Mark McGeoghegan: The major strategic question the SNP must now face

As a party, this is the first time they have faced the possibility of decline and defeat while in government.

One strain of reaction has been denialism, with some pointing to the low turnout in Rutherglen and Hamilton West to argue that there is little to see here.

Thousands of 2019 SNP voters stayed at home rather than vote for Labour. And yes, that does carry risk for Labour – as Professor Sir John Curtice put it on Friday, they are yet to “seal the deal” with SNP/Labour swing voters.

But the notion that this is a silver lining for the SNP is, at best, dangerously complacent thinking for a party of government, if not outright delusional.

Just as those thousands stayed home rather than vote for Labour, they did so rather than vote for the SNP. The party needs to consider them as voters they have lost and chart a course to winning them back.

But most members who have articulated their thoughts in public, and everyone within the party I have spoken to over the past few days, think changes need to happen.

The challenge for the SNP is to identify what those changes are and how to implement them.

Most of this debate in the past few days has revolved around independence, which will lie at the heart of the SNP’s conference this weekend.

One camp believes that prioritising independence in their political strategy will do two things: bring Scotland closer to secession and reinforce the weakened relationship between support for independence and support for the SNP.

I can understand the logic here. The SNP won the past five parliamentary elections at Holyrood and Westminster on a platform where independence was front and centre. But this argument fails to confront the changing facts of Scottish politics and the structural constraints imposed on the SNP.

One poll conducted the day before and on the day of the by-election found that just 36% of those who voted SNP in 2019 would prioritise independence in deciding who to vote for in future. They were much more likely to point to the economy (66%) or the Scottish NHS (61%).

Independence is now a second-order issue even among the SNP’s voters.

Nevertheless, the SNP will come out the other end of their conference with a re-jigged independence policy, either the leadership’s preferred policy set out in Humza Yousaf and Stephen Flynn’s motion or some amended version.

But it will neither constitute a strategy nor bring Scotland closer to independence. At best, it will constitute a tactic by which the SNP hope to claim a mandate to secure talks with the UK Government on how Scotland could secede.

Without having built clear, majority popular support for independence, even if the SNP meet the low bar they set for themselves, any claim to a mandate will fall flat on its face with an incoming Labour government that will, let’s be absolutely clear, hold all the actual power.

Independence is off the table until consistent, clear, majority support for secession is established. I know that is a hard pill to swallow, but while there is risk everywhere for the SNP, there is also opportunity.

Scottish politics is changing, but what it looks like on the other side of this shift is yet to be defined. The opportunity for the SNP lies in shaping that politics. Rather than rush to reinforce their support at its narrowest, they should consider how to broaden it. Rather than looking backwards to the voter coalition of the past decade, they must seek to meet the needs of the Scottish people as they are today and as they will be in the decade to come.

In practice, that means a hard reset of the party’s strategy. Acknowledge that Scots are uncertain about independence, and accept that it is the independence movement’s responsibility to establish consistent, clear popular support for secession before trying to claim mandates.

Build and emphasise a vision of a fairer, more prosperous Scotland within the Union. At Westminster, hold Labour’s feet to the fire wherever you can. In particular, push for the kind of progressive economic policy popular in much of Scotland but which Labour is reluctant to pursue in England.

Push an incoming Labour government to rise to Gordon Brown’s recommendations on constitutional reform and work to build a consensus across Scottish civic society behind greater devolution and the strengthening of Scotland’s parliament and position within the Union.

At Holyrood, strategically push the boundaries of devolution to tackle serious social ills, like the drug deaths crisis, and emphasise a laser focus on Scotland’s big policy challenges. The media narrative around the SNP-led Scottish Government has become cluttered with often unpopular policies addressing third-order issues – that has to change.

None of this is about abandoning independence but accepting and shaping the new reality of Scottish politics as it develops while meeting the needs and demands of the Scottish people.

In the wake of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, one SNP source speaking to The National asked, “What’s the point of voting SNP at a General Election if independence isn’t front and centre?”

A good question and one the SNP and Humza Yousaf need to answer, because an SNP going into the next General Election with an independence non-strategy front-and-centre will end up looking foolish.

They would, I think, likely lose a significant number of seats. Mr Yousaf would find his position extremely vulnerable, and the party’s prospects going into the 2026 Holyrood election diminished. None of that helps the independence movement.

The SNP face an inflexion point, with a major strategic question before them. Their answer will shape the future of Scottish politics, the independence movement, and their party – they must consider that answer very carefully.