John Swinney

John Swinney (born April 13, 1964, Edinburgh, Scotland) is a veteran pro-independence Scottish politician who became first minister of Scotland in May 2024, after a period marked by scandal and turbulence in the government. Swinney has been an at times controversial fixture of Scottish politics for virtually all of the 21st century.

Early years

Swinney grew up in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, where his father owned an automobile repair garage. He took an interest in politics from a young age, drawn to the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) in 1974, when the SNP won a robust 30 percent of the vote in the general election. Swinney said in an interview posted to Instagram that he was “gutted” by a 1979 referendum when not enough of the Scottish electorate voted in favor of home rule, and he officially joined the SNP that year, when he was just 15.

What could drive a teenager to become so political? The answer lies, at least in part, in what Swinney perceived as the biased treatment of Scottish swimmer and Olympic gold medalist David Wilkie by British sports commentators. Swinney noted that they referred to Wilkie as British after he won a competition at the Commonwealth Games—but when he lost, they referred to him as Scottish.

Swinney went on to earn a degree from the University of Edinburgh and then worked at the Scottish Coal Project and Scottish Amicable Life Assurance.

Political career

In 1999 Swinney won a seat in the first Scottish Parliament elections after a 1997 referendum devolved some legislative power, including control of Scotland’s health and education systems, from the British Parliament. He became SNP leader in 2000, serving through 2004. But the party lost eight seats in the Scottish Parliament in 2003 and had another poor showing in the 2004 European Parliament elections, so party officials pushed him out.

Despite falling out of favor with the party, Swinney has held several posts in the Scottish government, including serving as finance minister during the global financial collapse of 2008. He earned high marks for navigating Scotland out of the crisis more quickly and with less fiscal damage than other countries. He has also served in a number of other cabinet roles, including:

• Finance, constitution and economy secretary
• Education secretary
• COVID recovery secretary
• Deputy first minister

Although he supports independence from the United Kingdom, Swinney is considered a moderate on the question, believing since the early 2000s that a gradual approach is needed. “I have believed all my adult life that Scotland’s future is best served as an independent country,” he said in 2024. “But I recognize that more people need to be convinced of that point before independence can be achieved.”

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From his early days in government, he has also earned a reputation as a likable politician. “I’d be concerned if my opponents didn’t think I was a nice person, a courteous person,” he told The Guardian in 2000. “But I fight very, very hard for my politics. I’m proud of my reputation as someone who can build consensus, because I think that’s what the SNP needs. It needs somebody who can bring people together very effectively.”

In 2023, when he was serving as deputy to first minister Nicola Sturgeon, the government leadership was rocked by a scandal in which Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell, were arrested as part of a police probe of SNP finances. Swinney remained loyal to Sturgeon, who was never charged with wrongdoing, standing next to her as she fielded reporters’ questions. (Murrell was later charged with embezzlement; and the couple has announced their marriage is over.) When Sturgeon stepped down in spring 2023, Swinney also left the government, ending a 16-year run as cabinet secretary.

In a story at the time, The Telegraph wrote that Swinney “had a mixed record in office, flourishing as finance secretary in Alex Salmond’s government after it took office in 2007, but struggling badly as education secretary under Ms. Sturgeon.”

New first minister

Swinney’s time out of politics was short-lived, and he returned to lead the SNP in 2024 when the Scottish government was again rocked. First minister Humza Yousaf, the first leader of color in Scotland’s history, resigned when a power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Green Party collapsed. Yousaf had been in office for just 13 months. In coming back to fill the role of first minister, Swinney enjoyed unanimous support of the SNP, winning the votes of all 63 party members in parliament on his way to securing the top job in May 2024, a quarter-century after he was first elected to the Scottish Parliament.

Swinney embraced his election with optimism, saying, “It’s an extraordinary opportunity to change lives for the better, and I intend to use every moment that is available to me to do so.” But just two months later the SNP was handed a devastating defeat in the July 2024 general election, losing more than three dozen seats in parliament. Despite the seeming rebuke of his party and the goal of an independent Scotland, Swinney continued to govern, wrestling with issues both foreign and domestic.

In 2025 Scotland—like most countries around the globe—faced the conundrum of how to deal with the threat of crippling tariffs from the United States, including tariffs on Scotch whisky. Swinney has described the imposition of tariffs as “not good news,” and the former finance minister warned that the chances of a global recession were worrying.

In April 2025 the U.K. Supreme Court ruled that women are defined by biology for purposes of legal protections, siding with For Women Scotland, which had sued the Scottish government and claimed that protections based on gender should apply only to those who are born female. Even as protests to the ruling broke out across Scotland, Swinney said that his government would accept the unanimous ruling, adding: “We will focus entirely on making sure the rights of absolutely everybody are protected at a time when, I acknowledge that there will be many in the trans community that feel very uncertain and anxious about the implications of the Supreme Court ruling.”