Here’s a political conundrum for you.
You’re the SNP. You’ve been in power in Scotland since 2007. You’re 13 points ahead in the polls one year out from the next Holyrood election. You’ve been stumbling these past few years but you’ve finally found your feet again. Your leader is less divisive than his predecessors and his deputy more competent than hers. Your opponents are either tethered to an unpopular Westminster government or distracted by a rival party. You stand a good chance of winning a fifth consecutive term in government.
But you have a problem: you can’t attract talent. A striking number of incumbent MSPs want out. To date, 21 Nationalists have confirmed they will not seek re-election in 2026. Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement generated the most headlines but also handing in their member’s pass are her immediate successor Humza Yousaf, and current Scottish cabinet ministers Shona Robison (finance), Fiona Hyslop (transport) and Mairi Gougeon (rural affairs), as well as four junior ministers. In all, one in three Nationalist MSPs is standing down – so far. Even allowing for age, illness and the pressures of family life, that is quite the turnover, up seven from the 14 who stood down before the 2021 poll.
And who are they likely to be replaced with? There are roughly 20 former MPs, most of whom were defeated by Labour last July, who have been cleared to contest Holyrood seats. Few among them made any mark in their time at Westminster. So far the only names mentioned that might enhance the Holyrood group are Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s current Commons leader, and Stephen Gethins, who lost his North East Fife seat in 2019 but returned as MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry last year, one of the few bright spots in a night that saw the Nationalists lose all but nine of their seats. Gethins has a mind, a rarity on the Holyrood benches, and would be an obvious frontbench appointment whatever the outcome in 2026.
Flynn made some enemies last November when he was accused of trying to bounce colleague Audrey Nicoll out of her seat. At the time, Nicoll made defiant noises and refused to budge but has since announced she’s off too, clearing the way for Flynn. He can expect further questions about his role in the Green Volt donation row, but no party is pearly white on these matters. Flynn isn’t rated by his opponents outside the SNP but insiders say they are underestimating him, an assessment I have some sympathy for. He’s an under-40 bloke signed up to all the progressive nostrums but who speaks conversational normie. At a time when centre-left political parties are anxious about a rightwards drift among millennial and Gen-Z men, that’s not nothing.
Beyond those two, however, it’s slim pickings, and it’s not as though the SNP group at Holyrood is overflowing with talent as it is. Once you name-check deputy first minister Kate Forbes and terminally under-used backbencher Ben Macpherson, you start to run out of names, though party progressives would point to education secretary Jenny Gilruth and net zero secretary Màiri McAllan. The Nationalists are fortunate in that potential is thin in the ground among the opposition parties. That, a quarter-century into the devolution experiment, the Scottish parliament still cannot attract people of ability is something that should prompt a little soul-searching. Unfortunately, the devolution industry doesn’t do self-criticism.
After 18 years in government, the SNP can no longer defy political gravity as it once did, but it is holding up astonishingly well for a party with such a dismal record in power. It shouldn’t have so much difficulty attracting capable parliamentarians, but that might reflect the unusual position the party occupies. Founded to achieve independence for Scotland, the SNP has been unable to convince the voters of its constitutional case, with them preferring the party to run Scotland within the United Kingdom. If you go into politics for a ministerial car, a Spad and proximity to power, that’s a fair deal. If you see politics as a path to restoring Scottish national sovereignty, power without purpose is a gilded cage not worth the gilding. Until the SNP can shift this dynamic, it will struggle to bring the best of Scotland into its ranks.
