Ash Regan 1, Kate Forbes 2 : That, for what it’s worth, is my recommendation of how to vote in the SNP leadership election

Before I start, one or two people asked me yesterday if any media outlets had picked up on the new Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll showing that Kate Forbes has significantly extended her lead with the general public.  It took a little while, but quite a few newspaper websites started reporting the poll this afternoon, including The Independent, The National, The Journal (Ireland) and most importantly of all the Great Yarmouth Mercury.  I have very happy memories of spending time on Great Yarmouth beach in the long hot summer of…well, whichever long hot summer that was.  Click on the links to read the various reports of the poll, which of course also shows that Kate Forbes has the lead among SNP voters from the 2019 general election, SNP voters from the 2021 Holyrood election, and Yes voters from the 2014 independence referendum.

A rather presumptuous Humza Yousaf supporter tried to leave two comments on this blog earlier, in which he took it as read that I’d now be transferring my (second preference) support from Kate Forbes to Humza Yousaf because of the latter’s rather vague and insubstantial comments yesterday about how he “might consider” using a snap Holyrood election to seek a mandate for independence.  Isn’t it thrilling when politicians say at the last gasp of an election campaign that they “might consider” doing something?  You’d almost be inclined to think that if they had any intention of actually doing it, they’d have given a much more definite commitment and mentioned something about it far earlier.  Nevertheless, the commenter was still inviting me to believe that this new “maybe, possibly” position meant Yousaf was now more radical on independence strategy than Kate Forbes.

In spite of my extreme cynicism about the Yousaf campaign, I didn’t dismiss this development totally out of hand, because I’m always only too eager to see indications of a “sinner repenteth”.  So last night I looked at Yousaf’s exact words with great care, and – to be blunt – I could not see any sign at all of a shift in his stance.  Even leaving aside the fact that a promise to “consider” something is worthless, because it’s impossible to hold anyone to it (they can just say later on that they “considered” it and decided against), Yousaf is making clear he’d only consider a snap election AFTER the mythical “sustained supermajority” for Yes is achieved.  So if you think there’s any chance of getting a snap election out of Yousaf this year, or next year, or even within the next five years, you can totally forget it.  If he becomes leader, you’ll be able to ask him at any time why he didn’t deliver the snap election he promised to “consider”, and he’ll inform you that he hasn’t even needed to consider it yet, because there’s no sign of that ever-elusive sustained supermajority.  And what’s more, he’ll tell you that’s your own fault.  “No use looking at me, guys, if you want independence or a snap election, you’ll just have to go out and knock on some more doors.”  That will be his permanent, all-purpose excuse for doing absolutely nothing about independence for the entirety of his leadership – which is precisely what he intends to do.  There’s a very good reason why Ben Macpherson (effectively now the SNP’s first openly anti-independence parliamentarian) has backed Yousaf and not Forbes or Regan.

Let’s be honest, what Yousaf has done is his own personal version of “The Vow” – which appropriately enough was run in the very newspaper that we now fondly know as “the Daily Humza” (although it’ll revert to being “the Daily Anas” in around two weeks from now).  He’s throwing out “ifs” and “maybes” and “we’ll sees” in an act of last-minute desperation.  The real significance of it is that it probably indicates one of two things: either a) he thinks he’s losing the election as things stand, or b) he thinks the election is too close to call, or that there isn’t enough information to be confident he’s currently ahead among members.  Just like the original Vow, if it does the trick, the ultra-vague promises to “think about possibly doing things” will vanish in a puff of smoke within seconds of the result being announced.

Back in the real world, the disappointing truth is that no good outcome to this leadership election is available anymore.  What we needed is an SNP leader who continues with Nicola Sturgeon’s policy that an election must be used to seek a mandate for independence now that the referendum option has been closed off.  Sadly, both of the frontrunners are hellbent on ditching the Sturgeon plan, and although Ash Regan would actually further improve on what Sturgeon was offering, all of the polling evidence suggests that she is too far behind to have a realistic chance of becoming leader.

But when you can’t have the best outcome, what you mustn’t do is throw in the towel – you have to fight all the way to keep the flame alive and make sure the worst case scenario doesn’t happen.  There are now two realistic priorities for independence supporters – a) to keep the cause of independence alive by ensuring Humza Yousaf does not become First Minister, and b) to lay down a marker on strategy by demonstrating to the new leader (hopefully Kate Forbes) that there is substantial ongoing support within the SNP for the Sturgeon-Regan plan of winning an independence mandate via an election.  Fortunately, there’s no need to choose between those two priorities – you can have both, because this election will be conducted via a preferential voting system.  What will achieve the desired effect is voting as follows…

1st preference: Ash Regan

2nd preference: Kate Forbes  

I’ve heard it said by quite a few people that Ash Regan has the right message, but that she’s the wrong messenger.  That should no longer be a concern because, at this stage, the purpose of voting for Regan is not to install her as First Minister, but instead to ensure that she receives a big enough share of first preference votes to make the new leader sit up and take notice.  It’ll demonstrate that there is a substantial body of opinion in the SNP that can’t be ignored or taken for granted.  Such an outcome will hopefully keep a de facto referendum (or whatever you prefer to call it) on the agenda.

But if you do vote Ash Regan on first preference, I cannot stress enough the importance of also using your second preference.  If you don’t, you’ll effectively be abstaining on the question of who will become First Minister, and nobody can afford to be abstaining when there is so much at stake.  I’ve rehearsed several times why Kate Forbes would be vastly preferable to Humza Yousaf, but just to briefly recap, there are two main reasons –

Firstly, although Forbes has essentially the same non-strategy on independence as Yousaf, the mood music from her is a million times better.  She talks about achieving independence within a short enough timescale that her newborn daughter will grow up in an indy Scotland.  She also puts the onus on herself to bring independence about, which means she can actually be held accountable if she fails to take sufficient action.  That’s in stark contrast to Humza Yousaf, who has essentially been seeking a mandate from SNP members to do absolutely nothing for years on end, apart from meaningless fluff like appointing a “Minister for Independence”.  (You could just as easily appoint a “Minister for Nuclear Fusion” or a “Minister for Exploration of the Surface of Pluto”, but after ten years you still wouldn’t have nuclear fusion stations or a manned mission to Pluto.)

Secondly, there would be no point in having the best independence strategy in the world if you have the wrong leader, because an unpopular leader will lose you referendums, and de facto referendums, and regular elections.  The polling evidence is overwhelming – the public like Kate Forbes and think she would be a good First Minister, but they feel the polar opposite about Humza Yousaf.  The Labour leader Anas Sarwar consistently has a better net approval rating than Yousaf, which points to a strong possibility that a Yousaf-led SNP could suffer defeat at the hands of Labour in 2026, thus bringing an end to nineteen years of SNP rule, and putting independence completely out of reach.  I would have no such concerns if Kate Forbes is the leader, because her net approval rating is generally superior to Sarwar’s (and far superior to Yousaf’s).

If you’re going to stupidly and needlessly set yourself “sustained supermajority” targets, you must at least have a leader capable of reaching out and winning a substantial number of new votes from people who are currently unionists and who vote for unionist parties.  Humza Yousaf simply cannot do that, because polls show beyond all credible doubt that unionist voters in particular dislike him intensely.  In the Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, Kate Forbes has a lead over Humza Yousaf among SNP voters and Yes voters from 2014, but she also has an absolutely enormous lead over Yousaf among No voters and people who vote for unionist parties.

No voters from 2014: