Senior Scottish National party strategists believe a majority at next year’s Holyrood elections is “within reach” despite failing public trust in Scotland’s government as they focus in on the “battleground cohort” of independence supporters who have drifted away from the SNP.
Before the party’s annual conference in Aberdeen this weekend, one senior source said the path to a majority – by winning 65 seats or more – was “more straightforward now” than it had been for a long time because of the Tory collapse and Labour’s unpopularity.
“The focus now is how to re-engage all independence supporters, given that independence is way more popular than the SNP currently. It’s a good place to be,” they said.
With Scottish Labour battling to end the SNP’s nearly 20-year-long domination, both parties are focused on the “soft yes” voters. These are people who were attracted by Labour’s “kick out the Tories” message during the 2024 general election, but are no longer SNP loyalists.
“That’s the battleground cohort that Labour is battling to hold on to and the SNP is fighting to take,” said another senior source, who batted away Scottish Labour claims the nationalists were simply retreating to their core vote by putting much greater emphasis on independence.
“This is not a core-vote strategy. That’s the battleground vote and how that plays out is the difference between us getting 55 seats and upwards through to us getting something around 65,” they said.
Senior figures argue this strategy takes advantage of a deeply fractured opposition that is dividing the non-SNP vote, and the impact of changing dynamics at Westminster – they credit the Scottish first minister, John Swinney, for differentiating himself as pro-immigration and a progressive tax reformer.
Swinney emphasised this on Wednesday as he launched a Scottish government policy paper on independence. “The prospect of Nigel Farage becoming prime minister is a very real one, but even if Farage does not make it to No 10, he is driving the agenda at Westminster ever more to the right,” he said.
The Scottish first minister, John Swinney, has differentiating himself as pro-immigration and a progressive tax reformer, senior SNP figures say. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA
However, there is still internal division about what that independence strategy should look like. Swinney and the SNP deputy leader, Keith Brown, have tabled a conference motion on Saturday stating that the elections in May should be fought on a “clear platform of national independence” and that winning a majority in the Scottish parliament would be the “only uncontested way to deliver a new vote on Scotland’s future”.
A rebel amendment supported by a wide range of local branches calls for a more fundamentalist strategy of treating the vote next year as a de facto referendum, an idea first promoted by the former SNP leader and first minister Nicola Sturgeon and acknowledged as a “mistake” in her recent memoir. But the party leadership are expected to prevail, albeit with fireworks in the conference hall.
This nationalist confidence comes despite data from the Scottish Social Attitudes survey showing trust in Scotland’s government has fallen to its lowest level since devolution in 1999. The data, which was published on Thursday, also shows NHS satisfaction at a new low – dissatisfaction Labour believes it can capitalise on.
The polling guru Sir John Curtice said: “People in Scotland, on balance, think the Scottish government’s not doing terribly well. But they think the UK government’s doing even worse.”
Curtice pointed out that, while the SNP had dropped about 15 points over the last five years, the party remained the main beneficiaries of a fragmented system, with Scottish Labour getting the blame for their UK counterparts. “Crucially, virtually nobody is going from the SNP to Reform, whereas Labour are more vulnerable to Reform north of the border because their vote is less leftwing here,” he said.
Recent polling puts the SNP on 37% of the Holyrood vote. The party would need to win 65 seats of more to have a majority. Photograph: Ken Jack/Getty Images
This translates into recent polling for More in Common last month putting the SNP on 37% of the Holyrood vote, Labour on 17%, Reform on 16%, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats on 12% each, and the Greens on 5%. Support for independence hovers around 50%.
But the SNP still faces significant challenges before May as its newly appointed chief executive, Callum McCaig, the fourth in three years, prepares the party for what is likely to be a bruising contest.
After being humiliated by Labour in the general election, losing 38 of its 48 Westminster seats, the SNP was surprisingly beaten again by the party in June at the byelection for the Holyrood seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse in June.. This was despite polling suggesting a straightforward SNP win. Insiders now acknowledge their decision to solely attack Reform was a failure, since they lost sight of their actual opponent, Labour.
The SNP lost the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection to Labour, with insiders acknowledging the decision to focus on Reform UK was a failure. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
Alongside the impending trial of Sturgeon’s former husband, Peter Murrell, for alleged embezzlement during his 22-year tenure as SNP chief executive, the party has had a steep fall in membership, down from 126,000 at its peak to 56,000. Its finances are much dicier too.
Speaking to SNP politicians and activists before the party annual get-together, their enthusiasm for a weekend in Aberdeen’s cavernous conference centre is not universal, and some dismiss talk of a majority as “wishful thinking”.
“Even at her Covid high of popularity, Nicola [Sturegon] didn’t get a majority,” said one former MP.
But under the radar, progress is lifting spirits. The last chief executive is acknowledged to have done a very effective job of reorganising the SNP office structures and finances, including a hire who used to work at the party’s previous auditors.
Also it is hard to find an activist who is not ecstatic about the rollout of digital platform for collecting canvassing data, albeit years behind other parties. The impact would be “huge”, one veteran activist said, on both morale and efficiency, so volunteers would no longer be drying out rain-soaked canvass forms.
