Analysis: SNP crisis feels on the verge of being terminal

The SNP is mired in controversy and with a mounting set of problems facing Humza Yousaf, the party’s decline has suddenly started to feel terminal.

After some schmuck (me) decided to head to Ireland for an elongated Easter break, swearing off Twitter and the news throughout, returning to Edinburgh and catching up on the twists and turns of the SNP’s implosion felt like a return to a parallel universe.

This is the SNP we’re talking about, the haven of self-imposed discipline and laser-focused attention on the overall goal of its political movement, independence. It is not meant to be like this.

Every revelation deepens the crisis and compounds the narrative that if the SNP was run in this manner by Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell, how will history judge the time the party spent in government?

First Minister Humza Yousaf speaking to the media in Glasgow on Thursday

There is often a moment when voters decide a political party’s time in government is up, regardless of policy preferences, economic direction, or popularity of individuals.

The UK Conservatives, for so long the exemplar for political reinvention from inside crisis, appear to have reached that point with Sir Keir Starmer and Labour poised to pounce at the next general election, bar a miracle rehabilitation of the Tory brand.

The damage did not happen overnight, but began with the slow, painful death of the reputation of the party’s standards under Boris Johnson and the almost immediate self-combustion of its economic credentials under Liz Truss.

There were accusations the Scottish Government under Ms Sturgeon focused too heavily on secrecy, spurning openness and rejecting scrutiny.

That reputation, fairly earned, is coming home to roost as the SNP crisis deepens. It is fundamentally a crisis based on a lack of transparency.

Some senior SNP sources suggest the only move for the former first minister is to resign as an MSP and leave behind the frontline political world for good.

That would be a naive move, would compound the narrative surrounding the SNP under her leadership and spark a by-election which would become a judgement of her legacy.

But with the SNP choosing continuity with Mr Yousaf over a split from the past, the ability to reinvent is limited.

That terminal decline, that painful death of the SNP’s reputation as a competent, trustworthy party of government in the eyes of voters, feels already underway.

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