Forget winning elections: Scottish Labour's biggest challenge is convincing Burnham to care

But given the low-key nature of this event, you’d be forgiven for not knowing there was an election to replace Anas Sarwar even happening. Indeed, a recent poll by The Diffley Partnership showed that 22 per cent of those asked had heard nothing about it at all and almost 50 per cent had heard “not very much”.

But then the stakes are exceedingly low. Right now Scottish Labour is going nowhere. Such is its unpopularity, or perhaps irrelevance, that the party can’t even capitalise on the Burnham bounce. The PM is currently the most popular leader in Scotland, but his party trails miles behind the SNP on voter intention at the next Westminster election.

Whoever wins - and the toss-up is between MSPs Michael Marra and Joe Fagan - very few people will care. That same poll showed 48 per cent agreeing that who leads Scottish Labour makes little difference to Scotland. Harsh, but true.

None of that will be a surprise to either Marra or Fagan. They both know the challenge their party faces. Scottish Labour saw its worst result in the history of Scottish Parliament elections in May, returning just 17 MSPS. And then it saw the man who led them to such ignominy be awarded a peerage and a place in Andy Burnham’s government as a trade minister.

For the dwindling band of Scots who are interested in what Scottish Labour is or isn’t doing in Holyrood, that left a bad taste in the mouth. For those in the party itself, it sparked real anger.

Still, the party has managed to contain that discontent during this leadership race (though it’s more like a primary school potted sports beanbag event than a 100m Olympic sprint). Which is probably the best thing Scottish Labour could have hoped for. The party has not torn itself apart over what happened in May, or indeed on policy or strategy, mainly because you’d struggle to put a cigarette paper between the two candidates. That may yet come.

Marra or Fagan will then take on the role with little attention paid, and they can start the slog of trying to rebuild a political movement and party that used to weigh votes in parts of Scotland rather than count them.

The victor will have some time to try and turn things around. Yes, there are council elections next year, but expectations of success will be low there too, and that is already baked in. No, the focus will be two-pronged: prove that Scottish Labour has something to say inside Holyrood - the Scottish Government budget being the first challenge in December - and then how to hold on to as many of its 37 MPs as possible.

They were elected during the 2024 Labour landslide and right now it looks like when voters go back to the polls in 2029, the SNP will emerge triumphant in Scotland again. There will be huge pressure on the new leader to stem the losses and ensure Scottish Labour doesn’t once more slide all the way back to holding just one constituency.

So the MP group will be making its presence felt strongly when it comes to Scottish Labour strategy over the coming months. It will also, of course, be applying pressure in Westminster to a Prime Minister who seems to know little, and possibly care less, about Scotland.

Many in the party feel Burnham has a blind spot when it comes to Scotland. Where Starmer saw the party’s success as being rooted there, Burnham is too focused on the north west of England, and indeed the party’s fight for a revival in Wales.

Since taking up his post in No10 he has made one public appearance in Scotland - at the opening of the Commonwealth Games. No media were invited to meet him. He’s been to Balmoral too of course, even attending Crathie Kirk for the Sunday service, but that was a private visit. And there was no visit north of the border during his summer UK tour. This apparent disinterest is, of course, grist to the SNP’s mill.

He’s also muddied the waters around Labour’s position on a second independence referendum - moving from a flat no, to saying if not definitely, then maybe, if the majority of Scots say they want one. Words which would never have come from Keir Starmer, or indeed any of the previous four Tory PMs. Unsurprisingly, there was huge pushback internally from Scottish Labour MPs, so much so that No10 later rolled back, saying the position had not changed and a referendum was “off limits”.

Still, the SNP has made hay with the apparent softening or sloppy language - depending on where you stand. The recent symbolic signing of a memorandum of understanding between the devolved nations, all of whom now have nationalist First Ministers, was also a moment of intent. Many in Scottish Labour feel Andy Burnham has not taken it seriously enough.

For the new leader of Scottish Labour, whoever it is, they will need not only to have something new to say to the Scottish electorate in order to become relevant again, but they will have to grab Burnham’s attention if Scottish Labour is to avoid a wipe-out in 2029.

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Gina Davidson is LBC's Scotland Political Editor.

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