Holyrood 2026 battle-lines: who’s to blame, SNP or Labour?

The lines and lineaments of the coming battle for control of Holyrood are now clear and distinct for all to see.

The next Scottish election will be about one issue: who is responsible for the savage cuts which are going to further obliterate the nation’s public services, and hammer the poor even deeper into the ground.

There are only two contenders for who shoulders the blame: the SNP government in Edinburgh, or the new Labour government in London. Right now, it’s a fight both could easily lose. Though, obviously, only one can win come 2026.

This week has made evident the shape the contest will take. Both parties will pile opprobrium on the other, shovelling – what is in truth shared responsibility for the state of Scotland and the nation’s finances – onto their opponents.

The background is fairly straightforward. Labour chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a £22 billion black hole in Treasury finances, signalling nasty cuts to come with claims that “difficult decisions” lie ahead regarding “spending, welfare and tax”.

The SNP government now says it has no choice but to take unpleasant decisions also due to budget cuts planned by Westminster. Finance Secretary Shona Robison ordered a brake on spending, saying only what’s “absolutely essential” is permitted. 

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The Scottish government has introduced a recruitment freeze with only “absolutely critical” emergency services exempt. 

UK spending cuts have already included axing universal winter fuel payments for pensioners. This was replicated in Scotland after the SNP government abandoned plans to provide a replacement benefit without means testing.

Under questioning by the press, Jenny Gilruth, Scottish education secretary, couldn’t rule out further cuts to teaching staff. SNP-led Glasgow City Council plans to cut numbers by 450.

Creative Scotland has warned the arts industry faces years of “managed decline” after it was targeted for cuts.

Let’s put the dilemma facing two political parties aside momentarily, and underscore what this means for people and nation. Already overstretched public sector staff will be taken to breaking point, schoolchildren will suffer, patients will suffer, the poor will suffer, public services will decline even further than they already have (and they’re now in trauma), and Scotland will feel meaner.

The Tory hammering at the General Election was primarily predicated on their abysmal handling of national finances and public services. Evidently, people were sick of the mayhem, cruelty, lying and chaos – but mostly voters were expressing rage about national decline, mounting poverty, and the state of schools and hospitals.

In Scotland, the SNP were hammered for similar reasons. They didn’t get trounced due to cruelty, but they did get their backsides handed to them for being woefully inadequate in government. They were also punished for cuts the SNP imposed – particularly the drastic reduction in the affordable housing budget whilst 10,000 children were homeless.

Those voter priorities expressed at the General Election are unlikely to change come Holyrood 2026. We’re going to continue living through austerity, this time from Labour ministers who seem fully on board with Thatcherite economics.

The SNP will keep blaming Scotland’s woes on Westminster policy, but as we saw at the General Election, that didn’t wash.

The question is: can the SNP change the narrative in time for Holyrood 2026, and win the argument that it’s all Labour’s fault?

What the SNP does have on its side is ‘buyer’s remorse’. Labour won the election because it lured back voters who’d left for the SNP. The lure was the promise that ‘things could only get better’ under Keir Starmer.

Well, if things don’t get better, Scottish voters have an alternative English voters don’t: the SNP. Those promiscuous voters who keep flitting between Labour, the SNP and back again may well decide to punish an austerity-heavy Westminster government by sticking with the nationalists at Holyrood.

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However, what goes against the SNP is that enemy of all governments: time-served. The SNP will have been in power for nearly 20 years come the next Holyrood election.

If the SNP was punished for its domestic policy failures at the General Election, one imagines similar punishment will also haunt them into 2026. If pointing the finger of blame at London didn’t save skins this year, how can the same strategy work 18 months from now?

Hard facts and clever experts will derail SNP attempts to foist sole blame onto London. This week the respected Fraser of Allander Institute undercut the SNP’s go-to strategy. 

Deputy-director Dr João Sousa – once part of the UK Office for Budget Responsibility – suggested that while the halt to non-essential public spending announced by Robison was partly down to the financial arrangements between the UK and Scotland, blame also lay with the SNP.

“While some of this is a consequence of the fiscal framework, it would be unfair to blame it all on that. Lack of prudent planning by the Scottish Government is a major part of the story,” he said.

So essentially – and buckle up, as this isn’t going to be fun – the next Scottish election will be a rerun of the annual nonsense-fest seen around ‘Gers' figures – that’s ‘government expenditure and revenue’.

Each year, when the statistics emerge, it becomes a nationalist-unionist bun-fight, with unionists claiming figures show Scotland is incapable of going it alone, and nationalists claiming it shows how much Scotland suffers from remaining part of the UK.

This year, incidentally, Gers figures – just released – show Scotland’s public spending deficit increased by £3.6 billion to £22.7 billion as oil and gas revenues halved.

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Independence may be off the table for the foreseeable future, but it still remains the prism through which vast swathes of the electorate view politics. So come Holyrood 2026, the issue of who’s responsible for public spending cuts will become one giant Gers-esque blame game.

Sadly, emotion will probably be the deciding factor, mattering more than hard facts. Will voters forgive the SNP and buy the idea that London is all to blame? Or will Labour still be able to charm the electorate into thinking they can change the entire nation for the better and that Scotland’s woes are down to Scotland’s government? 

The question we’ll have to ask ourselves at the ballot box is this: is it the SNP presiding over ruin, or is Labour starving Scotland? The way each party answers that question won’t be with honesty – as both are to blame in their own way – instead they’ll use spin. That means, as always, it’s the country and the people who’ll lose out and are failed.