John Swinney will lead the SNP into oblivion

The coronation of John Swinney, a 60-year-old yesterday’s man, as SNP leader is bleak news for the independence movement. When Swinney – a three-time loser if ever there was one – was last leader, he took the SNP to 20 per cent in the 2003 European elections. In the 2004 general election the next year, the SNP was left with only six MPs against Scottish Labour’s 41. That was his legacy.

Today he announced his decision to stand again as SNP leader. What happens next seems to be a foregone conclusion. The SNP is already looking down the barrel of losses in the 2024 general election. Swinney may say he is ‘no caretaker’ but he looks rather like the undertaker of the independence dream. Yet all the leading figures in the SNP have lined up behind the politician who was, and remains, Nicola Sturgeon’s staunchest supporter and ally.

Whenever there was a hit to be taken over her policies – like the school exam chaos after covid – he was there to take it. But this unwavering loyalty now looks misplaced. The SNP has lost its will to power. The party is managing decline. The flame has died or, as nationalists like to put it, the SNP’s gas is on the peep.

Some readers took issue with my suggestion the other day that most SNP members will not see independence in their lifetimes. Hyperbole is all very well, but wasn’t that a bit over the top? Well, actually no, and the launch today of Swinney’s campaign to become SNP leader confirms it.

The SNP may have many young voters, but the average age of an SNP member is 55. Many have worked hard for the party and for independence for the last thirty years. They have done so since they were young men and women with a burning desire for change. They now must realise that the chances of Scotland becoming an independent country in the next 30 years are vanishingly small.

Scotland is aging faster than England, and inward migration is not compensating. It is becoming a geriatric nation, and independence is a young person’s game. With a dependent population, Scotland will become ever more reliant on financial support from the UK government through the Barnett Formula, which already boosts Scotland’s public spending by more than 20 per cent above England’s.

In its 17 years in office, the SNP has failed to build a productive and resilient economy. It has succeeded only in landing Scotland with higher taxes than England while it hands out public money to every ‘progressive’ lobby group and special interest. Lately, it has appeared to place a higher priority on LGBT policies, like Self-ID for transgender 16-year-olds, than independence. Scotland should be on the road to becoming a green energy superpower, but the SNP’s hostility to business and industry has allowed us to stall. By running down the oil and gas industry, upon which 100,000 well-paid jobs depend, it has opted to cut off Scotland’s nose to spite its face.

Independence supporters point out that, of course, while the Scottish government is on the skids, around half of Scots still say they support independence at some stage in the future. This is true – though if you ask whether they want a referendum on independence any time soon, you will get a very different answer. Supporting independence is just what you do now: it’s a way to show you’re Scottish. Like following the Scotland football team even if you know it’ll never win the World Cup. Of course, you want to see your homeland respected and proud. But Scots are intensely pragmatic people and do not favour disruption and discontinuity – they’ve seen plenty of that in this nation’s turbulent history.

I can think of no scenario where independence – full separation from the UK – could now conceivably happen without massive disruption. It would make Brexit look like a treaty of goodwill.

The world has changed. The UK is still isolated from the European Union and is not going to rejoin. This means that the independence prospectus from 2014 – Scotland and England remaining united in the EU and in a common currency – is now redundant. The SNP’s failure to be honest about the implications of Brexit is a large part of its present difficulties. Independence now means a hard border with Scotland’s biggest trading partner and setting up the institutions of an independent currency. 

Scotland never ceased to be a nation after the 1707 Union with England. For much of the past 300 years, during the age of Empire, Scots were mostly proud to be part of Great Britain. They aren’t so proud anymore, but they aren’t going to beggar themselves in a Braveheart bid to break up the UK when they aren’t oppressed and when they rely on the UK exchequer for life support. The cause of Scottish Independence is dying before our eyes.