Arranging the colourful display of fresh fruit and veg at the front of his shop on July 5, Kristopher Dunlop admitted he was “buzzing” about the election results.
The manager of Food Fayre, a grocery store and butchers in the Drumchapel Shopping Centre in Glasgow, is an SNP voter who decided to switch his support – like tens of thousands of others whose vote helped turn vast swathes of Scotland’s electoral map from Nationalist yellow to Labour red.
And on paper at least, Sir Keir Starmer – while celebrating the radical reversal of his party’s electoral fortunes north of the border – should probably also be buzzing to have attracted the 32-year-old’s vote.
Yet, in truth, Mr Dunlop’s support may prove to be short-lived – and his message may not be one the Labour leader wants to hear.
“I only voted Labour to guarantee getting the Tories out,” he explains. “The Tories flung Scotland to the side, so I voted for the only party that was going to get a majority. And it worked.
“Normally, I vote for the SNP. And while it’s true they haven’t done a great job, at least they stand up for Scotland. Let’s see what Keir Starmer does, let’s see how he runs the country – but I’ll probably vote SNP again next time.”
A council worker cleaning up the verges near the shops also admitted only voting Labour as an anti-Tory tactic. “I voted SNP before, but this time it was a vote for Labour to get rid of the Tories,” he explains. “The Tories have never done anything for Scotland – it goes right back to Margaret Thatcher and the poll tax.”
Food Fayre sits at the end of a small parade of shops including a Greggs, two bookies, a takeaway pizza place and a job centre. By 10 o’clock on July 5, a group of men were sitting on a wall drinking cans of Tennents and Red Stripe lager.
Drumchapel, which is regularly ranked as one of the most deprived areas of Scotland, is in the Glasgow West constituency – one of six within Scotland’s biggest city which all swung from SNP to Labour.
Across the whole country, in a result party members admit is “catastrophic”, the SNP has so far slumped from 48 seats to just nine [the outcome in the seat of Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire is due to be declared on the evening of July 6]. The Lib Dems and Tories returned five MPs each. But Labour picked up an incredible 37 seats – compared to just one in the 2019 election.
It marks the first time since 2010 the party has won a national election north of the border, crushing the SNP and bringing to a juddering halt the nationalists’ long-running winning streak.
The scale of the victory is breathtaking – with the party retaking whole regions that were once Labour heartlands across the Central Belt of Scotland: in Edinburgh, Lanarkshire, Inverclyde and Ayrshire – as well as major gains in Fife and Tayside.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar hailed a “historic day” and promised the party’s new MPs – “and aren’t there so many of them?” – represented “the change that people have voted for.”
But in Glasgow West, where new MP Patricia Ferguson won with a strong 6,000 majority, it’s not clear that the swing is actually backed by support for the policies or leadership of Sir Keir or Angela Rayner – but is instead is driven by protest at the parties of government.
While some like Mr Dunlop clearly voted Labour in fury at 14 years of Tory rule at Westminster, there are also many – including previous SNP supporters – who voted in equally furious protest at the performance of the Nationalist Scottish Government, which has been in power in the Holyrood Parliament even longer, since 2007.
A grandmother waiting for a bus with her toddler grandson says: “I voted SNP in the past – but not this time. They just haven’t done what they promised.”
Chief among the complaints were the Nationalists’ handling of the health service, their prioritising of independence and the ongoing police investigation into missing funds.
The party’s former chief executive Peter Murrell has been charged in connection with alleged embezzlement of SNP funds – which he has denied – while his wife, former first minister Nicola Sturgeon is still subject to investigation after being arrested last year then released without charge.
David, a 57-year-old communications engineer, who was forced to quit work because of a bowel condition, says: “Everyone’s fed up with the SNP. They’ve done nothing for Drumchapel. They just blame everything on Westminster. I’ve been waiting three years for an operation for polyps. It’s got worse while I’ve been waiting – I’ve been losing blood, fainting. The whole care service has gone to pot.”
“The SNP are too focused on independence,” says a dog walker who gives his name as Robert. “But people have had enough of change – Brexit isn’t going well: independence wouldn’t either. Then look at the NHS – people can’t see a dentist or a doctor. The SNP has forgotten what people’s priorities are.”
Robert McAllister is a retired joiner who walks with a stick after a fall from a roof while working. The 75-year-old has been waiting more than six months for a knee replacement. “I’ve no idea when it will get done…” he says. “Meanwhile, with the SNP it’s been one scandal after another.”
It’s a point recognised by high-profile SNP figure Joanna Cherry, who lost her seat in Edinburgh – admitting that the SNP’s “reputation as a party of integrity” had “taken a battering”.
Even SNP voters admit that allegations about missing money had dented support.
Bernadette O’Reilly, 54, voted Labour until the 2014 referendum on Scottish Independence – then switched her allegiance. “There have been a lot of things going on – with the money for example,” she says. “But Sir Keir has got a lot of work to do to win over SNP voters. I’m worried about what could happen to the free tuition fees and free prescriptions, which were introduced by the SNP. It would take a miracle for Sir Keir Starmer to sway me to vote for Labour again.
‘I’m delighted the Tories are out of power – but it’s come at the cost of a Labour stronghold in Scotland, which seems to have happened because of a lot of tactical voting.”
According to Professor James Mitchell of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, the apparent scale of that tactical voting suggests that Labour, although buoyed by the result, should beware the possibility their vote could collapse in Scotland just as quickly as the SNP’s.
“The SNP took the electorate for granted,” he tells The Telegraph. “It made the same mistake it used to accuse the Labour Party of in the past – entitlement and arrogance. They pursued populist policies to grab headlines but completely neglected the economy.
“But the electorate in Scotland – as elsewhere – is now more volatile and is less rooted to political parties in the way it was a generation ago. If Labour makes the same mistakes as the SNP and simply thinks, ‘Okay, we’ve got our voters back,’ they will pay the price because that’s not how the electorate sees it; their votes don’t belong to anyone. They judge parties on their record in office – rather than out of party loyalty.”
Labour, he explains, will be able to enjoy a grace period in Scotland – ironically until a probable victory in the Scottish elections in 2026.
He says: “For the next two years, Labour in London don’t have a problem in Scotland as the electorate will still be looking to the SNP Scottish Government to deliver on public services and the economy. In that respect, devolution serves Labour well.
“But if, as seems likely, Labour come to power in two years’ time in the Scottish Parliament elections, then things will look very different. Labour will have to deliver, particularly on the crucial issue of the economy. If they don’t, the fragile support they currently enjoy will very quickly fade.”
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