This is how Scottish Labour should learn from the SNP

In early 2016 the Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale occupies a curious position, neither popular nor unpopular, but nevertheless still struggling to make an impact several months into the worst job in Scottish politics.

So when the Labour MSP Richard Baker left the Scottish Parliament yesterday (to take up a new job in the charitable sector), you might have thought Lesley Brennan, his successor, might have given the party an opportunity to promote a new face and some new ideas.

Not a bit of it. The SNP, which maintains a formidable database of everything ever uttered (or tweeted) in Scotland, quickly reminded everyone that the left-winger had spoken of being “ambivalent” about Ms Dugdale as leader and Labour being on “a surefire path to defeat next year”.

And therein lies the point, for the existential battle between different wings of the Labour Party, and of course ongoing criticism of Mr Corbyn’s leadership, is currently the only political game in town. Had there been more stability (if not electoral success) following the election of Yvette Cooper or Andy Burnham, Dugdale might have had a chance to chart her own course and make an impact.

But unfortunately for her she got dealt a bad hand. Everything the Scottish Labour leader now says or does is seen through two unhelpful prisms, the newly dominant paradigm of Unionism/Nationalism, and the long-dormant (at least within the Labour Party) dynamic of left versus right.

As a result, Ms Dugdale is struggling to keep almost anyone happy, and that there’s even speculation about her party coming behind the Scottish Conservatives in May’s elections demonstrates how precarious things have become for the Scottish Labour Party, potentially polling fewer seats and votes than the Tories for the first time in more than 60 years.

Personally I remain unconvinced by that scenario, and indeed if it doesn’t come to pass then Scottish Labour could be spared a complete meltdown when Scots elect the fifth Scottish Parliament since devolution. A Parliament, it’s always worth remembering, that was delivered by a Labour government at Westminster – not that it generally derives any political capital from that these days.

So what can Kezia Dugdale and Scottish Labour do to turn things around? Although it looks almost hopeless at the moment, there are actually quite a lot of foundations that could be laid now, not necessarily to ensure a good result this May, but certainly in a few years’ time when the SNP could find themselves much less popular than now.

Indeed Scottish Labour could learn a lot from its arch enemies, particularly a series of changes initiated by the SNP between 2000 and 2003 that only started paying dividends much later on, including a more realistic constitutional strategy (promising a referendum on independence) and a centrist, populist policy agenda, which enabled Nationalists to displace Labour as the main defender of Scottish interests.

First of all, Labour (both in Scotland and across the UK) needs to embrace federalism. The political return from piecemeal devolution diminished long ago and the party badly needs a constitutional “offer” that cuts through technical debates about income tax and recasts Scotland’s place within the UK in a fresh, radical and attractive way.

Back in 1997 Tony Blair fought a general election equipped with such a modernising “story” of Britain, although arguably he stored up trouble for the future by failing to aim for the logical conclusion (a federal UK). A federal UK should also be echoed by a federal Labour Party, the only possible way to neutralize SNP claims that Scottish Labour is “controlled” from London.

Usefully, this double dose of federalism might also be a means by which to reunify an increasingly factionalized Labour Party, for it’s a constitutional strategy that could attract support from both right, left and centre. More to the point, it would give the party a new story to tell, not just in Scotland but in Wales and the English regions; it might also act as an impetus for a credible way forward on House of Lords and electoral reform.

Labour used to be good at this sort of big-picture stuff, and there’s no reason why the fight shouldn’t begin in Scotland – as it did in the 1980s and 1990s over devolution – showing Kezia Dugdale to have clout beyond her own fiefdom. In policy terms she also needs to move away from the increasingly unimaginative centre ground and really challenge the Scottish Government’s outdated commitment to universal provision, which disproportionately benefits the middle classes.

That won’t be easy politically but surely necessary; after all, Scottish Labour has a long history of fighting against vested interests and the apparently immovable pillars of the Scottish (as well as British) Establishment. Sure, it might nevertheless lose seats this May but at least it would have signaled the beginning of a longer-term fight-back: just like the SNP did in 2003.