The exhausted Scottish National Party clings to power, for now

A quarter of a century on, there is little sense of optimism anywhere in the parliament.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the first meeting of the modern Scottish Parliament. It was a moment of celebration. Dr. Winifred Ewing of the Scottish National Party (SNP), presiding as the oldest member, told the assembled legislators, “I want to begin with the words that I have always wanted either to say or to hear someone else say: the Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on 25 March 1707, is hereby reconvened.”

This was not legally true, as the new body had no continuity from the Parliament of Scotland that existed before Great Britain was formed, but it caught the joyous and optimistic mood. Yet a quarter of a century on, there is little sense of optimism anywhere in the parliament.

Tony Blair’s Labour government created the Scottish Parliament as part of a widespread program of devolution that also saw assemblies created for Wales and Northern Ireland. It was widely assumed early on that Scotland would be a reliable Labour fiefdom. In 1997, Labour had won 46 percent of the vote and 56 of its 72 members of Parliament, and they comfortably won the first elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, forming a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.

Somehow, though, it all went wrong. The inaugural First Minister, Donald Dewar, died following a fall after 17 months in office, and his successor, Henry McLeish, lasted only a year before resigning in a grubby, low-level financial scandal. Jack McConnell took over but only won a third of the vote in 2003; at the following election, the SNP elbowed Labour aside into first place and have held power ever since.

Humza Yousaf became the Nationalists’ third leader in March 2023, but sheer structural fatigue was setting in. He beat his young rival Kate Forbes only 52 percent to 48 percent, and never managed to carve out a convincing narrative for his leadership. Yousaf had inherited an alarmingly high rate of drug-related deaths, the worst in Europe; calls for a revision of university and college fees; and a controversial policy on gender recognition reform to which he chose to attach himself.

At the age of 37, never having worked outside politics, Yousaf simply proved to be an incompetent politician. He rolled out a divisive law on hate speech that critics warned would infringe freedom of speech, attacked the lack of diversity in a country that is 96 percent white and proved angry and over-sensitive when challenged. Last month, when his government abandoned targets on climate change that it had been missing for years, Yousaf tried to preempt a crisis with his coalition partners, the Scottish Greens, by terminating the agreement between them and sacking the Green ministers. It somehow became clear that his tenure as First Minister had run its course, and, after a weekend considering his position, he resigned.

This left the Scottish National Party at a crossroads. A general election in the United Kingdom is expected later this year, and Scotland will vote for its parliament in May 2026. How would the party refresh itself and have an attractive offering for voters? That is a hard question for any party after 17 years in office.

Yousaf’s rival of 2023, Kate Forbes, had stayed out of government, but she is a social conservative, an evangelical Christian from the Free Church of Scotland who disapproves of abortion, equal marriage and gender self-identification. For many progressives, and for the Greens whose votes would be needed to nominate a new first minister, that put her beyond the pale.

Several possible contenders, perhaps seeing little long-term future in leading the SNP at this stage, quickly ruled themselves out, and none seemed to have much substance or weight. Support quickly rallied round veteran politician John Swinney, who had been Deputy First Minister from 2014 to 2023 and had even led the party, unsuccessfully, for a time from 2000 to 2004.

There was no appetite for a potentially bitter leadership contest, so Swinney was elected unopposed and sworn in as First Minister on May 8. He appointed Forbes as his deputy and gave her the economy portfolio, but left most other ministers in place.

Swinney begins with modest expectations: 37 percent of the public think he will be a good leader, while 23 percent think he will perform poorly. But the SNP’s trajectory in the polls is generally downwards, and Scottish Labour are hoping to outperform them at the U.K.-wide general election. Swinney has spoken of a “new chapter” in his party’s history, one which will be about “uniting, coming together and dedicating ourselves to the service of Scotland.”

The new First Minister, who has been in the Scottish Parliament for every day of its 25 years, spoke of the country he wants to see, where “people have good jobs, the climate is protected, the vulnerable are lifted up and opportunity is available for all.” He faces the obvious question: After 17 years in power, why hasn’t the SNP delivered it? Moreover, why should voters believe it can do so now?

Eliot Wilson is a freelance writer on politics and international affairs and the co-founder of Pivot Point Group. He was senior official in the U.K. House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including serving as a clerk of the Defence Committee and secretary of the U.K. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.