Severin Carrell

The SNP have got the two by-elections on the 18th of June where they now, I think, are at greater risk than they were before.

of either losing or very narrowly winning to Westminster by-election campaigns.

So that's going to be a significant electoral test.

That'll be the point at which we can establish whether the SNP's popularity has taken an immediate hit.

No, that will never happen.

I mean, you have to remember that we are dealing with a political party that has had this extraordinary continuity of leadership before.

The party was led from 2004 by Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, and that continued up until 2023 when Sturgeon stood down as first minister.

But it was her anointed successor, Hamza Yousaf, who became the next first minister.

But the person that succeeded Hamza Yousaf was John Swinney.

one of Nicola Sturgeon's closest political friends and political advisors.

So what you have there is you have this continuity that has marked out SNP leadership for, well, two and a half decades now.

And one assumes he's going to be in power until 2031.

Now, it is possible that the SNP will go through a form of evolution.

It's quite possible that once Swinney fails to deliver a second independence referendum, that there might be challenges to his leadership from a different faction inside the SNP.

And you may see that continuity era ending.

But as things stand, Sturgeon's legacy will remain intact.