By Gray Allan, Falkirk Labour Party member
A key parliamentary by-election will be held in Rutherglen and Hamilton West on the October 5. This is a constituency lying to the south east of Glasgow, previously held by Margaret Ferrier of the SNP, until her conviction over breaches of Covid regulations.
Ferrier failed to self-isolate in London after having tested positive. Instead, she travelled north by train and attended an event in her constituency. Following her conviction and being given 270 hours community service, she was suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days. A successful recall petition then triggered the by-election.
Rutherglen is the Scottish National Party’s fourth most vulnerable seat, which means it could fall to Scottish Labour on a swing of only 5%. Recent polling has the SNP on 38% – up by seven points, with Labour on 27%. However, according to Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University, who is the go-to expert on polling, this lead will not save them in Rutherglen, as the SNP dropped more than five points after Nicola Sturgeon’s fall from grace.
The seat was held by Labour up to 2015, when it fell along with almost all of Labour’s other seats in Scotland, following the Independence referendum of 2014. Labour won the seat back in 2017, when Jeremy Corbyn was Party leader, but lost it again in December 2019 to the SNP.
Fourteen candidates will be on the ballot paper this Thursday. In addition to the four major parties, there is a splinter nationalist group, the Independence for Scotland Party, who support independence but not EU membership. This is a clear public indication of the growing splits in the nationalist ranks, although Alex Salmond’s Alba Party is not standing.
Constitutional issue not a top priority
Bill Bonnar of the Scottish Socialist Party and Chris Sermanni of the Scottish Trade Union & Socialist Coalition will compete with the Greens, the radical nationalists and former Labour lefts on the fringe.
The Scottish Labour candidate, Michael Shanks, is a Modern Studies teacher and lives in the constituency. He was one of those who left the Party during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, citing the Party’s “anaemic opposition to Brexit” and the support from Jackie Baillie MSP and Ian Murray MP is probably a good indicator of his politics. He was, however, at least prepared to publicly contradict Starmer over the latter’s support for the two-child cap on benefits.
The election campaign is dominated by party full-timers, MPs MSPs and local councillors, but plenty of rank and file members have been out on the doorsteps. During a sunny afternoon in Blantyre I heard anger being expressed about the disgraced MP Margaret Ferrier, anger about the cost of living and inflation and contempt for the SNP financial scandals.
However, although the constitution is still an issue for many, it is no longer their top priority. The most recent polling by YouGov has ‘Yes’ for Scottish independence on 47% support and ‘N’o on 53%, while a Redfern and Wilton poll has ‘Yes’ on 47.3% and ‘No’ on 52.7%. For or against Independence might not be a determining factor in this by-election, but in the future Scottish Labour ignores the issue at it’s peril.
Recent local government by-election results in Central Scotland have been encouraging for Labour. In the Bellshill ward of North Lanarkshire Council, the Labour candidate won in the first round, with 51.8% of the vote. The background, however, was the resignation of the SNP council leader, Jordan Linden, after a string of allegations of sexual harassment.
On July 6, Scottish Labour also won a by-election in the East Kilbride ward of South Lanarkshire Council, which borders the Rutherglen constituency. This is a more accurate indicator of the possible result on the October 5. The Labour candidate took 40.6% of the vote, up by 13.7 points, while the SNP vote fell by 8.3 points, putting them in third place behind the Tories. If this is repeated in Rutherglen, Labour will win easily
