25.06.2026
North of the border
Labour trailed far behind in Scotland’s two by-elections. The trade union movement commits to bone-headed sectionalism. As for the left nationalists, they merely serve petty bourgeois nationalism. Tam Dean Burn comments
With all the hubbub and hype surrounding the Makerfield by-election last week, the other ones happening in Scotland got a wee bit lost. But one at least has big potential significance for Scottish politics and beyond on the climate question.
The Tory landslide in Aberdeen South was described by the outgoing Scottish National Party MP for the constituency and former Westminster group leader, Stephen Flynn, as “a tough night ... that some will need to reflect on, quite heavily”. Flynn had just secured, on May 6, a seat in the Scottish parliament in Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine (after having announced he was standing there without informing the sitting SNP MSP, Audrey Nicoll - another example of the petty SNP leadership arrogance we have just seen in all its pathetic glory with Peter Murrell’s jailing for embezzlement of party funds).
Flynn clearly has an ‘I’m alright, Jock’ attitude, seeing himself as a potential first minister, following John Swinney, but was brought straight into the Scottish cabinet by him, as secretary for the economy, tourism and transport. The other MP-to-MSP - following the Arbroath and Broughty Ferry by-election, just down the east coast, which the SNP held with an increased majority - Stephen Gethins, has been made energy minister, reporting directly to Swinney.
Of course, this all involves careerist jockeying, but it also reflects the Scottish administration’s difficulties over the oil and gas industry and its supposed ‘just transition’ to renewables. The draft of the SNP’s energy strategy was announced in May 2023, but has still to be published three years later!
The anger and frustration at this is what gave the Tories their first Scottish by-election victory in over 50 years, with an election campaign led by UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who visited the constituency three times during the campaign, calling for an end to the energy windfall tax and a return to full-scale exploration of North Sea oil and gas fields, with licences granted. This could, of course, only add to Badenoch’s surge in the polls (fostered by her boxing with a wet punchbag at prime minister’s questions in Westminster for months recently).
There was a severe slump in votes cast in comparison with the 2024 general election - indicative of a disillusioned boycott by SNP voters more concerned about local jobs than Murrell’s expensive pen stash. This went along with a clear switch from Reform (and, likely, from other parties too) to the Tories, as the sure way to give the SNP a beating.
This really hit hard on the Scottish Labour vote, which fell over 20% from second to fourth place behind Reform, almost losing their deposit. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s position clearly has not been strengthened by his being the first to call for Sir Keir Starmer’s head - indeed Sarwar has since used the excuse that if Starmer had followed his advice before May 7 it would all be a different story today! More such ludicrous and hilarious storytelling is shown in the way Scottish Labourite journalists got their knickers in a twist over Sarwar’s premature Starmer ejaculation in the nationalist blog Bella Caledonia’s article on it entitled ‘Actually, this is brilliant’.1
A major reason for the Labour collapse was the vehemence of the Scottish trade union movement in backing the oil and gas industry and the granting of licences - especially Unite’s ‘No ban without a plan’ campaign and similar GMB demands, both backed by the Scottish TUC. They have even gone as far as to demand that the future Burnham cabinet must not see Ed Miliband given the role of chancellor, as this would be disastrous for the fossil fuel industry sector. (I would be willing to bet a bacon roll against that promotion happening, especially with Wes Streeting now calling for revenue from new licences to be used to cut energy bills: a chancellor in waiting, I would also wager.)
Unite’s Sharon Graham has been particularly vociferous about the Labour government's position on oil and gas, stating:
The Aberdeen South result is a direct result of failed Labour policies on oil and gas, which have been an abject failure. This tin-eared approach to the concerns of workers - letting go of one rope before we have hold of another - has been absolutely shameful. Unite will not accept a jobless transition. Until there is a credible plan for jobs the anti-North Sea policies must be consigned to the bin.
Another significant newcomer to the SNP government (one of the very few new women) is Hannah Mary Goodlad in Shetland, in the first election there not to be won by the Liberal Democrats and their Liberal Party forebears since 1950. She has been made public finance minister - particularly significant, considering all the public spending cuts that are still to come. Also highly notable by the fact that she worked for 15 years previously for Equinor, the Norwegian state fossil fuel company with huge influence in the Scottish oil and gas sector, including an 80% stake in Rosebank and assets in Jackdaw. Equinor supplies approximately 27% of UK gas and more than 15% of its oil. It claims green credentials, but recently halved investments in renewables and is increasing oil and gas production by 10% from 2024 to 2027, whilst making billions in profit.
Goodlad has perhaps made more of a name for herself by proposing a tunnel from Shetland to the mainland (with echoes of Boris Johnson’s daft bridge ideas for Scotland’s western isles). Given the cuts she has presumably already started planning and her fossil fuel ties, this can be no more than an insidious distraction from her main government roles, in cahoots (mon!) with the likes of Flynn, Gethins and (still top of the decaying stump of a tree) Swinney.
An alternative strategy for this thorny (or should that be thistley?) issue is proposed in The National newspaper - the one pro-independence legacy press voice, which has a regular column from comrade Richie Venton of the Scottish Socialist Party. In his June 23 column, under the title, ‘Beware of Andy Burnham fakery and pretend radicalism’2, he goes into the ramifications of the by-election and the North Sea, finishing with the statement: “There is no need to choose between good jobs, affordable energy and clean air; they are solved hand-in-hand in the Socialist Green New Deal we advocate.”
Of course, the SSP deludes itself, and a few others, that this will all be possible in an independent socialist Scotland - and by not giving the SNP the second list vote in Holyrood elections, but instead voting for the handful of SSP candidates where one can. The SSP almost deigned to get involved in Your Party Scotland - but only as a nationalist front, determined to stand for election - and, as it turned out, were amongst the very few left candidates.
There remains a big question over why others of their ilk on the Scottish left still refuse to join them (except as similar opinion-dreamers on the national question, it seems …).