Why is John Swinney talking about independence now?
It should be unremarkable that First Minister John Swinney is once again making the case for Scottish independence.After all, he is also the leader of the Scottish National Party, which literally exists to achieve statehood for Scotland.At the Scotland 2050 conference on Tuesday, Swinney argued that Scotland was treated as an "afterthought" by Westminster and had the "capacity to stand and flourish on our own two feet".These arguments are not new but there seems to be a renewed effort to make them.
What has perhaps been more remarkable is how relatively muted Swinney and other leading SNP figures have been on this subject over the past year.They have talked about it but this conversation has been secondary to a focus on dealing with the day-to-day business of devolved government.Their defeat in the 2024 general election - after nearly a decade of political dominance of Scottish seats at Westminster - was a serious setback to their cause.They went into that campaign with a manifesto that on page one, line one, said: "Vote SNP for Scotland to become an independent country".
What has happened to the SNP vote?
Instead, a significant portion of their usual support either stayed at home or switched to Labour to help them deliver "change" by ousting the Conservative government.The "yellow wall" the SNP had built across the central belt of Scotland crumbled. Nationwide, they lost 39 of their 48 seats, mostly to Labour.Swinney had only been party leader for a matter of weeks at this point so he escaped much of the blame for this catastrophic result.He was, however, left to pick up the pieces from this and the wider series of problems his party faced.The Perthshire North MSP was elected SNP leader unopposed after Humza Yousaf quit rather than lose a confidence vote at Holyrood following his decision to collapse his party's power sharing deal with the Greens.
There was internal strife over gender politics, environmental commitments and a police investigation into the SNP's finances which has since developed into a prosecution of the party's former chief executive, Peter Murrell. Alongside all of this, the party's independence strategy had hit a brick wall.When Nicola Sturgeon was first minister, she promised another referendum and, when the UK government refused to grant Holyrood the power to proceed, the Scottish government took a case to the UK Supreme Court to see if they could go ahead anyway.The judges ruled that any future referendum must have the consent of UK ministers.The party flirted with the idea of treating a national election as a makeshift referendum but they knew that trying to win more than half the votes in a multi-party contest would be an extremely difficult thing to do and backed away from that.If you are the SNP leader you cannot just give up on independence. As the former first minister Alex Salmond once said: "The dream shall never die".
What do the polls say about independence?
Independence has not had much profile since the 2024 election to allow Swinney time to bring calm to the chaos he inherited.He also wanted to demonstrate a commitment to dealing with everyday issues like reducing NHS waiting times and child poverty.The first minister has repeatedly stressed that delivering on these priorities is what his administration is about.He sees this as an essential route to renewing trust with voters and convincing them to keep him in office.However, there are other factors for him to consider. Support for independence is far greater than support for the SNP according to the current trend in opinion polling.There used to be a much closer relationship between the two but the gap has widened considerably since Sturgeon left office and since the police investigation into party finances became headline news.Might this be a potential well of support to be tapped ahead of the Holyrood election in May 2026? Current supporters of the SNP also need to be motivated to campaign for the party and to turn out to vote.As one senior SNP source put it: "There is an undercurrent of anxiety in the party to get on the front foot". That's especially true after losing the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election earlier this month.
How much should the SNP talk about independence?
Supporters of Swinney argue that while that defeat was disappointing, it was sufficiently narrow (Labour edged it by 600 votes) to suggest the SNP is able to get a hearing again from voters.They talk about Swinney's leadership entering a new phase where not only will he seek to demonstrate delivery in devolved government but also invite the public to imagine what more could be achieved if Scotland was an independent country.That is essentially what he did at the Scotland 2050 conference on Tuesday, describing this as the "defining choice" of this generation, without setting out how or when this choice might be made.There is a significant tension in his dual approach to political strategy.If Swinney is perceived to be talking about independence too much, he risks undermining his own commitment to focus on fixing problems in the devolved public services.If he is seen to talk about independence too little, he risks alienating those within and beyond the membership of the SNP who support this political project.Party sources believe they need to find a careful balance between the two and develop a credible story about competency in government that can help grow support for independence.This was more or less the strategy that Salmond pursued in the early years of SNP administration. It is harder now.The problem is that after eighteen years in office, the party cannot avoid responsibility for many of the challenges Scotland faces including large NHS waiting lists, overcrowded prisons and ferries that are long overdue and massively over budget.
Will there be a second indyref?
In another speech this week, Swinney set out plans to use technology to overhaul our public services.This vision of a "digital refit" is not going to be delivered before the Holyrood election and whatever the SNP leader can achieve in the next eleven months, many problems will remain unresolved.On independence, his political opponents who want Scotland to remain part of the UK will accuse him of pursuing an obsession that was rejected in the 2014 referendum.They will also argue that Scottish independence would add to uncertainty at a time of global instability.There is no obvious prospect of another referendum in the near future and senior SNP figures accept there would need to be sustained majority support for independence to overcome the UK veto on another referendum.This will presumably be among the topics discussed further at the SNP's national council in Perth on Saturday, where independence is the key item on the agenda of the body which offers a bridge between the party leadership and its membership.The re-emergence of independence campaigning is a reminder that this remains a fundamental fault line in Scottish politics, even if it appears more dormant than at any time since the referendum in 2014.
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