Just a few years ago, if you had asked the average SNP member who they would want to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader and First Minister, there’s a good chance they would have said ‘Humza Yousaf’.
Now you can bet that many will be happy to see the back of him, following his decision last week to kick the Greens out of the Scottish government, which blew the legs out from under his own administration.
Golden boy tarnished
Raised into important posts at the transport, justice, and health ministries from early in his political career, Yousaf was practically the golden boy of the Sturgeon leadership clique.
Educated in a private school, and selected as an up-and-coming political aide for a US State Department ‘leadership’ programme, before being elected to Holyrood, Scotland’s devolved parliament: Yousaf was destined to join the liberal aristocracy that has dominated Scottish nationalism and the SNP for over twenty years.
While serving in government, all manner of issues were pinned on Yousaf by Holyrood’s opposition parties: the permanent problems at ScotRail; the ferry shambles at Ferguson Marine; controversy over hate speech laws and policing; and the degradation of NHS services.
His competence as a government minister was constantly questioned, earning him the fitting nickname ‘Humza Useless’.
Nonetheless, Yousaf won last year’s leadership election as the anointed continuity candidate for Nicola Sturgeon. Narrowly beating his rivals, he promised to stay the course and copy the style of his predecessor.
Yousaf’s time as First Minister has been nothing less than a disaster, however. Anyone who thought that – as Sturgeon’s successor – he would ride the crest of SNP popularity can now see that quite the opposite is true.
Instead, Yousaf took the reins just as the tide had started to go out for the SNP, leaving his government and party stuck in the sand.
Breaking down
For over a decade in government, the SNP was able to dominate Scottish politics through unifying appeals to the independence cause, backed up by ‘social justice’ rhetoric and a few piecemeal reforms. But now this winning political formula has decisively broken down.
With capitalism in crisis everywhere, the Scottish government has nothing to offer but austerity and more austerity. Huge cuts to health and education have already taken place – cancelling vital NHS refurbishment projects, lengthening waiting lists, cutting teacher numbers, collapsing standards in schools, and so on.
Nor can the Scottish government even inspire much hope for the independence cause any longer.
Since their inevitable defeat at the UK Supreme Court in 2022, the SNP has offered the movement absolutely nothing but stale hypothetical policies, outlining what Scotland would supposedly do once it – somehow, sometime – gains independence.
Even these wishlists amount to little more than scraps for the working class, with far more effort put into appealing for the Scottish capitalists to be allowed into the imperialist gangs of the EU and NATO.
Wheels fall off
The contradiction between the SNP’s claims, its supposed priorities and values, and the reality facing the working class is starker than ever.
The dropping of targets to reduce child poverty, reduce educational inequality, reduce carbon emissions, and so on, are all confirmation that the SNP – with their talk about ‘ambition’, ‘fairness’, and ‘delivering for Scotland’ – are nothing more than a cynical Holyrood caste.
This was already becoming apparent in the final years of Sturgeon’s leadership.
Nicola Sturgeon was lucky to lead her party at a time when it had the wind in its sails. On this basis, she built up a strong personal popularity and authority, which in turn helped to sustain the SNP regime for a period, even as problems began to mount.
But having led the independence movement down a dead end, and with cuts and austerity on the agenda, the wheels started to come off for the SNP towards the end of Sturgeon’s tenure. And seeing the looming cliff-edge ahead, the ill-fated Yousaf was handed the impossible task of steering Scotland’s ruling party to safety.
Thus we have the longest-serving First Minister followed up by the second-shortest.
Political division
All eyes are now on who will be picking up the pieces as the next SNP leader and First Minister. John Swinney and Kate Forbes have already emerged as potential frontrunners, signalling yet another fractious leadership election.
Forbes infamously exposed the political divisions in the SNP with her previous bid for leader, last year.
Standing on her conservative Christian beliefs, opposed to LGBT rights and abortion, Forbes adopts a semi-populist stance, portraying the Scottish government as out of touch with rural communities.
She is practically the de-facto head of the SNP right wing that pressured Yousaf to break off the party’s alliance with the Greens. And she has been prominent in pushing for more ‘business-friendly’ policies.
Old guard
Swinney, by contrast, represents the ‘centre’ of the party, offering more continuity.
Having formerly been leader in the early 2000s, and serving for a long time as a ‘fixer’ in the Scottish government, Forbes’ supporters are already describing Swinney as part of the ‘old guard’.
Yousaf was supposed to represent a new generation of leaders taking over from the likes of Swinney, who had announced his retirement from politics not long after Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation.
Rather than seeing any fresh faces at the top, however, the SNP looks set for a deepening split between its liberal and conservative wings. Meanwhile, the party continues to haemorrhage much of its mass membership.
Stinking system
This represents yet another serious turn in the situation. Any points of stability and consistency that the SNP-led government could grasp onto over the last decade have long gone.
Instead, the picture in Scotland now bears a greater resemblance to that across the rest of the UK. And the SNP is starting to look just like every other establishment party in Britain: splintered, sullied, and scandal-ridden.
All these capitalist parties and politicians are being exposed for what they really are, and for the part they play in punishing the working class, while rewarding the rich.
Class consciousness is growing, and with it a desire for a political force that can sweep away this entire stinking system.
This force can only be the organised working class – united around a revolutionary, class programme that aims to overthrow capitalism and the elites who uphold it, across Britain and internationally.
It is for this purpose that we are founding the Revolutionary Communist Party this May Day weekend.
