Why the SNP will be able to talk the talk without walking the walk

It’s not exactly breaking news but the SNP is on course to not only be the party with the most members of the Scottish Parliament after the election on May 7 next year but also form the next Scottish Government. This will mark the beginning of a third decade in office for the SNP. What is not quite so well appreciated is that the SNP is on course to do so with its lowest share of the vote since 2007, when it formed a (minority) government for the first time.

The continuation of SNP governance on such a low score will merely emphasis the reality that society in Scotland is caught in the clutches of a stasis, neither able to move backwards nor forwards but just crab-like crawl sideways.

Of course, going back would not be welcomed in whatever shape that might take. But equally frustrating is the lack of movement forward, where much is promised but so little in the way of palpable, manifest change is actually achieved.

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Let’s just first look at the numbers. Of course, a health warning is first in order. Polling only gives us a glimpse of how a limited number of people – usually around 1,000 citizens – would vote if an election was hypothetically "held tomorrow" as the question asked of them puts it. Whether those polled were representative of the wider population is an ongoing issue and polling is merely a snapshot of intentions, not a hard and fast prediction.

Nonetheless, on the constituency vote since the last Holyrood election in 2021, polling indicates the SNP share of the vote has fallen from high to mid-forties to low to mid-thirties. On the regional list vote, the same polling indicates the SNP share of the vote has fallen from around 40 per cent to now the high twenties.

This compares poorly to the SNP’s percentage vote share in the 2021 Holyrood election of 48% in the constituencies and 40% on the list vote as it does for the 2016 (46% and 42%) and 2011 (45% and 44%) elections. In 2007, the respective figures were 33% and 31% – which is why we do seem to be treading the same turf as before. In the last two Holyrood elections in 2016 and 2021, the SNP vote on the regional list seats was essentially a wasted one as it secured the SNP not many more MSPs than in the constituencies because of the use of the D'Hondt method. The SNP relying on its haul of MSPs in these list seats may be one of the few new electoral developments of 2026. But this would only mean taking us back to 2007 when the SNP secured most of its MSPs via the regional list seats. Again, the sense of stasis is, thus, significant.

Staying with the polling numbers, the falling popularity of Labour (in Scotland led by Anas Sarwar and south of the Border by Keir Starmer) since the General Election last year and the rise of Reform are almost mirror images of each other. Meantime, the Scottish Greens show no sign of a Zack Polanski-style break through as is happening south of the Border for the Green Party of England and Wales. And the Scottish radical left, in whatever form it eventually presents itself to us as, will suffer another crushing defeat, ably helped by the ongoing shenanigans of Your Party which will be so late onto the electoral pitch as to miss most of the match.

Anas Sarwar and Keir Starmer will be unable to defeat the SNP next year (Image: PA)

Turning away from the polling numbers, Labour used to rule the roost in Scotland from 1964 until 2015 in terms of MPs. This predominantly represented for many years a positive vote for the party and not a result of any tactical voting or voting for the least worst option. Many believed Labour was a workers’ party and supported the working-class. Some thought it held a social democratic – even socialist – worldview.

That was the case even if the so-called "Feeble Fifty" Labour MPs in Scotland from the 1987 General Election were ably lambasted by the SNP as being unable to provide the necessary "dented shield" strategy against Thatcherism. By contrast, in 2026, the SNP will win despite itself. Its electoral support will represent a vote against a right-wing (London-controlled) Labour party where the Scottish branch office is obsequious to its master as well as a vote against a racist and reactionary Reform.

This will give the SNP the ability to do what it does best, namely, "talk the talk" without "walking the walk" and being good at saying what it is against but poor on saying what it is for. Some might put this as starkly as the SNP "talking left but acting right"– or always blaming a "big boy down south that did it and ran away" so that it is never to blame for or responsible for regression and inertia.

Meanwhile, the public services – many of which are devolved – and that so many people rely upon decline and deteriorate in both quality and quantity, with the consequence that social inequality continues to increase.

In this situation, it would be a very unkind and uncaring person that would venture that the electorate gets exactly the government it deserves. What’s worse is that this stasis could mean that the SNP has a dominance for many years to come simply because it is the least worst option.

And all this is without considering the claptrap the SNP continually spouts about its plans for gaining both a second independence referendum and independence itself. The phrase "Groundhog Day" comes to mind, describing a tedious, repetitive cycle of events. Another phase that comes to mind and gives grist to the mill is that of "the more things change, the more they stay the same".

Either way, there’s not necessarily much to look forward to next year.

Professor Gregor Gall is a research associate at the University of Glasgow and editor of ‘A New Scotland: Building an Equal, Fair and Sustainable Society’ (Pluto Press, 2022).