Negotiations of the constitutional question

Dr Maike Dinger

Postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC-/DFG-funded project “Voices from the Periphery: (De-)Constructing and Contesting Public Narratives about Post-Industrial Marginalization” with Bournemouth University and Stirling University. Her research focuses on the connections between politics, media, national(ist) cultures and identities, with a view to marginalisations and intersectional exclusions.

Scottish Election 2026

Section 2: News, media and journalism

  1. News consumption in Scotland (Dr Camila Montalverne)
  2. TikTok’s For You Page recommendations during the Scottish Parliament election (Dr Dayei Oh, Dr Chamil Rathnayake)
  3. From participation to consumption? Youth engagement and “parasocial media” (Dr James Dennis)
  4. The battle for trust in the Holyrood election (Prof Catherine Happer, Dr James Morrison, Dr Lluis de Nadal)
  5. Polls over policy in UK-wide TV news coverage of Elections (Dr Maxwell Modell, Dr Keighley Perkins, Prof Stephen Cushion)
  6. Legacy news coverage of the election – Leaders debate and press coverage (Dr Steven Harkins)
  7. All right, own up, who let the woman in? (Dr Fiona McKay, Dr Melody House)
  8. Negotiations of the constitutional question (Dr Maike Dinger)

Nearly twelve years after the independence referendum, the 2026 Scottish Election has temporarily reasserted the salience of the constitutional question in public debate. Scottish National Party (SNP) leader John Swinney’s equation of a 65-seat majority with a mandate for another independence referendum added to the anti-SNP mobilisation in the campaign literature and rhetoric of the Unionist parties. How did the practical and discursive positioning of independence and a referendum to deliver it play out in campaign communications and media coverage?

The fault lines revealed in the party manifestos are persistent: whereas the SNP and Scottish Greens directly advocated for self-determined independence to realise Scotland’s potential, the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party made clear their opposition to another referendum. In so doing, the Conservatives actively agitated against Swinney’s election promise of a majority as mandate, defining this and the debate that would ensue as “distraction and division” (p.94). Scottish Labour once again tried to divert discussion away from independence and is the only party to outright ignore the constitutional question in their manifesto. Meanwhile, the anticipated constitutional position of self-proclaimed “challenger party” Reform UK remained strategically ambiguous. Using a “Scotland first rhetoric”, they deferred to “rational unionists” and “realistic nationalists” to “unite” in “mak[ing] Scotland the most successful country in the world” (p.7).

In televised leader debates, Labour and the LibDems suggested the public saw (discussions of) independence as a distraction from the hard work necessary to create better services in Scotland. Interactive debate formats such as BBC Scotland’s Debate Night Leaders Special on 12th April tell a different story. As confirmed by host Stephen Jardine, audience members were primed to discuss the parameters of a legitimate mandate for a second referendum and actively questioned the conditions outlined by the party candidates. News analysis in The Herald even identified the constitution as the dominant topic of the debate. In televised cross-examinations, including the STV’s Scottish Election Leaders Debate (28th April) and Channel 4’s Scotland Decides (14th April), the pro-independence SNP and Greens as well as, conversely, the Conservatives foregrounded the constitutional question. Under the direction of Russell Findlay, the Conservatives repeatedly framed their opposition to another referendum as a means to uphold the people’s democratic decision made in 2014 – as did Labour’s Anas Sarwar with reference to the 2024 General Election.

In such framings, the respect for the “will of the people” is separated from a pro-independence mandate in the Scottish Election and was turned into a “getting things done”-rhetoric by Findlay, the LibDem’s Alex Cole-Hamilton, and Reform’s Malcolm Offord. The Conservatives routinely added to this performance of democratic compliance through aggressive attacks against Reform’s alleged pro-referendum and/or independence sympathies, identified among some of their candidates and their willingness to entertain another referendum if public “appetite” were to demand it. This approach, together with their denial that the election result provided a referendum mandate, saw the Conservatives foregrounding the constitutional question to prevent a split of the Unionist vote on the right.

While the LibDems denied their voters were interested in independence, Sarwar – and Labour representatives – tried to avoid the topic of independence, instead mobilising notions of frankness and honesty to reconcile around shared interests of achieving social and economic gains. The scripted focus on practical “change” and improving the economy – one shared among all opposition parties bar the Greens – echoed the Unionist stance in 2014. Conversely, representatives of the SNP and the Greens repeatedly utilised a language of sovereignty to frame the constitutional question, i.e., the Scottish public’s right to decide on the future of their country. This framing is also familiar from the 2014 referendum and posits independence as a tool in tackling contemporary social, health and economic crises.

Analysis of 308 news and opinion articles across 14 newspapers (retrieved via Nexis search) in the month prior to the election on 7th May confirms these patterns concerning independence and the constitutional question. In fact, next to routine discussions of the effects of the constitutional question on party performances and related preferences among constituencies, candidates, and voters, three key themes from the televised debates shaped the newspaper coverage concerning independence, with distinct discursive implications. Firstly, criticism and demonising of the SNP and its “obsession” with independence and the referendum promise, which utilised a language of dismissal and disdain that is reminiscent of moral panics, was frequently insinuated in the Conservatives’ rhetoric and coverage by the Scottish Daily Mail. Secondly, attempts to expose Reform for “secretly” supporting – or failing to oppose – independence and for serving the issue by sowing division. Thirdly, a lot of the coverage played out as a contest between competing claims to democratic authority and sovereignty around holding another referendum – from SNP demands to Westminster refusals.

Despite efforts to refocus the election agenda on social, health and financial issues – arguably backed by polling on election priorities – the media and public debate as well as the return of a pro-independence majority reaffirmed the salience and relevance of the constitutional question for electoral preferences, decisions and politics in Scotland.

1The pro-independence paper The National is missing from the sample.