Stephen Noon: Can the former Jesuit help the SNP win power again?

Responding on social media the Labour peer Lord Foulkes acknowledged the significance of the move - even if he disagreed with the conclusion: "A good appointment, but too late to save Swinney."

Mr Noon's position as senior special advisor to the First Minister is certainly one of the most eye catching hirings in recent weeks in the government.

The former chief strategist for the Yes campaign the 53-year-old has built a career which has straddled frontline politics, backroom party policy work, academic study and religious thinking and practice.

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The 53-year-old is known for his intellectual prowess, his likeability and his deep Catholic faith. He is currently completing his PhD at the School of Divinity at Edinburgh University on themes relating to devolution, politics and religious thought.

"The research field is Ethics and Practical Theology and so the hope is to contribute also to the public sphere, with the hope that the research can offer insights that are useful as we navigate difficult political debates, such as the debate on independence, in Scotland today," he stated on his LinkedIn page.

"Everything people say about Stephen about being humble, unassuming but ferociously bright is true," said former SNP MSP Jim Eadie, a former Alba candidate who knows Mr Noon well.

"He has finely honed political skills without being tainted so far by the political black arts."

His first main job in politics was working for the SNP in Westminster from 1996 to 2001. Initially, the SNP group numbered just three MPs; Alex Salmond, Andrew Welsh and Margaret Ewing, though the party doubled that number of seats in 1997. The new MPs included Mr Swinney.

Mr Noon used to work for Alex Salmond when he was First Minister (Image: PA) As a member of a small team, Mr Noon's job was varied, helping with research, preparing questions for MPs and liaising with journalists.

After leaving Westminster he worked for Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor from 2003 to 2004, later returning to the politics as a political adviser to First Minister Alex Salmond.

He then returned to the SNP where he helped prepare its manifesto for the 2011 Holyrood election - where the party beat the electoral system to win a majority and helping to prepare the ground work for the independence referendum in September 2014.

His role as chief strategist for Yes Scotland followed helping Mr Salmond and his then deputy Nicola Sturgeon to increase support for independence from less than 30% to 45%, where it has largely remained.

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After the Yes side's defeat Mr Noon thought seriously about becoming a priest, joining the order of the Society of Jesus in 2015 - an order  founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1534 and influenced by the philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas.

In the end he did not take his final vows to become a priest but he has written on social media that the period with the order had an influential effect on his life.

"After seven hugely rewarding and life-changing years, I decided to leave the Society of Jesus. Highlights of the experience include undertaking a begging pilgrimage through the Basque Country and northern Spain, periods working in a primary school and a hospice, four years of study in Toronto and a year taking forward a new and important work of the Jesuits in Britain as Director of the London Jesuit Centre," he noted.

Mr Noon then took up his PhD studies at Edinburgh which he is understood to be completing part time as he begins his new role with the First Minister.

So what does Mr Noon think and can his thinking help the SNP achieve a record fifth term in government for his party next year?

He is an admirer of the late Professor Sir Neil McCormick's writings, a staunch pro-European, lawyer and academic and MEP who saw independence as a pragmatic way of improving the lives of people in Scotland and not a romantic goal.

Significantly, Mr Noon was deeply sceptical of both Ms Sturgeon's de facto referendum and of her decision to go to the Supreme Court to see if Holyrood has the powers to hold a vote on independence without the UK Government agreement - predicting correctly the day before the decision in November 2022 that it would not rule in the Scottish Government's favour.

A few months later, writing exclusively in The Herald, the strategist put forward an attention grabbing idea based on Labour coming to power and bringing in a bill on constitutional reform.

He argued then that in exchange for giving legislative consent to the Labour government for a Westminster bill reforming the UK constitution, Holyrood should demand powers to hold an independence referendum. He said under his plan a new independence referendum could be held in 2027 or 2028.

Since then his views have evolved further towards a "gradualist' approach towards independence by increasing Holyrood's powers under devolution.

Last month, he published a paper co-authored with former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale proposing that Scotland should adopt a Good Friday Agreement-style set of rules that would allow a new independence referendum if the UK Government believes there is sufficient support for Scottish independence.

The plan also echoed the broad thinking of Mr Swinney who in a speech earlier in September said another referendum should take place only when “compelling and demonstrable” backing for independence could be shown.

In their paper for Glasgow University’s Centre for Public Policy, Mr Noon and Ms Dugdale wrote that the need for constitutional reform had not evaporated despite the SNP’s heavy loss to Labour at the general election. They added that any changes to the devolution settlement must be based on how they would improve MSPs’ ability to govern.

Whether or not Mr Swinney will shift his position towards a more "gradualist" approach towards independence in the wake of his appointment of Mr Noon remains to be seen.

Opinion polls suggesting the position of backing more powers for Holyrood has got majority support among voters - including those soft independence supporters the SNP lost to Labour at the July 4 general election and are determined to win back in 2026.

It's also a position Labour has not shown much enthusiasm for with Scottish Secretary Ian Murray declaring in an interview last year he was not in favour of a Labour UK government giving new powers to Holyrood, such as employment law, despite Scottish Labour backing such a move.

Yet the danger of such a way forward for the SNP would be that it could put off more impatient independence supporters who could switch to Mr Salmond's Alba party.

Mr Eadie noted the opportunity that such an SNP strategy could give to his party. "The concern that independence supporters will have is that his appointment signals a move under Swinney towards ultra gradualism and a parking of independence at a time when the need for it has never been more urgent," he told the Herald on Sunday.

James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, who first coined the terms "gradualist" and "fundamentalist" with reference to the SNP is sceptical - both of the description of Mr Noon as a "gradualist" but also whether the constitution will carry much weight among voters in 2026 with priorities being the NHS, public services and the cost of living.

"He may now be portrayed as a gradualist but that’s a mistake.  He is a pragmatist rather than a gradualist – he would advance rapidly to independence if he thought that was possible.  That was clear in his central role in the 2014 independence referendum." Mr Mitchell told the Herald on Sunday.

"His contribution has long been, and continues to be, to think strategically about how to advance independence."

However, Mr Mitchel added: "The problem is that the SNP needs to accept that independence is off the agenda for the foreseeable future.  "It needs to focus on the cost of living crisis, housing crisis, poor economic performance, improving delivery of a wide range of public services but these are not areas in which Stephen has expertise or, frankly, much interest other than as potential means to advance independence."

It's clear that for the SNP to win in 2026 and be returned to power, it win have to win back soft independence supporters from Labour while keep more enthusiastic independence supporters on board will and articulate how its policies will bring real improvements to the lives of Scots who have been governed by the party since 2007.Mapping out a strategy will be quite a feat which is likely to exercise Mr Noon's philosophical thinking.