2024 Scottish National Party leadership election

2024 Scottish National Party leadership election

← 2023 29 April – 6 May 2024

Candidate John Swinney Popular vote Unopposed

leader before election Humza Yousaf Elected leader John Swinney

The 2024 Scottish National Party leadership election took place to choose the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) following the resignation of Humza Yousaf on 29 April 2024, amid a government crisis. Nominations closed on 6 May, with John Swinney emerging as the only candidate and was subsequently elected unopposed as the party's new leader.

In the previous election, held the year prior following Nicola Sturgeon's resignation, Yousaf successfully defeated Kate Forbes and Ash Regan in a leadership election that caused turmoil for the party with disagreements over the party's independence strategy and the controversial^[1][2] gender reform bill. Yousaf was subsequently appointed First Minister of Scotland. On 25 April 2024, Yousaf announced the end of his co-operation agreement with the Scottish Greens following changes to his government's climate policy. The Scottish Conservatives later called for a vote of no confidence in Yousaf, with all the main opposition parties, including the Greens, supporting the motion. Regan, who had become the Alba Party's sole MSP after resigning from the SNP in the aftermath of her leadership election loss, had indicated a willingness to consider voting to support Yousaf (which would have caused the no confidence motion to tie on votes and, as per tradition, been defeated via the presiding officer's deciding vote) in exchange for the government adopting Alba policies, but Yousaf rejected the deal and announced his intention to resign on 29 April.

Forbes, who placed as runner up in the previous election, was considered as a front runner to replace Yousaf, however, following Swinney's campaign launch on 2 May, she announced she would not run for leader and instead endorsed Swinney. This left him as the only candidate, with many prominent SNP members endorsing his campaign. On 5 May, party activist, Graeme McCormick, disclosed to media he had gathered the required nominations to run for leader, however, after holding talks with Swinney, he withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Swinney. This left him as the only candidate and he was elected unopposed as leader of the SNP on 6 May.^[3]