2024: The Scottish Political Year in Review

Party season is upon us. And for Scotland’s political parties, what a year it has been.

This has been a year effectively split into two by a summer general election which marked a turning point for Scotland’s biggest parties, setting off a chain of events which has given Scottish Labour a nightmare before Christmas, presented huge questions for the Scottish Conservatives and gifted opportunity to John Swinney’s SNP.

Guess Who

Swinney became Scotland’s seventh first minister in May, taking on the job it seemed no one else wanted when Humza Yousaf stepped down as SNP leader.

The youngest person ever to hold the keys to Bute House, not to mention the first Muslim and first person of colour appointed to the role, Yousaf had taken charge of Scotland’s biggest political party after the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon in 2023. His appointment followed an eyebrow-raising leadership contest which exposed divisions in the SNP on strategy and policy, and it was perhaps no wonder that, when Yousaf decided to go, there was little appetite for a repeat of the process and while one activist stepped forward, no other MSPs tried to stand in Swinney’s way.

Rising from the backbenches, Swinney – a veteran of the class of ’99 – promised unity to a party tired of the in-fighting and was installed with little ado. “When I stood down as deputy first minister in March last year, I believed that would be the last senior office I would hold in politics,” Swinney said in his first speech upon taking office. “Having served then as a senior minister for 16 years, I felt I had, to coin a phrase, done my bit. To find myself accepting office as first minister of Scotland today is therefore, to utter a classic understatement, something of a surprise.”

Bute House Disagreement

Perhaps it wasn’t as much of a surprise to some of those watching as the end of the Bute House Agreement was.

Sturgeon and Swinney had signed a deal bringing the Scottish Greens into government as junior partners to bolster their numbers against potential confidence votes by Holyrood rivals. But as Green activists became increasingly unhappy about government performance and policy – specifically over climate targets and access to hormone treatments for young patients – they orchestrated a vote on walking away from the agreement. Yousaf, accused of allowing the Green tail to wag the SNP dog, got in front of it all by inviting the Greens’ Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater to an early-morning dumping at Bute House.

But the move was to be his undoing. Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross smelled opportunity and lodged a motion of no confidence in the FM – one he could no longer be guaranteed to win. Yousaf exited the top job but soon took on other responsibilities by welcoming baby daughter Liyana. Having been something of a quiet presence on the backbenches since, he’s now said he’ll leave frontline politics for good in 2026 and is pitching for a role on the international stage.

The Scottish Greens row bubbled up after climate targets were scrapped and clinical leaders paused the prescription of hormone treatments for under-18s seeking care for gender identity issues. The suspension was announced following the publication of the Cass Review, which linked puberty blockers to weaker bone density and called for improved provision of mental health help. That suspension has since been made indefinite.

Watershed moment

All of this, bar the extension of the prescription pause, played out before the general election in June. In the omen to end all omens, Downing Street incumbent Rishi Sunak announced the contest in a downpour and the washout that followed – the Conservatives lost out big as Labour achieved a 211-seat surge – cost him his leadership.

The contest not only ended Tory rule at Westminster, but SNP dominance of Scottish seats there. Led by Stephen Flynn, the nationalist group dwindled to single figures, with only nine of its number returned – a result which cost it third party status and committee seats.

The election happened just weeks after Swinney took office and Labour capitalised, with several of its Scottish MPs taking up government positions. A reset of the relationship between Westminster and devolved governments was promised and ex-partygate civil servant Sue Gray was later named as the first-ever envoy for the nations and regions, having been pushed out as PM Keir Starmer’s chief-of-staff. But no one really knew what the job was and, when Gray decided she didn’t want it after all, no replacement was announced. Nomatter, she has now been appointed to the Lords. 

Nightmare before Christmas

The UK result put Scottish Labour on the front foot and the sense of confidence in the party was palpable. But as the year went on Anas Sarwar was put in ever more uncomfortable positions by a raft of UK Government decisions on retaining the two-child cap, ending universal entitlement to Winter Fuel Payments as prices were set to rise and now deciding not, in fact, to provide compensation to the WASPI women they had made so many pre-manifesto promises to.

By mid-December, Sarwar was saying his UK colleagues were “wrong” on compensation for women affected by changes to the state pension age.

It was all a gift to the SNP, which suddenly began looking coherent and united and put together a Scottish budget promising to do versions of all the things that Labour, at UK level, will not.

But there was a morsel of relief for Labour after Kemi Badenoch – Sunak’s successor as Conservative party leader – got everyone talking about sandwiches for a moment. The tough-talking Tory said lunch is “for wimps” and relatably said she has steak, not sandwiches, when she does deign to eat a mid-day meal.

Meanwhile, her Scottish counterpart Russell Findlay – elected after Ross stood down, mid-general election campaign – admitted people would “laugh at” him if he suggested he could be the next first minister.

WhatsApp with you?

It’s all been so fast and furious that the Michael Matheson row, which had for so long dominated the news, seems a very long time ago. But it was only in May that the former health secretary was issued a 27-day suspension – the longest ever – for breaching parliamentary rules with his £11k data roaming charge.

Matheson’s replacement, Neil Gray, has since been drawn into a stooshie of his own over the use of ministerial cars to attend football matches and other events. Once set in motion, the hospitality row saw other figures like Angela Constance linked in for similar entries in official registers.

And so there has been a renewed interest in the rules and how they are followed. This extends to messaging apps, with WhatsApp now to be banned for official Scottish Government business.

The move follows a review carried out in the wake of evidence given to the Scottish and UK Covid inquiries, which established wildly different interpretations of the data policy. Sturgeon had retained “no messages whatsoever”, it emerged, while pings sent between Yousaf and former national clinical director Jason Leitch included barbs about those questioning government policy and action. Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes, who had retained all of her Covid-era messages, announced the ban.

Then of course there was Stephen Flynn, whose ambitions to sit in both Holyrood and Westminster led to the resurgence of moves to ban dual-mandates. Flynn announced he had a Scottish Parliament seat in mind, despite the fact that Audrey Nicoll was quite comfortable there already. Rarely have MSPs been so annoyed at the same thing – Flynn admitted he’d got this one a bit wrong, and parliament voted to end double-jobbing.

Flying the flag

This year also included the 25th anniversary of devolution as well as the 10-year anniversary of the independence referendum in September. It also saw the death of indyref architect Alex Salmond just one month later.

Alba Party leader Salmond had been working until the last and was speaking at a forum in North Macedonia when he died at the age of 69. He was repatriated on a plane paid for by businessman Sir Tom Hunter and his death prompted tributes from across the political spectrum. After a private funeral, a memorial in St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh was broadcast live, with crowds lining the streets outside.

A political giant, Salmond was not the only figure lost during 2024. Former deputy prime minister John Prescott died in November at the age of 86. His family said he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s and, again, tributes were paid across party lines.