Senior SNP figures believe Holyrood majority ‘within reach’ at May’s election
The battlefield is being drawn, the troops are mobilizing, and senior SNP strategists are smelling blood in the political water. As the party faithful descend upon Aberdeen for their annual conference, the internal polling must be telling a compelling story, one where a Holyrood majority—that magic number of 65 seats or more—isn't just a distant aspiration but a tangible target 'within reach' for the May election.This isn't mere conference rhetoric; it's a calculated war cry aimed squarely at a specific, crucial demographic: the 'battleground cohort' of independence supporters who have drifted away from the SNP's core. Trust in the Scottish government may have hit a record low, a fact opposition parties will hammer home relentlessly, but the SNP's campaign machine is executing a classic political flanking maneuver.They are betting the house that constitutional passion can override domestic discontent. One senior source, speaking with the confident anonymity of a backroom general, framed the path to victory as 'more straightforward now' than it has been for years, and the reasoning is pure political strategy.The landscape has been reshaped by two seismic shifts: the utter collapse of the Scottish Conservatives and the profound, lingering unpopularity of a Scottish Labour party still struggling to define its post-British-election identity. This creates a perfect storm where disaffected pro-independence voters, who may have flirted with other parties or simply stayed home, are presented with a stark, binary choice.The SNP's entire conference narrative will be engineered to re-engage these voters, to remind them that every vote for another party is a vote that strengthens the Unionist bloc at Holyrood. They will frame the election not as a referendum on their own record in government—on NHS waiting times or educational attainment—but as a de facto plebiscite on Scotland's future.The strategy is high-risk, high-reward. It requires turning out a base that is, by definition, disillusioned, while simultaneously hoping that the Unionist vote remains fractured between a crippled Tory party and a Labour party yet to prove its mettle in the Scottish context.The campaign will be a masterclass in targeted messaging, with digital ads, doorstep conversations, and rallying speeches all meticulously calibrated to speak to the heart of that drifting Yes voter. They'll invoke the spirit of 2011, the last time the SNP secured a majority against the odds, painting a picture of a movement on the cusp of a historic second act.The opposition, of course, will fight on the terrain of competence and delivery, pointing to the trust deficit as proof that the SNP has taken its eye off the ball. But the SNP's gamble is that in the final analysis, for their target voters, the dream of independence is a more powerful motivator than the reality of governance. The battle lines are set, the strategy is clear, and the next six months will be a brutal, no-holds-barred campaign for the soul of Scottish politics.
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