John Swinney leads SNP to record fifth Holyrood victory

Nearly half a century after joining the SNP, John Swinney has led his party to Holyrood victory – but crucially has failed to win the majority he craved.

This was the fifth election campaign Mr Swinney had fought as party leader – and despite the lack of an overall majority it is still his most successful.

With the SNP once again the largest party at Holyrood – after securing a record fifth consecutive Scottish Parliament election victory – he is set to be reappointed as First Minister.

This election campaign has been a far cry from previous ones he fought as party leader.

Having held the post for the first time between 2000 and 2004 – when he succeeded and was then in turn succeeded by Alex Salmond – Mr Swinney fought three election campaigns.

The SNP lost ground in both the 2001 Westminster election and in the 2003 Holyrood election, while the 2004 European election results saw the party fail to overtake Labour in Scotland with Swinney resigning, saying he took “full responsibility”.

He took over the helm of the party leadership two decades later, when Humza Yousaf dramatically resigned after his ending of the SNP’s power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens, leaving him facing a vote of no confidence.

With the SNP in turmoil, Mr Swinney was seen as the only person who could stabilise the party.

At that time its support was slipping, while a police investigation into party finances was being carried out.

He took over as SNP leader unopposed in May 2024 – but almost immediately found himself fighting a Westminster election campaign.

With Labour sweeping to power across the UK, the SNP lost 39 of the 48 seats they had had in the Commons, ending up with just nine MPs, with Mr Swinney conceding the result was “very, very difficult and damaging”.

Since then a reversal of fortunes has seen Labour’s popularity wane, while Mr Swinney has restored support for his party – though not to the level seen in the 2021 Holyrood election, when the SNP, then under Nicola Sturgeon, won almost half (47.7%) of the constituency votes cast.

Despite the setback of the 2024 general election, Mr Swinney has sought to restore stability and unity within his party, which had been left divided after the 2023 leadership contest between Mr Yousaf and former finance secretary Kate Forbes.

His second stint at the leadership of the SNP began some 45 years after he first joined the party as a 15-year-old schoolboy.

Having joined in 1979 he rose to become SNP national secretary by 1986 and in 1997 was elected as the MP for Tayside North – before then being elected to represent the corresponding area in the first elections to the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999.

He has represented the same area at Holyrood ever since then, making him one of a small and dwindling group of MSPs who have been in the parliament since its very beginning.

When the SNP came to power in 2007 he was made finance secretary in Alex Salmond’s government – with Mr Swinney in that post in 2009 when the budget was voted down after the Greens refused to back it, although the government’s spending plans were passed at the second attempt.

When Mr Salmond resigned as first minister and SNP leader after the loss of the 2014 independence referendum, Mr Swinney became deputy first minister in Nicola Sturgeon’s government.

In his years in the Scottish government he has also held the positions of education secretary and Covid recovery secretary, tasked with leading Scotland’s recovery from the pandemic.

He has survived two votes of no confidence, with the first brought after the grading system brought in to replace cancelled exams in 2020 during the pandemic initially saw marks for disadvantaged pupils downgraded.

The second vote of no confidence was brought the following year amid a row over what information could be given to MSPs on a committee tasked with probing the government’s handling of harassment allegations against Mr Salmond.

After taking on the role of First Minister in 2024 the SNP operated as a minority government – with key successes when the government was able to pass budget bills through Holyrood in both 2025 and 2026.