Nicola Sturgeon's sudden resignation, prompting the current SNP leadership contest, has now revealed multiple seeping conflicts, hitherto contained by her once highly-disciplined party machine. It feels not so much the end of an era, as the unravelling of an entire, self-entitled fiefdom.
Behind the SNP's ultra-polished presentation, Sturgeon’s exit from office and literal rush from the resignation podium resembles the flight of a prime suspect from the crime scene, with forensic investigators left picking over the real reasons for her hasty departure. And as the political intrigues and police enquiries unfold, she leaves behind not just a deeply-riven party, but a paltry record.
Beyond the gushing plaudits from party peers, teary staffers and celebrity acolytes, this is a corporate-captured party that's not only failed to drive serious progressive change, but taken Scotland backwards in cravenly neoliberal and reactionary ways.
Contrary to crafted claims and media spin, Sturgeon has presided over a dismal domestic record - on health care, social justice, poverty reduction, homelessness, drug deaths, and much more. She has overseen the basement-price privatisation of the country's abundant wind resources. Her big promise of a National Public Energy Agency in 2017 came to nought. She has yet to account for her tragic covid-mishandling, in sending infected old souls into care homes, having followed the same disastrous course as Johnson’s UK government. She introduced a Hate Crime Act so authoritarian and invasive of free speech, it's still awaiting full implementation. The Sturgeon inner circle also connived in the most devious ways to smear, stitch-up and imprison Alex Salmond. The scandals following that momentous failure include a trail of missing party money, corrupt cover-ups and possible criminal charges. After the mass support she inherited from Salmond, post 2014, Sturgeon has somehow managed to split her party, with mass members leaving, lost and disenchanted at the extent of centralised control. We've also seen the calamitous pushing of a Gender Recognition Reform bill, causing major upheaval, wasting parliamentary resources, and alienating mass sections of the female populace. Sturgeon departs office, too, bent in prostration to the US/UK/NATO war machine, including, quite alarmingly, having come out as the foremost proponent of a no-fly-zone over Ukraine. And, most damningly, after multiple election wins and a pile of prized mandates, she leaves with precisely nothing to show for the cause or deliverance of independence. All told, a truly bereft social, economic and political legacy.
Humza Yousaf now carries the justified label of Sturgeon’s ‘continuity candidate’. He has co-piloted and inherits her lamentable policies, while also pledging to pursue her obsessive and failed GRR bill through the courts. Most dutifully, he now carries the baton on Sturgeon's wilful independence evasions. Like his 'brilliant mentor', Yousaf talks effusively about 'building for independence' rather than showing any proactive plan for achieving it. If elected, he will also kick the proposed special party conference on independence into the same wildly overgrown grass. Instead of seizing the moment with imaginative initiatives, Yousaf and his 'gradualist' cohort are fervently trying to dampen down expectations, insisting there's no quick route to independence. We might call this the 'catch-22 path to indy': independence can only be achieved, they claim, by showing continued good governance, convincing a settled majority of people to make it a priority; but this requires the SNP's continued tenure as proof of that good governance, rather than ever prioritising and campaigning to deliver independence. Thus, the 'success' of SNP devolution means that it will always supplant the actual need for independence. Sturgeon's evasions and party power safely continued.
Which all means business-as-usual for the Westminster and Holyrood gravy-trainers, none of whom have advanced independence one iota. With her once ‘heir apparent’ Angus Robertson out of contention, citing ‘family duties', all Sturgeon's 'graduate gradualists' have now fallen in line for Yousaf. The endorsements have been dutifully ringing out, from British state asset Stewart McDonald - now pitching 2050 as the next indy 'target date' - to Nicola cheerleaders Alyn Smith, Ian Blackford and Mhairi Black. Behind them, the entire party hierarchy and backroom machine have been working feverishly to install Yousaf. And with Sturgeon's own spouse and troubled party CEO, Peter Murrell, overseeing an already deeply compromised election process, the Sturgeon 'handover' would appear to be imminent.
However, it's possible that, with Yousaf damaged by his mishandling of the gay marriage vote issue, and viewed more widely as an unpalatable figure by the general public, SNP members may opt for the 'more presentable' Kate Forbes. In contrast to Yousaf, Forbes is a model of probity, who didn't at any time seek to hide her 'contentious' religious beliefs. Yet her open admission that she would have voted against gay marriage - but would never challenge the existing legislation - has been a ‘principle too far’ for many of the Nicola/Yousaf notables and staffers. McDonald’s own ‘regretful distancing’ from Forbes typifies the rejection. Incredibly, many also wanted Forbes suspended for ‘violating’ the party’s code on ‘misgendering’, having dared to insist that a trans woman is really a biological male who identifies as a woman. After a week or so of this controversy, Forbes seemed to have 're-set' her campaign with fluent hustings performances.
Yet none of this can mask the real problems of her candidacy. The first main concern with Forbes isn't her personal theology - that's her rightful choice - it's her neoliberal conformity. How many of those Humza followers incensed over Forbes' religious conservatism ever thought to question her economic conservatism? Alongside Sturgeon, Forbes has faithfully embraced the whole Growth Commission doctrine, as pushed by Andrew Wilson, Charlotte Street Partners and the party's other corporate 'elect'. As we've seen, there's been nothing remotely left-thinking or radical flowing from this unholy alliance. In office, the ‘solid financial figure’ of Kate Forbes is really just another kind of minister serving the same rigid 'church' of neoliberal orthodoxy.
The other key problem is Forbes' rather less than 'sacred' commitment to independence. How many of either her own backers or Humza detractors have sought to question Forbes' crucial failure of 'commitment' to the independence cause? Beyond well-delivered hustings lines, there's nothing from the Forbes lectern that takes us anywhere beyond the same Sturgeon-Yousef continuity gospel. Again, the Humza camp's ‘immutable red lines’ here seem more drawn on 'principles' of identity than on the party’s own supposed principal task of indy deliverance.
Ash Regan, in contrast, is a soft-left progressive with perhaps more radical potential. One watches and hopes - though, after Sturgeon's showbiz anointment, policy failures and abuses of high office, we should be forever wary of placing any kind of undivided trust in any leader. Parties and their heads should be seen as openings for change, not bodies and figures to be lionised.
However, unlike Yousaf and Forbes, Regan has laid down a credible marker for immediate and decisive action on independence, with firm intentions to establish an independence convention on day one of her election, and to re-connect the Yes movement. With no prospect of the British state ever conceding a Section 30 referendum consent, Regan wishes to treat all forthcoming elections as effective ballots for independence, with any 50+1 majority deemed validation for initiating formal negotiations with Westminster. Regan is also the only candidate to declare for a separate currency, as the essential medium of financial independence.
Whatever the Humza naysayers and Unionist establishment may claim, all of this is completely viable. The immediate task is to make the actual effort in taking it to a new pivotal point, in testing the electorate, gaining majority consent and facing down the British state. If we sit forever in fear of doing something, we end up with a relentless nothing. Only Regan displays any serious sign of being prepared to move the dial.
Predictably, Regan has been subjected to sustained attack by the gradualists. She's also been demonised by the party’s ‘trans-set’ over her open refusal to back the GRR bill - which lead to her principled ministerial resignation. In effect, the Yousaf axis will sacrifice the most proactively promising candidate for independence over fear of their own party positions, and on the altar of identity politics. The relentless hounding of MP Joanna Cherry, an advocate of Regan, in defending women’s rights, is a similar example of this pernicious intolerance.
Aside from her stance on GRR, the Humza backers’ other great antipathy to Regan concerns her ‘collusion’ with the wider Yes movement, most notably in extending an effective olive branch to Alex Salmond and Alba. One of Regan’s other 'cardinal crimes' was to be seen talking to indy stalwart, Common Weal author and SNP critic Robin McAlpine. It’s remarkable to think that a party supposedly birthed as the primary agent of independence could be so virulently hostile to such independence forces.
Nor is it any seeming coincidence that many of the SNP's trans advocates aren't seriously interested in independence - or in wider leftist causes - at all. The party has become a safe career haven, instead, for identity causes. And for all their casting of those opposed to GRR as 'social conservatives', the inverse truth is that the current face of ‘trans rights’ itself looks much more like a manifestation of neoliberal market individualism - ‘my atomised freedoms’, ‘my product choice’, ‘my personal branding’, 'my pronouns', ‘my identity on demand’ - than any coherent leftist collectivism or class-based politics. Alas, much of the left itself have fallen for this posturing agenda.
Lamentably, trans activism has morphed into an irrational anti-science, a defiance of science, which refuses to recognise the immutable biological reality of the human species. The entire 'trans issue' has not just been politicised, but evangelised as a ‘progressive crusade’, with many leftists caught in the seductive net. Now captured and turned into a baying 'cause', it has served neither susceptible gender-affected people, nor considered the legitimate concerns and established rights of women.
It's depressing to see those offering rational, educational and considerate reminders of what constitutes an adult human female being scorned as 'TERFS' and 'transphobes'. Many trans people do, of course, experience fear, anxiety and marginalisation. Yet, are we to believe that women's groups, asserting their own valued rights and protections, really harbour deep hatred of, or wish harm upon, trans people? Are trans people really being denied equality before the law? Did Sturgeon and those pushing GRR really not see the massive implications for women in turning trans 'social identity' into self-decided legal ID?
Even Stonewall's formative campaigners have come to warn that adding the 'T' to 'LGB' has distorted their original cause, threatened women's enshrined rights, and offered no true empathy or support for trans people at large. Many major organisations, including Ofcom and the BBC, have also now withdrawn from Stonewall’s ‘Diversity Champions’ scheme, concerned at its over-intensive ‘training’, and the perceived breaking of their own 'impartiality' codes. The Scottish Government still eagerly approves and funds Stonewall.
As others leaving the organisation came to see, Stonewall has made a disastrous decision in seeking to compare the historic persecution and social suffering of LGB people with the more specific problems faced by contemporary trans people. They are quite different groupings, with diverse experiences, views and concerns. As understood by many across this spectrum, gender dysphoria-affected people, particularly developing children and young adults, require, most importantly, compassionate care and supportive guidance, not the invasive prescriptions of trans ideologues. With dark irony, the toxicity now over GRR has only subjected many vulnerable trans people to even more anxious exposure.
It's also worth noting here that, unlike the laudable Equal Marriage bill brought by Alex Salmond in a free parliamentary vote, GRR was pushed through by Sturgeon on a whipped instruction. In bravado voice, Yousaf now claims he's 'standing up' to the British state, by pledging to challenge the UK's Section 35 veto over GRR and 'defend Holyrood from Westminster power grabs'. Of course, the real way to do that is to deliver independence, which nullifies any such threats at source. Yet that holds little attraction or immediacy for much of the Humza base. Their ‘priority’ for a First Minister couldn’t be any clearer: GRR before independence. In similar vein, the Green-SNP coalition isn’t likely to survive any Regan or even Forbes victory.
Whatever the arguments over Westminster's blocking of this bill, the whole SNP/Green-driven GRR legislation has now been exposed as legally ill-conceived, ideologically loaded, and carrying little public support. As such, it should be abandoned in lieu of real collective health-based, ethical and social evaluations - perhaps even, as Regan suggests, given over to a citizens assembly for proper, diligent consideration. Again, it's remarkable to think that the 'politically astute' Sturgeon could ever have made this such a hill issue to die on. Is Yousaf's continued, zealous pursuit of it now leading him up the same slippery slope?
Amid all this caustic debate, it’s worth returning to just why the case for independence is such a vital and urgent concern. We're locked into not just perpetual Tory rule - including the right-wing penury potentially to come of Starmer's now establishment-captured Labour - but inside a form of political occupation precisely designed to normalise our lower expectations of change.
Power maintained from on high is change denied to those below. We need to bring the enabling institutions of power down to the lowest possible level of civil participation and control. Westminster rule and the entire British establishment is predicated on the precise opposite of true democratic engagement and reform. Nothing radical can flow from the sclerotic accord we so readily accept as 'devolution'.
Raising our expectations and political game in breaking-up this hegemonic construct would not only empower people in Scotland to run their own affairs - including the inviolable rights and ability to shape and determine all the aforementioned issues - it would, in ending the shackling Union, generate a whole new impetus for meaningful change across these broader, afflicted isles.
Ultimately, for SNP-voting members, it comes down to a question of priorities: do you really want independence; and how might your vote help expedite it? It should be demonstrably clear by now that a Yousaf tick means continuity Sturgeonism, with independence being consigned to the same infinite wilderness of 'process' and 'conversation'. A Forbes vote might bring relatively more 'rightful attention' to the matter, but with little indication of serious action. In contrast, only an endorsement for Regan offers any kind of hope in raising independence to immediate prominence. Even if the Regan strategy remains to be tested through the ballot box and thereafter, her pledge to hold an immediate convention, draw-in supporting civil and political forces, and directly confront the institutions of the British state, offers a crucial new opening for party members and fellow Yes advocates. It's a straight choice between making independence a coming reality or another set of false promises blowing in the devolution wasteland.
