You have probably never heard of Suzi Murning but it might be worthwhile remembering the name. She is aged 25, from Hamilton, and she made an appearance in Scottish Labour’s latest party political broadcast. What she had to say encapsulates a defining question in Scottish politics in 2018. For shorthand let’s call it the Suzi question.
Ms Murning was one of a small group of Labour activists filmed having a coffee and a natter with Richard Leonard, the new Scottish Labour leader, about what was important to them. “I joined the Labour Party when I was 17 years old but I was quickly disillusioned,” Ms Murning said when her turn came to speak. “Since then I’ve been involved with the SNP and I’ve been a big supporter of independence. But then in the last couple of years with Jeremy Corbyn and yourself, I’ve seen that actually the Labour Party, my traditional home, my natural political home, can offer that real and radical change, and I can support them 100 per cent.”
For Mr Leonard this was solid gold. Remarkably it was not a set-up. The party has issued an open invitation for activists to come and be filmed in Fife about why they supported Labour. No one knew what Ms Murning was going to say until she said it, as a morning’s filming was coming to a close. She raised a question that Mr Leonard wants to put at the centre of our national debate: the Suzi question. Will idealistic left-leaning Scots who voted for independence in 2014 switch their allegiance to a Scottish Labour Party that has rediscovered its socialist mojo?
By putting the Suzi question front and centre, Mr Leonard has cleared up some of the ambiguity about Scottish Labour positioning that dogged Kezia Dugdale’s leadership. Some Labour bigwigs, you may recall, were appalled when Ms Dugdale seemed less than staunch in her unionism. There was a tussle throughout her time between those who believed that the fight against independence had to be Labour’s number one priority and those who were keen to move beyond the constitution to more bread-and-butter social justice issues.
Who did Labour see as its main enemy: was it the SNP or was it the Tories? Nobody was quite sure. Ms Dugdale underestimated how much the voters were still caught up in the binary yes-no of the independence debate and she paid the price in the 2016 Holyrood election. Now, though, Mr Leonard clearly feels the time is right for a more direct pitch to independence supporters.
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The message from Ms Murning is that yes supporters in 2014 can be Labour supporters in 2018. The potential significance of such a simple statement is hard to overestimate. Yet it remains a risk. This is Mr Leonard’s strategy, but is it working? Not according to last week’s exclusive YouGov poll for The Times. Our findings identified three worries for the Scottish Labour leader. Any realistic hopes of him challenging for power depend on him remedying all three.
The first is that Labour’s recent step to the left seems to have persuaded some supporters to switch to the Tories. So much so that Ruth Davidson’s party has regained second place in Holyrood voting intentions, having slid into third in the latter half of last year. Perhaps some of this was to be expected given Mr Leonard’s talk of a new wealth tax and his tough talking on income tax. The bigger concern for Labour is that these losses to the Tories have not been offset by gains from SNP.
In fact — and this is the second worry for Mr Leonard — the main beneficiary of left-wing Nationalists seeking a more radical option seems to be the Scottish Green Party. Our poll puts the Green vote at a healthy 10 per cent. Mr Leonard has to start attracting converts from the SNP faithful, persuading them that the more egalitarian Scotland they voted for in 2014 is available in the here and now.
The third worry for Mr Leonard is how people reacted when asked by YouGov what they thought of his leadership. Three out of five respondents said “don’t know”. One can only assume they had either never heard of Mr Leonard or knew too little about him to make a judgment. All new party leaders face this problem but Ms Davidson had two referendums and two elections on which to build her profile. Nicola Sturgeon enjoyed the high profile of office. How is Mr Leonard to make his mark when the next big national election, barring surprises, is more than three years away? An optimist might say he has time to establish himself. A pessimist might wonder how he will manage to catch voters’ attention when they are so scunnered with politics.
In the short term, Mr Leonard’s tactic is to put clear red water between himself and Ms Sturgeon, setting tests she can only fail, and adopting socialist positions she will struggle to match. A key opportunity will be Holyrood’s budget negotiations. Mr Leonard has come up with five tests for the SNP government’s budget, the first of which is: “Does it stop Tory austerity?” This is bold, simple and unequivocal. It is intended to put the SNP on the back foot, dragging them into a debate on why ministers are not using their newly turbocharged powers more aggressively. Here, however, Labour faces a conundrum. SNP voters remain stubbornly resistant to the idea that Holyrood can bring about significant social change. They are reluctant to admit that new tax and welfare powers can actually transform society. So when Mr Leonard says he wants to “stop Tory austerity” he is met with puzzlement. End austerity? How? Surely that can only be done with independence?
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Labour’s own budget proposals will be revealed shortly. They are expected to include rises in child benefit, rises in public sector pay and more cash for local government, all paid for by a heavier tax burden on the more prosperous Scots. Will this be enough to persuade the doubters? Changing this can’t-do attitude is a precondition for Labour success.
The Suzi question is the key to Mr Leonard becoming a credible challenger for office. But other questions need to be answered first. Who is Richard Leonard and what are his instincts? Would you trust him to be your first minister? When he says the tools to build a better Scotland are already within our grasp, do you believe him? And are you willing to let him use them?