SNP conference: Steadying the ship only gets you out of the storm, not to the shore

Things are looking a lot better for the party since John Swinney took the helm. Last year, the party was still sore from the beating it got at the general election, and Holyrood polls gave Anas Sarwar and Scottish Labour a decent shot at the top prize.

Fast forward 12 months and things are looking a little different. Scottish Labour has plummeted back down to its 2021 level as Scots get more and more disillusioned with Sir Keir Starmer’s government in Westminster.

Mr Swinney was brought in to steady the ship after multiple bad headlines and internal chaos for the party. By and large, he has done that.

The SNP is looking fairly anchored in the polls and early predictions suggest the nationalists will remain the largest party in Holyrood next year.

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Some of this is down to pure popularity. Some of it is down to ‘better the devil you know’.

But some of this success is largely down to opposition parties being more unpopular, especially Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives, and because the rise of Reform UK is splitting the unionist vote.

The SNP needs to win the election, not just rely on others losing. Steadying the ship only gets you out of the storm, not to the shore.

The party already made the mistake of complacency in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election earlier this year. They lost their 4,582 majority and Scottish Labour unexpectedly took the crown. This is a mistake Mr Swinney cannot afford to make again.

Setting off fireworks to get party members excited about this election campaign will be a challenge for the man who is more known for strategising in the background. Unlike his predecessors Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, Mr Swinney cannot command the crowd the same way.

That being said, he is dependable and well liked within the party. Most will just be breathing a sigh of relief that he has got the good ship SNP back on course.

He has thrown delegates a bone by rolling out yet another independence paper, with yet another fruitless plan to get a second referendum. Fair enough - you cannot have an SNP conference without a lot of talk on independence, especially in an election year.

But aside from some party management here on the independence front, his supporters need something more tangible. It is so much easier to get people on side if there is a manageable goal in mind.

Sticking to the independence talk is also a strategic move here. Polling suggests support for independence remains at around 50 per cent, but support of the SNP has fallen to 37 per cent. He knows there are more people out there favouring independence who right now are not backing him.

A lot is therefore riding on his conference speech on Monday afternoon. Recent conference speeches by other UK party leaders have hardly set the world on fire. This is the First Minister’s chance to set his own narrative and start the firing gun on the SNP’s desired path to a fifth term in Holyrood.