SCOTTISH Labour is in the best place it's been for years — despite its Holyrood election drubbing, a former Scotland Office minister claims.
And the party needs to stop looking "over its shoulder" to London, according to the former Minister of State.
Brian Wilson served in the Scotland Office role under Tory Blair as Labour MP for Cunninghame North and stood down from politics in 2005.
Writing in the Sunday Times today, he says the party he used to represent "is in a better place than it has been for years".
That's despite the May election result which saw Anas Sarwar's group return its smallest number of MSPs since devolution.
In the piece, Wilson says Sarwar — who took over as leader just weeks before the May 6 contest — would have achieved "half a dozen more" wins if he'd had a little more time.
However, he says there's "no going back" to the party's previous highs in Scotland and calls for the party to become "more autonomous" by gaining more free reign from bosses in London, where questions over Keir Starmer's performance continue.
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Wilson writes: "Labour legislated for its own decline by creating Holyrood and reforming the local electoral system.
"Donald Dewar knew that, but thought it a price worth paying in the interests of a greater democratic good. Labour’s own structures never quite adjusted.
"Its political base — the trade unions — has shrunk, just as in every other part of western Europe (including the rest of the UK) where a coherent centre-left ideology has lost out to populism or single-issue politics."
He goes on: "Scottish Labour should become more autonomous, coalescing with partners in the rest of the UK to fight general elections but otherwise not required to look over its shoulder.
"That is how it works in other countries, notably Spain, and enhances rather than detracts from the overall prospects of success for the left."
On the push for independence, Wilson states that though "there is not going to be a referendum in the lifetime of this parliament" — contrary to the position of the SNP and Greens, if Covid conditions allow — adding: "Fads pass and nationalism is not grounded in reason.
"Creative, left-based politics without borders is a far more attractive proposition for young as well as old."
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