Today Humza Yousaf’s 100 days as First Minister, yet not even that has gone right: the nationalist leader has been upstaged by the departure of Mhairi Black earlier this week. The SNP Westminster group’s deputy leader announced she would not be standing for re-election on Tuesday, claiming that the culture of Westminster politics is too ‘toxic’. That makes six nationalist MPs who have now thrown in the towel, or six ‘Nats deserting the sinking ship’, as Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie put it.
But this is certainly not the first time that Humza Yousaf has had the limelight stolen from him. His debut speech to Holyrood as First Minister in April was eclipsed by the police raid on Nicola Sturgeon’s home and the arrest of her husband, the former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, as part of a police probe into the party’s funds. The new SNP leader had hardly recovered from that before his party treasurer, Colin Beattie, was arrested three weeks later. ‘I’m surprised when one of my colleagues has been arrested,’ said the First Minister afterwards, when ambushed by the press.
Both were released without charge. When Sturgeon herself was arrested and then released without charge six weeks later Yousaf leapt to her defence, insisting that she was innocent until proven guilty and that she shouldn’t have to resign the whip while she clears her name. Others, like SNP MSP Michelle Thomson, pointed out that this is precisely what Sturgeon always required of politicians who became entangled with the law when she was leader.
Yousaf emerges from the fog of events as a value-free political ventriloquist who speaks whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear at any particular moment.
With all this going on it is difficult to make much of an assessment of Yousaf’s performance so far. Difficult — but not impossible. Yousaf emerges from the fog of events as a value-free political ventriloquist who speaks whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear at any particular moment. Some call this pragmatism; others call it desperation.
Yousaf appears to be abandoning many of the policies he inherited from Sturgeon, like the deposit return scheme, Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) and the proposed ban on alcohol advertising. Yet in each case he’s also insisted he still supports these measures. On the constitutional question, Yousaf ostentatiously abandoned Sturgeon’s plan to turn the next general election into a ‘de facto referendum’ only to replace it with a confused version of what looks like the exact same policy.
He told the special party conference last month that he would begin negotiations to ‘lay the foundations of a newly independent state’ if the SNP won a majority of seats – not votes – at the next election. He even said he would produce a draft withdrawal agreement setting out the mechanics of leaving the UK. It is safe to say that few even in the SNP believe a word of this.
And Yousaf has shown himself to be all over the place on Europe. Speaking in Brussels two weeks ago the First Minister signalled, unlike his predecessor, that Scotland would adopt the euro after independence. However, he went on to say he wouldn’t actually use the currency in practice. He also admitted that there will be a hard regulatory border with England but claims it would so ‘light touch’ no one would notice. Tell that to the folk in Northern Ireland.
If there is anything consistent in Humza Yousaf’s tenure in Bute House it is his determination to maintain the partnership with the Scottish Greens, all the while rejecting complaints from SNP backbenchers like Fergus Ewing that ‘the green tail is wagging the yellow dog’. The First Minister insists, all evidence to the contrary, that the green alliance ‘has brought stability to the government’.
Yousaf seems determined to fight the UK government’s block on the gender bill, which is supposedly the Green party’s ‘red line’ for staying in the coalition. The veto will go to a judicial review in September. However it isn’t quite clear whether Yousaf is as supportive of self-ID as his predecessor — some reckon he’s just going through the motions.
It is hardly surprising that there is growing scepticism about Humza Yousaf’s intentions as he doesn’t seem to be a firm believer in anything except independence, and he’s still intensely vague about how to achieve that. He insists that his ‘mission’ is to tackle poverty, build a green and growing economy and sort out public services like the NHS. But hospital waiting lists are as long as ever and he’s had little impact on the environment or inequality.
Perhaps this battered leader will be able to regroup over the summer break and come back full of ideas. But with the opinion polls turning against the SNP, it looks as if he is heading for a drubbing at the next general election. Humza Yousaf will have to get a grip of events and formulate a coherent strategy if he doesn’t want to end up a here-today-gone-tomorrow First Minister.
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