Wednesday, March 15, 2023

The Liz Truss episode is a warning from (recent) history for the SNP - you don't have the luxury of installing a leader as unpopular as Humza Yousaf and then fixing the mistake later, because by that point the damage may be too great for the leader that follows him to repair

Last summer, the Tories held a leadership contest in which the polls showed the public had a clear preference between the contenders - they wanted Rishi Sunak rather than Liz Truss.  Tory members made the opposite choice, which perhaps wasn't surprising given what tends to happen when parties have been in power for a very long time.  Parties that have been out of government for an eternity, such as Labour in the early-to-mid 1990s, are generally pretty disciplined in looking at what will help them connect with the public and doing whatever it takes to get elected, even if that means stepping outside their own comfort zone in their choice of leader.  But after a decade or more in government, complacency often sets in, and there's a tendency to just stay inside the comfort zone with the choice of leader and to expect the public to learn to live with the person you've selected.  That can be a very dangerous game if the leader is not just someone the public wouldn't have chosen, but someone who polls show the public actively dislikes.  We know only too well that the Tories paid an incredibly heavy penalty for defying the public with their selection of Truss, and indeed that the heaviest penalty of all probably still lies in store for them.

If the SNP elect the unpopular Humza Yousaf as their leader, it will be an act of complacent self-indulgence comparable to the election of Truss, although the nature of the self-indulgence will be somewhat different.  It starts with the fact that Yousaf is the hand-picked successor of the faction that currently controls the SNP, and in that sense the mistake of anointing him can be compared with the Corbynites' strategic blunder in betting the house on Rebecca Long-Bailey rather than a more suitable left-winger such as Clive Lewis.  They had fallen in love with the idea that they had control of the party machinery and effectively control of the membership, and could thus install whoever they wanted - but in retrospect it's obvious that they would have been far better off making the hardheaded choice of rejecting Long-Bailey in favour of Lewis.  In the SNP's case, it's still possible the current leadership will 'get away' with making the poor selection of Yousaf,  but if they do, it will be for all the wrong reasons.  It won't primarily be about ideological purity in the way that it was with Truss (although admittedly the identity politics divide is playing a big role), it'll be more about factionalism, and personal loyalties, and even sentimentality to some extent. If a member votes for Yousaf mainly because John Swinney tells them to, ultimately that boils down to a sentimental attachment to Swinney after so many decades of him being around in a senior role.

If Yousaf wins, I don't expect the wheels to come off quite as quickly as they did with Truss.  But even if he learns from Truss' mistake and governs circumspectly over the coming months, there's one ticking time-bomb that he can't avoid for very long.  A Westminster general election will almost certainly take place next year (most likely in May, June or October), and the SNP would be going into that battle with a leader who has significantly poorer public approval ratings than either the UK Labour leader Keir Starmer, or the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.  Given that Westminster elections are 'away fixtures' for the SNP where the media won't allow them to compete with the UK-wide parties on a level playing-field, and given that Labour will have momentum behind them as they seek to eject the Tories from power after a decade and a half, it's not hard to see where this ends.  In my judgement (to use the late Paddy Ashdown's favourite pompous phrase), there is a greater than 50% probability - perhaps far greater than 50% - that a Yousaf-led SNP would lose their position next year as the majority party among Scottish MPs at Westminster.

That event would shock the SNP membership to their core.  It might lead to Yousaf swiftly being deposed, and you could imagine that the subsequent leadership contest may boil down to a battle between Kate Forbes and Angus Robertson.  If that had been the line-up in the current contest, Robertson would have been favourite to win, but it would be a very different story after a landmark Westminster defeat.  As was the case for Sunak last autumn, Forbes would be in pole position as the popular runner-up who history had proved completely right.  It would be plain for all to see that 'continuity didn't cut it', and in all likelihood the SNP would belatedly install the First Minister that the public had wanted all along.

But the real warning from history is this: even though Sunak became Prime Minister only one month later than he would have done if he had defeated Truss in the summer, he inherited a completely different legacy.  If he had won at the first time of asking, he would have taken over a Tory party that was only slightly behind Labour in the polls.  He would probably have either maintained that position or improved on it.  Instead, he came in when polls were pointing to a landslide defeat for the Tories, and thus far he hasn't been able to turn that around, because the damage Truss did in her short period in office was simply too great.

A post-Yousaf SNP could face a similar fate.  The SNP have defied gravity in the last three UK general elections by winning a majority in Scotland, but if Labour return to being the majority party, the new Labour MPs will start enjoying an incumbency boost and they will be very, very difficult to dislodge.  The SNP would retreat to being what they were prior to 2015 - essentially a Holyrood-only party.  Now, in fairness, Alex Salmond took Scotland to the brink of independence in 2014 without much of an SNP presence at Westminster.  But here's the thing: both leadership frontrunners are now saying that the way in which we almost won independence in 2014 is no longer good enough.  50% + 1 of the vote on a single day won't do anymore, apparently, we need "sustained supermajorities".  That being the case, permanently throwing away the tremendous leverage of a pro-independence majority among Scottish MPs at Westminster is self-evidently a luxury we cannot afford - and yet that is precisely what the SNP are flirting with by even thinking of someone as unpopular as Yousaf as their new leader.

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Over the last few days I've published results from TWO new Scot Goes Pop opinion polls - an opportunity to commission a second poll suddenly arose, so I made a snap decision to go ahead.  However, as you'll appreciate, polls are very expensive, so if anyone feels able to make a contribution, here are the options...

The simplest donation method is a direct Paypal payment. My Paypal email address is:

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21 comments:

  1. You should never underestimate how an idiot thinks, what they say and what they do. The first two points can be seen every day btl on WGD. But even they are not daft enough to vote for Yousaf.The exception being the Sturgeon propagandist and frequent liar Skier. So who exactly are these people who are voting for Yousaf and why?

    The first point I would make is that unlike a national election Murrell will be able to see who MPs and MSPs have actually voted for as distinct from who they say they will vote for.

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  2. James, you do yourself no favours retweeting links by COVID believers.
    Disappointing that there is no COVID debate and its political ramifications for Scotland (and economic fallout) permitted among the twtteratii.

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    1. I very, very rarely allow those sort of tinfoil hat comments about Covid through, but I'll make an exception this time because you've given the game away with the words "Covid believers". So to be clear - you don't believe in Covid at all? You don't think it ever existed? It isn't a real virus? We've all been just imagining it?

      Do grow up, there's a good chap.

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  3. FitzyFan: With apologies, I think we should avoid the topic you tried to raise on this thread and the previous thread, at least during this very sensitive period of the campaign. I'll explain my reasons in more detail in two weeks' time when it's all over.

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    1. No problem James, thanks for getting back to me.

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  4. A superficial persuasive argument. Unfortunately both Ash and Kate would find themselves in a “Corbyn morass” if they’re elected. The entire office payroll and 90% of the elected payroll will plot to undermine them. Better for Humza to be declared winner (regardless of the actual votes) and for the party to crash and burn. The very foundation are riddled with dry rot. A rebuild of the Yes movement is only possible after the complete destruction of the SNP.

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    1. Pro tip: Any strategy that involves "burning" your own side is pretty much always a monumentally stupid strategy.

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  5. A plausible analysis, but very dispiriting.

    While I'm thinking this week that it is 60% likely that HY has won, KF could still win narrowly.

    I'm still of the mind that if she wins that the Greens will leave the coalition and not back her for FM. Some SNP MSP won't back her either and abstain and we will end up with a HR election. A split SNP will be shredded.

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    1. That's not going to happen. If SNP MSPs don't back their leader as First Minister, they lose the SNP whip - it's as simple as that. They're not going to throw their careers away. At the margins one or two might, but that won't be anything like enough to trigger an early Holyrood election.

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  6. Kate Forbes is the best politician, but too much of a Tory

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    1. In all fairness, I can't think of many Tories who talk as much about eradicating poverty as she does.

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  7. Regan and Forbes send open letter to Murrell about the election wanting info on the process and numbers and claim they have been blanked after making previous requests.
    Looks like the SNP dictatorship by the Murrell's is under the spotlight.

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    1. The possibility of this election ending up in court must be increasing. Regan says if a satisfactory answer is not provided by tomorrow she will be having a press conference outside Holyrood at 3pm tomorrow.

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  8. Independence for ScotlandMarch 15, 2023 at 8:13 PM

    Yousaf claims he also asked for the info yesterday. πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚

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    1. He DEMANDED it. Really quite sternly.

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    2. And if he doesn’t get it, he will spank Murrell on his bottom with Pete Wishart’s slippers.

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  9. There are rumours going around that every MP, MSP and staffers are being drafted in to save Humza. He is the inside man, and they need him to protect the secrets from HQ. If he doesn't get the job then the various cover ups will be exposed.

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  10. James this is a great article but I have to disagree with you on a couple of points. You say that: "apparently, we need "sustained supermajorities". That being the case, permanently throwing away the tremendous leverage of a pro-independence majority among Scottish MPs at Westminster is self-evidently a luxury we cannot afford..." I understand what you are saying, but maybe there would be a reason for that a reason called democracy. The SNP have taken us all - not just for granted - but have just taken us all, played us for years. Supermajorities are created to stop something not to achieve. If that's what they are saying now they are worse than Margaret Thatcher. I didn't vote SNP to have MD20-20 and Buckie go up in price, I voted for independence, but they don't seem to believe in that anymore. Every one can see that. We've got Ash Regan who seems to be for indy but she's not even in the running. Here is the big question for the SNP, "If you are not offering me independence, why should I vote for you when I agree with more policies from another party."
    They have to answer that before I'll vote for a HF led SNP

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    1. I've read your comment a few times and I'm not totally sure what you're disagreeing with me about. I'm not a supporter of the 'sustained supermajority' concept - far from it.

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  11. There is a Yougov poll on the go as I got an invite. Aimed at SNP members from the questions asked.

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  12. Meanwhile on WGD the Sturgeon propagandist Skier is pumping out a load of pish about the request for info re the vote. He must be on a bonus from Murrell.

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