ELECTION REPORTS, Sunday November 3

Scottish Labour ‘fears wipeout’ in UK election

Insiders say six of seven seats could go, as moderates rail against Jeremy Corbyn over his stance on second independence vote

Leonard and Corbyn.jpg 2

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard with Jeremy Corbyn.

By John Boothman

November 3 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

Labour faces near obliteration at the polls in Scotland, according to party insiders, who fear it could lose all but one of its seven seats north of the border.

With six weeks until the general election on December 12, one senior Labour figure admitted the party is poised to lose its fragile grip on five seats.

These include Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Glasgow North East, and Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath — seats that Labour won with majorities of fewer than 300 votes at the 2017 election.

In Midlothian, the majority was less than 1,000, and in Coatbridge and Chryston, it was a little over 1,500.

Party activists are being encouraged by leading moderates to concentrate efforts in the Edinburgh South and East Lothian constituencies, to maximise the chances of centrist MPs Ian Murray and Martin Whitfield retaining their seats.

Whitfield’s East Lothian seat is a three-way marginal with a majority of 3,000 votes and faces a strong challenge from the SNP’s Kenny MacAskill, the former justice minister, who played a key role in the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi.

“The big fear is that we are reduced to where we were in 2015, with one MP — Ian Murray in Edinburgh South — holding the fort,” said a Labour source. “In that case we would almost certainly be fourth in terms of seats behind the SNP, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.”

Scottish Labour moderates are seething over what they regard as a big betrayal of their anti-independence credentials, raising fears they could lose all seven Scottish seats in the election.

Last week Andy McDonald, a Labour frontbencher, confirmed that Jeremy Corbyn “will not stand in the way” of a second independence referendum.

The remark prompted former Labour candidate and Better Together architect Blair McDougall to describe his comments as idiotic.

“As well as being wrong, Labour’s position on facilitating a referendum on the break-up of the UK is terrible political strategy,” said McDougall.

On Friday, Corbyn said a referendum was “not necessary or desirable” but refused to rule out a second independence vote under a Labour government.

Adding fuel to the fire, Conservative minister Michael Gove said Corbyn was “in bed with the SNP” and could hand the nationalists a second independence poll.

Nicola Sturgeon said she was confident Corbyn would grant a second independence referendum. Yesterday, the first minister the country was “in touching distance of independence”.

One leading Westminster Labour candidate said: “The leadership would have us believe that by diluting our anti-independence position, somehow former Labour voters who have gone over to the nationalist side will return. This is utterly mistaken.”

Last night, some senior Labour figures declined to publicly attack Corbyn’s referendum volte-face for fear of being seen to be “disloyal” during the general election campaign.

However, they claimed that the affair illustrated the weakness of the position of Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard who, despite his loyalty to Corbyn, has secured little in return of benefit to his party.

Following Labour’s disastrous showing at the European elections in May, when the party lost both of its MEPs and slumped to fifth in the polls, Leonard’s future will be on the line if the party loses most, or all, of its Westminster seats next month.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives have turned their fire on the Brexit Party, which has threatened to contest every Scottish seat.

The Scottish Tories said the move risks turning Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage into “Nicola Sturgeon’s little helper”.

A senior Scottish Tory source said: “Unionist Scots know they need to stand together at this election to stop the SNP’s independence referendum. They also know that the only way to do that is to vote Scottish Conservative. Nigel Farage doesn’t seem to get that. He’s putting his ego before the Union.”

While the Tories believe they will not lose constituencies directly to the Brexit Party, they are worried that any leakage of votes to Farage could swing the balance against them in some of the 13 seats they won in 2017.

The Brexit Party came second in May’s European elections, polling nearly 15% of the vote. The Brexit Party was unavailable for comment.

In West Dunbartonshire and Helensburgh and Argyll, the SNP will have a tough time holding on to the seats held by Martin Docherty-Hughes and Brendan O’Hara if only because so many local jobs are dependent on the Clyde Submarine Base at Faslane and the Nationalists are opposed to nuclear weapons. The other parties have been slow to declare who their candidates are, although Labour will have Jean Anne Mitchell wearing their red rosette and the Conservatives Sally Page, who is the only Tory with any political profile up to this point in time. Bill Heaney, Editor, The Democrat