1900–1999: Formation and devolution From the formation of the
Labour Representation Committee in 1900, it had members in Scotland, but unlike in England and Wales, it made no pact with the
Liberal Party and so initially struggled to make an impact. In 1899, the
Scottish Trades Union Congress organised the
Scottish Workers' Representation Committee, which merged into the
Labour Party in 1909, greatly increasing its presence in Scotland. By this time, the party's structure in the nation was complex, with constituency parties, and branches of affiliated parties, but no co-ordination at the national level. To provide this, a
Scottish Advisory Council was founded in 1915, its first conference chaired by
Keir Hardie. This was later renamed as the
Scottish Council of the Labour Party, informally known as the
Labour Party in Scotland. In 1994 or 1995, it was renamed as the Scottish Labour Party. though its official name remains the Scottish Labour Party. In the early years, the Scottish Council had little power, and its conference could only consider motions on Scottish matters until 1972. However, this allowed it to devote significant time to the question of
Scottish devolution. Dewar died only a year later on 11 October 2000. A new first minister was elected in a ballot by Scottish Labour's MSPs and national executive members, because there was insufficient time to hold a full leadership election. On 21 October,
Henry McLeish was elected to succeed Dewar, defeating rival
Jack McConnell. Labour's dominance of Scotland's Westminster seats continued in the
2001 general election, with a small loss of votes but no losses of seats. McLeish resigned later that year amid a scandal involving allegations that he sub-let part of his tax-subsidised Westminster constituency office without it having been registered in the
register of interests kept in the Parliamentary office, an affair which the press called
Officegate. Though McLeish could not have personally benefited financially from the oversight, he undertook to repay the £36,000 rental income, and resigned to allow Scottish Labour a clean break to prepare for the
2003 Scottish Parliament election. After McLeish's resignation, McConnell quickly emerged as the only candidate, and was elected First Minister by the Parliament on 22 November 2001. The coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats was narrowly re-elected at the Scottish Parliament election, with Labour losing seven seats and the Liberal Democrats gaining one. The SNP also lost seats, though other pro-independence parties made gains. Labour once again won the majority of seats in Scotland at the
2005 general election. The boundaries in Scotland were redrawn to reduce the number of Westminster constituencies in Scotland from 72 to 59. Labour had a notional loss of 5 seats and an actual loss of 15.
2007–2010: Opposition at Holyrood , in opposition following Scottish Labour's electoral defeat in 2007 At the start of the campaign for the
2007 Scottish Parliament election, Labour were behind the SNP in most of the
opinion polls. On 10 April, McConnell unveiled Scottish Labour's election manifesto, which included plans to scrap bills for pensioners and reform
Council Tax. The manifesto also proposed a large increase in
public spending on education, which would allow for the school leaving age to be increased to 18 and reduce average class sizes to 19 pupils. Labour lost 4 seats and fell narrowly behind the SNP, who won 47 seats to Labour's 46 seats. Labour still won the most constituencies, but the SNP made inroads. Both parties were well short of a majority in the parliament. SNP leader
Alex Salmond was elected first minister with support from the
Scottish Greens, defeating McConnell 49–46 while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats abstained. Labour did take the most votes in the
local elections on the same day but lost seats due to the introduction of
proportional representation for local council elections. On 15 August 2007, McConnell announced his intention to resign as Scottish Labour leader.
Wendy Alexander emerged as the only candidate to succeed him, and was installed as leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament on 14 September 2007. During a TV interview on 4 May 2008,
Wendy Alexander performed a major
U-turn on previous Scottish Labour policy by seeming to endorse a referendum on
Scottish independence, despite previously refusing to support any referendum on the grounds that she did not support independence. During a further TV interview two days later, she reiterated this commitment to a referendum and claimed that she had the full backing of current British prime minister
Gordon Brown. The following day, however, Brown denied this was Labour policy and that Alexander had been misrepresented during
Prime Minister's Questions in Westminster. Additionally, Brown's spokesman said: "The prime minister has always been confident of the strength of the argument in favour of the Union and believes a referendum on Scottish independence would be defeated." On 28 June 2008, Alexander announced her resignation as Leader of Scottish Labour as a result of the pressure on her following the donation scandal.
Cathy Jamieson subsequently became interim party leader. A month after, Labour lost a safe Westminster seat to the SNP in the
Glasgow East by-election. The
2008 Labour group leadership election was the first time Labour had elected its Scottish leader with the participation of its members, using a system similar to that used at the time by the UK-wide Labour Party (the system had been adopted in 2007, but no ballot had taken place as Alexander had been unopposed). The contenders were
Iain Gray, MSP for
East Lothian, a former
Enterprise Minister in the previous Labour Executive,
Andy Kerr, MSP for
East Kilbride and former Health Secretary in the previous administration, and
Cathy Jamieson MSP, the acting party leader who had been deputy leader under Jack McConnell. On 13 September 2008, Gray was elected leader and promised a "fresh start" for Labour in Scotland. A few months later, Labour won the
Glenrothes by-election in Fife. The result was considered a surprise, as there was speculation that the SNP could have won an upset similar to Glasgow East. The
2009 European Parliament election was catastrophic for Labour, falling behind the SNP for the first time and producing its worst results since before
World War I. However, it easily won the
Glasgow North East by-election later that year, which had been triggered by the resignation of House Speaker
Michael Martin in the wake of the
expenses scandal.
2010–2012: Re-evaluating position At the
2010 general election on 6 May 2010, contrary to polls preceding the election, Labour consolidated their vote in Scotland, losing no seats (despite losing 91 seats across the rest of Britain) and regained Glasgow East from the SNP. This resulted in incumbent Scottish secretary Jim Murphy stating that the result provided an impetus for Scottish Labour to attempt to become "the biggest party in Holyrood" in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections. Labour led the SNP in the polls for the
2011 Scottish Parliament election until the campaign began in March, at which point support for the SNP rallied. The SNP went on to win an unprecedented majority in the Scottish Parliament, a result that had been considered impossible under the proportional voting system. Labour had a net loss of 7 seats to the SNP. It also lost most of their constituency seats, although its share of the constituency vote declined by less than 1%. Labour's defeat was attributed to their campaign being directed mostly against the
government in Westminster instead of the SNP. Party leader
Iain Gray, who held on to his own seat by only 151 votes, announced that he would be resigning with effect from later in the year. Eight weeks later, Labour easily retained a Westminster seat at the
Inverclyde by-election, suggesting that Scottish Labour's disappointing performance in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election would not necessarily translate into support for its political opponents in other elections. Following the 2011 Scottish election,
Ed Miliband commissioned the
Review of the Labour Party in Scotland of the future structure and operation of the Labour Party in Scotland, co-chaired by Murphy and
Sarah Boyack MSP. The review included a recommendation for a new post of Leader of the Scottish Labour Party to be created (previous Scottish Labour leaders had only been the leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament). Others included more autonomy for the Scottish party and the reorganisation of members into branches based on Holyrood constituencies rather than Westminster constituencies. On 17 December 2011,
Johann Lamont MSP was
elected as leader and
Anas Sarwar MP was elected as her deputy. Delivering her victory speech, Lamont said: "I want to change Scotland, but the only way we can change Scotland is by changing the Scottish Labour Party." In the
2012 Scottish local elections, Labour were outpolled by the SNP. However, it gained votes and council seats and held its majorities on the councils of
Glasgow and
North Lanarkshire and regained control of
Renfrewshire and
West Dunbartonshire.
2014 independence referendum and aftermath , eventual leader of Scottish Labour, campaigning against Scottish independence, 2014 For the
2014 referendum on Scottish independence, Scottish Labour joined with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to form the pro-union
Better Together campaign against
Scottish independence. It was led by
Alistair Darling, a former Labour minister. In addition, Scottish Labour ran its own pro-UK campaign
United with Labour alongside, with the support of former Prime Minister
Gordon Brown.
Anas Sarwar MP also led an unofficial organisation called the "2014 Truth Team", described by the party as "dedicated to cutting through the noise and delivering [...] facts on independence". In July 2012, a member of Scottish Labour started
Labour for Independence, a rebel group of Labour supporters who back
Yes Scotland in the campaign for Scottish independence. The group was dismissed by the Scottish Labour leadership as lacking "real support" from within the party. The referendum was held on 18 September 2014 and resulted in a 55.3%–44.7% victory for the No side. However, many of Labour's traditional strongholds favoured the Yes side, notably including
Glasgow. The SNP had a surge in membership and gained a wide lead over Labour in the opinion polls. On 24 October 2014,
Johann Lamont announced her resignation as leader. She accused Labour's UK-wide leadership of undermining her attempts to reform the Scottish Labour Party and treating it "like a branch office of London." The party's
2014 leadership election was won by
Jim Murphy, an MP who had previously served as
Secretary of State for Scotland and been a prominent campaigner for the pro-Union side in the referendum. He also said that he planned to defeat the SNP in 2016, and would use the increased powers being devolved to Holyrood to end poverty and inequality. In her speech after being elected deputy leader,
Kezia Dugdale said that the party's "focus has to be on the future – a Scottish Labour party that's fighting fit and fighting for our future". Many senior party figures were unseated, including Murphy himself (
East Renfrewshire), Shadow Foreign Secretary
Douglas Alexander (
Paisley and Renfrewshire South) and Shadow Scotland Secretary
Margaret Curran (
Glasgow East).
Ian Murray (
Edinburgh South) was the only MP re-elected. It was the first time since
1959 that the party had not won the most votes in Scotland at a general election. On 16 May 2015, Murphy resigned as leader effective 13 June 2015. Under normal circumstances, Deputy Leader
Kezia Dugdale would become acting leader, but former Leader
Iain Gray was appointed Acting Leader whilst a leadership and a deputy leadership election are being simultaneously held on account of Dugdale resigning as Deputy Leader to stand for Leader. Dugdale won the
2015 leadership election on 15 August 2015, beating
Ken Macintosh. On 1 November 2015, Scottish Labour Party delegates backed a vote to scrap the UK's
Trident nuclear missile system. The motion was supported by an overwhelming majority, in which both party members and unions voted 70% in favor of the motion. In the
2016 Scottish Parliament election, Labour lost a third of its seats, dropping from 37 to 24. Labour got its lowest percentage of the vote in Scotland in 98 years with 23% and fell into 3rd place, a position it last occupied in Scotland in 1910, behind the
Conservatives. The party also only won 3 constituency seats: holding onto the
Dumbarton and
East Lothian constituencies and gaining the
Edinburgh Southern constituency from the SNP, whilst losing eleven of its 2011 constituencies to the SNP and two to the Conservatives. In the
2017 local elections, Labour's share of first preference votes fell from 31.4% to 20.2%, while it lost over 130 seats. This result meant the Party fell to third place in terms of both vote share and number of councillors. Labour also lost control of Glasgow and three other councils where it had a majority. At the beginning of the
2017 general election campaign, Labour's poll ratings fell to a historic low 13%, and were more than 15% behind the Conservatives in Scotland in some polls. However, towards the end of the campaign Labour's polling increased to levels around the 24% which it had received in 2015. On election day itself, the party managed to improve on its 2015 result and received 27% of the Scottish vote in a surprisingly good night for the party nationwide, and picked up 6 seats from the SNP in traditionally Labour areas such as
Coatbridge,
Glasgow,
Kirkcaldy, and
Rutherglen, bringing its Scottish number of seats to 7. Despite the positive result for the party, Labour remained in third place in Scotland, behind the Conservatives on 29%, and the SNP on 37%. On 29 August 2017, Dugdale resigned as leader of the Scottish Labour Party. Her deputy,
Alex Rowley, took over as acting leader until 15 November, when he was suspended from Scottish Labour's parliamentary party while a probe into his conduct took place. Jackie Baillie took over as acting leader until the conclusion of the leadership election. The
election for a new leader of the Scottish Labour party took place between 11 September 2017 (when nominations opened) and 18 November 2017, when the new leader was announced. Nominations for leadership candidates closed on 17 September. Anyone that wished to vote in the leadership election must have either been a member of the Scottish Labour Party, an 'affiliated supporter' (through being signed up as a Scottish Labour Party supporter through an affiliated organisation or union), or a 'registered supporter' (which requires signing up online and paying a one-off fee of £12) by 9 October. Voting opened on 27 October and closed at midday on 17 November.
Richard Leonard won the leadership election with 56.7% of the vote and was elected as the leader of the Scottish Labour Party on 18 November. On 12 December 2019, Scottish Labour returned to having only one seat in Westminster (
Edinburgh South). Leonard apologised for the UK party failing to address concerns over Brexit and for the Scottish party not having stopped what he described as the "SNP juggernaut". However, he said he would continue as leader and carry out a listening exercise. After surviving previous calls for him to go, Leonard resigned as leader on 14 January 2021, triggering the
2021 Scottish Labour leadership election. Shortly afterwards, it was reported that Leonard had been pressured into resigning by wealthy donors, who told UK Labour leader
Keir Starmer that they would not give money to the Westminster party unless Leonard quit.
2021–present: Anas Sarwar leadership On 27 February 2021, former Deputy Leader
Anas Sarwar was elected Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, defeating rival
Monica Lennon by 57.6% to 42.4% and promised to heal and unite the party. At the
2021 Scottish Parliament election, Labour lost a further two seats including the constituency seat of
East Lothian, bringing their number of MSPs to 22, an all-time low. They also recorded their worst performance on both the Constituency and List vote in terms of vote share, however it was better than had been predicted by many polls at the start of Sarwar's tenure as leader, some of which had predicted Labour to potentially fall to fourth place behind the
Scottish Greens. Under Sarwar's leadership, Scottish Labour have re-affirmed their constitutional position of unionism which has led to a sometimes controversial selections of candidates. The party has been criticised for fielding a number of candidates affiliated with the
Orange Order in local elections. In February 2022, during an interview on
Times Radio, Sarwar said: "[Labour] have got to demonstrate to people the kind of alternative we can have and the difference it would make to people's lives so they positively vote Labour, not just negatively vote against the Tories or the SNP. If I'm honest, I didn't quite grip or grasp how I think hollowed out we were as an organisation, not just in terms of our political message and our political result, as an organisation I hadn't really grasped how hollowed out we were." The party rebranded the following month, changing its traditional red rose logo to a red and purple thistle. A party spokesman said: "Scottish Labour is committed to transforming our party to win back the trust of the people to Scotland. We're on the side of the Scots, and hope they'll join us so we can build the future together. To do that we need new ideas and new thinking. At Scottish Labour conference this week you will hear Anas Sarwar relentlessly focus on the future."
2022 Scottish local elections At the
2022 local elections, Labour made minor gains and overtook the Conservatives into second place by gaining 20 seats and a slight increase in their share of the vote, but still finished far behind the SNP; with 282 seats overall, it was Labour's second worst-worst result since
1977, beaten only by the 262 seats won in 2017. The party was criticised in the aftermath of the elections for pledging to do no deals or partake in coalitions with the SNP or the Greens, instead choosing to work with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to form minority administrations in several cases. In Edinburgh, they suspended two councillors for refusing to vote for the deal which gave Conservatives positions within the council.
Second independence referendum , where Scottish Labour won 37 seats, becoming the largest Scottish party at Westminster Sarwar, like Starmer, voiced his opposition to a
proposed second Scottish independence referendum, stating that a Labour government would not grant a
Section 30 order for one to be held. On 6 October 2023, Labour won the
2023 Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election with the election of
Michael Shanks. Michael Shanks was elected with a 24.1% swing from the
SNP who held the seat since 2015.
2024 UK general election At the
2024 general election, across the United Kingdom, the
Labour Party won the election with a landslide victory, winning 411 seats across the United Kingdom, with Scottish Labour winning 37 of the 57 Scottish seats contested at the election. The electoral success for Scottish Labour in Scotland at the 2024 UK general election was also considered a landslide, with Scottish Labour returning as the largest political party representing Scotland at the
House of Commons. As new
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
Keir Starmer, began to select his new ministry cabinet on 5 July, Scottish Labour MP
Ian Murray was subsequently appointed to the cabinet as
Secretary of State for Scotland.
2026 Scottish Parliament election Labour's approval ratings both north and south of the border quickly tanked, however, with polls suggesting that Labour would fall behind
Reform UK at the
2026 Scottish Parliament election. Sarwar told Starmer not to campaign for Scottish Labour in that election, saying, "I would say the best thing that Keir Starmer and the UK Labour government can do is be behind their doors and in their departments getting things right and changing our outcomes." On 9 February 2026, three months prior to the election, Sarwar called for Starmer to resign. At the election, Labour's seat count declined for the sixth consecutive time, dropping from 22 to 17, placing them joint second with Reform UK. == Elected representatives (current) ==