| Comment | Scottish Labour exists as a semi-autonomous entity and like most people in Scottish politics nowadays, are primarily defined by their position in terms of independence vs unionism as opposed to left wing vs right wing.
There's push back against this from the more Corbynite people who tend to be more ambivalent towards the union/don't really care about the independence issue but the people in the driving seat are very much Blairite/more right wing unionists such as Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie amongst others.
Labour were for the latter part of the 20th century and early years of the 21st, the establishment party in Scotland, since then they have lost lots of voters to the SNP and Greens and more importantly lost their position as the top dogs of Scottish politics, largely due to the optics of being seen working with the Tories in the 2014 referendum Better Together campaign.
I'd say personally that the top brass seem really bitter that they've lost their position to the SNP and the fact that they've lost key demographics that were traditionally Labour such as young people and Catholics to the SNP and pro-independence side. |
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