Wings Over Scotland

Well, we told you so. We told you in March (and indeed long before) that the 2026 Holyrood election was a giant waste of time and money that would deliver exactly the same useless Parliament we already had, and so it proved.

The SNP ended up giving half-a-dozen seats to the Greens, Labour donated a handful to the Lib Dems, the Tories split into two parties with 29 seats instead of a single party with 31 and that was about it. The SNP, Greens and Lib Dems stayed first, fourth and last. A pro-indy tally of 72 became a pro-indy tally of 73 and almost every SNP list vote elected Unionists instead, just as we told you for almost a year it would do.

We also told you that the only place there was even a chance of an SNP list seat was in the  Highland region, where they did indeed sneak one at the very death, only because they’d somehow pulled off the incredible feat of losing Kate Forbes’ old seat of Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch despite starting with a 15,000 majority in a seat where only 39,000 people voted.

So there we are.

Anas Sarwar, meanwhile, managed something almost as bleakly impressive as the SNP contriving to lose Skye – he hamfistedly extended Scottish Labour’s remarkable unbroken record of getting fewer seats and a lower vote share at every successive Scottish Parliament election since the first one in 1999.

Even though the SNP recorded its lowest vote, vote share and seat tally since 2007, the result was a dream come true for John Swinney – not only did he manage to avoid winning a majority and therefore having to awkwardly face up to his impossible promise that it would lead to a second indyref, he now finds himself in a position where his minority government can pass any bill with the support of ANY other single party in the chamber – the SNP’s 58 seats plus the 10 of the last-placed Lib Dems is enough to pass the majority threshold of 65.

While we can’t rule out him being stupid enough to repeat Nicola Sturgeon’s mistake of entering a formal alliance, making him a hostage to the minority partner, it would be SUCH an idiotic move that we can’t see it happening. It’s hard to imagine any law the new government would want to pass that it couldn’t get support from ONE of the other parties on with a minor concession or two.

So while the Greens will crow about their increased vote share and seat tally, it doesn’t actually count for much. They have the ability to give the SNP a majority just as they did before, but so does everyone else. They’ll have to compete for the government’s favours rather than being the tail that wags the dog.

So we really may as well not have bothered. Everything will be business as usual for the next five years just as it was for the last 10, except that the UK government will feel even more empowered to reject demands for a new referendum when it’s backed by just 41% of the votes cast in the election, compared to 49% five years ago.

(And that 41% is the SNP and Green votes combined, even though Swinney said only SNP votes counted. If you count SNP votes alone it’s 33%.)

The SNP lost over 910,000 votes in this election compared to 2021 (roughly 1.5m vs 2.4m). The result is the most disproportionate and unfair in Holyrood’s history. The Unionist parties will have a fair point in saying they got almost 60% of votes but only 43% of seats, and mocking the idea that the outcome represents any sort of mandate.

Yes still leads in most opinion polls, but the election did some serious damage to the credibility of polling, with figures and predictions hopelessly all over the place, while the election was a hard count. The SNP are now a highly effective firewall for the UK government against ever having to allow another referendum.

“Look”, they’ll say, “Swinney said this vote was all about independence and you had to vote for him to get it, but only 33% of you did, on a 53% turnout. You’re trying to claim a mandate on 17% of the electorate? Epic fail, losers.” 

By making an unpopular party the proxy for the concept of independence itself, the SNP have dragged the cause down with them. As Wings has told you for years, they are the corpse blocking our path.

The next five years will be a degraded replay of the last five, in every sense. Holyrood now has the most wretched, embarrassing collection of MSPs it has ever assembled. A brutal financial reckoning is on the way and the government’s already threadbare popularity will take a hammering as a result – especially as hopelessly inexperienced and clueless new MSPs take control of the levers of state – and even a divided opposition won’t be enough to save it next time in the way Reform did yesterday. Nigel Farage’s party have their sizeable beach-head in the Parliament now and five years of easy shots to take. Things will change, and not in the SNP’s favour.

Make no mistake, as resounding as it looks on the surface, this victory is the SNP’s equivalent of John Major’s triumph in 1992: the last gasp of a lame duck staggering towards its doom. SNP supporters should gloat while they can – Swinney’s victory comes from an even lower share of the vote than Keir Starmer’s 33.7% Westminster landslide less than two years ago, and look at the state of Starmer and Labour now.

It took the Tories almost 20 years to get back to power after Major’s term. For most readers of this site, this will be the last SNP government of our lifetimes. And since it has absolutely no hope whatsoever of achieving independence, well, you can finish the grim logic for yourselves.