The First Minister spoke with the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme the day after Anas Sarwar announced Scottish Labour would be abstaining on the Budget.
Among the topics to come up was the prospect of independence, with host Gary Robertson asking if it would be “page one, line one” of the manifesto ahead of the 2026 election.
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Swinney replied: “I think everybody knows John Swinney well enough to know that he’s committed to Scottish independence and wants to deliver it as an urgent priority for the people of Scotland.”
Asked specifically how he would achieve this, Swinney said it was crucial to build “political support for independence” so that it is a “compelling proposition to the people of Scotland”.
Pressed further on what exactly this meant, the First Minister said independence would only come about if “two things happened”.
He said this was a high level of support for the SNP and “if people are convinced by the merits and the arguments for Scottish independence”.
“And that’s what I intend to make sure is at the heart of SNP campaigning and at the heart of the SNP manifesto,” he added.
Robertson then replied and said: “You’ve been campaigning on this all your life Mr Swinney. So, just more of the same?”
The First Minister (above) hit back at Robertson however, saying: “When you started interviewing me all those years ago Gary, it was a very different prospect.
“And we got incredibly close to winning independence in 2014 and the opinion polls show that public support for independence is very, very high.”
At the beginning of December, support for independence hit its highest level in four years (54%) in polling from Norstat.
The National also revealed through polling from Find Out Now that support for independence was four points stronger than that of support for the Union and that this would surge were Nigel Farage to become Prime Minister.
Robertson once again interjected to say that supporters of independence may wonder what the “final push” is to achieve this goal and that Swinney was suggesting “it’s exactly the same as what you’ve been doing for all of your life”.
Swinney replied: “Well what I’m suggesting and what I’ve been doing for all of my life has been getting closer and closer to Scottish independence and I intend to finish the task.”
Asked how long this would take, Swinney said he wanted to do it “as quickly as possible,” but that this would only happen once enough people had been persuaded.