SNP's cabal of losers is guaranteeing its destruction in 2026

While it wars with itself, how can it take decisions which matter to our lives? Indeed, one wonders if the party ever took decisions for us, rather than itself. Its entitlement is all-encompassing. The so-called "party of Scotland" shames Scotland.

The bitter irony is this could be so different. Despite its crushing at the hands of Labour, the SNP has time to reset before the next Scottish election.

The message to the SNP is clear from the people: you failed in government. Rather than pause respectfully, and regroup with a humble focus on "service" - that word which Keir Starmer loves will haunt nationalists - one repellent SNP wing mauls another.

And all the while, they talk only of independence. They cannot understand the lessons of the election: people want good policy today, not fantasies of mythical tomorrows. Independence wasn’t a voter priority. Jobs, housing, hospitals, schools and - most importantly - stability are what people voted for, yet the SNP, from top to bottom, stares at itself in the mirror obsessing on independence.

They’re guaranteeing their destruction at Holyrood in 2026. All those failed MPs dreaming of cosy seats in Edinburgh will find themselves sorely mistaken; their behaviour now assures ruin.

The SNP should simply copy Starmer. After all, they’ve no good ideas of their own left, so why not steal from the winner? Voters want hard work and non-divisive effective government.

From the moment of their defeat, every SNP politician still standing should have pledged to do just one thing: find policies for Scotland based on hope and prosperity.

They should know instinctively that voters have rejected chaos and division. Yet now they ape Conservatives with selfish civil wars and failure to govern.

Scotland clearly doesn’t matter to the SNP. They prefer to spew bile at each other, and blame everybody but themselves for why they’re on their well-fed backsides today.

Pity poor Scotland to have this party still in power. Look at what stands in comparison. Starmer immediately creates a government of talent and ability, not ideology: the scientist Patrick Vallance as science minister; the prison reformer James Timpson as prisons minister; Richard Hermer, an expert on international law, as attorney-general.

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Meanwhile, the SNP parade like children, dressed in their parents’ clothes, playing at being adults.

Starmer sucks the air from the SNP. His visit to Scotland didn’t just offer the hand of friendship, or promise more respect, it proved that loathsome "muscular unionism" is dead. He has pulled the plug on the SNP’s grievance machine. Without nasty Westminster, who can the SNP blame for its failings? Nobody.

The SNP is too preoccupied shooting itself in the head, foot and heart, to reckon with the danger Starmer poses to them. If he governs Britain even marginally well, then it’s all over for the SNP at Holyrood.

The SNP now talks of removing John Swinney and plunging into another leadership contest. Anas Sarwar must be smiling. It was the last leadership contest which began the SNP’s death spiral. One more bout of bloodletting should finish the job.

Already, Starmer has vowed to save Grangemouth. What did the SNP do?

Most deadly of all for the SNP is just how out of step it is with the nation. People want calm. Starmer offers hope of reason and order. The SNP now symbolises disorder, formed from rampant self-interest and neglect of the people.

There are none so blind as those with an SNP party card. Even the Tories are handling defeat better than the SNP. The Scottish nationalist civil war that’s unfolding is far uglier than even the British nationalist civil war engulfing Conservatives.

The SNP is completely disconnected now from the national mood. They’ve entirely lost those soft independence supporters who left Labour and leant their votes to the SNP out of despair over Tory rule. These voters care about independence, but know there’s no route to another referendum, and are prepared to accept a functioning Westminster government.

Keir Starmer with John Swinney in Bute House on Sunday (Image: PA)

Yet the SNP seems to think it failed solely because it didn’t double-down on independence. The more they push that line, they more they’ll suffer at Holyrood. Soft independence supporters saw long ago that the SNP flagship had sunk and so deserted to other parties. They won’t be back.

These fools fought their election campaign on independence, lost the election because that was their strategy, and yet they’re still obsessing about independence. If this wasn’t so detrimental to Scotland, it would be comic.

The SNP is now delusional - as delusional as the Tories after the Brexit vote or Labour during the Corbyn years. When parties become delusional, defeat is inevitable. Voters know madness and stupidity when they see it.

Now they demand apologies from one another. "It’s your fault, say sorry’. ‘No you’re to blame, you apologise’. The whole miserable lot should get down on their knees and beg Scotland’s forgiveness for the years of failure we’ve endured at their hands.

Once that initial apology is made, they should stay on their knees and beg the Yes movement’s forgiveness too. There’s still 45% of Scotland who support independence. Their hopes are destroyed thanks to this catastrophic party.

If the SNP - from leadership to base - had a brain, it would stop what it’s doing. But it won’t, and so in 2026, leaving some political meteor strike aside, we’ll see Labour, or perhaps a Labour-led coalition, in Holyrood.

Here’s the rub, though. Even if the SNP had the wit to wise up, even if it somehow managed to govern well and stop the civil war, it might all be for nothing. Amid the drama of our political landscape being reshaped, one matter has drifted out of mind: the completion of Operation Branchform; perhaps, the SNP’s final chapter.