Time running out for the Union

In an election humiliation to rival the Tory wipeout of 1997, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, where Gordon Brown is standing down and Labour’s safest seat north of the border, is set to fall to the nationalists. Labour is also predicted to lose Edinburgh South West, where Alistair Darling is standing down, along with Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, and Dumfries and Galloway. The only seat in which Labour is ahead of the SNP is Jim Murphy’s East Renfrewshire, but only by a statistically insignificant one percentage point.

Majorities of 20,000-plus are set to be wiped out. The message is clear: Labour in Scotland is being monstered by the nationalists. Yet if supporters who witnessed Sturgeon’s exultant leader’s tour expected the first minister to be indulging in Salmond-esque triumphalism, they would have been disappointed. All her team got was a tight smile and an exhortation to work even harder for victory.

“Nicola knows that the SNP’s Achilles heel in the referendum was managing its supporters’ inflated expectations,” says one who knows her. “She’s not going to make the same mistakes that Alex did.”

It’s not just Labour that faces disaster. The sole Scottish Tory MP, David Mundell, faces the fight of his political life. His seat of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale is on a knife edge. Ross, Skye and Lochaber, where Kennedy is MP [he has been an MP since 1983], is set to fall to the SNP, leaving Alistair Carmichael as the only Lib Dem in Scotland. After the vote, Scotland may be a de facto single-party nation.

If Ed Miliband, in Edinburgh yesterday for the Scottish Labour conference, had been hoping to hear more cheering news on the ground, he would have been disappointed. Privately, Labour and SNP sources say the Ashcroft polling broadly reflects their own canvas returns.

“I honestly think we are stuffed,” says a senior figure in the Scottish Labour party. “I think we are seeing the end of the party. I have not spoken to a Labour MP who has not been in despair. People are really down about it.”

Salmond looks set to win enough seats to monster Westminster (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)

One Scottish Labour MP in the central belt, who has a majority in double figures, says there is no Labour majority in his seat, just an “anti-Tory majority”.

“These figures are absolutely solid,” says the senior Labour figure. “I was speaking to somebody who was canvassing for Ian Davidson [Labour MP for Glasgow South West] and in an entire day in the constituency they found one Labour voter. I was speaking to someone in the Tory party and, while they hadn’t gone to Barrhead, they had gone to East Renfrewshire and over two days at the weekend they didn’t find one Labour voter, they were all either SNP or Tory.”

Can Labour survive its brush with the nationalist behemoth? Is it facing a similar fate to the Conservatives north of the border? Can Jim Murphy do anything to reverse the situation or is the party in danger of starring in a disaster movie of its own making?

MURPHY insists that the horror story has been overdone. Addressing the conference yesterday, Labour’s Scottish leader told activists: “If you really think an election campaign is the fight of your life then you’ve lived a pretty sheltered existence.”

Baron Foulkes of Cumnock, a former Labour minister of state for Scotland who also served as an MSP, says that while he does not doubt the accuracy of the Ashcroft polls, the former Conservative treasurer has his own agenda.

“He’s trying to create a bandwagon and it does tend to distort democracy,” says Foulkes. “I think it can help to influence the outcome.”

The consequences for the Union of a collapse in the Labour vote could be profound. Senior nationalists say that if people wake up to a Tory-free Scotland and a sea of yellow seats on May 8, Cameron would be forced to deliver home rule to Scotland, ceding full powers to Holyrood other than defence and foreign affairs, or risk another independence referendum on the horizon.

“The tactics for the 2016 [Holyrood] election have not yet been [devised], but what we will do will depend on how Westminster responds to this result. If Scotland elects a large group of SNP MPs there will be huge pressure on the UK government to deliver properly on the vow,” says one. “If we win decisively and they deliver full fiscal autonomy then a referendum is for the future. If Westminster frustrates the express wishes of the Scottish people for more powers then that is something we would have to look at.”

Adam Tomkins, professor of public law at Glasgow University and Conservative representative on the Smith Commission, believes reports of an SNP landslide are overblown. Tactical voting and the relentless focus in the past few weeks on whether Miliband or David Cameron will be the next prime minister will syphon off some of the nationalist froth.

Tomkins says that despite nationalist sabre-rattling, there is no appetite in Scotland for another referendum.

He does not rule out radical change, however. “If the Tories are the biggest party and the SNP are the third biggest party at Westminster, what will David Cameron do?” he asks. “What is to stop Cameron giving Alex Salmond exactly what he wants, not independence but devo max? Cameron has made big, open, generous offers before. He outmanoeuvred Labour in 2010 by being bold about the coalition. It is really interesting, the number of Tory voices who are saying, ‘You have to change the Union to save the Union.’ ”

While Scottish Tories may choke on their whisky at the idea, it may not be hard to sell it to English Conservatives keen to see an end to the Barnett formula and appease English nationalists.

“There are members of the parliamentary Conservative party who have got further in their thinking about the possibility of doing a deal with Salmond than there are members of the SNP who’ve yet realised that that is the way to go,” says a Conservative insider. “Labour are the reluctant devolutionists here. Is Cameron capable of such a radical move? I think he is. He was absolutely terrified in September when he thought Scotland might vote yes and he has resolved never to let it happen again. But short of that, if there are no Tory MPs left in Scotland, what does he have to lose?”

Last week, the former Tory prime minister John Major urged Miliband to rule out any pact or deal with the SNP. Foulkes agrees.

“On the doorstep, the SNP is saying, ‘You don’t need to vote Labour. You’ll still get a Labour government if you vote SNP.’ That’s nonsense because the more seats they take from us the less likely it is there will be a Labour government. They have a very sophisticated propaganda operation. It’s working very well and they are astute. But the campaign hasn’t really started yet and it should make a difference.”

Whether the campaigning will work in Labour’s favour is a moot point. One Scottish Labour MP who, despite a strong majority faces the loss of his seat, points out that eight weeks before the last Holyrood election, Labour was 20 points ahead of the SNP but ended the election behind. “It shows that things can move,” he says optimistically.

“The Labour party has lost the courage of its convictions,” says a senior Labour strategist. “The SNP are very good campaigners and they haven’t even started yet. Nicola Sturgeon is a class act. She’s a very thought-through politician and we don’t have the brains. They have a lot of talented people. We just don’t have the talent. We’re not collegiate. I think we’ve lost touch.”

While SNP insiders deny they have a “decapitation strategy” to take out Murphy in East Renfrewshire to further destabilise Labour, they admit they will make a big effort to unseat him and argue that even if he holds on, his leadership will be in tatters because he has set a target of not losing any Westminster constituencies. Privately, the SNP has set a target of taking half of Scotland’s 59 seats.

Foulkes gives Murphy “10 out of 10” but internally there is deep concern about some of the Scottish leader’s recent pronouncements, with three senior Labour figures independently highlighting Murphy’s plan to reverse the ban on drinking at football matches as ill advised.

“I do hope Jim works out, but to turn round and say to the people of Glasgow, ‘I know you think we’re sellouts and we don’t represent you but do you fancy a pint at the football?’ — it’s incredibly condescending,” says one. “It’s slightly worse than Michael Forsyth bringing back the Stone of Scone. It increases the caricature of Labour as a party that will say anything to get your vote.”

“Jim is what he is,” says another. “Labour knew what they were getting when they voted for him. People expected hyperactivity, wheezes, a bit of student politics. The problems have been much more deep-rooted than he has been prepared to admit but he and his gang have been substantially responsible for that. They allowed the SNP to do well in the Scottish parliament by dint of a culling process at the beginning that gave us only half-decent MSPs.”

Nationalists believe their message that SNP MPs are best to “stand up for Scotland”, and their party’s competence and egalitarian leanings in contrast to Murphy’s lack of a compelling narrative are paying dividends. Senior Labour figures argue privately that Murphy’s attempt to sway 200,000 voters, whom he said voted for the party in the 2010 general election but supported independence in September, has been a disaster, with the knives out for his polarising, ultra-new Labour modernising chief of staff John McTernan.

Scottish Labour activists believe Murphy has left it too late. “Westminster is toxic,” says one. “If Jim had come up in 2007 or 2011, people would have said Labour was taking Scotland seriously, but he delayed it so long they just see it as Westminster taking over. I think Jim has less time than he thinks he has. Whatever you think of him, he is quite a Marmite figure.”

Some MPs believe Miliband’s commitments on the living wage, zero-hour contracts and the mansion tax will play strongly to trade unionists in Scotland who will get out the Labour vote. Others believe that Miliband is unlikely to save Scottish Labour.

“He’s a huge liability. I cannot think of a Labour leader in my lifetime who is less liked or known in Scotland,” said one.

One thing is certain. May 7 may be a horror movie for the mainstream parties at Westminster, but it won’t be the end. They are already planning the sequel.