John Swinney declares SNP ‘healed’ a year after taking helm of ‘fractured’ party

John Swinney has said he has “healed” the SNP, after inheriting a “fractured” party from his predecessor Humza Yousaf.

The First Minister said when he took over the top job in Scottish politics just over a year ago, he had to deal with both a “fractured party” and a “fractured Parliament”.

He took office in May last year at a tumultuous time for the SNP – with Yousaf having resigned as first minister and SNP leader in the wake of his decision to scrap the party’s powersharing agreement with the Scottish Greens at Holyrood.

That left the SNP without a majority in the Parliament, and the party also suffered a heavy defeat in the July 2024 general election – dropping to just nine seats from 39.

But now the party is back to leading the polls in Scotland, and could potentially win a fifth successive Holyrood election next year.

John Swinney has pledged to serve a full five-year term as First Minister if the SNP wins next May’s Holyrood election (Jane Barlow/PA). PA Media

Asked how the party is now in an interview with Holyrood magazine, Swinney said: “I have healed it.”

Prior to taking on the role, Swinney had been considering if he would stand again for Holyrood in 2026 – though he now says he is committed to serving a full five-year term if elected into the job after next May’s election.

He went on to say that becoming First Minister had “come to me at exactly the right moment in my life”, saying he has been “able to draw on a very deep well of experience and perspective to help me through the situations I’m going to navigate.”

He also said he had more “generosity of spirit” than when he had previously been part of the Scottish Government, saying this came after realising he had “not been talking to people across the political spectrum as much as [he] used to”.

He highlighted the successful passage of the Scottish Government’s Budget for 2025-26 as an example of working with other parties, with the Bill passing with the backing of Liberal Democrat and Green MSPs, as well as the one Alba Party MSP.

Swinney said: “If I look back at events of the last 12 months when I was elected to leadership of a Government of a fractured party, and of leading a fractured Parliament, I don’t think many people would have given me much chance of being able to bring my party together, or they might have given me some optimism in bringing my party together, but they wouldn’t have given me much optimism in bringing Parliament together.

“But a seminal moment for me was seeing the Government’s Budget supported by four political parties in Parliament, which was an indication to me that the discourse had changed, that there was a more respectful and collaborative environment, a more courteous environment, which enabled four parties to come together to support the Budget.”

In a wide-ranging interview, he also opened up about how the death of his mother had impacted him.

Agnes Swinney, who was known as Nancy, died in 2020, with Mr Swinney recalling that with “everything that was going on at the time” as a result of the Covid pandemic, he “didn’t stop to really process what we had gone through personally”.

But he said: “I think over time, I became conscious of the loss in my life of my mum, and I hadn’t properly come to terms with that. And the more I talk to people in the same situation, I realise that to be the case.”