Swinney says independence ‘necessity’ must be more relatable to Scots

The SNP leader has suggested that his party needs to make the case for independence more relevant to people’s lives amid a rethink over how to achieve the cause.

The First Minister will face down SNP activists and members when he gives his first conference speech as party leader on Sunday, but is facing pressure over the terrible general election results and the lack of a vision over independence.

The SNP went into the election claiming it would have a mandate for independence if it returned a majority of Scottish seats, but the party slumped to defeat - securing just nine MPs.

Mr Swinney said that independence remained a priority, but less focus was going to be placed on the case for independence rather than the route to achieving it.

He said: “Independence is an essential necessity for Scotland.

“There has been a lot of discussion about the process for independence.

“I think people want a solution to that and to ensure that there’s a positive and optimistic and hopeful case for independence.”

Mr Swinney stressed that there is a need to ““accelerate the pace and the timescale of achieving independence”, and pointed to “relating independence to the everyday lives of the people of Scotland.”

He added: “The most important thing is that we need to build support for independence - that’s the critical element that we’ve got to do.”

On the second day of the conference, former SNP MP Joanna Cherry – one of the casualties of the July election – said members at the event who were optimistic for the future were in “denial”.

She added that “senior people in the party who ought to have known better sat on their hands and let all this happen”.

But Mr Swinney rejected the claim, insisting he was “not in a state of denial”, and that simply “this was a bad election for the SNP”.

He added that talks held at the conference have been “a very constructive discussion about what’s been a very difficult experience for my party in the election campaign and the loss of such a significant number of colleagues in one election contest”.

The FM said: “The party has been able to essentially deal with the setback that we had in the election and to look forward and establish how we build the trust that’s necessary between us and the people of Scotland.”

He added that his goal is to “chart the route to how we retain political leadership of Scotland”.

SNP Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, told the conference that his party needed to “face up to that result and accept the true depth of our defeat”, adding that there is now a “collective challenge” for the SNP to “mend the trust that we have lost with the Scottish people”.