As the Scottish National party and Scottish Labour launched their byelection campaigns a few streets apart on a blustery Wednesday morning, there’s one thing both parties could agree on: this contest and its outcome will have significance that extends far beyond the constituency of Rutherglen and Hamilton West. Scotland’s first ever recall byelection – triggered after voters removed Covid rule-breaker Margaret Ferrier from the seat she won in the nationalists’ landslide of 2015 – will also be Humza Yousaf’s first electoral test since he became SNP leader, and first minister, in the spring. Since then he has faced a steady onslaught: a slump in the polls for his party – although support for independence has held firm; the arrests of the former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, and his wife and the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon (both released without charge) as part of Police Scotland’s ongoing investigation into the party’s finances; the implosion of flagship policies passed on from the previous administration, such as the deposit return recycling scheme; and an apparent evaporation of the message discipline with vocal critics questioning his leadership. Those working closely with Yousaf believe that the ship is now steadying: that a concerted focus on clearing the decks of problematic policies, for example ditching heavily criticised plans for marine protection and an alcohol advertising ban in favour of further consultation, will shift the narrative to less publicised successes such as GP recruitment.
There’s also a sense that Yousaf is gradually shaking off his “continuity Sturgeon” label, which he embraced during his election campaign – presenting himself as the progressive successor in contrast to his closest rival, Kate Forbes. His first programme for government, which Yousaf will deliver to Holyrood after the summer recess and before the byelection vote, offers a key moment of reset. But the Rutherglen contest will also be a road test for Yousaf’s new independence strategy, which he set out at a special party convention in June and is still to be voted on by the membership at their annual conference in October. There are significant internal concerns about the clarity of his plan – that winning a majority of seats in the next general election would be a mandate to apply further pressure on Westminster for Scottish independence. There are doubts, too, about how well it will sell on the doorstep, even to stalwarts who are weary of endless re-wordings of the same promises rendered undeliverable by Westminster’s continuing refusal to grant Holyrood the powers to hold the necessary referendum. In September, Yousaf will face the fallout from another of Sturgeon’s flagship commitments as Scottish ministers bring a court challenge to the UK government’s veto on Holyrood’s gender recognition reforms. On a topic that proved politically toxic for his predecessor, it remains to be seen whether Yousaf can successfully shift focus to the UK’s attack on Scottish democracy, as he has characterised it. But gender reform is also a headache for Scottish Labour, after they supported the SNP’s reforms, which Keir Starmer has since described as “cavalier”. This byelection will test whether Scottish Labour can successfully negotiate policy splits with the UK party and shake off accusations of being a “branch office”. Although Scottish Labour’s Rutherglen candidate, Michael Shanks, insists policy differences on this, the two-child benefit cap and the bedroom tax is a mark of political maturity, its clear from their opening salvo that the SNP will hammer hard their message that Labour backs “cruel Tory policies”.
Regardless of top level policy disputes, this byelection will also be determined by party footsoliders. Local Labour activists have been knocking doors for months, with bolstering visits from senior UK figures like Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, and are invigorated by what they report as a tangible shift since the start of the year. Local people who voted the SNP into power 16 years ago are now giving them a hearing, in particular citing Sturgeon’s exit as a reason to reconsider. Yousaf talked on Wednesday about “flooding” the constituency with SNP activists but there have been reports from other party figures of difficulty in motivating normally dedicated pavement-pounders with the police investigation hanging over the party. The SNP candidate, Katy Loudon, herself acknowledged the situation was “not ideal” at her campaign launch, but insisted that voters were more concerned with the cost of living crisis. Her challenge is to convince them that the SNP is focused on these immediate worries. A recent Guardian/More in Common focus group in the neighbouring constituency of Lanark and Hamilton East found thatyounger voters in particular felt their concerns about heating and housing trumped their appetite for another referendum, despite their ongoing support for independence. Describing his campaign launch as “the start of change across the UK”, Shanks is evidently aware of the weight of expectation on his own shoulders, as party strategists plot the route to Westminster through Scotland and view this byelection as a means to send a message to voters UK-wide about its electability.