Why did Labor have its worst result in the history of devolution?

Scottish Labor’s result in the 2026 election was the worst in the history of devolution, but it also fits a pattern of serial decline for a party to which I devoted much of my adult life and which I once led.

The British political environment has not been of much help to Scottish Labor in every devolved election for at least two decades. Academic analyzes of the 2007 and 2011 elections have highlighted issues of valence and perceptions of relative competence and performance as explanations for Labor’s defeats to the SNP. But much of this explanation concerns voters’ judgment about which party best represents Scottish interests.

In 2007, anger at the British Labor government for its involvement in the Iraq War was palpable. In 2011, Scots who had voted Labor in the previous year’s general election, and for a Scottish Labor Prime Minister in the form of Gordon Brown, got David Cameron instead. The message that the SNP was better placed to defend Scotland’s interests than a Labor Party licking its wounds helped push the SNP to a defying the system single-party majority.

Five years later, Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the British Labor Party has alienated voters concerned about his commitment to the EU, NATO membership and the future of the union. In 2021, the context was a global pandemic and Boris Johnson was Prime Minister.

The backdrop this year was Keir Starmer’s two-year-old Labor government, which had done so much to alienate its core vote with missteps on winter fuel payments and welfare reform. Her personal survey notes were in the doldrums.

This context is important not because it represents an argument for why it is always someone other than the Scottish Labor leader’s fault that the party continues to slide backwards, but because it should have been a salutary lesson that Holyrood elections do not happen in isolation.

Disappointment in the SNP – but anger at Labor

The 2026 election was never going to be fought solely on issues of devolution or the national record of the ruling SNP in particular. This was the first major strategic error by the Scottish Labor Party, under the leadership of Anas Sarwar, in the campaign. Partly because even just rationally telling the electorate what the election was and was about wasn’t going to stop them from voting with their gut.

Furthermore, the refusal to engage in British political issues has deprived the party of the opportunity to talk about some of its significant successes in office, such as improving workers’ rights or a series of interest rate cuts which were slowly, yes, but surely reducing mortgage costs.

He therefore also missed the opportunity to highlight the importance of additional spending on NHS England, breakfast clubs And additional support as needed brought substantial additional funds to Scotland through Barnett’s consequencesthat the decentralization party had guaranteed in perpetuity. Equally, there was an opportunity to argue that global insecurity demanded serious investment in defence, which would mean skilled jobs and high-quality apprenticeships for Scots, mirroring the Labor Party’s proud industrial past.

Focusing only on devolved issues allowed voters to conclude that while they may have been disappointed with the SNP’s record, they were angrier with Labour’s.

The second major strategic error of the campaign was to focus solely on precinct voting at the expense of any voting. regional list strategy.

To become the ruling party, Labor calculated that it would need to win a majority of the 73 constituency seats. Some 38 target constituency seats have been identified and supported. This extended from seats Labor is expected to defend, such as Dumbarton and Edinburgh Southern, through Dunfermline and Glasgow Southside, home of former SNP first minister Nicola Sturgeon, to seats with an opposition majority above 10% such as Almond Valley and Falkirk West.

On May 7, the party won only three of the 38 targeted seats, the two it already held over Na h-Eileanan an Iar. The Greens won Glasgow Southside, Almond Valley is now the second safest SNP seat in the country and Labor came third behind Reform in Falkirk West.

Meanwhile, the inability to advocate vote list at the same time, this strategy of key constituencies cost Labor dearly. Ballot box Scotland placed Labor eighth, or second, in Mid and Lothians West and South Scotland.

If the party had done slightly better in the list vote, it would have been a clear second ahead of Reform UK in terms of number of seats. Furthermore, for the first time in the history of devolution, Labor has no regional representation in the Highlands and Islands and only one in the North East, based in Dundee.

So what did Sarwar think he had that his predecessors didn’t? One notable answer is money. To provide a contrast, in 2016 the Scottish Labor Party raised £100,000 and spent £200,000 on the Holyrood campaign. This year, Scottish Labor declared £1m in donations and is well on track to have spent the entire £1.5m campaign limit. These are staffing, polling, and focus group resources that most campaigns can only dream of. The fact that its MSP/pound ratio is so low raises much deeper and more fundamental questions for the party.

A version of this article is available as part of the Analysis of the 2026 Scottish elections.