“Independence for Scotland”

The SNP’s 2024 manifesto made Scottish independence the central demand, but it also contained a substantial programme of specific UK-level policy asks — framed as what SNP MPs would fight for at Westminster “in Scotland’s interest” while the independence campaign continued. Many of these pledges directly challenged Labour’s incoming programme from the left.

The SNP’s fall from 48 to 9 Westminster seats was the most dramatic single-election collapse of any major UK party since the Liberal Democrats in 2015. Understanding why is essential to assessing the credibility of the subsequent recovery polling.

The Sturgeon Crisis

Nicola Sturgeon resigned as First Minister in February 2023 after eight years at the top of Scottish politics. Her resignation was followed by the arrest of her husband, Peter Murrell — the party’s former CEO — in connection with a Police Scotland investigation into SNP finances. Although charges were later not proceeded with, eighteen months of sustained negative coverage fatally damaged the party’s reputation for clean, competent government.

The Yousaf Collapse

Humza Yousaf, who had replaced Sturgeon, then terminated the SNP’s co-operation agreement with the Scottish Greens in April 2024 without any replacement partner — leaving the SNP’s Holyrood budget majority dependent on opposition abstentions. He lost a confidence vote the following week and resigned, meaning the SNP entered the July 2024 general election having had three First Ministers in eighteen months.

The Labour Counter-Surge in Scotland

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar ran an effective campaign directly targeting SNP marginals. Labour’s 2024 strategy in Scotland was to frame the election as a referendum on the SNP government’s Holyrood record, not on UK issues — a message that cut through in seats where the SNP had modest majorities. Labour won 37 Scottish seats, its best Scottish result since 2001, converting both genuine Labour support and tactical anti-SNP voting into a historic seat haul.

Scotland Westminster results. FPTP amplifies swings dramatically: a 16pp fall in SNP vote share produced an 81% seat loss.

John Swinney became SNP leader and First Minister in May 2024. Rather than attempt a high-profile campaign for an immediate referendum, he adopted a stabilisation strategy built around competent Holyrood government and party rebuilding. The approach has yielded modest improvements in the polling but has not yet fully reversed the 2024 damage.

Despite the SNP’s catastrophic Westminster losses and three years of party crisis, support for Scottish independence has remained stubbornly stable. Consistent polling across 2024–2026 places Yes at 44–46% and No at 54–56% on a straight referendum question.

The stability of this figure through the Sturgeon arrest, the Yousaf collapse, the Labour surge, and two years of Swinney rebuilding demonstrates that independence support is structurally embedded in Scottish political identity and is not simply a proxy for approval or disapproval of the SNP government. Many voters who do not intend to vote SNP in current polls still support independence in principle.

Excludes don’t know. Figures are rounded. Sources: Survation, Panelbase, YouGov, BMG, Ipsos.

Based on 2024 General Election manifestos. Lib Dem and Green manifesto comparison: Lib Dem manifesto | Greens manifesto.

Current Scottish Westminster polling of 31% for the SNP translates, under standard uniform swing modelling, into approximately 18–25 recovered seats at the 2029 General Election — assuming the Labour Scotland surge partially recedes as the Starmer government faces continued headwinds.

The key variables are: (1) whether John Swinney can deliver a credible Holyrood 2026 result that resets the party’s competence narrative; (2) whether Scottish Labour under Anas Sarwar can maintain 2024’s extraordinary seat haul or whether the natural logic of FPTP and Scottish political gravity eventually reasserts itself; and (3) whether the independence question — currently blocked by Westminster — creates a mobilisation effect around the 2029 election.

The SNP remains the dominant party in Scottish politics by vote share. Their 2024 result was an FPTP artefact as much as a genuine political collapse. The underlying question — Scotland’s constitutional future — remains unresolved and will continue to generate the party’s core support base regardless of short-term approval ratings.