COLIN CAMPBELL: Boundary changes mean Inverness and Nairn SNP MP Drew Hendry faces fierce battle ahead

Ian Blackford is standing down at the next General Election as Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP after eight years during which he has been one of the most vehement – and certainly one of the loudest – advocates for another referendum and independence.

Having made no progress whatsoever on that front, he says he’ll now devote more of his energies to the role of SNP “business ambassador”. How much more we’ll hear from the former leader of the SNP group at Westminster after he quits remains to be seen.

Boundary changes for the next election will transform the electoral map of the Highlands, with the constituency currently held by Blackford being scrapped.

This would mean 50 per cent of its population being absorbed into a new Inverness-shire and Wester Ross constituency, 42 per cent going to Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, and the remainder to Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber.

Liberal Democrat activists have emitted warlike rumblings of their determination to win in 2024. They seem particularly pleased by the energy of their candidate, Highland councillor and businessman Angus MacDonald, a multi-millionaire and former “UK entrepreneur of the year”, who has already elbowed his way into the headlines with his election plans.

The likely scenario therefore is that MacDonald will go head-to-head in a fierce challenge for the new constituency against MP Drew Hendry. The other candidates will of course be much more than bystanders, but MacDonald v Hendry seems the standout battle ahead.

There was electoral tension and excitement aplenty in 2015 when Danny Alexander – who as Chief Secretary to the Treasury had virtually become a Tory lapdog in the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government – was dramatically defeated by Hendry. Danny Alexander’s time was definitely up, and many not aligned to the SNP welcomed his defeat.

In the 2017 election Hendry had to sweat his way through a tough campaign against determined rivals. He won with a substantial majority, but he had to work hard to secure his victory.

In 2019, faced by rival candidates who were as publicly anonymous and unknown at the end of the campaign as they’d been at the beginning, he strolled it, substantially increasing his share of the vote while his main opponents all saw theirs fall. Drew Hendry probably had more nerve-jangling challenges during his previous existence as a Highland councillor.

With the electoral map redrawn, it will be very different next time around.

SNP MPs have already gathered for an election strategy meeting in London. Personalised plans for how each should fight the next campaign are being drawn up. What up to now has been the election winning machine of the SNP is grinding into action.

But no SNP politician can take anything for granted in these troubled times for the party, led by Humza Yousaf, who has already made plain the wisdom of the 48 per cent of party members who in the recent leadership contest backed Kate Forbes.

The SNP are forecast to lose more than 20 MPs in 2024.

The Lib Dems are already out of the traps and running their race in the Highlands. Opposing parties must surely believe in the febrile climate of SNP vulnerability, which has no end in sight, that they at least have a chance of toppling SNP MPs across the board.

It would take a lot of work to oust Drew Hendry from Westminster, but it is by no means an impossible task.