John Swinney used the SNP conference last year to persuade activists to back a bold strategy on IndyRef2. His view was that the SNP/Green pro-independence majority, which had existed since 2016, had been ignored by Westminster.
So he staked everything on the SNP winning an outright Holyrood majority in a bid to break the “logjam”. The policy was flagged up in the SNP’s election manifesto and amplified during the campaign.
But the First Minister now seems intent on changing the goalposts after winning the election last week. The SNP will be the biggest party at Holyrood again, but they fell short of winning on their own.
Instead of parking IndyRef2, SNP message carriers are now saying the SNP/Green majority combined is a sufficient mandate.
This U-turn not only rewrites history, but shows contempt for voters. Scots had the chance last week to deliver an outright majority for the SNP and they chose not to do so.
What they did was deliver a vote of confidence in Swinney, but declined to give him the thumbs up for another referendum. The priority of the SNP government should be easing a cost-of-living crisis that is hammering family budgets.
The First Minister has a plan for controlling supermarket costs and he has a job on his hands to prove the proposal is credible. His efforts should also be focused on driving down NHS waiting times, not stoking more constitutional division. Swinney won a comfortable victory but was not handed a blank cheque.
Keir Starmer must take responsibility for Labour’s collapse across the UK. Surveying the wreckage after the Scottish, Welsh and English local elections, the Prime Minister has clearly run out of road with no way back.
Scottish Labour’s dismal showing, winning 17 MSPs, looks almost rosy next to the unprecedented catastrophe in Wales, where they went from the governing party to just nine seats.
Labour was hammered in England, losing 1500 councillors while the worrying surge of Nigel Farage’s Reform continued.
There is no point in the PM limping on. Voters are unforgiving and he blew it early on in his premiership. Starmer is toast.
It’s unfortunate. He is a decent man and should be commended for booting out the Tories and returning Labour to government for the first time in 14 years.
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But Starmer must now do the decent thing and resign – for the good of the country.
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