Starmer focuses his sights on Scotland

Is your party better off after 14 years of Conservative executive?

In short, this was the question Labor asked voters in this general election campaign.

You don’t want me to tell you it worked, but in a smart way.

Now the Birthday Party is already talking about repeating the feat in the 2026 Scottish parliamentary elections, asking “Is your life better after 19 years under the SNP?”

“This is part one,” Sir Keir Starmer said in Edinburgh on Sunday, adding: “Part two will come in 2026.”

However, preparing his party for the Holyrood election campaign was not the Prime Minister’s main reason for such an early visit to Scotland.

He emphasizes that he wants to re-establish his relations with governments around the United Kingdom, so he planned to make an initial sprint through Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in his first few days of office. Apart from this, it was decided to meet the English mayors.

Sir Keir is attempting to recast himself as the practical head of an adult executive, one whose watchwords are restraint and cooperation.

The perceived gap is not only with politicians to his right, but also with politicians to his left, not least his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, who has been returned to parliament as an independent.

It is estimated that Mr Corbyn would have topped the 40% vote in 2017 when he lost to Theresa May, making Sir Keir’s victory at 33.7% and the second lowest turnout since Global War 2. Was.

In other words, it turns out that the new Prime Minister was adept at supporting a majority of 174, which is slightly less than Tony Blair’s massive majority of 1997.

Indeed, Scotland was the only part of the United Kingdom where Labour’s vote share rose sharply in this election, jumping 17 percentage points as the party took 36 seats from the SNP.

Sir Keir repeated the common refrain in his address to new Scottish MPs and other supporters at a resort overlooking Edinburgh Citadel.

“We won because we campaigned as replacement labour,” he said, “and we will govern as replacement labour.”

It was an observable connection with Sir Tony, who entered Downing Boulevard 27 years ago with the words: “We ran for office as New Labour, we will govern as New Labour.”

Although this is not 1997.

Starmer inherited a stagnant economic system with low expansion, low productivity and peak inequality.

He is dealing with the fallout from Covid, the conflict in Ukraine and Conservative cuts in population spending, called austerity, in line with the 2007/8 financial disaster.

Appointing a Scottish Executive from the SNP at Holyrood in 2026 could be profitable, but Labor must rely on handing over the alternative it has promised citizens as briefly as possible.

This could be a major challenge when the party has promised to stick to Conservative spending plans, something SNP leader and First Minister John Swinney said repeatedly during the election campaign.

The day before, despite the fact that, Both men are emphasizing cooperation,

Mr Swinney told broadcasters that, “common ground can be achieved by working closely with the United Kingdom Government” to address child poverty, improve population services and products and deal with the alternative situation.

Sir Keir also spoke definitively, specializing in Scotland’s largest oil refinery at Grangemouth, where huge numbers of jobs are at risk.

“We discussed the economy. We discussed energy and, as you would expect, we discussed Grangemouth,” he said, promising that “our governments will work together immediately on that issue.”

More generally, says new Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the way to reinvigorate the economic system is expansion aligned with a commercial strategy that could come with a new publicly owned nascent energy company based in Scotland.

Alternatively, there may still be a lack of certainty about whether the proposed “Great British Energy” will function as a new power life corporate, as Labor initially promised or, as Sir Keir had instructed BBC Radio Scotland, “an investment vehicle.”

Despite this, industry unions, which have historically supported Labour, are concerned about the impact on North Sea jobs due to a rapid transition to renewable energy.

This is not his simple concern.

“We haven’t got time to wait for developments,” Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.

“There are people really hurting, and we have to borrow to invest, and our creaky public services need money.”

The second weighing on Sir Keir’s assumption of administrative control is the United Kingdom’s determination – contrary to Scotland’s needs – to pursue independent trade arrangements with its largest market, the EU Union.

As he told reporters on a terrace overlooking the Edinburgh Citadel on Sunday, I asked the Prime Minister if he had anything more practical to say about how he would deal with the impact of Brexit, which the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) ) is an independent office for. ) is estimated to reduce UK productivity (output per worker) by 4% in the long run.

“Yes,” he said back. “We intend to improve our relations with the EU and that means closer trading relations with the EU.

“It points the way towards closer ties in terms of analysis and manufacturing and closer ties in terms of defense and security.

“I think we can get a better deal than the deal Boris Johnson made with Britain,” Sir Keir said.

Could such a draconian move lead to a return to some form of free-trade cooperation with the EU?

He responded, “I think we’re going to get a much better deal than we have now. It depends on respectful relationships, negotiations with leaders across the EU and, of course, this work first.” It has already started.”

There are plenty of alternative demanding situations for Sir Keir.

He arrived and left his meeting with Mr Swinney by the back door at the First Minister’s residence in Edinburgh amid loud pro-Gaza protests outside the development.

The pair could clearly pay attention to the chanting as they were interacting throughout development.

Outside, most of the protesters, who did not want to give their names in case it would embarrass their employer, told me they were unhappy with the Prime Minister’s decision not to travel within the entrance of the building. ,

“I think it’s ridiculous but also ridiculous,” he said, “a back door Starmer. He can’t face the people. He has to be Labour, one of the people, and he can’t face us. “

Downing Boulevard noted that they would not comment on the logistics of the High Minister.

Sir Keir will be hoping that the remnants of his comings and goings in the United Kingdom, certainly the remnants of his tenure as Prime Minister, are negligible and going smoothly.