Elections 2026 - Shaking up the Scottish Parliament

As expected, the Scottish Parliament proved a slight setback for the SNP (Scottish National Party), whose ratings have been sliding since Nicola Sturgeon resigned from the office of First Minister and who endured a drubbing at the 2024 general election - but not as much as pollsters predicted.

The SNP in fact only lost 6 seats, making them still the largest party in the Scottish Parliament by far, and they topped the poll in every single Scottish region, although in the Edinburgh & Lothians East region this was only by 0.6%. They also won every single constituency in the Central Belt region with no party coming close to winning any of them, although they did lose as many as 7 constituencies - 2 to the Greens (Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Southside, whilst holding the notionally more Green-inclined Glasgow Kelvin & Maryhill), 4 to the Liberal Democrats (Caithness, Sutherland & Ross, Edinburgh Northern, Skye, Lochaber & Badenoch and Strathkelvin & Bearsden) and most surprisingly, by 154 votes, Na h-Eileanan an Iar to Labour despite the incumbent MSP, Alasdair Allan, standing for re-election in a seat he had held for 19 years previously. In these circumstances it is surprising they also gained 2 constituency seats, Eastwood from long-serving Conservative MSP Jackson Carlaw (whose first electoral foray dates back to the Glasgow Queen's Park by-election of 1982 where he was the Conservative candidate) who like Mr Allan had been an MSP for 19 years (initially via the list vote in his case), even though this is one of the worst prospects for Reform UK in Scotland (Eastwood, covering most of East Renfrewshire, is a wealthy, well-educated de facto exurb of Glasgow with one of Scotland's highest owner-occupation levels), and the Shetland Islands whose previous Liberal Democrat MSP, Beatrice Wishart, was not standing for re-election. In the Highlands & Islands, incumbency and local connections matter first and foremost, to all parties- the new SNP MSP for the Shetland Islands, Hannah Goodlad, is the daughter of John Goodlad who contested Orkney & Shetland in the 1987 general election for the Orkney & Shetland Movement, which the SNP endorsed that year. Conversely, the fact that former minister Kate Forbes - one of the most socially conservative SNP MSPs in modern times- was standing down from Skye, Lochaber & Badenoch contributed to a Liberal Democrat gain there and the said Liberal Democrat MSP elected, Andrew Baxter, was for one term a councillor for Fort William & Ardnamurchan ward which is in this Scottish Parliament constituency. In most constituencies the SNP vote decreased, although not as sharply as their list vote which dropped from 40.3% to 27.2%, primarily due to recovery by the Liberal Democrats and also by a Green surge. They lost 2 prominent MSPs as a result, notably Angus Robertson (who formerly was the SNP leader in the House of Commons until being unseated in 2017 from his Angus constituency), Equalities Minister Kaukab Stuart (who stood in Glasgow Southside following the abolition of her Glasgow Kelvin seat in boundary changes). This election also marked the departure of the Ewing family from the Scottish Parliament, with Fergus Ewing leaving the SNP and standing as an Independent (more on this later) and Annabelle Ewing (both of whom are children of late SNP stalwart Winifred Ewing) retiring from the Cowdenbeath constituency, and no Ewing being elected anywhere in the Scottish Parliament this year.

Labour, despite appearing to recover in opinion polls compared to 2021, in fact managed to lose 5 seats in total despite their surprise win of Na h-Eileanan an Iar; they failed to retain their by-election win of Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse against the SNP, actually slipped back further in the Central Belt and Fife, and even managed to finish 3rd in the list vote behind Reform UK overall, finishing 2nd only in West Scotland which in 2024 saw some of the highest pro-Labour swings that year and finishing 6th in the Highlands & Islands region despite winning a constituency there. Labour has in fact proved no less unpopular in Scotland than in England, and the cost-of-living crisis is being felt as acutely in Scotland as elsewhere in the UK, with Labour offering little to abate it. They held Dumbarton and Edinburgh Southern mainly on the back of personal votes of Dame Jackie Baillie, now one of only 2 MSPs elected at the inaugural Scottish Parliament election of 1999 still in Holyrood (the other is outgoing First Minister John Swinney, who succeeded Nicola Sturgeon in that post in 2022), and Daniel Johnston. 

In terms of "established" unionist parties, it was in fact the Conservatives, the official opposition in the last Scottish Parliament, who were hit hardest, not only losing Eastwood but also being knocked out of contention in constituencies where they had been the principal opposition to the SNP, especially Banffshire & Buchan Coast, and dropping to as few as 12 seats and 5th place, their worst ever finish in any Scottish election. Notably, they failed to win any seats at all in Glasgow, even list seats, and only in North East Scotland, containing some of their few remaining strongholds, did they manage 2nd place. Despite holding 3 constituency seats in South Scotland along the Hadrian's Wall border - Dumfriesshire, Ettrick, Roxburgh & Berwickshire and Galloway & West Dumfries - they finished 3rd in that region behind Reform and finished behind Reform in every other constituency in that region. In fact the Conservatives only finished 1st or 2nd in 14 Scottish Parliament constituencies out of 72, and only 2 of these (Ayr and Eastwood) are urban seats, and 1/3 of all Conservative candidates in constituency seats lost their deposits, the highest number of lost deposits for any political party in Scotland in this election. With memories of the independence referendum and EU membership referendum, prominent in recent elections, fading, the Conservatives found themselves with few salient issues to capitalise on and like Labour, lacked a leader promising any significant change. 

Even though their effective predecessors, UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party, which officially still exists but is now essentially a nonentity) and the Brexit Party, received short shrift at previous Scottish elections, Reform UK managed to break through at this Scottish Parliament election, finishing 2nd and winning 17 seats, equalling that of Labour, despite failing to win a single seat at constituency level. In fact, only in Banffshire & Buchan Coast, did they even come close, missing it by 364 votes, primarily due to economic woes being suffered by the fishing industry there. Only in Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley did they elsewhere come within <10% of winning a seat. They finished 2nd in Central Scotland & Lothians West, Mid Scotland & Fife and South Scotland, appealing significantly to non-metropolitan poorer voters in Scotland where UKIP had failed in 2015 and 2016, and proving almost as adept to reaching out to these voters as they did in England and Wales, primarily because their policies are perceived to differ radically enough from other significant UK political parties - even if for arguably dangerous reasons, like wanting to scrap the Equality Act. Interestingly, less than half of their elected MSPs were former Conservative members, and only one of those, Graham Simpson, had previously been a Conservative MSP; in fact one, Julie McDougall, had stood as the Labour candidate in Dunfermline at the previous Scottish Parliament election. Even though Reform did not come close to ousting the SNP, the SNP must nevertheless be on their guard outside Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, especially given how well Reform polled in a majority of constituencies neighbouring these cities but not in those cities themselves.

The Scottish Green Party had their best ever election, winning constituency seats for the first time and coming close to winning Edinburgh North Eastern & Leith and Glasgow Kelvin & Maryhill, and nearly doubling their seat total from 8 to 15, despite not standing in a majority of Scottish Parliament constituencies as per usual. Even though the Scottish Greens were founded as an environmentalist party, having split from the Green Party (which subsequently became the Green Party of England and Wales) in 1990, they are now being seen more as a radical alternative to the SNP especially on social issues, as proved by them finishing a close 2nd in both the Edinburgh & Lothians East and Glasgow regions but polling below 10% in the largely rural and more socially conservative regions of North East Scotland and South Scotland, the former of which was marred somewhat by Guy Ingerson's replacement at the top of the list by Maggie Chapman a week before nominations closed, although ultimately it made no difference. In line with their notably radical stance on LGBTIQA+ rights, they elected the first ever transgender MSP, Iris Duane, and the first nonbinary MSP, Q Manivannan, the latter of whom endured some controversy after it was revealed their student visa was due to expire partway in the first year of their term, but had not yet secured a graduate visa necessary to retain membership of the Scottish Parliament. 

The Liberal Democrats were the only "established" unionist party in Scotland to gain seats, more than doubling their seat total from 4 to 10, partly due to capturing 4 constituencies from the SNP, the biggest surprise of which was Strathkelvin & Bearsden from 4th place, although they had convincingly gained its closest Westminster counterpart, Mid Dunbartonshire, from the SNP at the 2024 general election; also their 2021 Scottish Parliament candidate, Susan Murray, had been elected for said Mid Dunbartonshire in 2024. Furthermore, as with all their gains except Caithness, Sutherland & Ross, the previous SNP MSP, Rona Mackay, was standing down. Although the Liberal Democrats have attempted to portray themselves as new moderates balancing out the perceived extremes of the Greens and Reform, this has not proved that helpful to them outside the unionist, well-educated and well-heeled urban areas (or their traditional rural strongholds in the Highlands) of which the aforementioned in Strathkelvin & Bearsden is a shining example, although 2 of their incumbents, Liam McArthur and Willie Rennie, managed record high vote shares for constituency MSPs, 70.2% and 63.8% respectively.

With six parties covering the broad economic and nationalist/unionist spectrum in Scottish politics, it is not surprising that other parties failed to break through. In fact only 4 other parties-- the Alliance to Liberate Scotland Party, Independent Green Voice, the Scottish Socialist Party, and Scottish Family Party even submitted lists in all 8 regions, and that still was not enough for any of them to poll even 1% across Scotland. In the former's case, this was partly due to an alliance with the Independence for Scotland Party unravelling, when the ISP complained about candidate selection issues for the AtLS, who effectively tried to portray themselves as a more socialist alternative to the SNP. Even with former MSP Tommy Sheridan leading their Glasgow list, AtLS only polled 1.3% in that region, and they fared worse in Edinburgh & Lothians East despite fielding former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray (who had come reasonably close to winning Blackburn at the 2024 election despite finishing 3rd) and former MEP Hugh Kerr. The Independent Green Voice, actually an extreme-right party with no ecological ties, was blamed at the last election for costing the Greens 2 list seats, but this time it made no significant difference to the result. The Scottish Socialists, once a significant force in the Scottish Parliament (they won 7 MSPs in 2003) but now a pale shadow of their former selves, failed to poll 1% in any region even with former MSP Colin Fox and stalwart Bill Bonnar leading 2 of their lists. As for the Scottish Family, the most religiously conservative party in Scotland, they did not poll 1% in any region, even the Highlands & Islands which contains their only area with non-negligible support, the Hebrides, and Central Scotland & Lothians West which contains many traditionally Catholic areas such as Coatbridge and Motherwell. The Workers Party fared even worse, polling below 0.5% in every region they stood, even in Glasgow where Yvonne Ridley and George Galloway occupied the 1st and 2nd spots on the list there despite Glasgow having by a significant margin the highest number of Muslims in Scotland. No other parties made any impact on the result, whether they stood in constituencies, regions, or both, and neither did the demise of Alba which dissolved in March after previously announcing it would not be able to stand candidates due to a lack of funds.

Independent candidates arguably fared better - but not much better. Fergus Ewing, who stood as an Independent in Inverness & Nairn after resigning from the SNP, was the only candidate outside the main parties to save his deposit, finishing a reasonably close 3rd with 21.3%. The Liberal Democrats hoped to take advantage of the split vote to capture one of their former strongholds from the SNP, but in the end Emma Roddick held the seat for the SNP by 427 votes over the Liberal Democrats, despite heavy tactical voting from Conservative voters. Jeremy Balfour and Ash Regan, having left the Conservatives and SNP (she was briefly an MSP for Alba until it dissolved) respectively, both stood as an Independents in Edinburgh & Lothians East but polled just 0.7% and 0.6%, nowhere near retaining their seats nor making any difference as to whether their former parties gained or lost list seats. Amusingly enough, 2 Independents polled more votes at constituency level than they did at list level - Iris Leask (a former Reform candidate with a manifesto that was only half-finished by polling day) polled 431 votes in Aberdeen Donside & Kincardine, 57 more than she polled across North East Scotland, and Morgwn Davies (primarily standing to protest against parking charges by East Lothian Council, which is not even a Scottish Parliament issue) polled 597 votes in East Lothian Coast & Lammemuirs, 400 more than he polled across the Edinburgh & Lothians East region. In fact Mr Davies wins this year's wooden spoon award for the Scottish Parliament election, polling 197 votes, with no party list anywhere polling lower than this. 

The SNP is still in such a strong position, despite losing 6 seats, that only one party needs to join a coalition with it to retain power (on that note it has already ruled out any negotiations with Reform). The likelihood is that another SNP-Green coalition will be formed, since that would give Mr Swinney a secure majority of 19 seats and keep Holyrood firmly in nationalist hands. Even if no formal coalition occurs, it can still obtain confidence and supply and maintain this without any problems.