John Swinney has a strategy - and we can start to see it take shape

Mr Swinney’s reshuffle was a largely understated affair. The only changes at Cabinet level were the reintroduction of Kate Forbes, as deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for the Economy and Gaelic, and the stripping of the deputy First Minister role from Shona Robison (still Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government) and the economy brief from Màiri McAllan (still Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy).

But it sent all the signals Mr Swinney wanted it to. Ms Forbes’ elevation brought her back into the fold and will have reassured her backers that Mr Swinney is intent on being the unifying figure that he promised to be when he launched his leadership campaign last week. And by giving her the economy brief, separating it from net zero and removing the ‘wellbeing’ prefix, he signalled to the business community that economic growth will be a major focus of his government.

Independence is off the table - for now (Image: free)

Otherwise, Mr Swinney went out of his way to avoid putting his parliamentarians’ noses out of joint. Again, the theme here is party unity – he will need all of his MSPs onside if he is to govern as a minority, and he understands the importance of satisfying the demands of competing factions within his party.

The opposition parties’ cries of ‘continuity’ might be largely accurate – though Ms Forbes’ return to Cabinet and the slimming down of the ministerial ranks caveat that – but are also relatively weak as a response to Mr Swinney’s reshuffle. Yes, the SNP remain in power and will likely do so until at least 2026, that isn’t a critique.

If anything, their response betrayed an uncertainty about how to attack Mr Swinney – of course, they will run against the SNP’s record in 2026, but the Swinney government aims to change public perceptions of the party and its record. The opposition parties need to find ways to undermine that project, beginning with its leader and public face.

An Ipsos poll conducted immediately after Humza Yousaf announced his resignation as First Minister and leader of the SNP found that Mr Swinney was the politician Scots were most likely to say would make a good First Minister. His net score on the measure was +14, and the only other politician to come close, on +13, is now his deputy First Minister and Economy Secretary. Anas Sarwar scored +4, and Douglas Ross -36. Among those who voted SNP in 2021, the voters Mr Swinney needs to win back if the SNP are to recover, he scored +48.

A more recent poll conducted by Norstat found that 30% of 2021 SNP voters said they were more likely to vote SNP in the upcoming elections if Mr Swinney was leader, and just 12% said they would be less likely to do so with him as leader. In comparison, Ms Forbes broke even on the same measure (24% either way).

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So, Mr Swinney begins his tenure as First Minister as a relatively popular politician, particularly among his party’s voters, and as a net asset for a party looking to win back those voters now considering voting Labour. His Cabinet reshuffle signals a renewed focus by his government on the top priority of the public, and it seeks to address his party’s internal divisions. Characterisations of Mr Swinney as a continuity leader will simply not cut the mustard, particularly when he is sending signals to the contrary.

All of this does, of course, come at a cost. As James Carville, the legendary US Democratic Party strategist whose organising principles for the 1992 Clinton campaign coined the phrase “the economy, stupid”, would put it: to choose to talk about one thing is to choose not to talk about other things.

I, and many other commentators, academics, and politicians have argued over the past year that the SNP need to move away from a campaign focus on independence to get across a message relevant to voters’ priorities. Mr Swinney’s ministerial reshuffle came the closest the SNP have done to accepting that necessity.

Gone is the role of Minister for Independence, and work on the series of pro-independence policy papers started by Nicola Sturgeon and continued by Humza Yousaf has been ‘paused’ for an indefinite period. While Mr Swinney will not seek to change his party’s independence policy and will go ahead with formulation claiming that a majority of seats at the next general election is a mandate to make some kind of progress towards secession, neither will independence be a focus of his government nor, presumably, his general election campaign.

Our cartoonist Steven Camley’s take on Swinney's Cabinet (Image: free)

And so lastly, as well as re-orienting his government and messaging towards the economy, and seeking to unite and temper his party, Mr Swinney’s reshuffle also reflects an acknowledgement that independence – far from being “frustratingly close”, as Humza Yousaf put it – is not a remotely realistic prospect in the near term.

This also means accepting that the constitution cannot continue to form the basis of the SNP’s election campaigning and that the binding collective purpose of the independence movement is no longer sufficient to retain power.

In exchange for accepting the fractionalisation of the independence movement and the need to work with unionist MSPs, Mr Swinney will hope to gain party unity and an electoral platform that can keep his party in the majority of Scots at Westminster and in power at Holyrood.

Like all political strategies, there is risk involved here. To govern is to choose, and Mr Swinney will have to choose carefully to maintain party unity long enough for his strategy to pay off. But unlike his predecessor, Mr Swinney at least has a strategy, and his Cabinet reshuffle was the first big indicator of what that strategy is.