Is there really going to be a hung parliament after the election?

This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

If we can take one thing away from this weekend, it’s that it’s very easy to have a run at the SNP leadership.

All you need are 100 members from 20 different branches to sign your nomination papers. Manage that and you’re in.

Given that the leader is technically re-elected every year, it wouldn’t take much for a determined activist – and the SNP has many determined activists – to have a go at it.

We saw one such activist this weekend. Graeme McCormick had the nominations to trigger a leadership contest, but pulled out after a “lengthy and fruitful” discussion with John Swinney.

I don’t think he ever thought he would win, but I admire his enthusiasm.

Activist Graeme McCormick almost triggered an SNP leadership race until he withdrew (Image: Newsquest)
One of the SNP’s problems is that it has never quite caught up with itself. Many of its rules and standing orders seem to date back to when it was more of a niche concern, not the behemoth it became after the 2014 referendum.

Although it may not have the 125,000 members of its peak in 2019, it is still a massive movement with the most recently available figures showing around 69,000 members in December.

That means the threshold of support for entering the leadership contest is equivalent to winning the support of just 0.14% of the party’s membership.

There is something quite nice about the fact that you don’t need the support of any parliamentarians.

By way of comparison, to enter the last Labour leadership contest you needed to be nominated by 20% of Labour MPs, 5% of constituency parties and at least three affiliates.

However, the SNP's rules look set to change.

Read more:

Unspun | There may not be a leadership race, but can Swinney finish the independence marathon?

In its interim report last June, the governance review announced by Humza Yousaf said there needed to be “new rules for any leadership contest” and that anyone challenging for the leadership should need to be “supported by a sufficiently high proportion of the membership and elected parliamentarians”.

Which is a bit of shame, but understandable given that leadership contests cost the party between £160,000 and £180,000.

But as the SNP leadership crisis calms down, the Tory leadership crisis is ramping up.

Except they don’t seem to be getting rid of theirs.

Read more:

Unspun | Neil Mackay: Swinney wanted election with Tory leader change. He should call one.

Despite the disaster of last Thursday’s local election that cost his party nearly 500 council seats, and the West Midlands mayoralty, and the historic defeat at the Blackpool South by-election, Rishi Sunak is clinging on.

He is clinging on even though he has accepted that his party is on course to lose the general election.

Last night he told the Times that Thursday’s results suggest the country is “heading for a hung parliament”.

He said a Keir Starmer government would be “propped up in Downing Street by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and the Greens”.

It sounds very similar to David Cameron’s “coalition of chaos” claim from the 2015 election. You’ll remember the billboards with Ed Miliband in Alex Salmond and then Nicola Sturgeon’s pocket.

Is the result really going to be that close?

The claim is based on analysis by Michael Thrasher, Professor of Politics at the University of Plymouth and regular Sky News pundit.

It’s based on Labour’s share of the vote on Thursday, which Prof Thrasher said could leave Sir Keir 32 seats of a majority and forced to rely on the SNP, the Lib Dems and others.

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However, the big assumption – and it’s a massive assumption – in his analysis is that the vote in Scotland and Wales will remain where it was at the 2019 election.

That’s why Professor Sir John Curtice called the claims unreliable. He knows this because he came up with a similar projection based on last week’s election.

“We did feel maybe it wasn’t necessarily the most reliable piece of information,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He also pointed out that the way people vote in local elections “doesn’t necessarily exactly mirror the way that they would vote in a general election”.

Prof Curtice also pointed out that Reform UK stood in only one in six council seats.

It’s not that a hung parliament is not possible, it’s just that Graeme McCormick probably had more chance of becoming SNP leader.