It would be easy to make the case that the SNP conference which starts this Friday (30 August) represents a critical moment in the party's history. It would be even easier to argue that it could be the defining moment of John Swinney's political career. As the SNP gathers at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre on Friday morning, the main item of business - taking up the whole of the first session - is what the final agenda rather confusingly calls 'Internal Election Review led by Party Leader'. The word order suggests that this is to be a review of internal elections. It isn't, of course. it is a review of the SNP's woeful performance in the 2024 UK general election inexplicably led by the person ultimately responsible for that woeful performance. Aye! You read that correctly!
I have previously made known my views on this exercise.
This is nonsense! Conference is not the place to be conducting a review of the election. That review should have been done by now so that it could be debated by conference. The party should have appointed a competent review panel prior to the election or at worst immediately thereafter, with a wide remit to examine every aspect of the planning and conduct of the election campaign as well as recommending action points.
By the time John Swinney has finished conducting his own performance review - or perhaps well before that point - we will know whether the SNP leadership intends to break with long-standing tradition and actually learn a lesson or two from the slap the electorate delivered on 4 July. The tone will be set by Swinney when he first speaks on the matter - presumably to offer his own analysis. I don't imagine he'll be spelling out what action he proposes to take to turn things around before the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections. But we should get a clear indication of whether he means to take any action at all.
What will be most interesting is the way delegates respond to Swinney's perspective. Broadly speaking, the SNP membership falls into two camps. - the Jets and the Sharks. The Jets are the party loyalists/apologists who will be inclined to respond with a standing ovation regardless of what their leader says. These are the people who see all the SNP's travails as being the work of the British state, the British media and British agents working within the party. This latter group includes anyone who is even mildly questioning or critical of the SNP on social media. The stock response from the Jets is "Yer a Yoon plant!". The best that can be said of this is that it is unedifying.
While the Jets are in total denial concerning the failings and failures of the SNP leadership over the past decade, the Sharks are fully aware. They are better placed to review the party's performance honestly and thoroughly. Will any of them be allowed to speak? If they are, will their words be heard in the leadership bubble? Will they have any effect?
The conduct and tone of the review will answer such questions.
Why is this important? Because the 2026 Holyrood election is important. Already we are hearing horror stories about Anas Sarwar as First Minister. We are looking at the prospect of a nightmare scenario in which the British parties take control of the Scottish Parliament and collude with a rabidly British Nationalist administration in London determined to ensure the Union can never again be put in jeopardy merely by the way the Scottish people vote.
It may be that the only way to avoid this nightmare scenario is to put the SNP back in government. The problem being that a large part of the independence movement regards this as a nightmare scenario also. The SNP needs to win back some of these people if it is to continue being the barrier between us and barely-disguised, blatantly brutal direct government from London.
The SNP leadership has little time and few opportunities to make some kind of positive impression on the people it has so egregiously alienated over the past decade. A large swathe of them will never be won back completely. They are just too angry and resentful. But some will weigh the options in 2026 rationally and supposing they have to hold their noses to do it, they'll vote to keep the British out whereas they wouldn't vote SNP for any other reason.
The proposed debate will be purely performative. A meaningless exercise in appeasement and placation that will be hailed by party loyalists as a comprehensive and honest assessment of the party’s performance while doing nothing to assuage growing concern in the wider independence movement that the SNP simply is not fit for purpose. I confidently predict that Swinney et al will come out of this bit of theatre unscathed and the party’s approach to the constitutional issue unchanged – despite being an approach which has failed for ten years or more.
That will be their moment of decision. John Swinney's moment of decision comes at 10:05 on Friday morning. Will he prove my expectations of his performance review were set to low? Or will he exceed those expectations? Will he seize the moment? Or will he let it slip away?
I'm hoping the delegates at the SNP conference give the leadership a hard time. The moment for that will be the idiotic 'review' of the party's 2024 UK election disaster. If the delegates simply do the ritual standing ovation, the party is in deep trouble. They are the only ones who can get the leadership telt. I'll be watching them on Friday morning.
Sorry to hear you're unable to go. You were always one of the weel kent faces on the bus.
Interesting analysis. I'm not attending due to incapacitation and transport. I've already stated elsewhere my growing doubts about the SNP government. Probably a late starter compared to some. However, I'm a socialist and the SNP are the nearest Scottish party that satisfies my socialist political needs. So I shall continue to vote for them. Also, if through some near future civic convention it gets an instruction to implement an independence referendum, then it is the only party (if still in government) to implement such an instruction.