The Path Not Taken

One of the more interesting blogs I read has been arguing since day one that the SNP have made a terrible mistake in electing Humza Yousaf, and has been adamant in his belief that they need to replace him with Kate Forbes at the earliest opportunity. One of his arguments recently is that Forbes is apparently the most popular senior politician in Scotland.

Which is true, but...

The fundamental problem is that Kate Forbes represents the path not taken. So as time goes on, and the SNP's problems deepen almost daily, Humza Yousaf looks increasingly like that mistake (in some ways fairly; in others, not so much), and Kate Forbes looks that much better by comparison. "Oh, this is horrible! If only we'd gone for her instead..."

But would the reality of Kate Forbes as First Minister actually be any better? I have my doubts.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that a sizeable number of SNP parliamentarians (in Holyrood and Westminster) are part of the LGBTQ+ community, or allies thereof, and were not unreasonable in their objections to some of the views she expressed in her leadership bid. (I think those questions were largely posed to her as an intentional trap, but that doesn't negate the issue that her answers did represent a genuine statement of her views. All of them, including the statement that she has no interest in rolling back rights, but nonetheless it's not a surprise that people were less than thrilled.) That would make it extremely difficult for her to command the party discipline needed to be an effective leader.

But the second issue concerns the alliance with the Greens. Probably the biggest problem that the SNP government currently has is that everything the Greens touch falls to pieces. Bluntly, the SNP really need to end their alliance with the Greens. That's something Kate Forbes might well do; it's something Humza Yousaf will never do.

The problem is that ending that alliance means returning to minority government. And to run an effective minority government you need allies, or at least people willing to vote for individual measures in order to carry on. In the current climate, that won't be any of the unionist parties - at this stage, and especially with the potential to bring down the government, they're not going to play ball.

And that leaves the Greens as the only option. Break the alliance, and it may well be that the government falls in short order.

While it is looking increasingly like Humza Yousaf is leading the SNP to a relative disaster, at the General Election if not in the Scottish Election, I'm far from convinced that Kate Forbes is the answer. Indeed, I'm increasingly minded to think that there is no answer.