POLLING giving Yes its biggest lead in more than four years has been met with delight within the SNP – but don’t expect it to result in promises that indyref2 is imminent.
The Sunday National has spoken with well-placed party sources who believe that a Norstat poll for The Sunday Times showed that First Minister John Swinney’s strategy on steadily building support for independence was bearing fruit.
It put Yes on 54% and crucially predicted a pro-Yes majority if the Greens and SNP could team up again.
One SNP insider said: “It shows the kind of steady but assured work that John Swinney is doing as First Minister.”
They said that the “real f***ing pickle” Labour had found themselves in over the Winter Fuel Payment and other issues had been a gift to the SNP, who were reaping the rewards from Keir Starmer’s shambolic first few months as Prime Minister.
The SNP have been able to set out clear dividing lines as Labour pursue damaging battles with mothers on benefits, pensioners and farmers.
Management issues have also plagued the PM, who was forced to suspend seven Labour MPs less than a month after the party gained power at the election for breaking the party whip to back the abolition of the two-child benefit cap.
Meanwhile, Starmer fired Louise Haigh as transport secretary and his chief of staff, Sue Gray, who was supposed to have been using her intimate knowledge of Whitehall to ease the transition from opposition to power.
North of the Border, Anas Sarwar has found himself fire-fighting on an almost weekly basis, with three senior figures suspended from the party facing allegations including stalking and domestic assault.
One insider said they believed that being able to present the SNP as an alternative to Labour will benefit the party come the 2026 election.
“Though it’s one poll, we have another 18 months of delivery and staying on that course,” they said.
Another party source said they did not think anyone in the SNP was “doing a great deal around the question of independence” at the moment, but added: “That doesn’t make any difference to people’s perceptions or views about it.”
Key to winning the long battle, they said, would be to build an overwhelming consensus in Scottish public opinion that independence was the best path for the country.
They contrasted that project with the promises of the General Election campaign which “just did not catch the imagination of Yes supporters”, adding: “Probably annoyed them more than anything else.”
Swinney has been hailed by those within his party for exceeding the expectations he was met with upon becoming First Minister earlier this year, after the collapse of Humza Yousaf’s government.
The party was rocked last year by the departure of Nicola Sturgeon, the longest-ever serving first minister, and the subsequent arrest of her and her husband Peter Murrell as part of the police investigation into alleged financial wrongdoing in the party.
Sturgeon was released but Murrell was charged with embezzling party funds.
The case has progressed at a glacial pace but there is hope within the party that the stench it generated – which contributed to the collapse of the SNP’s once sky-high popularity – may fade as the 2026 Holyrood election nears.
Another party insider said it would take until January or February next year to begin “really” putting out the party’s platform ahead of the next Scottish poll.
Swinney’s slow and steady approach had not been swayed by the recent poll, they added, and his position was “consistent” with that outlined at the end of August.
The First Minister warned SNP members that the party was losing Scotland’s middle classes and had become “consumed by process on independence” – in a comment which put distance between him and Sturgeon (above), whose legal wheeze to secure indyref2 was slapped down by the Supreme Court.
But Swinney’s champions in the SNP are also attempting to pre-empt criticism which will come from the impatient wing of the party that he is not doing enough to advance independence with urgency.
The First Minister has wound up the Scottish Government’s series of independence papers, which failed to capture the public imagination, and the LibDems – on whom the SNP may rely to pass their Budget – have said no more public cash should be spent campaigning for independence.
If that demand is obeyed, it would take the independence issue firmly out of the hands of the Scottish Government and into the hands of the party machine.
One backer described Swinney as “one of the great strategic thinkers” of the SNP and said: “He lives and breathes Scotland, he’s probably been to every single corner of Scotland a couple of times in his life and he probably has an instinctive feeling for where the people are at.”
Another added: “John is utterly and totally committed to the cause of independence and he’ll be looking at ways to ensure that that’s going to be progressed.”
As for the grassroots, Yes activists believe that buyer's remorse with the "change" promised by Labour is a big boost to arguments for independence.
Simon Barrow, the national secretary of the SNP's trade union group, said: "There is still a long way to go. Since 2014, support for independence has only tipped over 50% a few times.
"Many are still to be convinced. A re-galvanised vision and pathway to a transformed Scotland rooted in a re-united movement for change is now vital."
He said that the most fertile ground was in talking to the other side and those undecided "about what kind of radically transformed Scotland we wish to see together, and where power needs to lie, and in whose hands, to achieve it".
Barrow added: "We find that question to be much more open and engaging than an immediate dive into 'Yes' or 'No' to independence, where previous, predictable arguments can act as a barrier to reconsideration."
Alan Petrie of the Aberdeen Independence Movement said: "As the truth about the UK's inability to change becomes increasingly clear, and the false promise of Labour's transformation is exposed, the need for real change in Scotland becomes more urgent.
"We must use this positive poll as a catalyst, making independence the central focus of all our campaigns. Let's unite in a broad civic campaign and bring hope to those who need it most."
