The beginning of May marked the anniversary of the elections that returned a nationalist administration to power in Scotland for the first time. One year on, it’s worth reflecting on how this happened, and whether Labour has found the right strategy for regaining power next time round.

For years the SNP’s approach rested on one absolute, core belief – that the people of Scotland would only turn to them if they believed that Scotland was headed for ruin as part of the UK. So every piece of negative news was seized upon – unemployment, the lagging nature of Scotland’s GDP – as evidence that Scotland was going down the drain. For Labour this was an easy strategy to neutralise. Every time the SNP predicted disaster, we accused them of talking Scotland down and of being the modern reincarnation of Private Fraser – “we’re all dooooomed!”.

And as Scotland prospered, so it became increasingly impossible for the nationalists to convince anyone that the country was broken. As a response to this they executed a 180-degree volte-face. It occurred to them that, counter-intuitively, people were most likely to turn to the nationalists if they thought that Scotland was actually doing well, and could do even better. So they began to talk Scotland up. They spoke of a renewed sense of national optimism and rode the tide of a reinvigorated sense of Scottish self-identity, in part initiated by the dawn of devolution and the return of Scotland’s Parliament.

This presented Labour with a much more difficult target. On the one hand we had every right to claim that much of the improvement in Scotland’s fortunes was due to the actions of Labour governments at Westminster and Edinburgh. But the more that we spoke of Scotland’s success, the more we re-enforced the nationalist’s narrative that things were going well and they were the very people to build on this. The sheer effrontery of this claim left many of us speechless, especially as the SNP had opposed tooth and nail the very polices that had delivered the success in the first place, from devolution itself to PFI schools and hospitals.

So we had to match our claims that Scotland was flourishing with warnings that the SNP policy of breaking up the UK would leave Scotland short of cash and short of clout on the international stage. These entirely valid points were dismissed as negative campaigning by both the SNP and a media that was salivating at the prospect of Alex Salmond as first minister and the three-ring-circus that that would bring to an otherwise stable and competent, if unexciting, domestic political scene. And so the tables were turned – the SNP became the party of the optimists and Labour was portrayed as the party of the naysayers.

So how do we move on from here? Only by matching the SNP in our optimism and ambition for Scotland. By stressing that we have never believed that Scotland would crash and burn as an independent country, but that our aspirations are rather higher than merely avoiding disaster. It is our unshakeable belief in Scotland’s talented and inventive people that gives us the confidence to stand side-by-side with our friends and neighbours to the south, as part of a strong and successful United Kingdom.

Scotland is part of the UK by choice. Of course we have the right to leave, but we consistently choose not to. We know that being part of the UK is the right thing for us, and that it is dogmatic, nationalist twaddle to make people choose between being Scottish and British. Having dealt with this basic position, Labour can rebuild our relationship with the people who share our core beliefs and who want to know that we believe in them to do even better. Since the SNP’s growing list of broken manifesto promises and manufactured rows with Westminster shows no signs of abating, we have an opportunity to address the hopes and concerns of Scots who are weary of constitutional wrangling and populist grandstanding, and who want a government that is not parochial and ideological, but one that has the long-term answers to the problems that our country faces.