The hypocrisy that has been on display on social media in recent hours from the current SNP establishment has been quite staggering. Taking on Humza Yousaf so directly and scathingly on his poor record in government was a bold and high risk strategic choice by Kate Forbes and her advisers, and we’ll have to wait and see whether it pays off or not – presumably the thinking is that they have to get the SNP membership to reluctantly face up to the fact that Yousaf is simply not competent enough to be First Minister, even if that’s a bracing message for some.
But the idea that there was anything illegitimate or disreputable about what Forbes said last night is pretty rich coming from people who were essentially trying to drive Forbes out of public life completely only a week or two ago, and who were certainly saying she was unfit to be First Minister, on the basis of nothing more than a purely hypothetical vote that she never actually cast because she wasn’t even an MSP at the time. It also ignores the fact that Yousaf made some astonishingly hurtful and uncollegiate comments about both Forbes and Ash Regan last night, for example his suggestion that neither of them would protect the rights of all the people they represent. Pointing out on the basis of sound evidence that Yousaf has not performed well enough on his day-to-day ministerial responsibilities seems like a fairly above-the-belt line of attack by comparison.
The feeling I get is that some people started to believe their own propaganda and thought that Kate Forbes had no place in the leadership contest, and that she would inevitably either drop out or get out the sackcloth and ashes for the remainder of the campaign. They’re struggling to come to terms with the fact that she’s still there and that she’s there so unapologetically.
Incidentally, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the end of the STV debate when Bernard Ponsonby parroted the Humza narrative that there’s no point seeking an outright mandate for independence, because if the UK government can ignore a mandate for a referendum, they can just as easily ignore a mandate for independence itself. The point of the exercise, chaps, is that you would then have a mandate for independence and not just for a referendum. The 2014 mandate to remain in the United Kingdom would, for the first time, no longer be uncontested. If you truly can’t see how that would move us forward and give the independence movement more leverage and put the UK Government in a tougher position, then you’re beyond all help. A mandate for independence is an absolute prerequisite for independence. A mandate for a referendum, ironically, is not.
Ultimately, Humza’s pitch of “there’s no point in trying to win an independence mandate because the UK government will ignore it” is not the wizard argument for further years of delay that he seems to think it is. It’s actually an argument for giving up on independence and dissolving the SNP.
