Scotland’s political landscape changed on July 4^th.

The SNP, who had won every national election since 2011, were humbled across the urban Central Belt, with a resurgent Scottish Labour claiming 37 of Scotland’s 57 seats, leaving the SNP clinging on narrowly to a few strongholds and banished to the margins of the House of Commons from being the third largest party.

At the SNP’s recent conference, First Minister John Swinney and Westminster leader Stephen Flynn both faced up to the result, arguing the party could not make excuses and must change its approach.

Swinney specifically committed to “campaigning on an independence platform deeply intertwined with people’s everyday concerns” – to intertwine a domestic policy offer on areas of Scottish Government responsibility with the broader constitutional goal of Scottish independence. It remains to be seen whether this approach will resonate with the Scottish public in practice.

Labour’s Path to Power: Can They Capitalise on SNP’s Decline in 2026?

Anas Sarwar, the victorious Scottish Labour leader, meanwhile, has repeatedly stressed that the Westminster election was just the first stage of a two-stage campaign, with the ultimate aim being the 2026 Holyrood election, which could see Labour form a government in the Scottish Parliament for the first time since 2007.

Sarwar, unlike Flynn or Swinney, could take heart from the UK wide result – in addition to UK Labour’s success, a common thread across the entire election was that it allowed voters to punish incumbent political parties in each nation of the UK.

Labour’s one-word election slogan, “Change”, leaned into this sentiment clearly.

With the SNP having been in office in Scotland for seventeen years, longer than the Conservatives’ period of dominance at Westminster, will this change message resonate a second time, with Scotland due to head to the polls in eighteen months’ time. Will Keir Starmer’s message still be fresh in 2026 and record strong enough to help Sarwar become First Minister?

Data from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey suggests that it might, with the Scottish public specifically dissatisfied with the Scottish Government’s current performance on devolved issues.

On a range of indicators, the electorate’s belief in the Scottish Government itself has declined significantly since 2019, an important factor considering the 2021 Holyrood election took place when Covid-19 vaccine deployment was boosting incumbent governments across the globe.

Trust in the Scottish Government has declined to 47%, its lowest level since data collection began in 1999. Satisfaction with the performance of the NHS in Scotland, a key devolved responsibility, has also fallen dramatically in the past five years, with 52% of the public expressing dissatisfaction. On the economy, the figures are even more dramatic, with 83% of the Scottish population believing their standard of living had declined in the last 12 months, the highest figures yet recorded.

Fragmented Politics: What Scotland’s New Political Landscape Means for Labour’s Holyrood Ambitions

However, while Labour won a resounding victory in terms of seats, both vote share and the distribution of those votes within particular seats point to a closer and more uncertain contest in 2026.

Labour’s vote share in Scotland at the election, of 35.3%, is a similar figure to their results at the Holyrood election of 2003, where Labour defeated an SNP led by John Swinney, but won 50 seats – well short of the 65 MSPs needed for a majority – and required a coalition with the Scottish Liberal Democrats to govern. While Labour’s seat total at Westminster is undeniably impressive, on vote share they are not close to emulating the SNP’s dominant performances throughout the last decade.

Additionally, beyond the SNP-Labour battle, the General Election performances of the Scottish Green Party, Liberal Democrats and even Reform UK point to a more fractious and fragmented Scottish Parliament in the coming term, with those parties posing a much more significant challenge to both Labour and the SNP under Holyrood’s more proportional voting system.

Moreover, while some evidence shows that some pro-independence voters crossed over to vote for Labour in 2024, it is unclear whether this will be a permanent shift, or a temporary swing in the context of a UK-wide election where Labour sought to replace the Conservatives at a UK-wide level.

The First Minister’s announcements this week in the Scottish Parliament, confirming severe budget cuts for which he pinned blame on the UK Government, and pledging to “do less, better” in the Scottish Government’s legislative programme, illustrated the depth of the challenge ahead in winning back the key voters who created the sweeping victories the SNP enjoyed under Nicola Sturgeon. Time is running for the SNP to prove it’s still Scotland’s best option.

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