Michael Marra’s first Holyrood test suggests Labour may stop sitting on its hands, writes Gina Davidson

Not words you hear often, but they go to the heart of how the two largest opposition parties are likely to go about their business from here on in.

The one that made everyone sit up and take notice was the decision by the 17 Reform UK Scotland MSPs to leave the Chamber and take no further part in the debate about whether Scotland has a right to decide its own constitutional future.

Now they have a point that this is a matter reserved fully to Westminster, but the motion was non-binding and not legislative in any sense; it was just a debate. But being able to debate your opponents on something so fundamental is part and parcel of the job.

That wasn’t their take on it - to them it was a waste of their and parliamentary time. But the SNP is the Scottish Government, and delivering on independence is their raison d’etre, which is why we’ve had at least nine such formal debates in Holyrood in the last decade.

This is their bread and butter and they set the Scottish Government business. So Reform will either have to like it or lump it.

Yesterday they lumped it. And while party leader Malcolm Offord said that this was not necessarily the start of similar action should the parliament use time to discuss reserved matters - after all that would put him in a sticky position when he raises immigration - there will have been a certain adrenaline rush for his MSPs at taking this stance, and the resultant media interest, something they have been unable to attract much of since the election.

Now that might have suited both Reform and the SNP, given it put the focus on the constitutional issue, but not Scottish Labour, the party which did the other interesting, but quieter, thing.

It has a new leader in Michael Marra, and it’s clear he intends to do things differently, including how to address the constant drumbeat of constitutional change demanded by the SNP.

Rather than amend the government’s motion, he agreed with it. Yes, Scotland should have the right to determine its own future, he said - something with which the father of devolution, Donald Dewar, would only have been able to agree. It wasn’t ground-breakingly new, but it sounded like it was.

However he went on to say if that means a referendum or independence, then he does not support either, and that it’s for John Swinney and the SNP to build up support for that kind of constitutional change. It’s not Scottish Labour’s job.

Marra had also laid down a clever amendment which added to the government motion rather than replace it, which called for the Scottish Government to reaffirm its commitment to meeting child poverty targets. The eradication of which is one of John Swinney’s priorities.

The SNP could not vote against such an amendment, and Marra scored his first success.

What he does next will be worth watching. His consensual approach may help Labour secure something in this year’s Scottish Government budget, rather than just abstain, as it has previously.

Marra has five years to try and turn his party’s fortunes around before the next Holyrood elections. It appears that he would like to be able to put some achievements of Scottish Labour on those campaign leaflets. And with John Swinney leading a minority government, and looking for pals beyond the Scottish Greens benches, he may well be amenable to whatever Marra’s asks might be.

Reform is drawing red lines. Marra looks like he wants to erase at least some of them.

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Gina Davidson is LBC's Scotland Political Editor.

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