JOHN Swinney’s independence strategy is facing a wrecking amendment from rebel members, the party’s conference agenda has confirmed.
The First Minister is set to put his plan for Scottish independence to party members at the SNP conference in Aberdeen in October.
We previously revealed Swinney’s independence strategy hinges on the SNP winning a majority of seats at the 2026 Holyrood election.
The First Minister has argued that Alex Salmond’s victory in 2011, when he delivered a majority, set a precedent as it set in motion negotiations that led to the 2014 referendum.
However, not all members of the SNP support this approach.
Rebel members have called for the party to keep its previous strategy that all votes for pro-independence parties should count towards a mandate to begin negotiations with Westminster to dissolve the Union, as well as setting a date for independence day.
A previous bid to lodge a motion in this vein was rejected from the conference agenda, despite being backed by 43 local branches.
But now, the party’s conference agenda has revealed that the rebels' amendment has been selected for debate.
It seeks to delete the majority of Swinney’s resolution, bar an introductory paragraph and that the process for independence must be agreed in a “democratic, constitutional and legal” manner.
It would then replace the Swinney plan, co-signed by depute leader Keith Brown, by reverting back to a de-facto referendum, but using only the list vote.
They add that a majority for the SNP, or the SNP and any other party who have entered into a “pro-independence agreement”, will be considered a “mandate to negotiate independence”.
“Conference therefore agrees that Scotland must extricate itself from the United Kingdom as soon as possible, and it requires a strong SNP government to do this,” the amendment adds.
“Conference instructs the party to prioritise obtaining a mandate from the sovereign Scottish people to deliver independence by achieving a majority of the popular vote on the sum of the independence supporting parties’ list votes in the 2026 Scottish parliamentary election.
“Conference recognises that, in practice, a mandate to deliver independence requires certain building blocks to make delivery possible and ‘get us over the line’.
“These will include a target date for independence, a provisional government to oversee the necessary preparations, and an Independence Delivery Unit to make such preparations.”
The amendment was backed by several branches – Oban and Lorn, Helensburgh, Tweeddale, Bonnyrigg and Loanhead, Forfar and District, Braidburn, Annandale and Eskdale, Lochabar and North Lorn, and Annan.
We previously told how the rebels set out a nine-point plan to achieve independence ahead of the conference.
A second amendment, by the west Fife and coastal villages branch, seeks to add to Swinney’s plan.
While it supports the bid for a majority of SNP MSPs as achieved 2011, it argues this should be “tempered with a recognition that the Claim of Right requires a majority of Scots to support a course of action for it to have a true mandate”.
It adds: “That mandate must therefore be linked to more than 50% of voters supporting the SNP, or other political parties and independent candidates, that support Scotland’s Right to Choose, on the regional list.”
A third amendment seeks to add full EU membership to Swinney’s plan, while a fourth called on the National Executive Committee (NEC) to undertake a range of measures to convince voters to support independence.
A Glasgow Kelvin Constituency branch amendment, it called on the NEC to “establish a structure” to work with other pro-independence parties, and set out a “common prospectus for independence” to establish a “cross-party and non-party campaign to ensure that these objectives are firmly established before the next Holyrood elections”.
