Swinney begs rebels not to oust him
The SNP leader has pleaded with party rebels not to press ahead with a threatened leadership challenge after a shock by-election defeat.
John Swinney, the First Minister, warned it would not be a 'good idea' for disaffected Nationalists to try and oust him at the SNP conference in October.
Mr Swinney said he had helped the SNP 'recover from a very, very difficult situation' following the troubled final months of Nicola Sturgeon's premiership and Humza Yousaf's chaotic tenure.
His plea came the day after it was reported that 25 senior SNP figures met on Monday evening to discuss removing Mr Swinney, barely a year after he succeeded Mr Yousaf.
They warned that he risked facing a leadership challenge at the SNP conference in Aberdeen unless he comes up with a new strategy to achieve Scottish independence.
Discontent with his leadership has surfaced after Labour pulled off a surprise victory in last week's Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, which the SNP had been hot favourites to win.
The defeat followed Labour's rout of the SNP in last year's general election, also under Mr Swinney's leadership.
Alex Neil, a former Cabinet minister in Alex Salmond's and Ms Sturgeon's governments, said that Mr Swinney should be replaced.
Mr Swinney is expected to face robust questions at a meeting of the party's ruling national executive committee on Sunday about his by-election campaign strategy, which focused on the claim that it was a straight fight between the SNP and Reform UK.
The Guardian reported that he faced criticism about the strategy at a 'fractious' MSP group meeting on Tuesday, with one backbencher claiming he had 'panicked' at the rise of Reform, which finished a close third in the contest.
Insiders also expect him to face pressure to come up with much clearer strategy for achieving independence, after he warned that support for separation would have to rise to more than 60 per cent to get another referendum.
Under SNP rules, any member who can secure 100 nominations from 20 different branches ahead of party conference can trigger a leadership vote.
Mr Swinney admitted that he had 'absolutely no idea' about whether he would face a challenge but said: 'I don't think that would be a good idea.'
Speaking after First Minister's Questions at Holyrood, he said: 'I came into office to help the SNP recover from a very, very difficult situation in the spring of 2024, and I'm very focused on making sure that we make that recovery to be ready for the 2026 elections, and that's what's the focus of my thinking and my planning.
'I've obviously taken forward a number of steps over the course of the last 12 months to get the SNP into a better position.'
He insisted that the SNP would not have even been in contention in the by-election before he took over, despite the party winning the seat in the 2021 Holyrood contest by 4,582 votes.
Labour won the contest last week by 602 votes, after the SNP vote in the seat dropped by 17 points compared to 2021.
However, Mr Swinney said he was 'not in the slightest' worried about the internal briefing against him, and rejected criticism that he was not moving fast enough on independence.
He said he had spent the first year of his leadership 'addressing the issues that people are immediately preoccupied by', such as the cost of living crisis.
Mr Swinney said this was necessary to ensure 'we could get a hearing' from the public, but his 'phase two' plan was to 'open up a conversation about independence' ahead of next year's election.
But Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said: 'Even John Swinney's MSPs are now openly rebelling against him with senior figures saying he has two weeks to come up with a new idea to save his job. John Swinney and the SNP are out of ideas, out of steam and out of time.'
He told First Minister's Questions: 'One SNP MSP said about John Swinney, 'there is no energy, no fire, no boldness, no long-term vision' – they are right.'
It is not thought that an MP or MSP will directly challenge Mr Swinney for the leadership ahead of the May 2026 election, but the rebels said a rank-and-file activist could come forward as a stalking horse.
They warned that any contest would be 'hugely damning and damaging, and make the party look utterly ridiculous'.
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