Will 2026 see people voting against parties - rather than for them?

The Herald Scotland

4 hours ago

Mr Swinney's two speeches mark a significant shift in the SNP's political strategy after their defeat in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election at the start of this month. When he and Kate Forbes, his Deputy First Minister and Economy Secretary, took over from Humza Yousaf in May last year, their priority was righting the ship. The SNP had been losing support ever since Nicola Sturgeon's resignation, and under Mr Yousaf's leadership had been overtaken by Scottish Labour, ultimately leading to their heavy defeat in the general election last July.
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Mr Swinney and Ms Forbes have succeeded in stabilising their party's position. Since July, support for the SNP has ticked up slightly. But their vote share is still down significantly at around 30-35%, at least 12 points lower than their result at the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections.
The Hamilton by-election was a painful reminder of that fact, and that despite the collapse in Labour support since the general election, the SNP are still vulnerable in constituencies across the country. Current polling would see them win as many as 60 seats next May, down only a handful compared to 2021, but many of those seats will be tightly contested and swings similar to what we saw in Hamilton could cost them ten to 15 seats.
What has been missing from Mr Swinney and Ms Forbes is a vision for Scotland that reflects public feeling about the state of public services and the Scottish economy and charts a way out of the morass. That's what Mr Swinney sought to provide this week.
Whether that vision, such as it is, cuts through and either shores up the SNP's voter base or wins back some of those who supported them in 2021 but did not last year, is up in the air. The SNP have been in government for nearly two decades, and it's showing. They look and feel like a tired government running low on ideas and the political capital necessary to make the sweeping changes that Mr Swinney says are necessary.
In the most recent Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, trust in the Scottish Government to work in Scotland's best interests fell below 50% for the first time. Just 23% said they were satisfied with how the Scottish NHS is running, the lowest in the devolution era, and 83% said that standards of living in Scotland are falling, a new high.
I suspect that Mr Swinney's claim that the status quo no longer serves the public well will resonate just fine. His challenge is to persuade the public that he and the SNP, having now governed Scotland for so long without delivering the change he is claiming is necessary, are the right people to deliver that change. That will be a much harder case to make.
Tying that change to independence makes that case that much harder. I understand why he has had to bring the constitutional question back to the foreground for party management reasons, as disquiet around his apparent failure to make a case for secession burst into the open after Hamilton. But a big part of the reason why so many independence supporters voted Labour last July was the SNP's apparent inability to deliver independence or significant change without independence.
The former has not been addressed – the same insurmountable obstacles exist; nothing has changed on that front since the UK Supreme Court ruled that Holyrood could not legislate for a referendum back in November 2022. And the latter cannot be addressed if Mr Swinney is simultaneously arguing that sweeping change is needed, and that independence is a prerequisite for that change.
Independence might be a priority for SNP members and legislators, but it is not a priority for the Scottish public. Just one-in-eight Scots think that independence is a top issue facing the country, compared to a majority who prioritise the economy and the NHS, and a third who prioritise education. Even among those who voted SNP last July, just a third prioritise independence. There's a risk that putting independence at the heart of their campaign next May distracts from the rest of the SNP's message and leads to a sense that they are out of touch with the public's priorities.
In the end, though, none of that might matter, because there is no single party that voters are rallying to as an alternative to the SNP. While Mr Swinney, Ms Forbes, and their party are hardly popular – just 34% of Scots have a favourable view of Mr Swinney, and 21% of Ms Forbes – Labour are even less so. 27% of Scots have a favourable view of Keir Starmer, and just 20% have a favourable view of Anas Sarwar.
While only around one-in-five Scots think the Scottish Government is doing a good job on managing the economy or improving the state of the NHS or Scottish education, just a fifth think that Labour would do a better job – a quarter think that they would do even worse.
Mr Swinney may spend the months leading up to next year's Holyrood elections pitching a big vision, and of course he must begin laying the groundwork for the SNP's campaign and start making a compelling argument for why voters should let him hold on to the keys to Bute House.
Who knows whether that will cut through and persuade anybody, but I have my doubts. It's far more likely that next year's election will be defined by dissatisfaction with both the Scottish and UK Governments, and distrust of politicians generally, with voters voting against parties and politicians they dislike most rather than for those they like.
Mark McGeoghegan is a Glasgow University researcher of nationalism and contentious politics and an Associate Member of the Centre on Constitutional Change. He can be found on BlueSky @markmcgeoghegan.bsky.social