SNP's Swinney Rules Out Talks with Reform UK After Holyrood Victory

SNP leader John Swinney has ruled out negotiations with Reform UK as his party aims to return to government.

The SNP won a fifth successive Holyrood election by a comfortable margin but finished seven seats short of a majority. That forces the party to seek support from other groups to reinstall Swinney as first minister and pass legislation.

Labour and Reform tied for second place with 17 seats each. The Greens took 15 seats, the Conservatives 12 and the Liberal Democrats 10.

Reform's leader in Scotland, Malcolm Offord, called Swinney arrogant, petty and deeply undemocratic.

At a news conference in Edinburgh, Swinney said the SNP led by a country mile and would form the next government. He plans to invite leaders of all other Holyrood parties to individual talks starting next week, except for Reform.

Swinney cited successful budget talks with the Greens and Liberal Democrats earlier this year. He said the SNP had worked constructively with the Conservatives and Labour on other matters.

Swinney linked Reform's exclusion to its results elsewhere. Reform won more than 1,400 council seats in England and became the second-largest party in Wales behind Plaid Cymru in the Senedd. Those gains show the urgent need for independence, he said.

He warned that Nigel Farage was galloping toward Downing Street, a development that would be catastrophic. "It is vital that we unite in Scotland to ensure our parliament is fully Farage-proofed," Swinney told the news conference. "That means having the power before 2029 to decide our own constitutional future without Farage being able to block us."

Swinney noted that after Plaid Cymru's success, first ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all back fundamental constitutional change.

Swinney had hoped for an SNP majority to break the constitutional logjam and secure a second independence referendum. The UK government would need to approve such a vote, but it has repeatedly refused.

He insisted Holyrood has a mandate for the vote, with more pro-independence MSPs from the SNP and Greens than ever before. Swinney called his goal of a 2028 referendum realistic.

"There has now been a pro-independence majority for four elections in a row but this mandate has been ignored by both Labour and Tory prime ministers year after year," he said.

The SNP's constituency vote share dropped almost 10 percent from the 2021 Holyrood election, while the regional share fell more than 13 percent. The combined SNP and Green pro-independence vote came to just over 40 percent in both constituencies and regions.

Offord called independence a dead duck. "It's not going to happen," he said. He accused Swinney of out-of-touch establishment politics that people reject.

"The SNP can lock the doors of St Andrew's House if they like but they cannot shut down the growing demand for real change in Scotland," Offord said.

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay accused Swinney of shamelessly moving the goalposts on independence. "He is brazenly peddling a massive lie by claiming that he has the support and the mandate for another divisive referendum," Findlay said.

Findlay told BBC Scotland News his party offers the only strong, credible opposition voice at Holyrood, despite its worst performance ever in such an election.

Scottish Greens co-leader Ross Greer said Reform has no place in cross-party talks at the new parliament. Scottish Labour held no media event on Saturday, unlike the other parties.