At the time of writing, we are two weeks on from the collapse of the Bute House agreement. In what was intended to be an astute seizing of political capital at Holyrood, the call made by the now-former First Minister was ultimately a severely rash one – which left Humza Yousaf with no room to breathe, and the Scottish National Party at its lowest ebb in what feels like a lifetime.
Yet, just a fortnight later, it feels as though there may be space for some (exceedingly cautious) optimism on the SNP’s part. While the re-appointment of former party leader and First Minister John Swinney is hardly an inspiring one, the general consensus among columnists and commentators in the Holyrood bubble is that he is a ‘safe pair of hands’, suggesting, perhaps, that he will be afforded at least some degree of leniency in their coverage, compared to the consistently maligned Yousaf – for whom it often felt as though his untimely exit was a foregone conclusion from the day he was sworn into Bute House.
In terms of polling, YouGov figures from late April suggest that it is not the end of days for the SNP just yet. For one, the party should count themselves lucky that the opposition leaders in Holyrood have generally failed to register much of an impact on the Scottish public. As such, the SNP are polling pretty tightly alongside Anas Sarwar’s Scottish Labour Party – which is clearly yet to make a full recovery from the decision to back the Union in 2014. And while the nationalists have been derided from all angles of late, Swinney can take solace from the fact that the Scottish Tories are projected to revert to third place in the parliamentary standings, with soon-to-be voters on both sides of the borders seemingly not enamoured by the leadership of either Rishi Sunak or Douglas Ross.
Though a fifth successive term in government is not yet out of the question, there are some key issues Swinney and his new cabinet cannot afford to get wrong. The very presence of the Alba party shows that, firstly, Swinney et al must seek to establish how they want to handle the issue of the so-called old guard. While Alba failed to elect a single candidate at the 2021 Holyrood Election, the party possesses a total presence of three representatives across the London and Edinburgh houses, all of whom deflected from the SNP. And though they don’t hold an overly significant weight in Parliament at present, there is a particularly sizeable, vocal core of SNP deserters who, if X is anything to go off, are increasingly swaying towards rejecting the notion of an independent Scotland.
Regarding such voters, Swinney has two options. He may choose to embrace these dejected nationalists, many of whom were likely at their most infatuated with the SNP back in 2014, and have since struggled to keep up with the evolving views of the party’s youth wings, by making pacts on issues like gender and reversing progressive policies promises made by Yousaf and his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon. Or, rather, Swinney may choose to ignore such voters and instead opt to double down on the more liberal ideas proposed by the SNP over the last few years. The Gender Recognition Reform Bill and the recently introduced Hate Crime and Public Order Act, for example, both of which seem to be real bugbears for Alba aficionados online, and the way Swinney acts on such matters will determine which flavour of independence young and first-time voters will be lending their support to, whenever the next election should fall.
Of course, perhaps most importantly, Swinney must look to provide a clear, structured map to independence. The absence of such has potentially been the party’s biggest weakness over the last decade, and with all the political dismay of the post-COVID era, voters are in desperate need of a calculated plan which shows that Scotland would be better off, socially and financially, without its neighbours. Whether governing in a majority, minority, coalition or acting as an opposition party, whatever the SNP do from here on out will be futile if Swinney and those around him cannot convince the people of Scotland of a brighter future, free of the supposed shackles of Westminster. It appears this needs to be led by a new generation of nationalist politicians who can offer an alternative vision than that of the SNP faces present at the 2014 referendum.
Music Editor 2022-23
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