Swinney calls for legal referendum if SNP secures majority at Holyrood election
He said the UK economy is 'fundamentally failing to deliver for ordinary people' as well as generating insufficient funding for public services.
The SNP leader called for the May 2026 Holyrood elections to be 'a springboard for Scotland taking charge of our own destiny'.
He said the situation had got worse since the 2014 referendum, and wrote: 'Think what could have been achieved had we not been forced to spend so much time and money trying to mitigate the ongoing damage of Brexit.
'Or the carnage unleashed by Liz Truss's mini-budget. Or the years of austerity, or Westminster cuts like the Winter Fuel Payment.
'We were told we didn't need independence and we just needed a Labour government – but look how that has turned out.'
He wrote that 'independence is the catalyst that will deliver a better future for us all' and that 'with Scotland's energy resources in Scotland's hands, we can reduce bills for consumers and cut costs for businesses'.
Mr Swinney revealed he hoped to deliver an SNP majority similar to 2011 in a bid to 'secure a legal referendum recognised by all' and had submitted a motion to the SNP conference proposing that 'we work to deliver a majority of SNP MSPs in the Scottish Parliament to secure that referendum'.
He pledged to unveil 'radical policies that we know will transform Scotland' in the coming months, and to 'break the logjam and end this frustration that we all feel'.
Mr Swinney added: 'We must be ready to follow the path which we know can lead us to an independent state.'
Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: 'John Swinney is like a broken record. In a bid to silence internal critics of his weak leadership, he has thrown diehard nationalists some more red meat on the one issue they all agree on: independence.
'Ordinary Scots are sick and tired of the SNP's obsession with breaking up the UK.
'The public want John Swinney to focus on fixing the damage his government has done in decimating essential services such as schools and the NHS at the same time as making Scotland the highest taxed part of the UK.'
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: 'This SNP Government has lost its way and ran out of ideas – while one in six Scots suffer on an NHS waiting list.
'Despite that, John Swinney can't end his own obsession with division and today has confirmed he'll put Scots second to appease his own party.
'From the crisis in our NHS to the violence in our schools, the SNP has left every institution in Scotland weaker.
'This is not as good as it gets and in 2026 Scotland will have a chance to put a stop to SNP decline and vote for a fresh start.'
Alex Cole-Hamilton, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said: 'At last year's election the SNP took an almighty beating because people were tired of them obsessing over one issue. It seems like John Swinney is a glutton for punishment.
'Perhaps rather than focusing on what the SNP membership cares about, he should focus on what the country needs.
'The health service and the state of our schools has been neglected for too long because all the SNP care about is breaking up the UK.'
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Daily Mail
5 minutes ago
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He said he has had 'a number of phone calls' from people trying to encourage him to stand and admitted that he is 'really worried about the economy' across the UK and wants to look at ways to improve it. Mr Blackford said it is 'not an easy call' to make and he 'will have to give it careful consideration'. He previously faced criticism for the way he handled a harassment complaint about Mr Grady from a junior staff member while he was SNP Westminster leader. His campaign team was also accused of hounding the late former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy ahead of the 2015 general election. He stood down as MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber at last year's general election, with the SNP going on to lose the Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire seat which replaced it to Liberal Democrat Angus MacDonald. Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: 'We'd be delighted to have Ian Blackford as an opponent. 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Scotsman
30 minutes ago
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Readers' Letters: Time for Jews to intervene in Gaza
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Robert I G Scott, Ceres, Fife Vanishing acts The SNP has been and continues to be a vanishing species. Rather like the fairy tale of 'The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs', the SNP talked up North Sea gas and oil as the way in which an independent Scotland would become some kind of northern European Saudi Arabia. Then, under Nicola Sturgeon, the road to independence came to a branching of the path and she chose to abandon oil on the platform of wind power, and Scotland has been plagued by the horrific windmills ever since, with landscapes destroyed, no matter what the locals think. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This was accompanied by gender identity nonsense and, quite suddenly, the people saw that, like another fairy tale, the emperor had no clothes. Meanwhile, all the leading people in the SNP started to retire, or resign. If they didn't leave the SNP for the Alba party, they decided to leave politics when they saw the writing on the wall. 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Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad To even think this was a 'goer' should surely prove this lot are utterly deluded fools. They complain they do not have sufficient 'levers' to carry out policies, may we thank the Lord indeed if this is the case – blatantly obvious to anyone, this is not the case in the most devolved nation in the western world. While disagreeing with Kate Forbes on the Indie issue, I wish her well, one of the few with a moral backbone, though I suspect her leaving has more to it than juggling her private life with parliament. I am sure the example above among countless others would also be a factor. In this case one could not level the sobriquet of 'rats deserting the sinking ship' to Ms Forbes. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad She leaves with her dignity intact, sadly leaving the real rats still on board the doomed ship SNP. D Millar, Lauder Bird brained E Campbell's letter of 5 August quoting the death rate of birds by various methods and the likely number by the Berwick Bank wind farm, misses one crucial point, that it will be an increase on previous numbers. It is likely to be sea birds who will be the main casualties, not because cats or guns but because of machines that only work when the wind blows. Mechanical power production does not present that problem. C Lowson, Hampshire Cat protection If E Campbell's claim is correct, (letters 5 August 2025) then cats kill one quarter of all UK birds every year, which we very much doubt. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In dismissing as relatively small the number of birds that will be killed by Berwick Bank, he/she also ignores the significant cumulative impact of wind farms and the fact that many of the birds that will be killed by Berwick Bank are in serious decline and, according to the RSPB and other wildlife charities, will 'catapult some species towards extinction'. They are not the same species which will be killed by cats in our back gardens. Cats provide companionship for many, including the elderly and vulnerable in society. They provide a service in natural pest control, eliminating the need for poisons which affect the entire food chain and inflict a miserable death on many innocent creatures. Regrettably it is true that where deterrence fails to reduce the risk of birds to aircraft, birds will be shot. 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Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I trust that the electricity from the new Berwick Bank power source is linked to the land by many separate cables, which hopefully arrive at widely varying points on the land. Europe has recently been considering what action can be taken to prevent some possible enemy from severing cables that already exist between the UK and Europe and we must think likewise about the power coming from the Berwick Bank. Archibald A. Lawrie, Kingskettle Write to The Scotsman
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
John Swinney opens up on health struggles of wife, Elizabeth
The First Minister was speaking at The Herald's Unspun Live event. Host Brian Taylor asked the SNP leader about Kate Forbes' shock decision to stand down at the next election, and how he balanced family life with high office. Mr Swinney and Ms Quigley have a teenage son, Matthew. READ MORE Asked if he was anxious about taking the job given his wife's illness, he said: 'Yes, I did, and we have both been very open about this. I left office in 2023 because I thought I had asked too much of my family — too many sacrifices. 'I felt my wife needed her husband at her side a bit more. I am not sure she felt that, but I kind of felt I should be a bit closer at hand. 'So when things changed and the gravity of the situation facing my party became clear in late April 2024 we had to talk through what would happen and how we would manage. 'We manage by a lot of help and support from friends locally, and by us just working together to try and make it all work.' Had Humza Yousaf stood down as First Minister a month earlier, Mr Swinney said he would not have been able to take the job as Elizabeth 'was not doing well'. 'And we have just got a period just now, where things are not too good, to be honest. We are struggling a bit at home. 'Normally, I have commitments in the city tomorrow. I would normally stay in Edinburgh — I am going home tonight because I have just got to adjust.' Mr Swinney said he also understood why Ms Forbes plans on standing down. The Deputy First Minister, who has a three-year-old daughter and will be Unspun Live's guest on Thursday, said she did not want to 'miss any more of the precious early years of family life'. 'I totally understand her situation,' he said. 'And she's a superb Deputy First Minister. She's supported me wholeheartedly. She's done a great job, and I am very, very sorry to be losing her, but I understand that it's tough, and she's made her judgement, and she's set out her reasons, and I completely respect that.'
