Although it has been in government in Edinburgh since 2007, the Scottish National party has for years been able to hold its autumn annual conference in relatively small places such as Inverness and Perth, amid much informality, minimal security, little corporate involvement and with hardly any journalists from south of the border taking any notice whatsoever. Over the coming days, all that will change. The SNP is gathering in Aberdeen for the last of this season’s major party conferences, has moved into the world of x-ray machines, trade stalls and hundreds of square feet of media space – as well as almost four times as many seats for delegates compared with last year.
Two things have moved the SNP on to a bigger stage. The first was the surge of support in the aftermath of the September 2014 independence referendum defeat, which saw SNP membership rise from around 25,000 before the referendum to above 110,000 in June. Today’s SNP is therefore a bigger party. It is also in some respects a different and younger party, whose political habits and instincts may differ in significant ways from the SNP of the recent past. The fit between old and new in such a politically disciplined organisation as the SNP – accusations of a nationalist one-party state are heard a lot these days – will be one of the most keenly watched questions in Aberdeen.
The other reason why the rest of Britain is now almost as interested in the SNP as Scots are themselves is this year’s general election result. The 56 SNP MPs who were elected in May triggered a political earthquake on both sides of the border. As well as transforming the Scottish electoral picture more dramatically than at any election in modern times, the SNP have made themselves a major presence in the House of Commons. This has implications not just for Westminster, where the SNP are much bigger players than before, but for the SNP itself. A party that has previously focused entirely on domestic Scottish politics is having to adjust to the British dimension.
Yet the SNP priority in Aberdeen this week is the Holyrood elections of 2016, not the Westminster elections of 2015. Three wins in a row is the SNP target and nothing less than a thumping victory will do. The bar has been set very high by the SNP’s electoral successes in 2007, 2011 and 2015. Another big win is certainly not beyond the SNP as the polls currently stand. Nicola Sturgeon’s party is still riding high in the opinion polls – with a lead of 35 points over Labour in one poll a week ago. But Ms Sturgeon has to do at least as well or even better in 2016 if she is to ensure that her authority, as well as party morale and unity, are undented.
There have been occasional intimations of mortality on the SNP’s radar in recent days. A potentially divisive debate on fracking this week – energy issues are high profile in Scotland – has led to accusations that party leaders want to avoid a vote on a motion on extending the current moratorium there. The party is under pressure on hospital waiting lists. A fringe meeting at which the only formal discussion of a second independence referendum was due to take place has been unexpectedly cancelled. And the property dealings of the Edinburgh West MP Michelle Thomson, and in particular her alleged treatment of vulnerable sellers, have dominated Scottish headlines for weeks – to the extent that she has now withdrawn from the party whip at Westminster. Such issues will be marginal at Aberdeen, but they all cloud the SNP’s hard-won reputations for principle and inclusiveness.
If Ms Sturgeon has her way, discussion about a possible second independence referendum will be marginal this week. The SNP’s more immediate concern is to ensure that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and its new Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale gets no new traction in the Holyrood election. That’s why the conference speech by the leader of the Scottish TUC, the first time a representative of the STUC has addressed SNP conference in the party’s 81-year history, is a significant coup. It’s also why Labour divisions on the fiscal responsibility charter and the possibility of military action in Syria will loom large in everything that SNP leaders say. There is little sign in the polls that Labour is winning back support from the SNP. But Scottish politics is still about who is the true opposition to the Conservatives. In the last few years this is a battleground on which the nationalists have regularly triumphed. The priority for the SNP is to triumph once again in May. Until then, the independence issue will be firmly hidden away.
