As Labour makes life better in England, Swinney is using Reform to hide SNP's failings

For years, the SNP benefited from having the perfect political foil. First, the austerity of David Cameron’s Tory government. Then the chaos of Brexit, followed by the pantomime of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

The SNP and the Conservatives existed in a kind of political symbiosis, each propping the other up. For the Tories, picking fights with the SNP helped galvanise their base and distract from their failings. For the SNP, it fuelled the grievance politics of independence, while squeezing Labour out of relevance.

‘Red Tories’ claim looks ridiculous

But the political weather in Scotland has changed. It has been little remarked on but it deserves to be because the fundamentals of the strategic landscape are different. The Conservatives are shattered, in Scotland and the UK. With a Labour government, backed by a majority of Scottish MPs, the SNP’s pantomime villain has been replaced by a government whose performance highlights, rather than obscures, their administration’s failings.

Labour isn’t playing to the old caricature. We’re backing industry from Grangemouth to Scunthorpe, cracking down on billionaire tax-dodgers, and delivering the biggest boost to workers’ rights in a generation. The old “red Tories” line from the online nationalist fringe looks increasingly ridiculous.

But while the world has moved on, Swinney hasn’t. A backroom fixer for decades, now First Minister, he only knows how to tell one story. That’s why he’s trying to cast Farage in the role of bogeyman. He is trying to recreate a past where his arguments made sense.

His upcoming anti-Reform summit isn’t about fighting extremism, it’s about fighting irrelevance. He’s not appalled at the idea of Reform gaining ground in Scotland. He’s banking on it. He’s said as much in Holyrood.

Comparing England and Scotland

It’s a strategy born from weakness. Because in the real world, my inbox is full of questions from constituents asking why services are improving down south, while things in Scotland deteriorate.

Hospital waiting lists are falling in England but rising in Scotland. The NHS in England is hiring more GPs while patients here battle the dreaded 8am appointment scramble. In Manchester, buses are under local control with £2 fares. In Glasgow, routes are being slashed. After 18 years in charge, people in Scotland are right to ask: why aren’t things getting better?

What truly drives voters towards populists like Reform isn’t their rhetoric. It’s when governments in power refuse to accept responsibility, deflect blame, and pretend meaningful change is impossible.

Whether the SNP are out of ideas, or simply lack the will to fix what’s broken, they’ve become a party defined by low ambition and managed decline. And when people see no progress, it opens the door wide for populists like Farage.

If Swinney really wanted to stop Reform, he would have spent 18 years improving Scotland’s NHS, schools and public transport. Instead, he’s once again putting the SNP’s narrow political interests first.

Reform’s politics are poisonous. But Swinney isn’t the antidote to the tired politics which encourages their rise. He’s just another tired face, leading a tired government, desperate for a distraction.

Blair McDougall is MP for East Renfrewshire