Dr Lynn Bennie
Reader in Politics at the University of Aberdeen. Her research interests span the areas of political participation (especially party membership), UK and Scottish elections and parties, and green politics and campaign activism.
Her latest book, with Mitchell and Johns, is Surges in Party Membership, Routledge.
Email: l.bennie@abdn.ac.uk
UK Election 2024
Section 3: The nations and regions
25. Have voters fallen out of love with the SNP? (Dr Lynn Bennie)
26. The spectre of Sturgeon still looms large in gendered coverage in Scotland (Melody House, Dr Fiona McKay)
27. The personalisation of Scottish politics in a UK General Election (Dr Michael Higgins, Dr Maike Dinger)
28. Competence, change and continuity: a tale of two nations (Dr Will Kitson)
29. Election success, but problems remain for Labour in Wales (Dr Nye Davies)
30. Four ways in which Northern Ireland’s own seismic results will affect the new Parliament (Prof Katy Hayward)
31. Bringing People together or pulling them apart? What Facebook ads say about the NI campaign (Dr Paul Reilly)
32. A New Dawn For Levelling Up? (Prof Arianna Giovannini)
33. Who defines Britain? National identity at the heart of the 2024 UK General Election (Dr Tabitha Baker)
The SNP was expected to lose seats in the General Election. The result, though, was worse than pre-election polls predicted and worse than the party leadership feared. The SNP returned only nine of Scotland’s 57 MPs, a dramatic collapse from the 48 elected in 2019, and the party’s percentage of the vote declined from 45% to 30%. Labour won 37 seats on 35% of the vote. To an extent, the election reversed the events of 2015 when the SNP jumped from six to 56 MPs, an electoral shock which itself stemmed from the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. Compared to the heady days of electoral success a decade earlier, 2024 was a meltdown. Ian Blackford, the party’s former Westminster leader, remarked: “To some extent people have fallen out of love with us and we must ask why”. So how can this result be explained?
John Swinney returned as SNP leader weeks before the election was called at a time when an aroma of scandal and decline surrounded the party. SNP membership had fallen, which the party attempted to mask. The police investigation into SNP finances and fundraising culminated in Peter Murrell, husband of Nicola Sturgeon and former party chief executive, being charged with embezzlement of SNP funds. Humza Yousaf’s short period as leader ended with the clumsy collapse of a governing arrangement with the Scottish Greens. We know from academic research that governing competence was crucial in the party’s early success but this standing had become damaged.
The SNP campaign promoted Swinney as a likeable politician who combined pro-business and social justice themes and who could ‘steady the ship’: 29 seats became an informal target. The SNP was in a poor financial position to fight this campaign, with the drying up of big donations and reduced income from party members. A party battle bus appeared only a week before the poll. The party has a reputation for effectively combining ‘digital and doorstep’ campaigning but it was reported that a cash-strapped SNP was spending considerably less on online advertising than its rivals.
There was a sense that the SNP was fighting different campaigns within Scotland, attempting to protect its presence in the Central Belt of Scotland, largely Labour-held areas before 2015, but in competition with the Conservatives in the North-East and Borders. This led to some contradictions in messaging. The party advocated investment in a green economy but was acutely aware that the traditional energy sector was heavily embedded in the North-East of Scotland, and its position on new oil and gas licenses came across as equivocal.
The party had agreed that independence would be ‘page one, line one’ of a general election manifesto, and that if the SNP won a majority of Scottish seats, it would ‘immediately start negotiations with the UK government’. That the SNP would have the leverage to make this happen on the back of declining support was never plausible, but the sheer scale of SNP losses made the strategy completely irrelevant. Debate now exists on whether the party should have placed more emphasis on independence in the campaign, or indeed less. On this question, the party seems unsure.
In 2024, former SNP voters were driven to vote for Labour to ensure change at Westminster. The electoral map of Scotland altered dramatically, with SNP Central Belt representation completely swept away by Labour. The SNP lost all seats in Glasgow and Edinburgh, including high-profile and hard-working MPs Alison Thewliss in Glasgow and Tommy Sheppard in Edinburgh. The party’s MPs are now all North of a Central Belt red stripe, a combination of rural and ‘urban’ representation (two seats in Aberdeen and one in Dundee, cities that lean different ways on independence). One source of SNP cheer was defeating the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Douglas Ross, in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East.
Explaining the SNP’s trials involves understanding a decline in the electorate’s faith in the party. The SNP once had a reputation for unity, competence and good leadership, but no longer. Another factor is that some independence supporters are prepared to vote Labour. For some time, polling has indicated that SNP popularity has been trailing support for independence. The 2024 Election provides further evidence. The 2014 referendum shifted attitudes to independence, with voters who hold a view still split roughly 50:50. Key questions are whether the SNP can win back the lost independence supporters in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, and whether attitudes towards independence will begin to change.
The SNP loses its position as the second largest opposition group at Westminster and associated parliamentary benefits. The party’s financial problems are compounded by a reduction in Short Money and financial contributions from MPs. The election might also represent the unwinding of SNP electoral support. Voters perceive a democratic problem when parties are in power for a very long time. Nearly two decades as a party of government in Scotland is a very long time. The SNP enjoyed something akin to electoral dominance, but it was bound to falter eventually.
