Does the implosion of the SNP change the Brexit calculation for Labour?
The SNP will announce their new leader this afternoon. For those of you who haven’t watched it closely, I can tell you that everything you’ve heard about the SNP leadership contest being a clusterfuck of epic proportions is completely true. If the three candidates in the running had got together in a room at the start and discussed a plan for how to drag their party’s brand down as far as it could go in the time allotted, they could scarcely have done a better job of it.
This has everyone speculating about to what degree this makes life easier for the Labour Party come the next election. Certainly, if the SNP do meltdown even further, which seems a running possibility, then gaining a score of Scottish seats back looks much more likely for Labour, and in turn, this makes a Labour majority much more likely by definition. Particularly as it weakens a large Tory campaigning argument, that the SNP are going to be partially running the country, which has been an extremely effective tactic in England for the last decade.
What I’m interested in exploring here today is to what extent, if any, this changes Labour’s calculation on Brexit. Anti-Brexit feeling is even greater in Scotland than it is currently in England and Wales and more powerful in a sense, given it has had Scotland’s governing party being openly and vocally anti-Brexit since 2016. With Scotland back in play for Labour, will Starmer shift and become more anti-Brexit in any discernible way? And would it strategically be the right move for them if they did?
I think there are several factors to consider, which I’ll now run through.
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