In the 2024 Westminster election, Scotland’s parties were at a significant disadvantage in online campaigning as compared to the unionist parties like Labour. What’s more Labour used confusion about devolved vs reserved powers extensively to spread a misleading message.

Subsidising ad spend from England

Labour, like the Tories, receives huge donations from those who seek to influence policy in Westminster. It gets most of its campaign spend from these rich businessmen. Conversley most SNP spend comes from membership donations – it has much smaller pockets.

Labour operates across the UK – so in a Westminster election it can target whatever it wants from its huge election budget at constituencies in Scotland. This despite Labour in Scotland presenting itself as a “Scottish party”. The SNP simply can’t compete with this sort of subsidy from England.

Look at the cumulative ad spend on Facebook during this election campaign – Labour in Scotland hugely outspent the SNP, from the start.

Deliberately misleading voters

Picking some of the adverts used most by Labour on Facebook in the Westminster election campaign, its clear that Labour was deliberately advertising misleading messages.

One of the adverts most used by Labour is this one – implying that a vote for Labour in Scotland will “make sure we get rid of the tories”. At the time of the campaign it was clear that the SNP were best placed to win every Tory seat – and by voting Labour this SNP vote would simply be split, and the Tories would keep their seats. In reality this is exactly what happened. Read more

Furthermore, it was clear that Labour did not need any Scottish MPs to get the large majority it wanted in Westminster – this was entirely determined by English voters. This has been the case for at least the last 60 years. Read more

This message might have been true in England – but it was completely untrue in Scotland. But this didn’t stop the BBC in Scotland amplifying this untruth – something they took six months to retract and apologise for – but only after the campaigning had finished.

Here’s the BBC getting it deliberately wrong at the start of the campaign, and neatly complementing Labour’s ad campaign:

Sources

Meta Ad Library

X, MSM Monitor