So, in an SNP leadership contest that became a pitting of competence against progressive values, progressive values won out. Humza Yousaf – who has billed himself as the continuity candidate, the torchbearer for Nicola Sturgeon’s liberal agenda – came through in the end, although by a tighter margin than any new leader of a party would want. Those members for whom Kate Forbes’s views on sexual and LGBTQ+ equality were a red line – and who had pledged to tear up their membership cards if she was victorious – can breathe a sigh of relief. Ditto the wider central belt, left-of-the-party supporters, who had viewed the prospect of a fiscal and social lurch to the right with dismay.
It’s true that with Yousaf there will be less immediate upheaval. As the “establishment” candidate, he already has the support of the majority of MSPs and ministers. He will find it easier than Forbes would have done to form a cabinet, and his election makes it unlikely the Greens will walk out of their powersharing deal, as they had already threatened to do if Forbes became first minister.
But there are downsides to Yousaf’s victory, too, both for the party and the country. If there is one thing Forbes was right about, it is that “continuity won’t cut it”. Yousaf cannot just pick up where his predecessor left off. It was a growing recognition that the Salmond/Sturgeon era had run out of steam that led to her resignation. The divisions within the party, and the miasma of failure around it, have only increased as a result of a bitterly fought contest and a relentless succession of bad news stories, something that is evident in the tight result.
Yousaf will take the helm with little of the goodwill that accompanied Sturgeon’s 2014 anointment. That she was able to unite such an ideologically disparate party was due in part to her popularity and control freak tendencies, and in part to a tacit agreement to “wheesht for indy” – that is, to suppress dissent in the service of the greater cause of independence. With no second referendum on the horizon, and Sturgeon out of the picture, the cork has popped off the bottle and will not be forced back in. Yousaf inherits a party where most of the big figures of the Sturgeon era – John Swinney, Jeane Freeman and chief executive, Peter Murrell – have departed, and one which faces a barrage of internal and external questions over its integrity and transparency.
The clamour for answers has become louder in recent weeks, thanks to the Holyrood public audit committee’s damning report into the CalMac ferries scandal – which revealed the waste of taxpayers’ money running into the millions – and the revelation that the party had misled the media over a 30,000 drop in membership figures. And, of course, there is still the police probe into the £600,000 of funds said to have gone missing from the party’s accounts (the party has not responded to the allegation, due to the ongoing investigation). That Yousaf was at the heart of the SNP as its culture of complacency grew – that he either failed to notice or turned a blind eye to it – makes it harder for him to convincingly promise a reset.
In addition, Yousaf’s competency for the top job is doubted even by some of those who voted for him. As justice secretary, he presided over the widely derided hate crime bill, and during his tenure as health secretary waiting times for hospital treatment soared. The crisis that has engulfed the NHS must be the new first minister’s top priority. But one might wonder how the man who was in charge of it as it declined is going to find new ideas and resources to fix it now.
It is clear from his campaign that Yousaf understands the disappointment many supporters feel about the SNP’s failure to improve the lives of the marginalised. His openness to introducing new taxes for the wealthy is preferable to Forbes’s more conservative economic bent. And yet his pledge to hold a summit for anti-poverty groups has all the hallmarks of the same old, same old: setting up yet another talking shop instead of taking action. Meanwhile, his predisposition to fight the UK government on its section 35 obstruction of the SNP’s gender recognition reform bill may be exactly what the progressives who voted for him want; but it will also rekindle the divisions that helped force his predecessor’s exit.
As for the opposition parties, they denigrated Sturgeon’s achievements during her final first minister’s questions last week. But they know the departure of such a formidable figure opens up fresh opportunities. One of the quirks of the contest was that many unionist activists and commentators seemed to be lobbying for Forbes, which suggests they thought a victory for her would most boost their own position. But the Greens would have been the likely beneficiaries of a mass exit of “woke” members, and Forbes might have proved a challenging adversary across the chamber.
It is impossible yet to know if Scottish Labour will rise to the occasion and capitalise on the widening faultlines within the SNP. But it is worth noting that there are long-term supporters within the party who believe the best thing that could happen to it would be a term out of office; and that Yousaf as first minister might be the best way to achieve it.
Dani Garavelli is a freelance journalist and columnist for the Herald
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