After nearly two decades in power, the SNP has embraced 'project fear'

MSPs had only just returned from recess at the end of last month when they were plunged into days of lengthy debate on land reform, with at least one sitting lasting long into the night. With a little over six months to go until the next Holyrood election, there is a lot of business for them to get through before voters go to the polls. So much so, in fact, that the February recess period has now been cancelled.

It would be unfair to accuse Scotland’s politicians of shirking – most work very hard on behalf of their constituents – but this parliament has not been a high-water mark in the history of devolution. Dominated by a piece of legislation which never actually made it onto the statute book, the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, there has been little of substance to affect the lives of those who elect it. 

And yet if we are to believe the polls, that will not hurt Scotland’s party of government for the past two decades. A recent survey by Survation for the IPPR Scotland think tank predicted the SNP will comfortably remain the parliament’s largest party with 55 seats, around 10 short of an overall majority. While that result would scupper John Swinney’s strategy for securing another independence referendum, it will likely keep him in power at Holyrood for five more years, while possibly resurrecting some sort of pact with the Scottish Greens. 

But this is where things get interesting. The same poll puts Reform UK second on both the constituency and list vote, meaning Nigel Farage’s party – which currently has just one MSP thanks to a recently defected Tory – would be the largest opposition party in the parliament. And in a return to the ‘rainbow parliament’ of the early 2000s, smaller parties such as the Greens and the Lib Dems look set to benefit, with both Labour and the Tories losing out as the centre gets squeezed. 

Already buoyed by Plaid Cymru’s historic victory in the Caerphilly by-election (the Welsh nationalists took the Senedd seat following Labour’s first defeat there for 100 years) the SNP’s response to the poll was predictable – only a vote for Swinney’s party will keep Reform out in Scotland. But while voting SNP will keep the right-wing party out of government, it won’t keep it out of Holyrood altogether, with Reform likely to do well on the regional list. 

More important than the electoral arithmetic, however, is the message being sent. Eighteen years in government and the best the SNP can do is stoke fear of Reform to get it over the line. The party’s election pitch seems to be yes, we have a record of failure, but we are the least bad option. And for many voters that might just be enough. 

But while it’s a depressing indictment of Scottish politics, it’s also a risky strategy for the SNP. The Survation poll put the party on 34 per cent of the constituency vote, down from the 48 per cent vote share it secured in 2021. That’s down three points from September when another Survation poll gave the party a 17-point lead over Labour in the constituency vote. 

There are other warnings signs, too. Published last month, the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, which has been running throughout the devolution era, found trust in the Scottish Government is at its lowest-ever level, with just 47 per cent of those polled saying they had faith in the SNP administration to act in the country’s best interests.

And while the party itself seems to have forgotten, the SNP went into this summer’s Hamilton by-election warning of the threat posed by Reform only to be beaten by Labour’s Davy Russell. In a memorable newspaper front page published in the days before the vote, Swinney predicted the “only way” to stop Farage’s party was to vote SNP. The chastening corrective of the actual result is something the SNP would do well to remember. 

Even at this early stage, the rise of Reform looks set to be the story of the election. It may well fall back from the heady heights the polls are currently predicting, but even securing a double-digit number of MSPs would be a huge achievement for a party with no hinterland to speak of in Scottish politics. It’s an insurgent threat that both Labour and the Scottish Conservatives appear unable to stave off but one which would upend the status quo at Holyrood.  

We still know very little about Reform’s policies other than its desire to junk net zero and launch a US-style war on woke in the public sector. But with every passing week the party reveals more of itself, whether that be plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain, racist dog whistles about too many black people in adverts or, in the words of one of the party’s potential Holyrood candidates, dealing with illegal immigrants by “putting them in camps”.

The SNP has been slow to put forward positive solutions to address the issues that really matter – the NHS, the cost of living, the housing crisis. The party’s leader has recently begun talking about Scotland being at “the limits” of devolution. Indeed, if Swinney, an MSP since 1999, had the answers we would probably know by now. Instead the party which once decried ‘project fear’ during the independence referendum is now employing the same tactic to maintain its grip on power.