SINCE Labour regained control of the UK Government in the summer, how Scottish Labour handle their relationship with their London counterparts has been something of a conundrum for leader Anas Sarwar.
The “branch office” tag fired at him by opponents has been difficult to shake and it’s no surprise given his MPs at Westminster voted for a cut to the Winter Fuel Payment before almost every Labour MSP voted against a Holyrood motion last month calling on the UK Government to reverse this.
Sarwar knows full well how unpopular Scottish Labour’s backing for this move has been, with it hitting his party hard in several by-elections. After the SNP secured two more seats on Dundee City Council last month, a senior Labour Party source told the Daily Record that the Winter Fuel Payment cut was talked about “constantly” by voters and was the reason they lost.
And so Sarwar pulled a confusing tactic out the bag this week which had journalists all over the country scratching their heads crying out “what does this mean?”.
The Scottish Labour leader announced that he had U-turned and his party would bring in a universal Winter Fuel Payment if they take power at Holyrood in 2026. This, they said, would later be tapered so that the wealthiest receive smaller payments.
So it’s universal but only for a wee bit and then we’ll slowly make it not universal under the radar so that in the end it’ll look pretty similar to the UK Government policy we just supported but you won’t really notice?
Erm, what? Surely, everything would’ve just been easier had they not backed the plan to means-test the payment in the first place, rather than leaving the public doing mental cartwheels over where on earth they stand on this subject.
Scottish Labour will be hoping this is a stroke of genius. Instead of backing the UK Government and haemorrhaging support in the process, now every time they get asked about the Winter Fuel Payment, they will come out with lines about how they have committed to bringing it back in Scotland in the hope this will show voters that while they supposedly can’t control what happens down south, they can control what happens in Scotland WHEN AND IF they get into power.
While on the face of it they have pledged to bring back the benefit the UK Government have stripped from all but the poorest pensioners, voters are much less forgetful than they might think. They will remember Scottish Labour have supported this cut all along and will be questioning where this out-of-the-blue idea has come from? Rather than being met with glee, it feels as though pensioners will be more confused by this move than relieved.
Consistency is what makes voters trust political parties, not rabbit-from-a-hat policies.
The other thing that makes voters trust political parties? Delivery. And one must remember that all this is at the moment is a pledge.
Henry Ford once said you can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do. Given the screeching U-turn Sarwar has performed on this, voters will surely be quite sceptical at the moment, and I’m not sure this will give Sarwar the solid support base he is looking for ahead of Holyrood 2026.
Holyrood polling this week by Progress Scotland has shown Scottish Labour have fallen further behind the SNP, and so all eyes will be the next survey to see if this latest ploy will change their fortunes.
One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be awfy tricky now for Sarwar to squirm his way around questions on this. The nights are drawing in, the mercury is falling, and when it comes to the Winter Fuel Payment, Labour look to be on thin ice.
