What do the next Holyrood elections hold for the Highlands? Exactly one year away from the vote we look at what the region wants and what could change
Exactly one year from now the Scottish public will vote for their next government in an election seen as one of the most important since devolution.
The reasons for that are those voting for the 2026 Scottish Parliament will pose more serious and more significant challenges to the main parties than any other before it.
The campaign essentially started yesterday when First Minister John Swinney launched a renewed SNP programme for government leading up to May 2026.
Usually, elections are narrowed to just a few issues but not this time – this time the electorate is concerned with a lengthy list of serious problems.
Added to the mix are three parties – the SNP, Conservatives and Labour – with records in government to defend amid almost unprecedented disillusionment among the electorate.
Two of those are or were UK governments which will translate to their Scottish representatives in the same way the SNP’s record will reflect on theirs.
And now at the very centre of this most decisive political season will be the Highlands because it has become a lightning rod for national issues of all kinds but chiefly – political failures.
Health and transport
When it comes to addressing what locals have most often raised over the years of this parliamentary term there is a lengthy list of problems fuelling discontent and anger in the Highland population.
And it is not difficult to see why. You can tell things are not going well when local health campaigners are given a hearing at the United Nations over maternity care.
There are many issues with NHS Highland and the wider health service but this is the most salutary example because it entails everything about bringing a new life into the world.
All but a handful of women living in Caithness have to travel to Inverness to give birth, still others must travel for gynaecological care.
The Scottish Government’s line on this subject has been that it is a “matter for the health board” and when pushed it is to offer the “best care available”.
But no one is convinced that the current arrangement is reasonable far less acceptable anywhere else in Scotland as it would be like asking mothers in Glasgow to travel to Penrith or Aviemore to give birth.
Those forced to travel out of the region for care once afforded closer to home have prompted questions about whether the definition of “national” in NHS indicates the range of places healthcare is offered for locals.
In the closely related care sector older, vulnerable people are more frequently being moved into care homes far from their own communities and loved ones.
The crisis in care is directly linked to the ability of the NHS to function and while clinicians and other staff manage to keep the system operating, the pressure is unsustainable.
It also prompts questions about transport links in the region and those links which connect it with the rest of the country, not just related to patients but business.
Both the A9 and A96 dualling and ferries have spent months on end in the media as they proved to be political disasters for the government and bringing Scotrail into public ownership has not improved reliability.
At this point it is fair to point out that the SNP did at least develop a policy to dual the A9 – whereas other governments in Westminster and Holyrood did not make any great efforts.
Net zero
One local joked that he thought Net Zero had nothing to do with climate change, insisting that it meant the sum total the Highlands can expect from Westminster and Holyrood regardless of who is in power.
But no one is convinced that the current arrangement is reasonable far less acceptable anywhere else in Scotland as it would be like asking mothers in Glasgow to travel to Penrith or Aviemore to give birth.
This as the Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit in Edinburgh green lights 97 per cent of major applications that campaigners say scar the most beautiful landscape on earth.
There remains a fundamental lack of any benefit enjoyed by too many communities across the region while bills remain shockingly high in an area of depressed wages and high general costs.
The Highlands suffers among the worst fuel poverty rates in the UK so it is a bitter irony that the place where much of the energy generated to heat homes is unaffordable to those who live there.
That did not stop Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government ruthlessly means testing the winter fuel payments in the coldest, wettest and most northerly part of the UK.
Labour members feel that it cost them dearly at the English local elections where they shipped votes to Reform UK – that policy even if repealed will not serve Labour well.
It would not be the first time that Westminster failed to serve the interests of Highlanders or those north of the border, a point raised by the SNP every time they fail to serve the interests of Highlanders or those north of the border.
The political chaos inaugurated by Theresa May’s loss of an outright majority 2017 and only concluded last year is a stain yet to be wiped from the public imagination.
The damage done to the party’s credibility by Boris Johnson and by having a membership that selected Liz Truss as leader is incalculable.
The constituencies
Getting down to brass tacks - the constituencies will determine how many seats parties get because of the complicated first past the post system and the additional member calculation for the regional list seats.
A highly simplified version basically means that the more constituencies you win the less likely you are to get regional seats, this makes for a fascinating contest.
First, the region will host three of the most compelling constituency races in the country as once secure seats are now ready to become battlegrounds.
Caithness, Sutherland and Ross is looking shaky for incumbent Maree Todd as the Liberal Democrats seek to replicate MP Jamie Stone’s general election victory.
Their candidate David Green has already launched a determined campaign that has focussed on long-held grievances in the far north over maternity, healthcare, and representation – all weak points for Ms Todd who is a health minister.
Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes has held Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch since 2016 and secured more than 50 per cent of the vote in 2021 – she may be keen to focus on her local reputation more than the SNP’s.
Again the LibDems are running a serious candidate in Andrew Baxter who is a well-known and well-respected councillor in Lochaber and feels the seat is up for grabs though he has a mountain to climb.
Then there is Inverness and Nairn – this could either be a totally open contest or current SNP MSP Fergus Ewing will run as an independent making it one of the most interesting of the election.
By entering that election he would be issuing a standing rebuke to a range of SNP policies that have seen the party’s reputation plummet: failures on dualling, the deposit return scheme, and Highly Protected Marine Areas to name a few.
Though not the referendum that the SNP wanted, this election will deliver the public verdict on what will be, by May 2026, 19 years in power and it could loosen the party’s strangle hold on Highland constituencies.
Co-operation
While much of that has landed at the feet of the SNP it is the natural by-product such a long run of victories it can hardly be said that Labour and the Tories can escape criticism.
In fact they have suffered worse than even the SNP – at the general election there was a comparatively large response to Reform UK, a party that did almost no campaigning.
In Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross the party came fourth and got more votes than the Tories and Greens combined and fell just 50 short of Labour.
In Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, Reform UK came in fourth again with 2,934 votes ahead of the Tories and Greens.
On that basis it is feasible that if Reform UK made more progress it could return at least one MSP on the Highlands and Islands list.
Reform UK is deplored by many mainstream politicians but without the successive failures of mainstream parties Nigel Farage’s party would not be possible.
Whether his party would make things better or much worse as seen across the Atlantic is for voters to decide but the issues that are proving so difficult to grapple with run through the region like a fault line.
So far no single party has solved them – which points in the direction of the original conception of the Scottish Parliament as a place where politicians debate, disagree but work effectively together.
Perhaps trying would be a start.
