Not a shot that's been fired across SNP's bows, it's a cruise missile

The Herald Scotland

06-06-2025

It's a totemic place for the SNP. In 1967, Winnie Ewing's by-election success in Hamilton shifted the SNP from the periphery of politics. Today, however, the town is less hallowed ground for Scottish nationalists and more field of woe.
The story which should be taken from the Hamilton result isn't of Labour's win, but of SNP defeat. A shot hasn't just been fired across the SNP's bows, it's a cruise missile.
This was the SNP's battle to lose and lose they did. John Swinney talked up a two-horse race between his party and Reform, dismissing the notion of a Labour win. He looks pretty foolish today.
That the SNP could go down so badly to a Labour Party which has riled and alienated voters since Keir Starmer took office is remarkable.
Labour won the general election with 34%. Today, that's down across Britain to about 23%. In Hamilton, however, Labour secured almost 32% – barely a change since Starmer took power.
The SNP fell nearly 17%, losing a seat previously held on a majority of 4582.
These are catastrophic figures for the SNP. Even Reform's rise – it came third on 26% – isn't as significant. Reform's vote in Hamilton broadly replicates its UK-wide support.
So what's happened to the SNP? Well, first of all the nationalists are nowhere near as smart as they think they are.
For a long time, luck was on their side. Tony Blair's administration was tarnished with war, Gordon Brown was done in by the financial crash, and years of Tory misrule played into nationalist hands.
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The SNP could pose as the sane opposition to London. You don't need world-class strategy and policy if your opponents are doing all the hard work for you. Claims that the SNP ran the greatest electoral machine or had the cleverest advisors were guff.
However, when you've been in power nearly 20 years you can no longer pretend to be the opposition. That outsider status is working well for Reform, but the SNP are now more status quo than either Labour or Conservatives.
They're an enduring symbol now of all the mistakes that the political world has wrought on citizens in recent years.
The SNP has never recovered from alienating many of its progressive supporters in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon's resignation. The ensuing leadership contest revealed a level of social conservatism which shocked leftwing voters who had once backed Labour but shifted to the SNP.
That – and the poison of multiple scandals – is why the SNP got hammered at the general election. Those voters haven't returned. And nor will they, for what does the SNP offer?
There's been failure after failure. The word 'independence' was barely uttered during the recent campaign. If the SNP is scared to speak about independence, what's its purpose?
Independence has decoupled from the SNP. The party can no longer rely on Yes voters backing nationalists.
Voters long ago saw behind the Wizard of Oz curtain. The SNP managed for years to talk the talk when it came to government – with great rhetoric on climate change, child poverty, education, health and policing – but it never walked the walk.
There's only so long voters will tolerate being made to feel gullible.
The SNP suffers from 'the boy who cried wolf' syndrome. No matter what it says now, it's just hot air as far as many voters are concerned. The leadership took the people for granted.
Evidently, the SNP has tried over the years to mitigate the worst of Westminster's excesses with policies like the Scottish Child Payment, but you can't dine out on that forever.
It's like a forgotten film star showing you cuttings of their glory days. What could be more sad?
Then there's the boredom factor: the SNP has been in power so long that many fancy a change, just to move the furniture around.
The party ran a campaign that focused on its opponents, not on what it could offer the people. Labour ran a highly-local campaign fixed on local concerns.
The SNP hierarchy is also increasingly irritating. Angus Robertson's attitude on the BBC's live coverage of the by-election was a masterclass in patrician sneering.
The party comes across as entitled and full of its own self-importance. Privilege is not a good look for politicians these days. A few more humble types in prominent positions might serve nationalists better.
It's also become such a bloodless party. This isn't to suggest that the SNP embrace outright populism, but if Starmer's managerialism is off-putting, Swinney is close to funereal at times.
If the SNP thinks it can hold on to Holyrood at next year's Scottish election by simply giving us more of the same, then Hamilton should be taken as necessary corrective medicine.
Quite simply, the people want politicians to make their lives better and the SNP are not doing that.
Indeed, the people seem to be saying that even the clunking, u-turning, impossible to like policies of Starmer are more in accord with them than the SNP. That is bad.