The SNP has spent too long focusing on the “process of independence”, Scotland’s first minister John Swinney has said.

Mr Swinney, the SNP leader, was speaking at his party’s annual conference in Edinburgh during a secret session dissecting their defeat in July’s general election.

His comments were recorded and leaked to The Times newspaper.

The SNP lost dozens of MPs in July, following 18 months of turmoil that saw three leaders at the helm and an ongoing police investigation into party finances.

Mr Swinney was also heard making apparent criticism of the strategy pursued by his predecessors, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf.

He pledged to a delegate in the hall that he would “never treat the party membership with contempt.”

As part of the drive to regain support before the next Holyrood election in 2026, Mr Swinney said the SNP had to win back the middle-classes.

Many party members have cited Labour’s message of “get the Tories out” as the reason for the switch in support from the SNP at the July general election.

The first minister also conceded that his government’s performance was “an issue” which had harmed their chances electorally.

He said: “For most of the last 17 years the government has been a big, big asset for the SNP but things have faltered and I need to fix that.”

His party had “got to a position where we disappointed voters,” but he believed they could win again at Holyrood in 2026.

SNP leader at Westminster, Stephen Flynn, said his party would have fared worse in the general election if a power-sharing deal with the Scottish Green Party at Holyrood had not ended.

Former first minister Humza Yousaf scrapped the agreement over fears that Green members were set to pull out of the agreement themselves.

The decision set off a chain of events that resulted in Mr Yousaf’s resignation.

Mr Flynn – who had long made clear his discomfort with the deal – told Holyrood magazine: “It wasn’t working.

“I think if we’d still been in coalition with the Greens, there wouldn’t be nine SNP MPs.”

He added: “It would be less.”

Scottish Greens’ co-leader, Patrick Harvie, later hit back at Mr Flynn’s comments,

told BBC Radio Scotland it was “very odd” for Mr Flynn to defend Humza Yousaf’s decision to “throw away” a pro-independence, progressive majority government.