A 2025 election? There could be, says first minister

John Swinney admitted there “could be an election” next year when asked by a gaggle of journalists about the tricky task he’ll shortly face to get a budget passed.

He was, of course, just accepting one of the many possibilities for how that could go.

Theoretically, if the SNP cannot find a willing partner to work with to pass a budget, the deadlocked parliament would be forced to wrap up and we’d all head to the polls. That would still require two-thirds of MSPs to vote for an election or the government resigning (either by choice or due to a vote of no confidence), but it’s all on the realm of the possible.

We've seen some of the SNP's quandary play out this week. It was defeated twice after all the opposition parties united to pass a Conservative motion on free school meals and peak rail fares.

MSPs urged the government to deliver school lunches to all primary kids "as promised" and to "reverse its decision to reintroduce peak fares". This early defeat does not exatly bode well for a party that needs to convince at least two opposition MSPs to support its budget.

Lending the prospect of an election more plausibility is what we are currently hearing from the Scottish Greens. Announcements made in the last couple of weeks – shelving the conversion therapy ban, cutting nature restoration funds, scaling back active travel infrastructure plans, to name a few – have not gone down well with the party’s MSPs.

Indeed, co-leader Lorna Slater said at First Minister’s Questions last week: “All of this work is being undone, slashed, watered down or shelved, and now the betrayal of the free school meals. The message of this week’s programme for government is if you want progressive, green policies, you need to vote to have Greens in the room.”

There’s also the matter of trust. MSP Ross Greer has told the BBC that the government is “not acting in good faith” by failing to deliver many of the policy areas the two parties had been working on together under the Bute House Agreement. “If we can’t even get previous agreements delivered on, how can we possibly trust them to deliver on any new agreement that we would reach later this year?” he asked.

And so it seems it would require a significant and concrete offer from the SNP – no vague promises for things to be delivered in the future – to get the party which has supported the last eight budgets back on board.

It’s important to note that when Humza Yousaf ended the Bute House Agreement back in April, he made it clear that he hoped he could still count on the Greens to work together. We all know how that turned out.

Swinney has taken a slightly different approach, insisting repeatedly that he is willing to work with anyone. We’ve even seen attempts to butter up other opposition parties. During the first minister election in the Scottish Parliament, Swinney praised the previous Labour/Lib Dem administration for “having governed Scotland through the difficult early years of devolution”, while he said the Tories should “look back with great credit on the constructive way in which they often approached opposition”.

Speaking to journalists after First Minister’s Questions last week, Swinney pointed to his own record at securing support from other parties in years gone by. “We’ve got to find people who work with us to get a budget passed, the government’s got to engage and I’ve got a wee bit of experience doing that type of stuff over the years – most of it successful – so we’ll do that,” he said.

He may be keener to work with some parties than others. The prospect of another deal with the Greens – even if that MSP group is willing – might not be all that enticing as the party seeks to create some distance from its last few years. Many of the SNP at least in part blame the Greens and the Bute House Agreement for their current woes.

So what of the others?

It feels unlikely that Scottish Labour would be open to doing a deal, particularly just a year out from the next (scheduled) election. Their current election message is Scotland needs to replace its “incompetent” and “out-of-ideas” government – and doing a deal with the SNP may hurt that message.

Under Douglas Ross, it seemed pretty impossible that the Scottish Conservatives would do a deal. That may change with a new leader, to be elected later this month, as all candidates have spoken about needing to look more like a government. Agreeing a budget could be a golden opportunity to prove they are serious. But given the optics around doing a deal with the Conservatives – anyone remember the ‘Tartan Tories’ moniker? – mean it’s unlikely Swinney would realistically look to them.

Alba only has one MSP in Ash Regan. Her vote alone would not be enough to see a budget pass – it would result in a 64/64 tie, and the presiding officer would by convention vote against the budget, as happened back in 2009.

That leaves the Liberal Democrats.

Not that long ago, two Lib Dems backed an SNP budget in exchange for some extra cash for ferries for the Northern Isles. While it is likely the price will be higher this year, it does show a willingness to work with a minority government.

And Alex Cole-Hamilton will be keen to polish his credentials for cross-party working – after all, that is the position he wants to be in post-2026. He’s previously made overtures to Anas Sarwar about being happy to work with Labour. The 2025-26 budget may be his greatest opportunity to prove his party can be flexible and cooperate with others.

But as Swinney himself said, “there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge before we get anywhere near a budget process”. He, his deputy Kate Forbes and his finance secretary Shona Robison will spend the next few months building bridges.

“Or there could be an election. But then I don’t think members of the public particularly want politicians to have an election when they’re not supposed to have them,” the first minister added.