This piece written by John Smith Centre Director Eddie Barnes originally appeared as a contribution to Scottish Parliament Election Analysis 2026: The Campaign, Voters and Policies, published by the University of Glasgow’s School of Social & Political Sciences.
There was no great “Swinney surge” in May’s Scottish election campaign. Rather, the First Minister’s notable achievement in the two year-long election campaign he led after taking over as SNP leader in May 2024 was to stop the rot.
All of the fall in SNP support registered in May’s result (it was down by 9.5% on its 2021 showing) happened before he took over. John Swinney’s team managed what incumbent governments across Europe have mostly failed to achieve: to stem the bleeding and hold on. Aided by Scottish Labour’s collapse in support, and the further splintering of the electoral map due to Reform UK’s emergence, that turned out to be more than enough to win.
How did John Swinney’s team achieve this rearguard action? The SNP leader came to office at a time when the SNP’s coalition of voters was fracturing, with many traditional SNP voters having backed Labour in the 2024 general election. The task was how best to hold what remained of that coalition together.
Upon arriving at Bute House after the resignation of Humza Yousaf, Swinney’s team returned to a mantra of a previous First Minister, Jack McConnell, who twenty years earlier had famously set out his aim to “do less, better”. Swinney followed suit, seeking to focus on the core responsibilities within the Scottish Government that were obviously failing to deliver. Pre-eminently this meant dealing with the NHS. A major push to reduce long waits was therefore prioritised. It began to bear fruit late last year: in October and November, the number of year-long waits for outpatient appointments fell by 12%. And in SNP focus groups, people who had previously talked about a friend or a relative who was being forced to wait endlessly for treatment were now noting how they had finally been seen.
Successful election campaigns are based on dictating the terms of debate, by eliminating negative issues and highlighting positive ones. Crucially, by the spring, Swinney had managed to take the heat out of the NHS as a negative doorstep issue for the SNP – a major achievement that massively helped the incumbent Government gain a hearing.
It also allowed the SNP to focus in the short campaign on a forward positive offer. The party’s support for independence was the “frame”: by campaigning hard on independence and setting out a plan to press forward with a referendum, the SNP sent out a clear message to the one in five voters for whom the issue is paramount. Within that frame, the campaign then set about focussing on those voters who are more neutral on independence, who had voted for the SNP in previous elections, but who now needed to be given more reasons to do so. As one SNP figure explained: “They were open to us but they were asking: give us a reason to vote for you”. The campaign thus drew up a list of retail policy offers. They included clear policies to help people in the cost-of-living crisis, such as the plan for a £2 bus fare (borrowed from Andy Burnham in Manchester) and the proposal to cap basic food costs at the supermarket. On the NHS, the plan to introduce GP walk-in clinics also got noticed, helping to convince these more sceptical SNP voters to stick with their party of preference.
Olaf Stando, one of Swinney’s campaign team, explained:
“Capturing people’s attention means focusing on ‘retail policies’ and easily digestible language, rather than overloading with slogans and soundbites. This is exactly what John Swinney’s messaging has been all about. Cost of living at its very heart – and focused on practical, easily understood solutions, such as the £2 bus fare cap, the expansion of childcare, and the legal price cap on a basket of essential foods. Urgent help in the here and now, and crucially, an aspiration, hopeful outlook for the future – by offering the choice on independence.”
On the day of the election, one SNP commentator noted that Swinney had “got away with one”, winning largely due to the beneficial circumstances of the moment. Is this true? As often, it’s possible for more than one thing to be true at the same time. Unquestionably, the SNP was helped hugely by Labour’s slump in the polls and by Reform UK’s sudden rise. But given how fast the SNP was falling in 2024 in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf’s resignation, it still required a deft touch to take advantage of that good luck.
By neutralising the negatives from the SNP’s record in office, and by setting out policies that reminded SNP-sympathetic voters of what they liked about the governing party, Swinney’s team did just that. The prize of a third decade in office awaits.
