Above: Regan, Yousaf and Forbes (Getty)
By Dale Street
Humza Yousaf was declared winner of the SNP leadership contest on 27 March. After votes cast for Ash Regan were redistributed, Yousaf beat Kate Forbes by 52% to 48% on a 70% turnout.
More important than the outcome is what the contest – the first SNP leadership election contest in two decades – revealed about the SNP:
• The cultist element to the SNP. In the absence of a cult-leader – first Salmond (2004-14), and then Sturgeon (2014-23) – the long-simmering internal tensions erupted once the election was called. The closeness of the result reflected this.
• The demoralisation of broad layers of the SNP membership. Though the vote was the lead item on Scottish news almost daily, 30% of the membership did not bother voting.
• The SNP’s inward-looking obsession with independence. This was the focus of the election contest. But for the electorate (including pro-independence sections of the electorate) the cost-of-living crisis and the NHS are far more important issues.
• Its indifference to Sturgeon’s dismal record in power. On child poverty, the NHS, educational attainment, housing, drug deaths, council tax (non-)reform, local government democracy and island ferry services, it has been a record of failure.
• The limitations of SNP internal democracy. Yousaf was the candidate of the SNP “establishment”, and it excelled New Labour in running the contest in such a way as to help ensure Yousaf’s victory. Even then, it nearly failed.
• The readiness of the SNP machine to lie to its own members. The SNP press spokesperson resigned after having publicised false membership figures. Then the SNP CEO, who had provided the false figures.
• The weakness of the SNP left. In what defines itself as a left-of-centre party, the internal left did not even attempt to stand a candidate. Instead, it uncritically rallied round Humza Yousaf.
The contest also revealed the dearth of political talent in the SNP (as one would expect of a cult: loyalty to the leader always comes at the expense of critical thought).
Regan was effectively a joke candidate. She published banknote designs for a new Scottish currency but was unable to answer questions about what institutions a country needed to have a currency of its own.
The right-wing candidate Forbes showed some honesty in facing up to the SNP’s failures in power. But she could not explain her previous silence about them, nor her own responsibility, as Finance Secretary, for some of those failures.
Humza Yousaf himself is widely and justifiably regarded as an unprincipled opportunist of limited intellectual abilities which he unsuccessfully tries to cover up with poorly delivered second-rate rhetoric.
The fact that he is the new SNP leader is even more revealing of the nature of the SNP.
- This post first appeared on the Workers Liberty website https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2023-03-27/snp-vote-shows-its-weaknesses
Shiraz Socialist (Second Run) 
Thanks for this Jim. Very prescient.
Obviously, with ILP Grandparents in Glasgow, I have a deep hatred of the More Borders Scottish Nationalists.
Helps make sense of the news today.
Comments on Sky by Jim Sillars confirm the point.
Nationalists, cults, and corruption go together. Look up the Catalan nationalists..
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That covers the mess of Scottish politics pretty well. When this indy malarkey kicked off I groaned at the huge waste of political time and energy on an imaginary Scotland that would come about under its own flag rather than dealing with the real Scotland.
I would recommend this article about how the SNP sucked in so much energy and suspended people’s critical faculties:-
“Separate from the police investigation, there are some unhealthy and stultifying tendencies which developed after 2014 which are worth unmasking. These involve issues of party democracy and the nature of SNP governance. They extend to a compliant and deferential pro-independence commentariat and the way in which social currency has been dispensed on the basis of loyalty and proximity to the SNP leadership. Even when the political reality was so evidently disconnected from the rhetoric, myths were perpetuated in order to maintain the social and political infrastructure which came to sustain the modern Scottish status quo.
Taken together, this accelerated a regressive culture around the SNP hierarchy, which consistently ran roughshod over the party membership and sought to centralise power wherever it could. These traits are, of course, not limited to the SNP. But those who have projected onto that party special dispensations inhibit the kind of critical engagement required. In truth, the slavish attitude towards the SNP leadership only stunted the political development of the independence movement and had a detrimental impact on Scottish politics in general, beyond the constitutional divide.”
The political excitement of the 2014 referendum really did make much of the Scottish left drunk. They’re now in a state of hangover.
https://jonathonshafi.substack.com/p/a-fork-in-the-road
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Thanks for the link to that fascinating article, Rose: all the more fascinating because it’s written by a former “Yes” voter.
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