently becoming a republic, and Saint Lucia becoming the latest country to abolish Privy Council jurisdiction last year.  It's surely only a matter of time before Australia and Jamaica adopt home-grown heads of state, which will probably lead to others following their example.

The tide of history is only moving in one direction, and it would be naive of unionists to think Scotland is immune to it. I remember in my childhood hearing Alan Whicker talk about the upcoming Hong Kong handover.  He said "when the sun sets on the British Empire, it'll set over Kowloon Harbour".  But actually when it really sets, it may be over the cliffs of St Kilda.

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Who's an unpopular boy, then? It's all gone wrong for Anas Sarwar, says shock Ipsos poll

Before I forget about it, let's take a quick look at the "Ipsos Scotland Political Pulse" poll that was published last week, because it contains yet more positive straws in the wind suggesting the SNP may now have a good chance of winning in 2026 - or at least "winning" if that is defined as remaining the largest single party and possibly remaining in power without an overall pro-independence majority.  For the uninitiated, the Political Pulse is very different from the regular Ipsos polls for STV, because it's conducted via online polling panel rather than by telephone, and there are no outright voting intention questions.  However it does contain personal ratings for leading politicians, and we know those are often more predictive of election results than standard voting intention questions anyway.

Net ratings of leading politicians (Ipsos, 18th September 2024):

Kate Forbes (SNP): -11

John Swinney (SNP): -11

Anas Sarwar (Labour): -16

Keir Starmer (Labour): -23

Rachel Reeves (Labour): -27

Douglas Ross (Conservatives): -47

Rishi Sunak (Conservatives): -53

OK, these numbers don't exactly demonstrate enthusiasm for the SNP, but you only have to defeat what's put up against you, and both John Swinney and Kate Forbes appear to be considerably less disliked now than any of Labour's top team.  And if you're a bit underwhelmed by the depth of Starmer's unpopularity at -23, remember the fieldwork is already a couple of weeks old and he's almost certainly slipped further since then.  

Other polls asking about leadership in the alternative way, ie. a head-to-head question about who would make the best First Minister, have almost always shown the SNP leader ahead in recent times, regardless of whether that person was Humza Yousaf or John Swinney.  So whichever way you look at it, the question of leadership does still seem to give the SNP a clear edge, even after all their travails and even after losing a phenomenon such as Nicola Sturgeon.

This will probably be the last poll in which Douglas Ross is rated, so it's nice to see him getting such a lovely send-off.  (Or should that say sending-off?)

Just as crucial is that Labour as a whole no longer have a superior rating to the SNP as a whole.  It's essentially level-pegging now with the SNP on -12 and Labour on -13. Respondents also have slightly less confidence in the Labour government's plans for the economy (-37) than they do in the SNP government's plans (-33).

And although the SNP government is perceived as having performed poorly on every policy area that is asked about, the perception of respondents is that Labour would do even worse - with the sole exception of education, where there's a tie between those who think Labour would do better than the SNP and those who think they would do worse.

In all honesty, I think anyone looking at these numbers totally objectively, say an observer from a foreign land, would come to the conclusion that the most likely outcome of the 2026 election is a modest SNP win.  But of course there's still a lot of water to pass under the bridge.

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In Liz We Trussed - but could Jenrick be Just The Ticket?

When Boris Johnson resigned just over two years ago, it seemed like a setback for the independence cause, because he was regarded as the best recruiting sergeant we could ever have.  But I and others believed that there was one remaining hope.  In Liz We Trussed.  If Truss rather than Sunak won, there would be a potential Thatcher-like figure in Number 10 who would be electable in England but loathed in Scotland, which might just be the decisive factor in pushing Scotland towards independence - just as Thatcher herself had been decisive in transforming the slender pro-devolution majority of 1979 into what John Smith famously called "the settled will" of the early-to-mid 90s.

Of course what none of us anticipated, and in fairness there was no way we could have anticipated it, was that Truss would literally prove to be the most hapless Prime Minister in British history, would bring the economy to the brink of collapse within a month-and-a-half, and would single-handedly make a Labour government in 2024 a nailed-on certainty, thus allowing Scottish Labour to ride the momentum and narrowly defeat the SNP.  In retrospect, the Truss victory in the 2022 leadership election was not only bad for the SNP and the wider independence cause, but worse than we could ever have imagined.

So it's obviously dangerous to be too confident in any assumptions we make about knock-on effects from the current Tory leadership vote. The opposite of what seems obvious could easily prove to be true. But for the fun of it, let's have a go anyway.

For reasons that are probably self-evident to regular readers, I haven't been paying as much attention to the vote as I normally would, and I've been a bit puzzled as to why Robert Jenrick has emerged as a strong favourite with the bookies.  I know he's topped the MPs' ballots, but that shouldn't really matter if Kemi Badenoch is the darling of the membership in the way we were told until recently.  But if the bookies are right and Jenrick wins, the Tories are going to move into space associated with the far right.  I had wondered if some of his extremist rhetoric was designed to win the vote and he would tack more to the centre thereafter, but I watched his video about the ECHR earlier today, and he hasn't left himself any wiggle-room at all.  It seems clear he would turn the Tories into a "leave the ECHR, no ifs, no buts" party.

Now, that only matters if he's capable of winning a general election.  My verdict on Jenrick's video is that he has that kind of generic Tory 'slimy toad' speaking style that makes my flesh crawl, but then I'm not really his target audience.  He does have fluency, he does have confidence.  He could potentially win back a lot of voters from Reform without necessarily alienating the voters who stuck with Sunak in July, and that's all he'd really need to do unless Labour can get back to the sort of popularity they haven't had since 2017 when they took 40% of the vote under Jeremy Corbyn.  At the moment that's hard to imagine.

It's just conceivable, then, that Jenrick could become Prime Minister in 2028 or 2029 and that Britain really could leave the ECHR.  What would be the reaction of moderate, pro-European No voters in Scotland?  They reluctantly reconciled themselves to Brexit, but would they really be so sanguine about Brexit II: This Time It's The Kitchen Sink?  It would be an extraordinary opportunity for the independence movement, essentially an unexpected second chance for us to take advantage of the golden opportunity we somehow managed to squander in 2016-19.  But the SNP would need to have the right leadership and strategy in place.

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