SNP ‘Company Man’ can’t save the party he loves

John Swinney can be credited for stepping into the breach at challenging times for the SNP. 

He joined the SNP and became active aged 15 just after traumatic defeats for the SNP in 1979.  The turmoil following the 1979 devolution referendum led to a general election in which the SNP lost nine of its eleven seats and its vote fell from 30% to 17%.  His first election campaign saw him delivering leaflets in Edinburgh in June that year, impressing others with his commitment, speed in delivering leaflets on his bike and the simple fact that a young person had become active when voters and members were drifting away.  The SNP won just 12% in Lothians but that did not put him off.

Swinney attended his first SNP National Council, then a serious and important decision-making forum, and the following year  his first SNP conference.  It was a raucous affair.  This was when the 79 Group – committed to independence, socialism and republicanism – played a significant part in retaining many young members inside the party, though the Group was not for Swinney.  He has not missed an SNP conference since. 

He became loyal to his political mentor Gordon Wilson.  But, as often happens after a party suffers a heavy defeat, the SNP became introspective and divided with many activists searching for scapegoats and easy solutions.  He watched the SNP tear itself apart and saw how long it took to rebuild.  This early formative experience may explain his intolerance of dissent. 

From back office guy to key player

Based in Edinburgh meant he was able to help out at the SNP’s headquarters.  Neil McCallum, SNP National Secretary, asked Swinney to be his Assistant.  When McCallum became unwell, Swinney stepped in as Acting National Secretary while completing his final year at Edinburgh University.  In 1986, Wilson worked to secure Swinney’s election to that key post at just 22.  Swinney was very much in Gordon Wilson’s camp.  This loyalty to the party and incumbent leader became a hallmark of his politics.

Few understood or were interested in the intricacies of the SNP’s internal workings as John Swinney.  He became the ‘company man’, with allegiance to the party’s interests as defined by the leader, before personal beliefs or other loyalties.

This loyalty transcended individual leaders.  Few in the SNP than Swinney were more loyal to Gordon Wilson, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon despite their different styles, strategies and ideologies.  Wilson makes Kate Forbes look socially liberal.  Swinney’s denunciation of her in last year’s SNP leadership contest can only be explained by his loyalty to outgoing party leader Sturgeon.  Her appointment as Deputy First Minister appears to be a belated apology.

Though he was National Secretary in 1990 when Alex Salmond defeated Margaret Ewing for the SNP leadership, and thereby had to remain neutral, it was no secret that he preferred Ewing.  Salmond, however, recognised his National Secretary’s value and was keen to have a constructive relationship.  In 1992, Swinney easily defeated Fiona Hyslop as SNP Vice Convenor for Policy, arguably the third most senior position in the SNP.  Over the following years, the Salmond-Swinney team moulded the SNP into the shape it would become under devolution.  Swinney led on the need for a more professional organisation.

Four SNP players then became key: Salmond, Swinney, Mike Russell and Kenny MacAskill.  Nicola Sturgeon was becoming noticed as a good media performer, someone who could be rolled out to defend the party when in a tight spot, but still not a central player.  Allan Macartney, a much respected and popular but less central figure, was formally deputy leader.  His death in 1998 created a vacancy which Swinney filled, very much with Salmond’s support.

Westminster or Holyrood?

Swinney stood for Parliament unsuccessfully in North Tayside in 1992 and won five years later.  Salmond had shifted the SNP from a hardline fundamentalist position to support devolution.  Gordon Wilson opposed devolution but Swinney had transferred his loyalty to the new leader.  SNP expectations, not for the first or last time, were unrealistic in the first elections (1999) to the Scottish Parliament where it had disappointing results. The party did not initially come to terms well with the new devolved Parliament but had assumed that devolution would automatically increase SNP support.  It was another difficult period for the SNP, not helped as Salmond swiftly grew tired of the Scottish Parliament, preferring the Commons.

A year later Salmond resigned provoking a leadership contest in which Swinney faced Alex Neil.  Once more Swinney stepped forward.  Swinney defeated Alex Neil, winning 67% of votes cast at SNP conference.  Roseanna Cunningham defeated Kenny MacAskill for the deputy post that Swinney had vacated. Swinney and Cunningham came from different wings of the SNP, had different personalities, skills and ideologies but worked well together.  She would become a loyal and trusted deputy, someone he could rely on when the going got tough.

Sturgeon was emerging as a key figure, not least as she had honed her already impressive communication skills but she remained distrusted in sections of the SNP and was not always available when Swinney’s leadership came under fire.  Her ambition was obvious but she lacked a significant party base.

Leadership challenges

It was remarkably easy to challenge an incumbent leader under the SNP’s constitution at that time.  A relatively unknown activist (Bill Wilson) became a stalking horse against Swinney in 2003.  Swinney won easily with 511 votes to 111 but this victory was less decisive than the numbers suggested.  Dissatisfaction with his leadership grew.  Swinney proposed internal party reforms, drawing on his deep understanding of the SNP’s structures, which would make leadership challenges more difficult and shift power away from the activists.  Swinney’s reforms which would be his most notable legacy comprised:

• streamlining the national executive committee of the SNP and having fewer senior office bearers;
• introducing One Member One Vote for the election of leader and deputy leader, and in selecting candidates;
• creating the position of party ‘Leader’ and ‘Depute Leader’ replacing the National ‘Convener’;
• giving the Leader power to appoint a Business Convener, who would be in charge of operational matters, from amongst members of the NEC

This essentially strengthened the leader’s position but came too late for Swinney; it would, however,  be taken advantage of – and interpreted liberally – under his successors.

He adopted a far harsher attitude towards internal dissidents and critics than his predecessor.  Margo MacDonald, the independent-minded popular Lothians MSP, was effectively de-selected and stood successfully as an Independent.  Swinney’s authority leaked away with disappointing election results.  His resignation in 2004 came after SNP support in the European Parliament elections fell from 27.2% to 19.7%.  An able party functionary proved less capable as party leader.

The ensuing leadership contest saw Salmond’s return.  He had wanted  Sturgeon to lead the party but she and Cunningham, then close friends, agreed that each would contest the leadership.  Mike Russell, by this time out of the Scottish Parliament, also stood but his suggestion that the ‘men in grey kilts’ would come knocking on Swinney’s door after those poor Euro-election results was seen as motivated by envy and, while many members felt Swinney had to go, there was still considerable affection for him.  The comment hurt Russell as much as it damaged Swinney.

It soon became clear that Cunningham was the front runner.  While Sturgeon’s communication skills were widely acknowledged there was little warmth for and much distrust of her inside the SNP.  The prospect of a Cunningham election appalled Salmond who had long had a difficult relationship with his former colleague from the 79 Group days.  Salmond offered Sturgeon a deal.  He would stand for the leadership and she would withdraw from that contest and stand for the depute leadership with his support.  She had little reason to decline though did not immediately agree.  Sturgeon’s victory as depute SNP leader was much less emphatic but with Salmond’s support she became the leader in waiting.  Swinney returned to his role as leadership loyalist and close Salmond confidant with Sturgeon.  She was the more effective communicator, a more populist operator, while he became the trusted safe pair of hands.

Loyal functionary, not a leader

Swinney once more transferred his allegiance to the new leader when Salmond stood down after the independence referendum and was replaced by Sturgeon who had undergone a transformation in style and image through sheer determination and self-discipline.  He tried to convince Salmond not to stand down and was less than enthusiastic about Sturgeon as leader.  But when she did become leader he once more assumed his position as the loyal, trusted hard working second-in-command but as Deputy First Minister rather than Depute Leader, the latter post having lost much meaning.

As relations between Salmond and Sturgeon deteriorated, Swinney once more stood steadfastly behind the incumbent leader.  Admitting to manually deleting WhatsApp messages to Sturgeon, his undermining of the Holyrood inquiry into her Government’s handling of complaints against Salmond, his subsequent endorsement of the patently unqualified Humza Yousaf as First Minister all spoke of injudicious loyalty to Sturgeon.  His lack of curiosity regarding the party’s internal problems, including falsifying membership figures, can only be explained by his characteristic loyalty to the leader.

Yousaf’s leadership has been described as Liz Truss in slo-mo.  He had been thrust into office in the hope of protecting his predecessor but proved incapable of protecting himself.  Swinney may have realised that remaining in Government under Yousaf was a step too far after the previous turbulent years.  His decision to come to the SNP’s rescue when Yousaf self-imploded marks his last step into the breach.

John Swinney now faces his biggest challenge yet.  The SNP looks set to lose in 2026 but there are bigger challenges ahead, some reminiscent of those he witnessed first hand when he was Assistant then National Secretary four decades ago.  The reckoning with the electorate will likely prove less painful than that with the SNP membership.

The failure to advance the cause of independence over a decade during the most favourable circumstances in the SNP’s history is provoking internal angst.  Swinney has been unable to draw a line under the wasted decade because of misplaced loyalty.  Leadership requires a willingness to confront so much that he turned a blind eye to.  A decent, able functionary, as Swinney understood when he stood down as leader in 2014, does not have the qualities required to lead a political party, far less to lead a government.