Scottish Labour scrabbles to contain fallout from winter fuel payment axe
Labour may have blinked first over the vexed question of the winter fuel payment and, in Scotland at least, made a promise to cough up the allowance, even if that’s not even a possibility north of the border until May 2026.
But, in spite of this, the SNP still looks handily placed to be the biggest party after the next Holyrood election, thanks to Labour’s overall and sudden fall from grace and with the Scottish Tories still forging a new direction with a new leader.
However, if Labour hadn’t said it would promise to reinstate the payment after the next Holyrood election, it feared its already slim chance of forming Scotland’s next devolved government would have all but vanished.
It would be an incredible reversal – to slip from a massive victory in July 2024 to also-rans in the Holyrood elections in 18 months’ time. But it is proof positive that the cancellation of the £300 allowance to pensioners by Rachel Reeves continues to be easily the UK Government’s least popular policy and one it still can’t find the words to justify.
So hostile has been the reaction to it on doorsteps that Labour’s standing in the opinion polls has nose-dived and nowhere more than in Scotland, where a thorough-going hammering of the SNP in the general election – reducing its Commons seats from 48 to nine – might well be reversed if there was to be another vote.
Trying to stem tide
To try to stem the tide, Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, jumped in with a pledge that if he forms a devolved Scottish government in the next Holyrood election he would immediately restore the winter fuel payment, or at least a means-tested version of it.
However, the plain fact is that the if in this equation is a big one because the damage caused by the Chancellor’s somewhat cavalier scrapping of the payment has been done. Furthermore, unless she can conjure up an about-turn it might well be permanent and really hurt Scottish Labour’s chances of forming a government in 2026.
And what looks like Sarwar’s brave move in going his own way and bringing back the allowance will be trumped by the SNP almost certainly promising exactly the same policy in their budget statement next week.
That way, we’re likely to have both main parties promising the voters “jam tomorrow” in the shape of restored winter fuel payments if they form the next Scottish government.
Of course, there is another possibility which is that First Minister John Swinney will suddenly find the money, out of the Treasury largesse he’s recently been enjoying, to pay pensioners the cash they’ve had withdrawn by a cruel UK Government… and shoot Sarwar’s fox.
Stew in its own juices
Mind you, letting Labour stew in its own juices would be an attractive option for an experienced operator like Swinney.
The Holyrood election in 2026 is still likely to see the SNP emerge as the biggest party even though it has shown no sign of growing in competence and, publicly at least, dumped an obsession with independence. But rest assured – that’s never far away.
Elsewhere, Russell Findlay, the Scottish Tory leader, is still bedding in and can handle himself at Question Time but he needs to change the record about his sole line of attack – about how useless he claims the Nats are. That’s almost a given among much of the electorate. What Findlay needs are some horrific instances of bad government, as well as some of his own solutions to national problems.
Mind you, the best political guffaw of the week was Commons leader Stephen Flynn’s humiliating about-turn over trying to be an MP and MSP at the same time. And I was among those who reckoned he was a bit of a smart political operator. How wrong we were.
If he’s wise it will be some time before we see this “foot-in-mouth act” again. But you never know.