Stephen Flynn kicks off SNP conference by painting John Swinney's stability as the party's strength
The big challenge for the SNP over the next three days is coming up with a strategy to win the 2026 election.
Stephen Flynn has fired the starting gun on the SNP’s election campaign by bigging up John Swinney’s strength - stability.
The SNP Westminster leader officially opened the 91st annual SNP conference in Aberdeen on Saturday morning, cracking a few jokes and earning himself not one, not two, but three standing ovations.
His job was simple on paper - get the party excited about the prospect of fighting the 2026 Scottish Parliament election and winning an unprecedented fifth term in office.
As someone who is comfortable making impassioned speeches in the House of Commons, he was a sensible choice for opening the conference.
Recent polling suggests the SNP is on track to remain the biggest party in Scotland at the May election. However, this is partly down to Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives’ deep unpopularity, and the rise of Reform UK splitting the unionist vote.
The big challenge for the party this weekend is coming up with a strategy to win the election, not just rely on other parties losing. This is perhaps an even bigger challenge for its leader John Swinney, who is known as a good strategist, but lacks the ability to get a crowd going like some of his predecessors did.
Mr Flynn chose to use this quality as the party’s strength by comparing Mr Swinney’s stability and calmness to the “chaos” and “uncertainty” to Keir Starmer and past Conservative prime ministers in Westminster.
He said: “When it comes to fighting for Scotland’s corner, there is no party more trusted than our own.
“Just as there is no person, no politician, more trusted to lead our nation than John Swinney, and friends we are so very fortunate to have him as our leader.
“At a time of chaos with Keir, we have stability and strength with Swinney.
“In an uncertain world the impact of a powerful, passionate, trusted leader cannot be emphasised enough and what I have seen over the course of the last 18 months is a First Minister who lives up to that billing and then some.
“Against all the odds he brought parties in our parliament together to deliver a budget that cemented record investment in our NHS to cut waiting times, scrapped peak rail fares for workers across our nation, and will restore the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
“A First Minister who has put Scotland’s interests first by driving a deal for our whisky sector in America, who saved the jobs at Alexander Dennis, and who has shown leadership on Gaza in the face of those enabling a genocide, a First Minister who will lead our party to a majority and deliver a fresh start with independence.”
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A good deal of his conference speech focused on talking down Scottish Labour by highlighting unpopular decisions the UK party has made since it came into office 15 months ago in Westminster. This includes the closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery, employer National Insurance contributions, failure to compensate Waspi women, failure to remove the two child benefit cap, and the prospect of digital ID cards.
His speech seemed to go down well with party members - he managed to garner some laughs early in his speech by mocking former Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, and referring to the longstanding rivalry between Aberdeen FC and Dundee United.
He also managed to get a standing ovation from the crowd when he spoke about the party’s stance on welcoming immigrants to Scotland, and got plenty of cheers whenever he spoke about the desire for the SNP to beat the Scottish Labour Party.
It is understandable why a lot of his speech focused on Labour. Last year, the Holyrood polls put them neck-and-neck with the SNP and party leader Anas Sarwar was growing more confident of getting the keys to Bute House.
The most recent polling puts Scottish Labour as the second biggest party, and the SNP was humiliated by the party at the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election earlier this year.
There is a lot more the party needs to get to grips with over the next three days to create a comprehensive election strategy, but Mr Flynn seems to have got members ready for those conversations.
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