Will the SNP manifesto win back disillusioned voters?

‘Is the biggest problem for the SNP at this election,’ a Times journalist quizzed Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney this morning, ‘a deficit of enthusiasm?’ The SNP leader was in Edinburgh, launching the party’s general election manifesto. It focused on public service improvement, eradication of child poverty, worker’s rights and, of course, Scottish independence. But enthusiasm for the party is hitting new lows – and at a time when the Westminster group looks on track to lose over half its seats in the election, was the manifesto enough to convince Scotland’s undecided voters to vote SNP?

Independence may be ‘page one, line one’ of the SNP’s manifesto, but it was only first mentioned in the fourteenth sentence of Swinney’s launch speech today. Instead the First Minister started by pointing to the cost of living crisis and the aftermath of the pandemic, issues that across Scottish doorsteps tend to come up far more frequently than the constitutional question.