Severin Carrell
Severin Carrell is Scotland editor at the Guardian, focusing on how political power, party turmoil and long-running constitutional debates shape public life in Scotland. His reporting follows the Scottish National party and its opponents through crises, elections and internal disputes, with close attention to how those fights affect voters and institutions. He approaches Scottish politics as a story of who holds power, how they use it, and what that means for the country’s future.
Scrutinising SNP leadership and party finance
Carrell’s recent work centres on the SNP’s leadership struggles and the party’s handling of money and trust.
In coverage of allegations linked to Peter Murrell’s theft of party funds, he reports on claims that the SNP has “embezzled” voters’ trust, tying financial misconduct directly to democratic accountability inside the party. He writes on Humza Yousaf’s difficult tenure as first minister, detailing how a sequence of crises has limited his scope to define his own agenda and left voters unconvinced. In audio coverage of Yousaf’s resignation, he explains the political calculations behind confidence motions and coalition breakdowns, treating the episode as part of a wider pattern of instability in the SNP’s rule.
Across these pieces, he links internal party investigations, fundraising and governance questions to the broader health of Scotland’s political system.
Tracking Scotland’s constitutional debates and elections
Carrell’s beat extends across Scotland’s constitutional arguments and electoral contests over more than a decade.
He has written about the “independence generation” of younger voters who could decide the fate of the union, examining how their attitudes towards the UK and Scottish self-government form and change over time. In the After the vote series from Moray, he records strong antipathy towards the SNP and limited appetite for another independence referendum, using local testimony to show how national campaigns land in specific communities. In the People and power project in Glasgow North East, he reports from the constituency to find out which issues residents care about most, using doorstep conversations to map worries about jobs, public services and representation.
Earlier work tied the EU referendum to Scottish coastal economies, drawing on interviews about Michael Gove’s family fishing business to show how European policy and domestic political narratives intersect. Taken together, his election and referendum coverage treats constitutional questions as lived, local realities rather than abstract debates.
Institutions, history and racism in Scotland
Alongside party politics, Carrell reports on how Scotland’s public institutions confront their own histories of racism and colonialism. In work on Edinburgh University’s “skull room”, he explores a major inquiry into the origins of human remains collections and the institution’s connections to transatlantic slavery.
He uses that investigation to frame a wider reckoning with the legacies of the Scottish Enlightenment and the role of universities in scientific racism. In a podcast on how the University of Edinburgh helped create scientific racism, he sets out how new revelations force the institution to reconsider its identity and responsibilities today. Newsletter coverage records that he has spent nearly two decades tracking narratives about Scotland’s links to slavery and empire, indicating a long-running interest in the intersection between history, race and present-day politics.
This strand of his work treats institutional self-examination as part of the country’s broader political story.
Formats and career background
Carrell works across news stories, long-form series, newsletters and podcasts, often returning to the same places and themes over time. He appears regularly as an explainer on the Guardian’s audio output, offering context on fast-moving events such as the fall of a first minister or the release of a major institutional report. His Scotland brief is long-standing, and professional profiles describe him as having held Scotland-focused correspondent and editor roles at the Guardian for many years. Earlier in his career he reported for national newspapers including The Independent and The Scotsman, covering political, environmental and investigative stories such as abuse of Iraqi detainees and air pollution and asthma.
That background in public policy and investigations informs his current work, which combines close attention to party manoeuvring with a sustained interest in how decisions affect ordinary people and long-established institutions.
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