Swinney set to return as SNP secures record fifth Scottish victory

John Swinney was set to return as first minister after the Scottish National Party secured a record fifth consecutive victory in Holyrood, but the result left the central question untouched: whether voters had backed independence momentum, managerial competence, or simply a familiar party in a fractured field.

The Scottish Parliament election, held on Thursday 7 May 2026, gave the SNP enough seats to remain the largest party in the 129-member chamber, but not the 65 needed for an overall majority. Scotland’s parliament is elected through 73 constituencies and 56 regional list seats, and the first minister is chosen by MSPs rather than directly by voters. That leaves Swinney dependent on parliamentary arithmetic, coalition instincts, and the ability to persuade enough colleagues that his government can deliver on the issues that dominated the campaign.

For the SNP, the victory extended its hold on Holyrood to 2007, the party’s longest continuous spell in office since devolution. Swinney, already listed by the Scottish Parliament as First Minister and SNP MSP for Perthshire North, had said he would seek a majority to strengthen his case for a second independence referendum. Instead, he emerged with a mandate to govern but without the clean political authority that an outright majority would have given him.

Opposition leaders were left confronting a night of losses. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said his party was hurting and had not won the argument for change, while Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay and other opposition figures saw the campaign’s hoped-for breakthrough fail to materialise. Before polling day, analysis and polling had pointed to an SNP win but not necessarily a majority, with Reform UK emerging as a significant challenger in second place and Labour and the Conservatives under pressure.

The result now hands Swinney a government burdened by two tests at once: keeping the SNP together in parliament and deciding how hard to press the constitutional question after another victory that was historic in scale but incomplete in power. New MSPs must still be sworn in before taking their seats, after which parliament will elect a Presiding Officer and deputy presiding officers. Only then can the Scottish Government re-form its ministerial team and set out whether this win becomes a platform for change or another chapter in Scotland’s long unresolved debate over its future.