Euan McColm: Humza Yousaf needs new direction for the SNP to avoid going down and out

Salmond is far from being the sole voice of disapproval at the course the First Minister has set for the party – a reset is badly needed if a general election rout is to be avoided

It didn’t take long for ex SNP leader Alex Salmond to put the boot in. Hours after his former party was humiliated by Labour in last week’s Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, he warned Humza Yousaf had “hours to save his First Ministership”.

The result, Salmond added, was something the SNP had been “asking for”.

Never one to resist the visceral pleasure of kicking a man when he’s down, Salmond went on to describe the campaign Yousaf headed as “incompetent”.

Of course, Salmond and his former party have history. Allegations from a number of women of sexual assaults and the subsequent trial – at which Salmond was cleared – drove a wedge between him and his successor Nicola Sturgeon. It’s pretty clear that antipathy also applies to Yousaf.

Had Salmond been the sole critic of the current SNP leader’s performance, perhaps his words could have been shrugged off. But the man who now leads rival pro-independence party Alba was joined by others Yousaf can’t easily ignore.

By the time the First Minister was eating breakfast on Friday morning, SNP colleagues had begun briefing against him. There were questions about his fitness to lead and warnings that, should he remain in post, the nationalists should brace for further pain at the next general election.

One senior SNP source was quoted as saying that, if Yousaf continues as leader, the SNP faces “annihilation” at the 2026 Holyrood election. Another said the consensus amongst the MSPs was that they expect to lose a lot of MPs next year and that Yousaf would be expected to resign if Labour gets more seats at the general election.

Before last week’s by-election – sparked after constituents signed a recall position to oust Margaret Ferrier, the former SNP MP convicted of breaking coronavirus lockdown laws – Yousaf declared that he’d take responsibility for the result. The buck, he said, stopped with him.

That principled position evaporated as quickly as the nationalist vote when Labour’s Michael Shanks thrashed SNP candidate Katy Loudon by a margin of 2-1.

Suddenly, Yousaf had a raft of excuses (or “contextual factors” as he put it) for the result. People were angry about the reckless behaviour of Ferrier, while the Police Scotland investigation into his party’s finances was another hurdle placed in front of the SNP.

The nationalists’ deputy leader Keith Brown added a further “contextual factor” into the mix. His party had lost the seat because – and you may wish to compose yourself before reading on – people who previously voted Conservative had decided to back Labour. What outrage is this? Voters changing their minds? Is our democracy truly broken beyond repair?

Brown’s attempt to delegitimise Labour’s victory on the grounds that the party attracted the wrong type of voters was bold. After all, political success depends upon the ability to grow support for one’s cause.

What’s more, while the drop in the Tory vote may, indeed, indicate some tactical decision making, the 20 per cent swing to Labour could not have been achieved without a substantial number of former SNP supporters abandoning the party.

Next weekend, the SNP meets in Aberdeen for its annual conference, at which Yousaf is scheduled to lead discussions of his proposal that, should the party win the majority of seats in Scotland at the next general election, he would be empowered to enter into secession talks with the UK Government.

This reheated version of Nicola Sturgeon’s wildly-unpopular (even within SNP ranks) and entirely unworkable plan to treat the next election as a “de facto” referendum suggests the First Minister is low on ideas.

Yousaf would be crazy to proceed with this debate, now.

Instead, he should have the courage to use defeat in last week’s by-election as a reset moment for his party and the wider independence movement. He should be honest with SNP members, making clear that there is no easy route – other than building a sustained majority in favour of independence – to a second referendum.

And then Yousaf should tell delegates that the party’s focus must be on tackling issues of actual importance to the majority of Scots. Rather than obsessing over – and arguing among themselves about – another constitutional vote, the SNP should devote itself to ameliorating the pain caused by the cost-of-living crisis and fixing broken public services, with the NHS and education at the top of their to-do list.

Throughout her nine years as First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon misled independence supporters. She let them believe not only that Indyref2 was imminent but that they had the numbers to secure victory. Neither of these things were true.

By the time she resigned earlier this year, Sturgeon had concluded that she had become such a polarising figure that she couldn’t shift the dial in favour of independence any more than she already had.

I suspect Yousaf is already in a similar position but if he is to have any hope of winning sceptics to his cause, he’ll have to show he understands – and gives a hoot about – the things now preoccupying the majority of Scots.

Yousaf’s conference speech cannot, unless he is interested only in managing decline, be tailored to just those in his party. Rather, he needs to tell us all why, even if we do not share his constitutional desires, he should be trusted to govern for everyone.

I’m not at all sure he has it in him to do this.

Over the past 16 years, whenever they have been confronted with evidence of failure or incompetence, leading SNP politicians have pointed the finger at Westminster; there has been scant evidence any of them have the capacity for self-reflection.

If Humza Yousaf doesn’t find the courage to dictate a new direction for his party, last week’s crushing by-election defeat may be an example of further humiliations to come.