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13 March 2025 - 7:00am
Nicola Sturgeon has announced that she will not be seeking re-election in next year’s Holyrood election. In some ways, the news is as symbolically significant to Scotland’s nationalist movement as the death of Alex Salmond last year. Not in terms of emotional weight or shock: it was somewhat expected after she resigned in disgrace over her party’s financial scandals and her support of the Gender Recognition Reform bill. But it signals the definitive end of an era for the SNP, the wider independence movement and, indeed, British politics.
History will remember the former first minister for consolidating the progressive credentials of the independence movement, shifting it away from a “big tent” in favour of an emphatically Left-wing vision. Like her predecessor Salmond, and the Labour Party, she effectively used English conservatism — particularly the Thatcherite brand — as a bogeyman to stoke nationalist sensibilities.
Unlike Salmond, however, Sturgeon removed the last vestiges of a broad ideological coalition of independence supporters. As the years went on, she was content to alienate Eurosceptics, small c-conservative nationalists and moderates within her party. While it may have put off voters, it made nationalist separatism more palatable to those previously wary of tribal and antagonistic politics. She was ultimately undone by hyper-progressive overreach, coaxed on by the SNP’s weak coalition with the Greens.
John Swinney, who — like his predecessor Humza Yousaf — was viewed as a Sturgeonite continuity candidate, now has an opportunity to rejuvenate the party. Given his expressed commitment in leading beyond the 2026 election and into 2031 — 31 years after he became leader of the party for the first time — there must be a semblance of optimism that he can lift the SNP out of its current visionary stagnation.
Part of the SNP’s challenge has always been that its natural place is in opposition. As a party whose raison d’être is to break up the UK, it’s far easier to capitalise on the failures of the establishment when you are not the establishment. By the time next year’s election rolls around, the SNP will have controlled Scotland’s devolved legislature for 19 years. Polls suggest that the party will win a comfortable majority in 2026. Despite the dramatic resignations of both Sturgeon and Yousaf, Swinney seems to have steadied the ship, if not put the wind in its sails. Only 19% of Scots hold a favourable view of Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, making it all the more unlikely that Swinney will have to reform the party in opposition.
Whatever happens next year, unlike in 2004, there is no bombastic, charismatic Salmond-like figure to seize power, shape the party around a common vision, and return the Scottish question to the top of British politics. Under Sturgeon’s progressive leadership, the future stars were supposed to be Humza Yousaf and Mhairi Black; the former is standing down next year, while the latter did not seek re-election as an MP at last year’s general election.
There’s a minute possibility that in the next few years the socially conservative Kate Forbes could have a crack at the top job. If the “vibe shift” that has elected Donald Trump in the US grips Scotland, it is highly unlikely to grip SNP members. And yet progressivism has reached its electoral limit, and the door may open for Forbes.
The safer strategy for the SNP is for Swinney to attempt to return the independence movement to a broad coalition. In such an ideologically fractious climate, this is no small task; but if it truly wants independence, the SNP will need more than just support from the centre-left and far-Left.
Sturgeon kept the party’s power centralised to the point where all decision-making was delegated to a carefully-selected loyalist clique at the top, with dissent below swiftly clamped down on. If Swinney wants to be remembered as more than just a seat-warmer for a new visionary or, worse, a mere Sturgeonite puppet, he must take full advantage of Chief Mammy’s strings finally being cut.
