Swinney Launches 'Choose Scotland’ Campaign, Says Scotland Will Soon Be Independent

First Minister John Swinney closed the Scottish National Party conference in Aberdeen on Saturday by launching a new independence campaign and telling members that “the stars are aligning” for a Scottish state of its own.

“Some think we should just be like Manchester. Well I’m afraid I disagree,” Swinney said, in a line the BBC reported as a veiled answer to Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester. “Scotland is no city. We are no region. We are a nation. And soon we will be an independent nation.”

The campaign

Swinney said the party would run its “most sophisticated” independence campaign yet, backed by a “six-figure war chest.” Called Choose Scotland, it will include a national day of action, digital and broadcast advertising, and an independence survey delivered to almost 1.5 million people, according to the BBC.

He pointed to the party’s win in May, which returned a record number of pro-independence members to the Scottish Parliament. The pro-independence share of the vote fell, however, from about 50 percent in 2021 to about 41 percent this year. The Scottish government hopes to hold a second referendum by 2031.

Swinney also cited last month’s non-binding agreement among the nationalist first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. “In Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, every first minister now supports our nations’ right to self-determination,” he said in remarks released before the speech.

Burnham’s answer

The speech came a day after Burnham’s first major visit to Scotland as prime minister. In Motherwell on Friday he offered to work with Swinney on “deeper Scottish devolution,” including handing employment support powers to Scottish regions, and said he wanted to “move beyond the old politics of conflict.”

Burnham told members of Parliament earlier this year that referendums would be considered in Scotland and Northern Ireland if there were a clear consensus and public opinion had changed. He has since told Swinney that a second Scottish independence referendum is “off limits.” At the conference on Thursday, SNP minister Stephen Flynn answered him: “Bring it on.”

Scotland voted 55 percent to 45 percent against independence in 2014. In 2022 the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Scottish Parliament cannot hold another referendum without the agreement of the UK government, and successive prime ministers have refused it.

That leaves a party with a mandate to govern, a campaign to win over voters and a 2031 target, facing a prime minister who says the vote itself is off the table.