It’s being claimed on social media that senior people in Kate Forbes’ own campaign team have said that she “f***ed it” with her admission that she would have voted against equal marriage when the issue came before parliament. I’m not sure whether that’s true or not. There are two schools of thought –
1) Kate Forbes is so popular due to her personal qualities that episodes like this will only cause her minor harm. The SNP membership will mostly be tolerant of her private views because she has promised not to impose them on the party or the country.
2) The SNP has now become a party of ‘liberal intolerance’ and it can no longer live with a leader who holds ‘unacceptable’ views, even in private. The only way someone like Kate Forbes can ever win is by getting out the sackcloth and ashes and publicly recanting her beliefs, which she was clearly never going to do in a million years.
I’m more inclined to theory 1), but let’s just assume for the sake of argument that 2) is closer to the mark. In one way perhaps I should be excited, because it’s become clear that Ash Regan is the only candidate who has a credible strategy for winning independence in the here and now rather than in some far distant hypothetical future. I therefore want Ash Regan to win, and in theory, anything that harms Kate Forbes should give Ms Regan a better chance of prevailing. The problem is, though, that it also gives Humza Yousaf a much better chance of winning, and realistically he is the leading challenger to Ms Forbes at this moment.
The “ditch the de facto” plotters who are lining up behind Humza Yousaf regard themselves as the SNP realists, and set themselves in contrast to fundamentalist hotheads who would supposedly ruin the chances of independence with their impatience and ill-discipline. Well, it’s high time for the realists to get real about one basic truth: you have backed the wrong horse. One thing that should unite all Yessers, whether fundamentalist or gradualist, “transphobe” or “misogynist”, is that we need a pro-independence government to remain in power, and Humza Yousaf is – objectively and by some distance – the candidate least likely to deliver that. The polls are unanimous in giving him horrendous personal ratings, and most importantly of all, he is significantly less popular than the Labour leader Anas Sarwar. It is entirely conceivable Mr Yousaf would lead the SNP to defeat in the Holyrood election of 2026, bringing Labour back to power and putting an end to the independence cause for the foreseeable future.
So I say to the self-styled realists: if you really cannot live with Kate Forbes or Ash Regan, then for the love of God pick a different champion. Persuade Angus Robertson to change his mind, or draft in another semi-electable Sturgeon loyalist. But the person to pick up the pieces from any Forbes implosion simply cannot be Humza Yousaf, otherwise independence is sunk, the SNP is sunk, and your precious careers are sunk with them.
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