What a difference a year makes. Last autumn, the Scottish National Party (SNP) and its leader, first minister John Swinney, were chastened at its annual conference after Labour mauled the party in Westminster elections.
This week the SNP, having regained a commanding lead in polls, was a party reborn at its 2025 conference at The Event Complex Aberdeen (TECA). Yes, the cavernous venue was still far too big for a party much diminished from its heyday under Nicola Sturgeon.
But Labour is back in free fall in Scotland, leaving the SNP faithful in the hotel bars near TECA daring to dream of an overall majority at Holyrood elections next May, and with it, the tantalising prospect of a push for a fresh independence referendum.
It is a tall order – Sturgeon in her pomp never won a majority. But whereas the SNP under Swinney looked dead and buried a year ago, it seems that it had, in fact, been buried alive.
RM Block
With cautious leadership, Swinney has dug a way back to solid ground with some help from the rise in Scotland of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which is splintering unionist support.
A recent poll by More in Common had the SNP on 30 per cent, versus 17 per cent for Labour, 16 per cent for Reform and 12 per cent each for Tories and Lib Dems. Support for Scottish independence, meanwhile, has stayed solid at about 50 per cent.
SNP members this week seemed content with their leader’s steady path, as the implosion of Labour makes risk-taking unnecessary. Swinney may tiptoe his way to victory next May by deploying his very own Scottish “ming vase strategy”, similar to the cautious approach that took UK Labour’s Keir Starmer to Downing Street last year.
No wonder Swinney looked chipper as he patrolled the vast halls of TECA over the weekend and into Monday, when he delivered a confident leader’s speech to ebullient SNP delegates, with few policy pivots beyond new GP walk-in centres.
“Now is the time for Scotland to become independent,” he said, pumping up the nationalist crowd. “I’m just getting started.”
Signs the SNP may finally be getting over its post-Sturgeon hangover emerged on Saturday, when Swinney won a vote on a new independence strategy. Members backed his plan to seek a fresh referendum from Westminster if the party wins an overall majority next May.
Rebels had wanted the election outcome for all pro-independence parties combined to be treated as a de facto referendum result – a strategy once backed by Sturgeon.
But Swinney won by arguing that only a proper, legal independence referendum held with Westminster’s recognition made any sense.
On Sunday, there was further signs that Nicola-mania no longer dominated as it once did. She arrived at TECA for a book signing scheduled for 12.30pm – Sturgeon released her political memoir in summer. At first, the Scottish media pack swarmed the former leader in the hall where, minutes earlier, Swinney had been on a walkabout.
But at the book stall, it was clear that apart from the posse of journalists, the crowd of party members drawn to Sturgeon was modest. The queue to get a book signed was never more than five or six deep.
Sturgeon went on a walkabout of her own, pausing at one stand to chat next a life-size cardboard cut-out of Dolly Parton. Sturgeon also got a warm reception in the main hall where she was praised by Swinney, although depute leader Keith Brown almost called her a “charlatan” when he misspoke – he meant to say “Nigel” [Farage] but started saying “Nicola” instead.
But in truth, Sturgeon was never in danger of overshadowing Swinney.
There were also fewer of the hard-left so-called “woke” activists that had energised the party under Sturgeon – Swinney’s shift back to the centre has led to an exodus. But old habits die hard – there were still sanitary towels in the men’s toilets at TECA.
One party member at the European Movement stand on Monday said he wanted to see the SNP leadership make more noise about potentially rejoining the European Union. Swinney is being careful, however, not to alienate working-class voters quitting Labour (some of whom may have backed Brexit), in case they switch to Reform instead of SNP.
In his big speech, Swinney was adamant that Scottish “revulsion at the right [such as Reform] will drive Scotland towards independence” in future. He also criticised Labour’s left-right swings under the UK prime minister.
“Starmer stole Jeremy Corbyn’s clothes [to win the Labour leadership vote] and now he is dressing up as Nigel Farage,” he said.
If slow-and-steady Swinney can find a way to fire up SNP activists and reboot the party’s election-fighting machine by next May, party strategists believe an overall majority is not beyond the bounds of possibility. One senior minister told The Irish Times to watch SNP candidate Hannah Mary Goodlad in the Shetland Islands, where she is making inroads in territory that would normally be a Lib Dem stronghold.
“If she wins next May, anything is possible,” he said.
Meanwhile, the SNP’s campaign director for May, senior cabinet member Angus Robertson, was extolling the virtues of a new digital platform for SNP election canvassers. The new street-by-street, house-by-house system for recording voter preferences – Snapshot – has been pasted over the SNP’s old election app, Activate.
Roberston argued the new system will “transform” the SNP’s voter targeting in May.
With barely seven months to go until the crucial elections, the SNP, despite its woes of recent years, looks to be back with renewed vigour.
