All political careers end in failure but Humza Yousaf has managed to begin his there. Three weeks ago, he clinched the leadership of the SNP in a 52-48 per cent photo finish. Since then, he has deepened divisions within his party by shunning MSPs who failed to support his leadership bid, launched a legal challenge to Westminster to restart his government’s unpopular gender reforms, and watched as police raided Nicola Sturgeon’s home and arrested Peter Murrell, her husband and the SNP’s former chief executive, amid a probe of party finances.
Tuesday was supposed to mark a ‘reset’, because Yousaf’s leadership is in such dire straits that, less than a month in, it already needs resetting. The vehicle for moving forward was supposed to be his inaugural programme for government, which performs a similar function to the King’s Speech. However, the First Minister’s streak of rotten luck continued as Colin Beattie, the treasurer of the SNP, was arrested by Police Scotland in advance of the speech. (Neither Murrell nor Beattie has been charged with any offence.)
Yousaf’s programme, Equality, Opportunity, Community, was optimistically subtitled ‘New leadership – A fresh start’. This fresh start consisted of pausing a troubled deposit return scheme, rethinking plans for a ban on alcohol advertising and rolling out a six-month moratorium on peak rail fares. There was leftish rhetoric on taxation familiar from the Sturgeon era and Yousaf’s at times angry replies to questions recalled the blustering style of Alex Salmond.
The day was dominated by news of Beattie’s arrest, but there was another item. Kate Forbes, Yousaf’s erstwhile rival for the party leadership, has published a discussion paper, co-authored with two of her MSP supporters, setting out a distinctive vision for economic policy. Entitled ‘Giving substance to the wellbeing economy’, the paper marks a shift from the more explicitly centre-right rhetoric Forbes used during the campaign to emphasise the need for the economy to ‘deliver for people and planet, not merely grow faster and forever’.
This is a message that, without abandoning Forbes’ position on wealth generation, would be much more palatable to the SNP membership. If, say, there was another leadership election at some point in the future. Possibly the near future. On the face of it, Forbes and her allies are simply generating ideas and encouraging discussion, but she is doing exactly what you would do if you thought another chance at the crown might present itself.
Humza Yousaf’s leadership appears dead in the water before it has even started but there is still a party, a government and a country at stake. Kate Forbes and other thoughtful figures in the SNP will have to step up their efforts. Whether Yousaf goes soon or after a disastrous election result next year, the party will need a consensus candidate to replace him, a ministerial team in waiting, and a set of ideas for renewing a government that has been in power for the better part of two decades.
The SNP is no longer unbeatable. If it doesn’t correct course, and soon, it might learn that lesson the hard way.
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