How John Swinney’s big speech was at odds with his private SNP briefing

I scoot past the EICC most days and, apart from a handful of earnest-looking members with passes round their necks hanging around Exchange Crescent, it wasn’t obvious the once-mighty party of government was holding its annual jamboree 50 yards down the street. On Sunday, only a woman with a megaphone and one or two pals shouting something about Palestine indicated there was more than a sales conference going on inside.

Selling was certainly not on the agenda, not with SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison expected to announce a £600 million programme of cuts on Tuesday. Having already suspended much Scottish Government spending, a bit more heat outside a national political conference might have been expected, but even the Palestine lady had given up by lunchtime. Since the vicious boorishness outside the 2022 Conservative leadership hustings in Perth, protests outside Tory events have been notable by their absence, so maybe the appetite for political intimidation has been drained after years of division to the benefit of absolutely no one.

But if the Scottish Conservative party is undergoing a difficult period of soul-searching following the general election, it was remarkable that a calamitous rejection at what was supposed to be Nicola Sturgeon’s de facto referendum instead persuaded SNP leader John Swinney to devote most of a relatively brief closing conference speech to arguments which were tired two years ago, never mind after the loss of 34 out of 43 MPs.

Swinney not ‘in denial’?

If ever there was an example of going through the motions, this was it, in contrast to Westminster leader Stephen Flynn’s call for “brutal honesty” the previous day. Maybe rejection is hard to take after nearly 50 years’ dedication to the cause, but his speech amounted to the subliminal assertion that Scottish voters had just not grasped the opportunity that independence presented.

It was also in stark contrast to what was said in Friday’s closed-doors session designed to allow an open dissection of the election rout, in which, according to a leak to The Times, Mr Swinney told activists of the need to win back the middle classes as polling showed swathes of voters earning above the low £20,000s had abandoned the party.

“I’m not standing in front of you in denial,” he apparently said on Friday, but on Sunday it was a different story. The closing speech was presumably written in the weeks before, but it should surely have considered the high likelihood of a leak from the Friday session and made sure there was consistency.

Instead, there was little acknowledgement of the reasons for the exodus and it was an address in which the SNP leader forgot he was also the First Minister of Scotland. On a 30 per cent vote share of a 59 per cent turnout, he had little to offer the four-fifths of the Scottish public who, one way or another, were not motivated to support what was supposed to be next step on the road to freedom.

Independence can wait

Maybe it was too much to expect a public acceptance that whatever the SNP was selling, the vast majority weren’t buying, or that since the departure of Alex Salmond, the party is no longer capable of inspiring believers in independence to stick with its principal promoter.

"Never again will we go into an election with people thinking: I like the idea of independence, but that can wait because I’m more concerned about the economy, or my job, or the cost of living or the NHS," said Mr Swinney, when every poll since 2015 shows the majority do precisely that. Without any inkling about how this would be achieved, it sounded like a leader preparing his party for opposition; at best an attempt to re-engage with those who still want independence but have deserted the SNP, and at worst an unimaginative plea from the defeated and exhausted. It was old-time religion, when the majority have either lost the faith or converted.

Expensive universal benefits

With his Programme for Government to be revealed after Ms Robison dishes out the castor oil, maybe he was unable to reveal much on Sunday, but it seemed bizarre for there to be nothing aimed specifically at those who rejected the SNP only two months ago, other than telling them independence was, as usual, the answer to everything. “I want us to look outwards, speaking with the people of Scotland,” he said, and did the exact opposite. Nor did his call for his minsters to focus on “investment, investment, investment” recognise the bull-sized elephant in the half-empty room that investment prospects are stronger without constitutional uncertainty.

All will be revealed later this week, but the only hint of what to expect was a pledge to “set out how we can tailor support better to families ensuring they get the help they need… to lift those families out of poverty”, which against a background of wide-ranging cuts while clinging to expensive universal benefits sounded very much like a recipe for even higher taxes and a strange way to reconnect with the middle classes Mr Swinney privately acknowledges have been lost.

After being dominant for so long, the confusion of rejection was there for all to see. We must speak out to all of Scotland, he said, but spoke only to the committed. We must do all we can to encourage investment, but shout louder about constitutional upheaval. We must appeal to the middle classes, so we’re going to ramp up their taxes. One thing is true, however. Mr Swinney is going to have to work, in his words, “harder, and smarter” if he thinks this is a road to salvation.