On the 12th of October, Alex Salmond was in the the city of Ohrid, North Macedonia; a city often referred to as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans”, in light of the city once having 365 churches. Upon his arrival at the Inex Olgica Hotel, Salmond collapsed and was pronounced—precipitating an avalanche of commemorations from Unionist and Scottish nationalist public figures alike. Salmond was unquestionably the Caesar of Scottish nationalism, as under his premiership the SNP went from 7 to 53 seats in the Scottish Parliament from 1999 to 2011.
Yet, when it came for the Scottish people to cross the Rubicon at the 2014 referendum, Salmond’s dreams of an independent Scotland were dashed, with 55% of the Scottish electorate voting against independence. Ten years on from the campaign which divided Scotland, Scottish nationalism is in severe decline; a decline largely resulting from poor judgement and corruption. A year after the referendum, the SNP had a new leader in Nicola Sturgeon, a former member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament who entered politics as a result of the inspiration she took from Margaret Thatcher.
Sixteen years after she left behind her career as a solicitor to become an MSP, Sturgeon led the SNP to record-breaking results in the General Election of 2015, with the SNP claiming 50% of the vote share and 56 MPs. When contrasted with the results of 2024, the situation looks bleak. The SNP vote share decreased by 20%, falling from 1,454,436 to 724,758, and the total number of MPs elected was just nine.
The early stages of this decline are surprising, with an early sign of decay being the loss of ground by the party in the 2017 General Election. Many had tipped the SNP to capitalise on the vote for Brexit due to the party being staunch advocates for membership of the European Union, a position in keeping with the Scottish electorate who voted 62% in favour of Remain. Despite the vote for Brexit, the party’s vote share fell from 1,454,436 to 977,568 and they lost 21 MPs.
The result itself was largely blamed on the apathetic attitudes of Scottish voters for another independence referendum so soon after the previous vote, yet it does also reveal that European Union membership evidently does not take precedence over remaining part of Britain in the eyes of much of the electorate. Given that 33% of the Scottish voters did not vote in the 2016 referendum and 38% backed Brexit, this means that while 62% of votes cast were for Remain, 71% of the electorate either didn’t vote or voted Leave. In short, Scotland is far less of a Europhilic country than it is often mistakenly perceived to be.
While the performance of the SNP improved moderately in 2019, the 2020s have proved disastrous. From the arrests of Nicola Sturgeon, her husband Peter Murrell and treasurer Colin Beattie amidst allegations of embezzlement and fraud, relating to spending of party funds designated for use in a second Scottish referendum which never happened, to the SNP’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill resulting in a convicted male rapist opting to identify as a woman while awaiting trial and consequently being sent to a female prison in Stirling, the decade has not proved a fruitful one for the fortunes of the SNP. The simple fact is this: the Scottish electorate became reticent about supporting an independent Scotland, given the perception that if it is to be ruled with the same inefficiency by people mired in equally damning scandals as their counterparts south of the border, it is not the utopia described by its proponents.