The SNP went from 48 Westminster seats to nine on 4 July 2024, its worst result since 2010, as its vote share fell from 45 to 30 per cent. Labour took 37 Scottish seats on 35 per cent, sweeping Glasgow and Edinburgh and most of the Central Belt. The three former SNP MPs who had defected, Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey to Alba and Angus MacNeil as an independent, all lost too. John Swinney took responsibility but did not resign, saying the party had not been "winning the argument" on independence. That November the SNP cut permanent headquarters staff from 26 to 16, more than a third, to protect its finances.

The 2024 manifesto had led with independence: an SNP majority of Scottish seats was meant to trigger section 30 negotiations with Westminster. Nine seats ended that route. Swinney redefined the test as an SNP outright majority at the May 2026 Holyrood election, with a constitutional convention to follow, even though the Supreme Court had ruled in November 2022 that Holyrood cannot legislate for a referendum without Westminster's consent. The ballot-box route was closed at Westminster by the voters and at Holyrood by the courts.

At the Holyrood election on 7 May 2026 the SNP won the most seats of any party and a fifth consecutive term in government, but fell short of the 65 needed for an overall majority. Labour and Reform UK tied for second on 17 seats each; the Conservatives fell from 31 seats in 2021 to 12 and lost official-opposition status. Reform UK, from a standing start, won 17 MSPs on roughly 18 per cent of the regional vote, leaving the Scottish Parliament more fragmented than at any point since devolution. Swinney had said an outright majority would be his mandate for a second referendum; he did not get it. The independence question was deferred again, this time not by a Westminster veto or a court ruling but by the Scottish electorate declining to give the SNP the majority it had asked for.

The manifesto's economic case rested on full devolution of income tax, National Insurance and VAT, and a projected £30 billion annual uplift from an independent Scotland rejoining the EU. On oil, the SNP's "evidence-led, case-by-case" line on new North Sea licences was softer than Labour's no-new-licences pledge, leaving it arguing for independence on a weaker climate position than the UK government it opposes. Its central welfare demand, scrapping the two-child benefit cap, was met in November 2025 by the Labour Budget, delivered by the party that had taken most of its Westminster seats. On the NHS, devolved to Holyrood since 2007, waiting times and A&E performance were among the dominant Scottish issues through 2025 and 2026, on a file the SNP controls and cannot attribute to Westminster.

The finance investigation that had shadowed the party since 2021 has now concluded, and not in its favour. Operation Branchform ended in March 2025, with no charges against Nicola Sturgeon. Her husband, the former chief executive Peter Murrell, admitted embezzling £400,000 of SNP funds at the High Court in May 2026 and was sentenced in June 2026 to five years and three months in prison, having used party cards and fake invoices to buy items including a £100,000 motorhome.

The nine-strong Westminster group has little strategic weight, and at Holyrood the SNP now governs without a majority. Independence remains the party's purpose, and the voters have kept it in office; what they withheld in May 2026 was the mandate Swinney himself had set as the condition for pursuing it. The next test is the parliamentary term now beginning: whether the SNP can rebuild that majority, or whether the fragmented result of 2026 is the new shape of Scottish politics.