All is not yet lost if the SNP stops the infighting

For a party that has been popular and in power for a long time, losing – especially a heavy loss – can be a hammer blow. It leaves a party and its members shellshocked and casting around for easy explanations and excuses. We see that whenever Labour lose power: they weren’t left-wing enough and their leaders were class traitors. If only they were more authentically left-wing they would have won.

We see the same when the Conservatives lose. We are seeing that play out right now, most prominently in Suella Braverman’s doubling down on the same anti-immigrant and anti-LGBT rhetoric that did nothing to help the Conservatives in the election last week. If only they were more right-wing, if only the party had indulged its worst instincts, they would have won.

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We are also seeing, in the breakneck acceleration of the breakdown of Conservative discipline that began during the campaign, the sort of personal recriminations that are also a hallmark of a defeated and demoralised party. Kemi Badenoch’s rather unsubtle suggestion that Ms Braverman was having a public nervous breakdown, and Ms Braverman’s attempts to push the blame for their election defeat onto Ms Badenoch in turn, are only the most public examples.

All of this is to say that when once-popular, governing parties lose big, they have a habit of collapsing into infighting. Their political ‘big beasts’ tend to eat each other alive rather than apply their collective, often considerable, political acumen to the challenges that lie ahead of them.

The SNP, it seems, is no different. We hadn’t even had the declaration of the result in Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire by the time the infighting began in earnest. It was Nicola Sturgeon’s fault, it was John Swinney’s fault, it was Humza Yousaf’s fault. Unsurprisingly, for those MPs demanding apologies, their defeat was not their own fault.

SNP veteran Jim Sillars branded Nicola Sturgeon "Stalin’s wee sister" -  Stalin being, of course, famous for allowing his internal party critics to retain the whip. Former MPs and MSPs have called for John Swinney to resign, having become SNP leader and First Minister mere weeks before the election was called.

Douglas Chapman, who stepped down as an MP before the election, claimed this would give the SNP a "fresh start" with a ‘new leadership team’ topped by one of Kate Forbes or Stephen Flynn. A new leader who was Nicola Sturgeon’s Finance Secretary and the Deputy First Minister for this election defeat, or who was the Westminster leader during the election, would hardly constitute a ‘fresh start’.

With the Scottish Parliament elections now less than 22 months away, it is true that the SNP needs to find a way to get on the front foot, and rapidly. But a leadership contest is hardly the way to achieve that. The contest following Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation generated a 4.9-point swing from the SNP to Labour in 2023, and there was a three-point swing following Humza Yousaf’s resignation.

High-profile resignations and leadership contests have not helped the SNP recover the last two times they have tried it and won’t help now. Personalities are not among the SNP’s main problems. Those problems are rooted in policy failures and perceptions of incompetence, on one hand, and the sharp decline in the salience of the constitution.

The latter is something they can do little about right now: they cannot, on their own, change the power structures of the British state. All the UK Government has to do is say "no", and that’s it. Overcoming that will require building substantially greater public support for independence than currently exists, and that is the work of a long-term movement, not a short-term political campaign.

The former problem - policy failure and perceptions of incompetence - can only be combatted by demonstrating that Scotland’s NHS and education system are turning a corner. Or at least by persuading those voters who flipped from the SNP to Labour that the Scottish Government has the ideas and policies necessary to improve public services.

That, in turn, requires the SNP not to turn on itself as Labour and the Conservatives tend to following a big defeat, but to seriously think about how they reinject life into the Scottish public realm. Voters sent the SNP a strong message last week: that it has failed in its stewardship of the Scottish economy and public services, and that its survival as Scotland’s party of government depends on changing that. Changing personalities will persuade nobody, and petty infighting will only do more to convince voters that it’s time for new personnel in Holyrood, and a different ruling party.

The contest following Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation generated a 4.9-point swing from the SNP to Labour in 2023 (Image: Newsquest)

The SNP might eventually decide that a new leader is needed, or significant overhauls of its internal party structures, to recover. But those are not decisions to be taken immediately and should only be taken if they are necessary to facilitate turning the Scottish ship of state around and to deliver a policy programme that addresses voters’ concerns. The voters have thrown down the gauntlet to the SNP, and what they want to see is the SNP picking that gauntlet up, not fighting among themselves to assign blame while voters’ priorities go unaddressed.

So, while it is easy to understand why some quarters of the SNP have been at each other’s throats over the past week, that needs to stop. They are not, after all, in opposition yet. The SNP remains Scotland’s government, and its remains competitive as we look to the 2026 elections. Time to take a deep breath and get back to work, for the sake of the country they govern as much as their own.