Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander has shared his view on why Scottish Labour recorded its worst ever Holyrood election result
Scottish Labour’s co-chair of its doomed Holyrood election campaign admitted the party “misjudged” how popular the SNP would be with voters despite its record in government.
Douglas Alexander, the UK Scottish Secretary, co-chaired the campaign to make Anas Sarwar first minister alongside deputy leader Jackie Baillie.
But the campaign was a disaster with Scottish Labour recording its worst ever Holyrood election result.
Speaking at a recording of Matt Forde’s Political Party podcast at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Mr Alexander was asked why Labour has been unable to break through at Holyrood.
Mr Alexander admitted that Scottish Labour has misjudged how popular John Swinney’s party would be despite questions raised over the SNP’s record in government, and blamed the Holyrood arithmetic and voting system for being a potential barrier to his party winning power.
“You have about 30 per cent of the Scottish population who now see voting SNP as both a habit and an identity”, Mr Alexander said.
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“It is about who they are more than what the SNP do.”
He added: “One of the things I think we misjudged in the May elections was assuming that as of the really poor government outcomes the SNP has had over recent years, that would have a dampening effect on their backing.
“The reality is, and you need to have the humility if you’re opposing them to understand the Holyrood system if you’ve got 30 per cent of the population and that natural anti-SNP majority.”
Meanwhile, the two candidates vying to replace Anas Sarwar have denied Scottish Labour no longer stands up for LGBTQ rights after the frontrunner claimed he had defied the party whip and “refused” to back the SNP’s gender reforms.
Michael Marra and Joe Fagan, the two candidates in the running to become the next Scottish Labour leader, told a hustings event in Edinburgh that under their leadership, the party would no longer backing gender self-ID, but denied it has abandoned the LGBTQ community.
The party supported the Scottish administration’s gender recognition reforms (GRR) in 2022 and whipped its MSPs to back the proposals. It were overwhelmingly backed by Holyrood before being blocked by the UK government.
Mr Marra, who did not turn up to the crunch Holyrood vote on the legislation, told the event that he “refused” to backing the SNP’s gender reforms – despite the fact he supported the aims at the first Holyrood vote.
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