It seems that Humza Yousaf is taking diversity seriously – though not as we know it. Scotland’s First Minister has apparently welcomed the Christian fundamentalist former bus tycoon Brian Souter, regarded as a homophobe by the Scottish Greens, back into the SNP fold. Changed days.
The SNP needs all the help it can get with the business community in Scotland and Souter has been helping out schmoozing them, according to Politico. A freedom of information request revealed that Yousaf’s aides have been actively courting Scotland’s richest man following his sale of Stagecoach two years ago.
SNP donations have all but dried up in recent years and the party needs cash for the upcoming general election campaign. In the past five years, the party has only received one donation over £50,000 from a living person. Souter used to be the SNP’s biggest donor before Nicola Sturgeon took over. They, however, didn’t see eye to eye on issues of personal morality.
The character of the SNP is changing in ways that could not have been envisaged only a year ago when Nicola Sturgeon was still in Bute House.
Back in 2000, at the dawn of devolution, Souter bankrolled the infamous ‘Keep the Clause’ campaign to keep Clause 28 (Section 2A in Scotland) which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools. It was an unholy alliance of tabloid newspapers, including the Daily Record, and the Roman Catholic Church in the august form of the late Cardinal Winning. Souter put up a reported £1 million to finance a referendum on keeping the clause, which is regarded as homophobic by LGBT campaigners. But he failed. The clause was abolished later that year by the Scottish parliament.
However, Souter remained a close associate of Alex Salmond until 2014 and donated a total of £2.5 million to the cause. He was frozen out by Nicola Sturgeon who wanted to emphasise the SNP’s progressive image and promote the LGBT cause. Or perhaps Souter froze her out – it was never entirely clear. But the financial cost was considerable. Souter hasn’t given the SNP a penny since she became leader.
Now change is in the air. Souter’s views are not far removed from those of Yousaf’s former leadership rival, Kate Forbes. He is pro-life and, like Forbes, is thought to oppose gay marriage, though he insists he is no homophobe. Indeed, he famously launched a libel action in 2002 against the Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell for depicting him as a ‘homophobic bus driver’. Souter eventually withdrew the suit.
It is intriguing that Souter’s apparent return to the SNP coincided with Yousaf’s decision to abandon the legal fight to save the gender bill, currently stalled by the UK under Section 35 of the Scotland Act. The bill is widely assumed to be dead. Souter’s views on transgenderism are not known, but you can be pretty sure he’s against it.
Souter’s second coming will inevitably be seen as another snub to the Scottish Green party. They loathe everything that Souter, who attends the evangelical Trinity Church of the Nazarene in Perth, stands for – almost as much as they loathe Kate Forbes for her membership of the fundamentalist ‘Wee Free’ Church of Scotland. Forbes also believes that children should not be born out of wedlock and says she would have opposed gay marriage has she been in parliament in 2014.
But perhaps this should not be a surprise to anyone who has followed SNP politics. Salmond favoured the abolition of Clause 28/2A and, as first minister, promoted the legislation on same sex marriage, while still keeping Souter in the party orbit. The SNP has long been a broad church willing to welcome anyone who sincerely wanted Scotland to be independent. Indeed, Sturgeon’s promotion of ‘progressive’ ideologies was something of a departure for the SNP.
Nor should we be particularly surprised that Yousaf is apparently prepared to tolerate Souter, at least as far as helping with the business community is concerned. They met last summer at a ‘national prayer breakfast’ organised by Souter. Yousaf is a practising Muslim and the average Imam’s views on homosexuality, abortion and same sex marriage is likely to be very much in line with Souter’s. Indeed, Yousaf famously sidestepped the 2014 vote on same sex marriage, though he said he supported it in principle.
At any rate, the character of the SNP is changing in ways that could not have been envisaged only a year ago when Sturgeon was still in Bute House promoting gender reform and the alliance with the Scottish Green party. She brought the Green’s co-leaders, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater into the Scottish government – a move which has angered many SNP traditionalists who complain that the green tail is wagging the SNP dog.
Indeed, the former finance secretary Kate Forbes has called for the Green-SNP alliance to be abandoned. She ran Yousaf close in the race to replace Sturgeon and now represents a significant challenge to the First Minister if he loses many seats at the coming general election. Perhaps with that in mind he is giving a clear message that the SNP is back to being a very broad church indeed.
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