SNP members have a choice between 3 candidates. Kate
Forbes, Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan.
Enough has been written about Kate Forbes. She is by
far the brightest and most dangerous opponent. I hope she loses, therefore. She
will. Despite remaining popular with the public, she cannot possibly become
First Minister as some SNP MSPs would not vote for her. She is essentially a
Christian fundamentalist whose views are to the right of most Scottish
Conservatives. But the vast majority of SNP MSPs are left wing progressives. We
can assume that Forbes will not win (good) and if she has any sense will not
remain an MSP for long.
I first heard of Ash Regan when she opposed the Gender
Recognition Bill and resigned as Community Safety Minister (whatever that is)
because of her opposition. This required both courage and good sense. What SNP
progressives including Sturgeon don’t get is that allowing people with male
bodies into women’s spaces is hugely unpopular with most voters. The common-sense
view that men cannot become women is held almost universally outside
universities and Holyrood.
Ditching some of Sturgeon’s progressive policies might
increase support for the SNP, but again how could Regan lead a party where vast
numbers of MPs and MSPs think that she is a TERF transphobe?
But while Regan has a common-sense view about transgender,
she has an ultra-fundamentalist view on Scottish independence. I’m not sure if
they came up with it independently or if they shared notes, but Regan’s view is
that put forward by the site Wings over Scotland.
I know that lots of Pro UK people think that Wings is
a charlatan, but I read him more than any other Scottish nationalist
commentator. He is by far the best informed both about the inner workings of
the SNP and Alba. He is obviously in close contact with insiders.
The Wings scheme goes something like this. Every Holyrood
election and General Election becomes a vote on Scottish independence. If independence
supporting parties ever get 50% plus one vote, they will begin negotiations on
separation from the UK. Regan endorses this.
There are a number of problems with this, but perhaps
the biggest can be illustrated with an example. After losing an authorised,
legal referendum in September 2014, in May 2015 the SNP won fractionally less
than 50% and the Scottish Greens won 1.3%. This means that independence parties
won just over 51%. So according to Wing/Regan they should have immediately
begun negotiations on independence less than a year after decisively losing a referendum
on that very question. Sorry, that is preposterous.
The UK Government has no moral, legal or democratic
duty to respond to First Minister Regan after winning such a vote by
negotiating with her. The only legal route to independence is a legal
referendum agreed by Westminster. The Wings/Regan scheme amounts to UDI without
negotiations and without being recognised either by the former UK or the
international community.
The idea that the UN or the EU is going to come riding
to the rescue of the Scottish homesteaders in their circle of wagons is to ignore
that each permanent member of the UN Security Council is in favour of the territorial
integrity of the state and the EU did not come to the rescue of Catalonia not least
because it does not want to encourage secession movements within its members.
Regan could indeed declare UDI. She needs a simple
majority in Holyrood. I don’t think the UK would do anything to stop her. But it
would mean an immediate loss of Treasury funds and the new Scottish Government
being unable to borrow with perhaps a financial crisis along the lines of Sri
Lanka.
Regan is a Scottish nationalist fundamentalist whose
idea of how to achieve independence is not merely mad it is dangerous. Which
leaves us with Humza Yousaf.
Mr Yousaf has a lot of ministerial experience, but
things have not always gone to plan. While Transport Minister he was caught
driving without correct insurance cover. He made a mistake. It could have
happened to any of us, but it is reasonable to expect a transport minister to
do rather better.
While Justice Secretary Mr Yousaf introduced a Hate
Crime Bill, which he said would abolish the crime of blasphemy, but it did so
by really extending the crime to all religions. It also extended the concept of
a hate crime to what people might say in their own homes in private. So, if I said
something that Mr Yousaf might find hurtful in my kitchen, in theory he might
be able to prosecute me for a hate crime if the person I was talking to told
him about it.
The fundamental problem with the modern concept of
hate crime is that it depends on the perception of the supposed victim rather
than the truth. If someone reports me because they perceive my actions to have
been homophobic, my actions automatically are homophobic even if I didn’t even know
the person was gay.
We all have a duty to not attack others verbally or
physically because they are Muslim, gay, or trans, but free speech requires
that I can think and write what I please about these people. Otherwise, we get
the situation where Kate Forbes faces disciplinary action from her own party and
possibly a conviction from a law passed by her fellow candidate for committing
a hate crime.
Mr Yousaf has now moved onto Health Secretary. He
inherited a very difficult situation after Covid. But it is fair to say that
his work thus far in terms of outcomes has not seen an improvement in Scottish
healthcare. Rather it is considerably worse now than when he began.
I would very much like to see Mr Yousaf become First
Minister. I think he would do a poor job at that too. I also don’t think he
would be popular. He once harangued the Scottish Parliament about various jobs being
held by people who were white. But well over 90% of Scots are white, so why
should that be surprising. What’s more we are now in a situation where the leader
of Scottish Labour is of South Asian descent, the London Mayor too and the
Prime Minister. If Mr Yousaf becomes First Minister of Scotland, he can hardly
complain of unequal opportunities. The UK will have shown itself to be by far
the best place in Europe for people from ethnic minorities to reach the too top
in politics. I can’t think of any black or brown leaders anywhere else. Can you
Mr Yousaf?
There is for me a mystery at the heart of Mr Yousaf’s
candidacy. He is Scottish born in Scotland and has the right to support
whatever political principles he chooses, but why Scottish independence? I can
understand that Kate Forbes and Ash Regan were probably brought up to think of
themselves as Scottish and not British. Perhaps their parents told them about the
dream of Scottish independence.
But Mr Yousaf’s parents while choosing to come to
Scotland might equally well have chosen to go to Bradford or Birmingham. In the
latter case would Mr Yousaf have been an English nationalist or support the
secession of Yorkshire? If he had been born in Belfast, would he have joined
the DUP or instead chosen Sinn Féin? If he had been born in South Carolina in a
previous generation, would he have been a Confederate?
Why does Mr Yousaf think that he is Scottish and not
British and if he doesn’t think this why does he want to separate one group of
British people in Scotland from the rest?
The mystery at the heart of Mr Yousaf’s candidacy is
that the SNP is in essence a nativist almost universally white organisation, which
depends on appealing to a long ago past with the desire to restore what was lost
in 1707. Mr Yousaf has a perfect right to lead such an independence movement.
But why would he want to? It’s like Frederick Douglass leading the Confederacy.
But I will cheer on Mr Yousaf as he leads the charge
on the third day at Gettysburg. Frankly I hope he does become First Minister.