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Scottish Labour's result in the 2026 election was its worst in devolution history, but it also sits forlornly in a pattern of serial decline for a party that I dedicated much of my adult life to and once led.

The backdrop of the UK political context has been unhelpful to Scottish Labour in each of the devolved elections for at least two decades. Academic analyses of both the 2007 and 2011 elections foregrounded valence issues and perceptions of the relative competence and performance as explanations for Labour's defeats to the SNP. But a strong part of that explanation concerns voter judgements on the party that best represents Scottish interests.

In 2007, anger towards the UK Labour government for its involvement in the Iraq war was palpable. In 2011, Scots who had voted Labour in the preceding year's general election, and for a Scottish Labour prime minister in the form of Gordon Brown, got David Cameron instead. The message that the SNP were better placed to stand up for Scotland's interest than a Labour Party licking its wounds helped drive the SNP to a system-defying single-party majority.

Five years later, Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of UK Labour alienated voters concerned about his commitment to the EU, Nato membership and the future of the union. In 2021, the backdrop was a global pandemic and Boris Johnson as prime minister.

This year, the backdrop was Keir Starmer's two-year-old Labour government, which had done so much to alienate its core vote with missteps on winter fuel payments and welfare reform. His personal poll ratings were in the doldrums.

This context matters not because it represents an argument for why it's always someone other than the Scottish Labour leader's fault that the party continues to go backwards, but because it should have been a salutary lesson that Holyrood elections don't happen in isolation.

The 2026 elections were never going to be fought solely on devolved issues in the round or the SNP's domestic record in power specifically. This was Scottish Labour's, under Anas Sarwar's leadership, first major strategic error in the campaign. In part because no amount of telling the electorate rationally what the election was and wasn't about was going to stop them voting with their gut.

Furthermore, refusing to engage in UK policy issues denied the party the opportunity to talk about some of its not insignificant successes in office, such as enhanced workers' rights, or a series of interest rate cuts which were slowly, yes, but surely reducing mortgage costs.

It also therefore missed the opportunity to talk up how significant extra spending on England's NHS, breakfast clubs and additional needs support was bringing substantial additional money to Scotland through Barnett consequentials, which the party of devolution had guaranteed in perpetuity. Likewise, there was an opportunity to argue that global insecurity demanded serious investment in defence, which would mean high-quality skilled jobs and apprenticeships for Scots in the mould of the Labour Party's proud industrial past.

Focusing solely on devolved issues allowed voters to conclude that while they might be disappointed with the SNP's record, they were angrier at Labour's.

The second major strategic error in the campaign was to focus solely on the constituency vote at the expense of any regional list strategy.

To become the governing party, Labour calculated that they needed to win the majority of the 73 constituency seats. Some 38 target constituency seats were identified and supported. This spanned seats Labour would need to defend, like Dumbarton and Edinburgh Southern, through places like Dunfermline and Glasgow Southside, the seat of former SNP first minister Nicola Sturgeon, right up to seats with an opposition majority over 10% such as Almond Valley and Falkirk West.

On May 7, the party won just three of those 38 target seats, the two it already held plus Na h-Eileanan an Iar. The Greens won Glasgow Southside, Almond Valley is now the second-safest SNP seat in the country and Labour came third behind Reform in Falkirk West.

Meanwhile, the failure to make the case for list votes alongside this key seat constituency strategy has cost Labour heavily. Ballot Box Scotland placed Labour eighth, or in the runner-up position, in both the Central and Lothians West and the South of Scotland regions.

Had the party done a fraction better on the list vote, it would have been a clear second ahead of Reform UK in seat numbers. Furthermore, for the first time in devolution history, Labour has no regional representation in the Highlands and Islands and only one in the North East, who is Dundee-based.

So what did Sarwar think he had that his predecessors did not? One stand-out answer is money. To offer a contrast, in 2016 the Scottish Labour Party raised Pound 100,000 and spent Pound 200,000 on the Holyrood campaign. This year, Scottish Labour reported Pound 1 million in donations and is widely expected to have spent the full Pound 1.5 million campaign limit. That's staffing, polling and focus group resources most campaigns can only dream of. That its MSP-to-pound ratio is so poor begs much deeper and fundamental questions for the party.

A version of this article is available as part of the Scottish Election Analysis 2026.