Two years to ‘skelp’ Scottish nationalism

There are many Scottish words for a beating and locals use most of them to explain what is about to happen to the SNP. After more than a decade of domination, the Scottish National party is about to be skelped, battered and gubbed.

This is big news — though hardly surprising after 18 months of upheaval, policy failures, criminal investigations and three different leaders. (You see, it’s not just the Conservatives.) What is more interesting, and less certain, is where this leaves the cause of independence.

While the UK government can and has refused a second referendum after 2014’s “Yes” campaign failed to swing the last one, it cannot do so indefinitely in the face of continued nationalist majorities at the Scottish parliament in Holyrood. So neutering the separatist cause requires beating back the SNP.

Labour’s looming resurrection north of the border in next week’s general election offers unionists that hope. Polls suggest it will emerge as Scotland’s largest party in the Commons, though several contests are very close. Even if it falls short of that, the nationalists look set to lose at least a score of the 48 seats they won in 2019 and see their vote share drop from 45 per cent to closer to a third. An incoming Labour government will be able to swat away demands for a new referendum. 

A Labour win also robs the SNP not only of a hated “English” Tory government but of the argument, always spurious, that Scotland is a politically different country, uniquely virtuous in its progressive values. 

Naturally, unionists are crowing that Labour’s return heralds the end of the independence threat for a generation. It might, but they should postpone their glee. The SNP is already planning for the 2026 Holyrood elections: a fresh majority in the devolved parliament, a stretch but not out of the question, would put the issue back on top.

Nationalist fervour may have subsided but it has not disappeared. While SNP support is down, backing for independence has held pretty firm, roving between the high forties to a small majority. An SNP revival relies on a Keir Starmer government quickly disappointing and losing support. This is obviously possible.

The SNP’s strategy in the UK-wide general election offers a preview of what is to follow. Regardless of the result, John Swinney, Scotland’s new first minister, will demand talks on a referendum he knows Labour will not grant, accuse it of ignoring the voice of Scotland and add, for good measure, that Starmer is barely distinguishable from Conservative ministers. “Getting the referendum Labour denies us will be the entire basis for our campaign in 2026,” says one SNP MP battling for survival next week.  

And yet the SNP has a serious structural issue. It has no mechanism to deliver the referendum it demands. Belief that change is imminent has gone out of the independence balloon as Westminster refuses to budge; the party can no longer deflect attention from its failures running Scotland’s government on health, schools and crime. More combative nationalists also fear that the widely liked but understated Swinney won’t be able to change the political weather.  

So Labour has an opening, but a win next week is only a start. One leading figure stresses that current support is “wide but shallow” and built largely on others’ failures.

If Labour is to keep the SNP down it must learn the one overriding lesson of its success this time: change the conversation. This is the first election in over a decade where independence is not the primary issue in Scotland. The top two issues are the NHS and the economy; Scots are voting largely to remove the Tories.

Changing the conversation means moving, then keeping political debate away from the constitutional question of Scotland’s future. Some will be tempted to follow the path mapped out by former prime minister, Gordon Brown, of offering up extra powers for Holyrood to blunt nationalist sentiment. But this is a cul de sac. No extra powers will satisfy those who want full independence. More importantly, it’s back on the SNP’s favoured territory. 

Instead, shifting the conversation means showing that a Labour government in Westminster with a significant number of Scottish ministers offers a better path to improved public services and a rising standard of living: delivery must be seen to be linked to Scotland’s place within the UK.

This is not easy, especially given Labour’s fiscal caution. Generating economic growth, central to a sustained Labour revival, is the work of years. The SNP government at Holyrood, increasingly blamed for problems in health, education and crime, will claim any improvements. Labour’s new state-run clean energy company, GB Energy, will be based in Scotland, probably in Aberdeen: the party hopes it will boost the local economy but it is unlikely to replace lost jobs in the oil and gas sector. There will be pressure to move further in unwinding Brexit. And while Starmer has time to build support before another UK election, the next Scottish contest is in under two years.

Even so, Labour has an opportunity to quell the independence movement for at least a decade and even build a platform for returning to power in Holyrood. Scots appear ready to give the party another chance. But the SNP is down, not out. If voters do not see evidence that a new UK government can deliver a better future then there may be few arguments left to hold back the nationalist tide.

robert.shrimsley@ft.com