I HAVE been getting a fair few emails and calls from people asking me to explain the SNP’s electoral strategy. I haven’t discussed it with the party so the following are my outsider observations.

It seems to me that the SNP have clearly set out their stall at the next UK General Election to try and be nice to Labour voters. They are betting on a trifecta of Labour-voter-friendly policies to stop the Labour surge this side of the Border. Freezing council tax, raising tax on higher earners to pay for vital services and prioritising an industrial strategy (as Labour doesn’t have one) are all aimed at the Labour vote – but I don’t think it will work.

Offering to work productively with Labour and the “get rid of the Tories” message is about those Tory/SNP marginals where Labour votes are wasted. However, “getting rid of the Tories” doesn’t work in the SNP’s favour in all of those Labour/SNP marginals, and that is the key battleground.

They have accepted the (polling) narrative that getting rid of the Tories is front and centre of people’s minds but in the context of a UK Election, getting rid of the Tories means voting Labour. Tactical voting may allow the SNP to take a batch of the seven current Conservative seats, but they could lose double that or more to Labour as things stand.

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The SNP decided not to make this General Election a de facto referendum (where a majority of votes would lead to independence)as they feared that Labour’s English surge would spill over the Border and the fact that this is a UK, rather than a purely Scottish election, would make a majority vote a bigger ask than at Holyrood in 2026 after they have laid the groundwork.

There is also the issue that in a General Election, 16 and 17-year-olds and EU citizens cannot vote(1 or 2% difference). In addition, new UK General Election voter registration rules (AKA vote rigging rules) will target poorer (independence-supporting) communities, and the increased spending limits mean that the Tories can outspend everyone else in a General Election.

The negative factor that has sealed the SNP’s cautious approach is that the police investigation into the party’s CEO and former leader has not reached a conclusion. It would be a massive distraction if the next steps are revealed during a de facto independence campaign. So, the SNP are hoping to minimise the damage of Labour’s resurgence. They want to take some Tory seats to compensate for expected losses to Labour and maintain an SNP majority.

That way they get the mandate to attempt to negotiate independence and when that is refused, they have a mandate to fund the Constitutional Convention from Scottish Government funds. The convention’s job would be to lay the foundations for a de facto referendum approach to Holyrood 2026.

There are problems with this approach. Firstly, being nice to Labour offers them an open goal in winning back their old Glasgow and Lanarkshire heartlands from the SNP. Think of the psychology of Labour voters who switched to the SNP and supported independence.

Those voters have lost an independence referendum, not got the UK Government they wanted since 2010, very probably lost an EU referendum and now they have a chance to get a win and get rid of the Tories by voting the way they used to and the SNP’s message doesn’t really contradict that. Also, a great deal more of the SNP vote is purely independence-related than the party like to admit.

Despite the promise that independence will be on line one, page one, etc, the indy part of the campaign seems lacklustre. If indy supporters stay at home like they did in 2017 (and the recent by-election) to send a signal that the SNP are not radical enough on independence, then it could be a very bad night for the party.

There is still time for the SNP campaign to get more creative, to be more radical and to more forcibly make the case that Labour will be no better for Scotland than the Tories.

The big hope is that if a Labour victory in the rest of the UK is seen as a done deal then Labour voters may not feel the need to turn out, as Starmer has zero charisma and no personal appeal in Scotland. The police investigation into the SNP’s financial dealings hangs above the party like the sword of Damocles, but if the investigation is dropped without charges, that will create a stooshie, an SNP bounce and free up their ability to fundraise.

It’s too early to predict results – we don’t even know the polling date yet. A lot can happen between now and autumn, (if that’s when it happens) but right now it looks more like 2017 than 2015.