Are we moving into the final days of Yousaf's leadership?

It was just over a year ago that I was struggling to work out how seriously to take the pronouncements of "Smitty", a commenter on Wings who seemed to be leaking inside information about the SNP leadership election, because there was no way of verifying what he was saying and there was always a chance it was an elaborate hoax.  In the end, that's what it seemed to be, because the basic thrust of his claims was that Humza Yousaf had lost.

So once again I'm not sure how seriously to take the claims by Wings himself today which are based on information from "trusted sources".  It's true that possibly the same sources turned out to be right yesterday about the scheduling of an emergency Cabinet meeting, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be right about everything.  But just as a hypothetical, let's work through the potential implications of what they're saying.

Firstly, that Humza Yousaf will resign before the no confidence vote is held.  That's possible because arithmetically he seems to be in a right old pickle.  Due to the surprisingly strong stance of the Greens, 64 votes to remove him are assured as long as everyone turns up, which would mean to survive he'd need Ash Regan to actively vote for him and then the Presiding Officer to bail him out with her casting vote in line with convention.  I don't take remotely seriously the idea, being punted by Wings himself only yesterday, that Yousaf could lose the vote and carry on anyway.  So everything hinges on what Ms Regan does, and as we now know, it's a vote of no confidence in Yousaf personally rather than a collective vote of no-confidence in the government, which makes it much less unthinkable that she could vote him down if he doesn't yield to enough of her shopping list of demands.  Or she could abstain, which would probably have the same effect.

It's therefore at least semi-plausible that he could resign to avoid the humiliation of either being defeated or being seen to capitulate to Alba.  The continuity faction may have calculated that it's better to replace him with someone the Greens don't hate with a passion, and that way the government may be able to muddle through the next two years by means of ad hoc deals with the Greens rather than ad hoc deals with Alba.

The next part of the claim is that Neil Gray is the person that the continuity faction want to replace him with.  Again, that's perfectly plausible, Gray is massively overrated but he's been punted for years.  He would make the situation even worse because he appears to be even less serious about independence than Yousaf is, and has less charisma.

Where I become much more sceptical about the claim is the idea that the Forbes wing of the party will for some unspecified reason roll over and allow Gray to have an unopposed coronation.  Now, it's true that Kate Forbes has a strong mind of her own and it doesn't always tally with what people sympathetic to her think is sensible, so I can't rule out the possibility that she'll sit this one out, either for personal reasons or for what would probably be misconceived political reasons.  I hope to goodness she doesn't.  But even if she does, it doesn't follow that Gray will be unchallenged, because from what I recall of the SNP leadership rules, the threshold to stand as a candidate is not all that high.  Just a year after we saw an epochal battle between evenly matched continuity and change camps, it seems totally inconceivable that at least one person from the change camp will not put themselves forward - unless of course there's a unity candidate who everyone thinks is fab, but that candidate would not be Gray.  So I'm confident there would be a contested election if Yousaf stands down, although admittedly Gray would have a much better chance of winning it if Forbes is not his main opponent.  (Bear in mind, though, that even if the Wings source is correct about Forbes' intentions, there'll be massive pressure on her to change her mind.)

You'd think, incidentally, that journalists from The National would have SNP sources that are at least as reliable as any that Wings has, and it's interesting that Hamish Morrison is punting John Swinney rather than Gray.  But this paragraph made me laugh - 

"Kate Forbes has been touted by some, but given her views on LGBT issues and abortion proved so divisive in the SNP leadership contest, she may be a long shot."

Come on, Hamish, propaganda is one thing but you've got to at least make it sound plausible.  It remains to be seen if Kate Forbes would stand, but if she does, she will not be a "long shot", she will self-evidently be the strong favourite, having come within a whisker of winning last year in spite of the outgoing leadership chucking the kitchen sink at her, including just about every procedural dirty trick in the book.

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