epa10545420 The new leader of the Scottish National Party and former Health Secretary Humza Yousaf speaks after he is announced at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britain 27 March 2023. The result follows a five-week contest after the former leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stood down. There will be a vote in Holyrood parliament on 28 March to select the next first minister. EPA/ROBERT PERRY Photograph: Robert Perry/EPA
Good morning. After a brutal and destabilising SNP leadership contest, Humza Yousaf is the party’s new leader. Today he should be confirmed as the first Scottish first minister from an ethnic minority, and the first Muslim to lead a major British political party.
In what turned out to be a very tight race, Yousaf beat his rival Kate Forbes by 52% to 48% after the votes of third-placed Ash Regan were redistributed. And while he promised that “we will be the team, we will be the generation that delivers independence for Scotland”, the work ahead of him is considerable: independence looks further away than it did when Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation, and the fractures within the party have been brought into sharp relief. For the first time in a long time, the SNP’s ability to maintain its status as the dominant force in Scottish politics looks in serious doubt.
So can Yousaf steady the ship – and how will his approach to doing so reshape his party, his country, and his predecessor’s legacy? For today’s newsletter, I spoke to the Guardian’s Scotland editor, Severin Carrell, and Scotland correspondent Libby Brooks about a race that left its victor with a monumental task on his hands.
One other thing: tonight, Libby and Sev will be joined by the Guardian’s political editor, Pippa Crerar, and polling expert Prof Sir John Curtice at a Guardian Newsroom online event to pick over the result and ask where the SNP goes next. Click here to book your ticket – and here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a delay to his far-right government’s proposals to overhaul the judiciary after 12 weeks of escalating political crisis. After a day of protests prompted in part by the resignation of his defence minister, the embattled prime minister said the changes would be delayed to the next parliamentary session.
Media | Doreen Lawrence has claimed the Daily Mail hired private investigators to hack her phone for information on her murdered son Stephen, potentially disrupting the police investigation into his death. Lawrence, the Duke of Sussex and Elton John are among those bringing high court cases against Associated Newspapers alleging illegal reporting tactics. See more details of the allegations.
US gun violence | A former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville on Monday, armed with two “assault-style” weapons and a handgun. Joe Biden called the shootings “heartbreaking, a family’s worst nightmare” and again called on Congress to pass an assault weapons ban.
Culture | A survey by Equity, the performing arts union, has found that most chorus members would have to quit the English National Opera if the company were to relocate outside London because of personal obligations tying them to the capital. More than two-thirds of those people said they would be forced to leave the profession altogether.
TikTok | One of Europe’s largest ammunition manufacturers has said efforts to meet demand from the war in Ukraine have been stymied by a new TikTok data centre monopolising electricity near its biggest factory. “We are concerned because we see our future growth is challenged by the storage of cat videos,” chief executive Morten Brandtzæg said.
In depth: ‘We haven’t seen this kind of animosity in the party since the 2000s’
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The winner
The first sign to reporters at the announcement that Humza Yousaf had won came when he emerged from a side room where the candidates were told the results, and high-fived some supporters out of view of the cameras. “Whereas Kate Forbes was smiling, but it was pretty rictus,” Severin Carrell said. “So it was fairly obvious from that point.”
Obvious – but close. In a profile published shortly after the result, Severin wrote that the new SNP leader has “had the advantage and the curse of being seen as the continuity candidate and Nicola Sturgeon’s unacknowledged favourite”. The narrow margin of victory for Yousaf, who has held the health, justice and transport briefs at Holyrood, suggests exactly how vexed that position has been.
“I was surprised that it was as close as it was,” Severin said. “It is not an emphatic victory – or an emphatic endorsement of Nicola Sturgeon.” (John Crace wrote that Yousaf “somehow managed to turn a one-horse race into a close contest in less than six weeks”.)
With Forbes, and presumably her supporters, to Yousaf’s right, “it presents an interesting dilemma for him: he may think he cannot afford to be gung ho on his bolder policies [like a new wealth tax]. But he may decide that if the members who voted aren’t active in SNP branches and party conference, he may not have that much to fear.”
Yousaf has now promised that “we are no longer Team Humza, or Team Kate, or Team Ash – we are one team”. He said that he wants Forbes and Regan to be part of his government – but Forbes declined to say what she would want in return. She would not commit to backing Yousaf’s policy of fighting the UK government’s block on Holyrood’s gender recognition bill, Severin and Libby Brooks reported. The outcome of that negotiation will set the tone for his leadership.
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The SNP
While Nicola Sturgeon sought to tie the cause of independence to progressive politics indelibly, that relationship appears more complicated now. “Sturgeon was the glue that kept so much within the SNP together,” Libby Brooks said. “The events of the last few weeks show what happens when that discipline is loosened.”
Central to that has been a newly confident strain of more conservative thinking within the party, as embodied by Forbes’ (above left with Regan) candidacy. As well as her widely publicised views on equal marriage and the gender recognition reform bill, and her reluctance to unequivocally support a ban on all forms of conversion therapy, Forbes has questioned Sturgeon’s “model of progressive taxation and an urgent transition away from oil and gas exploration”, Libby wrote on Friday.
Some of the debates have been rancorous, as when Forbes said of Yousaf’s candidacy: “More of the same is not a manifesto, it is an acceptance of mediocrity.” One councillor told Libby: “Many members only joined after 2014, and have only known Nicola as leader, so they feel immense loyalty to the progressive agenda she developed. They’ve also never known so much public division, and found that really destabilising.”
But a sizeable minority of party members appear to take a less progressive stance, and that may embolden some MSPs who were more loyal to Sturgeon than her programme itself. In this excellent analysis, Libby writes: “The question remains: to what extent does the wider membership subscribe to Nicola Sturgeon’s progressive consensus, and what does ‘progressive’ mean to them?”
“There are going to be ministers and backbenchers who are closer to Forbes privately than they were willing to say under Sturgeon, who are more centrist or even centre right,” Severin said. “They may now be more willing to speak their minds.” Meanwhile, the SNP is around 40 per cent in the polls, down five points on 2019, while Labour is on 30 per cent, 11 points up over the same period, John Curtice notes in the Independent. In Westminster elections, that could mean as many as 10 seats at risk of changing hands even without a further tightening, he says.
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The fallout for independence
Yousaf has suggested that he will abandon Sturgeon’s plan to treat the next general election as a de facto referendum, thereby accepting a longer road to independence. But that appears less a tactical choice than an acceptance of the inevitable: as Pippa Crerar writes, “his opponents suggest that if there was any real hope of another independence referendum, Sturgeon would still be in post.”
“Even through Brexit, Boris Johnson and the chaos and insanity of what Truss did, support for the yes movement never grew above 50% on a consistent basis,” said Severin. “The chances of a referendum in the next five years are very low now.”
More significant for the path forward than Yousaf’s own choices may be what happens in the next general election, he added: “If Labour win and follow through on Starmer’s promised constitutional reform, with a senate of the UK’s nations and regions, there’s a chance support for independence may fall further.”
At the same time, longer term dynamics may favour the SNP’s cause. In a piece earlier this month for the Observer, Neal Ascherson argued that while the cause of independence “may sag for a time, perhaps heavily”, the cause “is not dead … the 2014 referendum campaign entrenched ‘indy’ as a solid, plausible alternative for Scotland’s future”.
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Sturgeon’s legacy
As Sturgeon leaves the stage, she appears to hold a paradoxical position: on the one hand, she only looks a more formidable force by her absence; on the other, the speed with which the SNP’s apparently unchallengeable supremacy has evaporated makes her achievements appear more fragile.
“The extent of her grip was not necessarily a healthy thing,” Libby said. “The way she stood down, she wanted to write her own story, and in a way what’s happened since just proves the impossibility of doing that.”
Sturgeon kept the cause of independence central in Scottish political life – but faces arguments that she might have got further by taking a gradualist approach instead of promising referendums that never materialised. Meanwhile, she can point to substantial achievements – from more money for children in poverty and a “baby box” for newborns to a more progressive taxation regime and no prescription charges. (The Ferret has a good factcheck on some of her record.)
Against that list is a view that there has been a “delivery gap”. “People have often raised with me that the SNP is very good at having big progressive ideas, but the follow-through has not always been successful,” Libby said. “But Sturgeon would say that much of that is precisely because the Scottish government doesn’t have the levers it needs.”
Her leadership can also be seen as a crucial advance for women in Scottish politics. “She did bring other women up with her,” Libby said. “There is a generation who got involved in part because they saw her go before them. But I think it’s also important to say that there will be others who decided to steer clear because of the abuse she endured in parts of the media and online.”
Whatever else, few doubt her ability as an authentic political communicator. “Sometimes, recently, that has been used as a way to dismiss her, and suggest everything she did was purely surface,” Libby said. “But for all her flaws, people connected with her because they could see that she was doing things because she believed in them.”
What else we’ve been reading
Joel Golby is shocked, and a little humbled, to have been fooled by an AI-generated image of the pope in a big coat (above): “I now have sympathy for older people who are seemingly so easily manipulated by a shonky Photoshop edit.” Archie
Frances Ryan’s piece on what it is like to live below the poverty line as a disabled person makes for grim but necessary reading. Nimo
Annie Kelly followed the story of Julia, a Ukrainian woman who had been trafficked to the UK and was being sexually exploited in a brothel. After years of abuse, Julia was able to work with the police and bring her abusers to justice. But, Kelly writes, the government’s new immigration bill could “irreparably damage” the police’s ability to investigate such cases. There’s also a superb four-part podcast series about the case – the first episode is here. Nimo
Here are some Guardian readers’ pets looking guilty after committing truly grievous crimes. While my dog Quincy is a domestic terrorist, I do now feel quite grateful not to have gone through seven three-seater sofas, or had him cut the power off. Archie
Robert Booth spoke to Oscar-winning film director Steve McQueen about his new 24-minute film titled Grenfell, that shows, in unflinching detail, the burnt-out ruin of Grenfell Tower. “There are going to be people who are going to be a little bit disturbed,” McQueen said. “When you make art, anything half decent … there are certain people you will possibly offend. But that is how it is.” Nimo
Sport
Football | Benjamin Pavard’s sweet strike edged World Cup finalists France (above) to a 1-0 Euro 2024 qualifying victory in Dublin against the Republic of Ireland. It took a brilliant 90th-minute save from Mike Maignan to deny Nathan Collins a last-gasp equaliser.
Athletics | A United Nations expert advising the International Olympic Committee has provoked outrage among Ukrainian athletes by claiming that Russian soldiers should be allowed to compete at the Paris 2024 Games – as long as they have not committed war crimes. It is unclear how far the IOC will follow her advice at an executive board meeting on Tuesday.
Qatar World Cup | Migrant workers from west Africa say they have been left stranded, destitute and jobless in Qatar just 100 days after the end of the World Cup, despite claims that the tournament would leave a legacy of better workers’ rights in the country. The Guardian spoke to workers who said that visa scams and a collapsed job market have meant they can barely afford to eat.
The front pages
“Doreen Lawrence: I was betrayed by the Daily Mail” – the lead story in the Guardian print edition today. That’s not on the front of the Mail itself, which has “Crackdown on nuisance Airbnb ‘party houses’”. The Times says landlords will be able to “Evict rowdy tenants in two weeks”. The Daily Telegraph’s splash is “‘Retiring early is to blame for high rates’”, attributing that to the Bank of England governor. The Mirror has “David Jason exclusive – the daughter I didn’t know I had”. “PM: I’ll fight every day for our ‘precious union’,” says the Daily Express. The i covers Humza Yousaf’s rise to the top with “SNP turmoil delays dream of independent Scotland”. The top story in the Financial Times is “Netanyahu delays judicial reforms after day of protest paralyses Israel”. “Strop the boats” – the Metro says Suella Braverman is battling to “stop Tories’ angry mutiny over her migrant law”.
Today in Focus
‘It’s way beyond just science’: untangling the hunt for Covid’s origins
Three years after much of the world was forced into Covid lockdowns, the precise origins of the virus are still hazy, and the hunt is bringing scientists into confrontation with political forces that many are not prepared for
Cartoon of the day | Steve Bell
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Over a decade ago, Ian Harrabin noticed that Coventry’s Charterhouse, a 14th-century monastery, had been put up for sale. Realising its cultural significance to the city and the country more broadly, Harrabin corralled a team of local residents to stop it being sold for commercial use. In the years since, £10m has been raised to restore the Grade I-listed building and in just a few days it is finally opening to the public as a visitor attraction.
“The building had been gifted to the people, the city, and we thought we should do what we could to make that happen, to bring it back to life,” Harrabin said. “It’s been a long road to raise the funds and restore what is one of the finest medieval buildings in the city.”
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