Following Humza Yousaf’s resignation as First Minister, a fresh leadership contest could soon be on the cards. His would-be successors face an uphill task: after 17 years in government, the SNP looks discredited and divided in the face of a resurgent Labour party. In a dizzyingly short space of time, Yousaf’s party has been reduced from being the hegemonic force at Holyrood to a shadow of its former self. Can the slide be reversed?
Veteran nationalist Fergus Ewing is one of those who thinks it can. The outspoken Highlander, and one of Holyrood’s very first MSPs, backed Yousaf’s fateful decision to end co-operation with the Greens but disagrees with how his leader went about it. ‘The way he did it was wrong and the timing was wrong,’ he argues. Ewing maintains that the First Minister should have ‘asserted his authority’ and immediately torn up the Bute House Agreement when he first took over from Nicola Sturgeon thirteen months ago. He ought to have considered a deal with Alex Salmond’s Alba party too – ‘why wouldn’t an independence party support getting together with other people that have the same objective?’ – but hints that ‘personal differences’ might have got in the way.
But Yousaf is now the past and attention is turning to who replaces him. John Swinney, who led the SNP from 2000 until 2004, is currently being touted for a second stint in the top job by prominent Sturgeon allies. Among them include former Westminster group leader Ian Blackford and the incumbent wellbeing economy secretary Màiri McAllan. As Sturgeon’s long-time deputy, Swinney would arguably be her true ‘continuity candidate’, following the Yousaf interregnum. Ewing though prefers the claims of his fellow Highlander Kate Forbes. The 34-year-old former finance secretary narrowly lost to Yousaf last time in March 2023 and is well placed to stand again.
‘We need a fresh voice, a fresh start, a new start,’ Ewing declares. ‘Kate Forbes’s time has come.’ The son of nationalist trailblazer Winnie Ewing – the SNP’s very first MP and who Ewing says ‘was the most successful politician in Scotland’ – he is clear that a clean break is needed with the party’s recent leaders. ‘To me, Kate Forbes is the future,’ the SNP veteran says. ‘John Swinney has been associated with many of the problems of the past.’ Ewing endorsed Forbes in last year’s leadership contest and pledges that he will do so again this time around. ‘I would expect that she may well stand and make that announcement in the next day or so.’
Forbes fell out of favour with parts of the SNP membership last year after she revealed that her religious beliefs – she is a member of the Free Church of Scotland – meant that she would not have supported the legalisation of same-sex marriage. Her stance on abortion and the Gender Recognition Reform Bill put her at odds with her party’s progressive wing. Does that not make her unelectable? ‘This is the unfairest and most unjustified charge of them all,’ says Ewing. ‘Her Christian views would not impact her decision-making as First Minister.’ Indeed, religion and politics can work well together, Ewing believes: ‘I think Christianity is actually an advantage because at the end of the day, whether people believe in God or not, the moral code set out in the New Testament must be seen as a good one to which to subscribe in life and in one’s own personal conduct, even if they are atheists.’ Swinney has openly criticised Forbes in the past, questioning whether it would be appropriate for her to be SNP leader given her views. ‘It was part of a personalised attack which I found utterly reprehensible,’ Ewing says.
‘To me, Kate Forbes is the future,’ the SNP veteran says. ‘John Swinney has been associated with many of the problems of the past.’
Will there be more of these attacks this time around? The SNP establishment is keen to avoid another leadership contest, with talk of ‘Anyone But Kate’ doing the rounds already. Flynn told the News Agents podcast on Monday that, at 34, Forbes is too young to stand – despite his endorsement of Yousaf in February 2023 when the latter was just 37. Forbes was ‘the victim of a nasty, personalised smear of a campaign’ last year, according to Ewing, who fears that the Greens are now ‘trying to pick the next First Minister’ amid talk of Holyrood vote deals. ‘I thought that this green tail that’s been wagging the dog was docked last week,’ he remarks. ‘Apparently there’s a sort of phantom limb, so maybe the tail docking hasn’t been an operative success.’
The capture of the SNP by progressive orthodoxy is only a recent trend, according to Ewing. He recalls being one of the original MSPs to sit in the Scottish parliament back when it opened in 1999. There was, he says, an ‘educational process’ that his party had to go through, in order to ‘learn about how to do government’. Back then, it was more of a ‘parliament of characters’, self-starters who came from a variety of different backgrounds, rather than simply being creatures of Holyrood. ‘We had to transition from being a party of protest to being a party of government,’ Ewing recalled. ‘We realised that what we should focus on is the real priorities of peoples’ jobs, the economy, health, education – and also in making life a bit easier, a bit simpler, a bit better.’
But things changed under Sturgeon, he argues, describing his bemusement at the ‘adulation’ heaped on her when she took over from Salmond as first minister in 2014. ‘The SNP almost felt like a cult at that point,’ he says. ‘Gradually, things really started to go in the downhill direction at first. And then after 2021, things accelerated, and Nicola appeared to be obsessed with social issues like gender reform.’ A culture of intolerance developed within the party. Ewing recalls a growing sense that ‘You’re not allowed to have different views… As Nicola put it, “I will listen to ‘valid’ arguments”. So, she’s the arbiter of what is valid or what is invalid. That in itself displays an incredible intolerance of the right to have differing views in a liberal democracy.’ Ewing worries that those SNP supporters who share his views have already left the party. Certainly, the SNP revealed it had lost around 30,000 members since 2021 – the year the Bute House Agreement was signed. ‘The trouble with the SNP now is that they seem to know better than the people about what is good for them,’ Ewing says. ‘That approach to politics is doomed to failure.’
The SNP is not just split on social issues: there is a clear urban-rural divide too. In a parliament devoid of characters, Ewing has distinguished himself as a rebel backbencher, championing the cause of his Highland constituents. They’ve been forgotten by the SNP, the Inverness and Nairn MSP says. A year ago, he hit the headlines after ripping up his own government’s consultation on highly-protected marine areas – a scheme which he claims would have destroyed Scotland’s fishing industry. ‘Am I an Inverness man in Holyrood?’ he asks ‘Or am I an SNP apologist in Inverness?’ With the Greens now out of government, Ewing hopes to axe their ‘absurd’ policies, including repealing the ban on wood-burning stoves and ditching new national parks ‘when we can’t afford it’. His ‘absolute red lines’ are the roads – namely the long-delayed dualling of the A9 and the A96 in the north of Scotland. But the SNP stalwart argues that only rebellions get results. ‘I think democracy needs an awkward squad,’ he says. ‘I won on the DRS [Deposit Return Scheme], I won on HPMAs [Highly Protected Marine Areas], I won on heat pumps, I won on gender reforms – although people like Joanna Cherry were leading the running. And now I’ve won on getting the Greens out of government.’
With old alignments ending, does Ewing see a new one forming between the Alba party reuniting and their former SNP colleagues? ‘No one wins in trench warfare,’ he admits. ‘We’re the losers on the nationalist side because we’re not making the progress that we need.’ A unifier is needed to heal the SNP wounds and bring together independence supporters from across the political divide. To attract younger voters, the party needs to tackle its trust problem. For Ewing, the answer is obvious: ‘Kate is the only one with the qualities that can bring everyone together.’
Watch Lucy Dunn, Katy Balls, and Iain Macwhirter discuss Humza Yousaf’s resignation on Spectator TV:
Comments