And they caution that it is not yet clear who exactly the once-unthinkable rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in Scotland will benefit.
“All it takes is a couple of points swing towards us and [a Scottish Labour government] is within reach,” a senior Scottish Labour official, granted anonymity to discuss strategy, said. “But on the other hand a few points toward the SNP, and they win a majority.”
Urban warfare
At the center of Labour’s hopes is a clutch of constituencies across Scotland’s central belt — the mostly urban bit of Scotland where the majority of its population lives.
In these seats — which are typically either in the two biggest cities, Glasgow or Edinburgh, or in the commuter towns outside them — Scottish Labour believes an extremely narrow path to victory exists by convincing Scots to hold their noses and vote for the party most likely to oust the SNP.
“Frankly, we’re spending a lot of money on it,” the official quoted above said of the central belt push. “It’s about convincing anyone who doesn’t like the SNP — most of the country — that we are still the best way of getting them out.”
If Labour can rally anti-SNP voters behind them in a set of key constituencies, the theory goes, then the SNP is in danger of being well off the critical 65-seat mark it needs for a majority in the Scottish parliament.