James Kelly: What we can learn from Scotland's General Election result

That huge majority segment of the electorate must feel like bemused bystanders in the process of government selection. It’s understandable that the SNP are being careful not to say anything that would appear to minimise the significance of their own defeat, but the fact remains that for every six people that voted Labour in Scotland, another five voted SNP.

Very little of the media commentary about the result has really reflected that ratio. It’s also notable that Labour’s victory in Scotland was very similar to the SNP’s win in 2017, in terms of vote share, the percentage lead over the second-placed party, and also the number of seats won. And yet the SNP were informed in no uncertain terms that their 2017 result was unimpressive and certainly didn’t constitute any sort of mandate for the contents of their manifesto. For some reason, the same rules do not seem to apply to Labour in Scotland in 2024.

(Image: Jeff Moore/PA)

It’s not even the case that Labour outperformed, or that the SNP underperformed, the numbers seen in the pre-election opinion polls. Most polls reported a modest Labour lead of a few points, in line with the lead of just under six points seen in the real results.

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But what a party believes to be true about its result in an election may ultimately be more important than what is actually true, and it’s clear that the SNP have collectively decided that their result falls into the “disastrous” rather than the “disappointing” category. Stephen Flynn even said that no-one had seen the scale of the defeat coming, a slightly surprising comment given how accurate the polls were about the popular vote.

But what he may have been referring to was the total SNP wipeout in the central belt, which not even the exit poll had prepared anyone for.

Although the exit poll was roughly accurate about the total of seats the SNP would end up with nationally, it was right for the wrong reasons. It had predicted that the SNP would show some resistance in the central belt and retain a few seats there, but that this would be offset by surprise losses to the Tories in rural constituencies like Perth and Kinross-shire and Argyll, Bute & South Lochaber.

The latter part of the equation would have been psychologically less important because it would have been obviously caused by Unionist tactical voting, and would thus have done nothing worse than take the gloss off a creditable effort in the main battleground.

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As it turned out the losses to the Tories did not occur, but that couldn’t compensate for the shock at the unbroken sea of red in the main centres of population. There were a few central belt seats where the SNP had seemed to be significantly better-placed than in others – such as North Ayrshire & Arran and Kilmarnock & Loudoun – so they would have been expecting to at least nick one or two seats here or there, but that simply didn’t materialise.

Having settled on the “disaster” narrative, the SNP will move into a period of deep soul-searching in which all sorts of drastic changes may be considered. But the real debate will focus on a difference of interpretation about the SNP’s “independence problem” in this election.

Nicola Sturgeon has criticised the SNP for not making sufficient use of independence as their unique selling point, while others take the opposite view and believe that over-emphasis on independence led voters to think the SNP were detached from day-to-day concerns. In truth, the party fell between two stools – being too half-hearted about independence to convince jaded Yes supporters that a vote for the SNP would bring the goal closer, while still giving enough prominence to independence in the manifesto to ensure that the media could gleefully paint an election setback as a defeat for “separation”.

(Image: PA)

The SNP’s gradualist wing can point to Holyrood polling data and make a plausible case that a managerial 2026 Holyrood campaign that de-emphasises independence, and instead relies on John Swinney (above) being seen as more competent than Anas Sarwar, would have a high probability of maintaining the SNP’s status as the largest party in Holyrood. But there are two obvious counter-arguments.

Firstly, that might be the pursuit of power without purpose, and wouldn’t address the question of how independence can be achieved. And secondly, it might not even achieve power, because a modest win could still see the SNP frozen out of office by an unholy Unionist coalition.

Both from the point of view of partisan self-interest and the best interests of the independence cause, it may be necessary for the SNP to set their sights much higher and to try to win another outright pro-independence majority at Holyrood. And the only realistic way of doing that would be to make a big offer to the roughly half of voters who polls show still want Scotland to become an independent country.