Jim Murphy has done something I thought was impossible – he led Labour to a worse defeat than Iain Gray in 2011.
As a Labour staffer, I was closely involved in the last Holyrood election campaign. We knew before the votes were counted that we were heading for a terrible defeat, but the loss of supposedly safe seats like Shettleston and Anniesland left me stunned.
At the time I thought the party had hit rock bottom, but I was wrong. Labour now has just a single MP in the whole of Scotland.
It is the vision of a better world that gives the Labour movement its moral force and ability to inspire people. Jim Murphy gave us a re-run of ‘project fear’.
The biggest moment of the campaign was the BBC’s televised election debate from Aberdeen.
Labour strategists were gleeful after Nicola Sturgeon said that she would introduce Full Fiscal Autonomy for Scotland within a year if Westminster gave her the opportunity.
They believed that this was a mistake they could punish, pointing to a report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies that it would mean an immediate shortfall in Scotland’s finances of £7.6 billion.
In the days that followed the SNP were bludgeoned with a series of negative stories about cuts.
The problem is that picking a fight on the constitution reinforced last year’s referendum as the key dividing line in Scottish politics.
Instead of encouraging former supporters who voted Yes to come home, Labour’s campaign drove them back into the arms of the SNP.
It should be obvious that you cannot oversee the destruction of your party and carry on as leader. If Murphy doesn’t understand this then the ‘men in grey kilts’ need to explain it to him.
It is not just high-profile MPs who are now unemployed, but their staff too, including constituency case workers who will have helped thousands of people over the years.
I have always believed that Labour’s values are Scotland’s values. It is the party of the NHS and the trade unions, the millions not the millionaires.
Labour’s manifesto included progressive policies that would have improved public services and helped to lift people out of poverty. 1,000 extra nurses paid for with the proceeds from a mansion tax, a minimum wage of £8 per hour and an end to exploitative zero hours contracts.
The problem is that many Scots felt so betrayed by Labour’s decision to campaign with the Tories in the referendum that they were not prepared to give the party a hearing.
Scottish Labour suffered a terrible and historic defeat because it tainted its own brand.
The task of rebuilding is going to be like trying to push an avalanche back up a hill.
Jim Murphy can’t offer the sense of change that is needed, but a new leader alone won’t be enough to win back trust.
Scottish Labour must seek its own independence from London and create a genuinely autonomous party that does not define itself against the SNP and speaks with its own voice.
(A version of this article was first published by the Sunday Mail on May 10th)
