SNP: On the brink of a Fifth Term?

As the SNP gathers in Aberdeen for its annual conference, our Director Mark Diffley considers whether the party is now poised to secure a fifth consecutive term in government at next year’s Holyrood election.

In this blog, Mark explores the factors shaping the SNP’s current position, from the fragmentation of the opposition vote and the rise of Reform UK, to the challenges facing Scottish Labour and the impact of UK-wide political dynamics. With polling suggesting the SNP remains ahead despite a drop in vote share, Mark asks: is the road to re-election now clearer than anyone expected just 15 months ago?

The SNP meets in Aberdeen for their annual conference this weekend with a sense of some positivity that they could scarcely have imagined 15 months ago when the party lost a third of its vote share and its Westminster contingent fell from 48 MPs to just nine.

Now, with the May 2026 Holyrood election just nine months away, the party looks on course at this stage to return to government for a fifth successive term.

A rolling average of recent polls put the SNP on 35% for the constituency element of the vote, double the performance of its closest challenger Scottish Labour, and 29% of the regional list vote share, again significantly ahead of rival parties. Modelling on the potential distribution of seats at Holyrood after next year’s election suggests that the SNP would retain its dominant position on 62 seats, albeit three short of an overall majority, with no other party securing more than 18 seats.

What this highlights of course is that if the SNP does win a fifth term, it will not be an achievement built on a return to the historical popularity of the party, it achieved 48% (constituency) and 40% (regional list) in 2021, but rather the dilution of the anti-SNP vote with the rise of Reform UK, and a failure of any opposition party to persuade the electorate of an alternative path for Scotland.

The emergence and rise of Reform UK in Scotland has been problematic primarily for the main opposition, pro-union parties, thereby making the road to a fifth term for the SNP more straightforward and achievable. From a showing of 7% in Scotland at last year’s general election, the party is now averaging 17% which, while only around half of its popularity GB-wide, means that there is likely to be a significant cohort of Reform UK MSPs, possibly up to 20, once the dust settles on next year’s vote.

But support for Reform UK is not coming from other parties in equal proportion. Rather, the party is eating into Conservative and Labour support at a far greater rate than its impact on the nationalists. Recent polling suggests that, for example, around 20% of those who voted Labour last year are now backing Reform, while the equivalent number for those who voted SNP last year is no more than 5%. This helps the SNP particularly on the constituency, first past the post, element of the election, meaning that the SNP is likely to hold the majority of its constituency MSPs despite its national vote share falling by around 13 points.

Equally helpful to the SNP is the inability of any opposition party so far to persuade voters that Scotland should choose another path. The speed and depth at which the UK Labour government has lost popularity among voters has seriously damaged Scottish Labour’s hopes next year, and the polls will need to show significant reversals for that to change.

From discontent about policies such as the removal of the Winter Fuel Allowance to plummeting ratings for the Prime Minister among Scots, Keir Starmer has a net approval rating of -42 compared to -3 for John Swinney, Scottish Labour has its work cut out to improve its standing among the electorate and time is not on its side.

Next year’s Holyrood election is likely to be a battle of the records of incumbents; the two-year record of the UK Labour government versus the 19-year record of the SNP Scottish government. At this stage, voters look more likely to want to punish the Labour government at Westminster. Unless that public mood changes, the SNP looks likely to be re-elected.