And irony, as a major factor that tipped the vote in the 2014 referendum was the threat that Scotland would lose EU membership if it voted for independence.

When the UK was an EU member, a mechanism was put in place (belatedly) that set out the process for any member state to leave.

Today's judgment decided that no such mechanism was put in place in 1707, when a band of corrupt politicians decided for the people of Scotland that they would enter a "union" with England. Indeed, the Scottish government is not even empowered to hold a consultative referendum on its voters' wishes. Westminster rules.

This leaves little legal alternative now except to make the next general election a plebiscite on the question of Scotland leaving or remaining in this unequal "union".

Various unionist politicians now have to live with their declarations from the past that Scotland does have the right to decide its own future if that's what its people vote for.

Seeing as Nicola Sturgeon is stepping down

I've no idea who will take over as party leader. There's some strength in depth, but Sturgeon's charisma will be a hard act to follow. Among the likely contenders, differences are more likely to emerge around strategy than broad ideology.

There'll also have to be a new nomination and election process within the Scottish Parliament to see who'll take over as First Minister. In theory, one would become the other and the new party leader will most likely be an MSP, not an MP, but I'm not taking any bets at the moment.

Any candidate for party leader needs nominations from at least 100 members from at least 20 different SNP local branches over a timescale yet to be announced.

As for the unionists who are gloating today, I'd just warn them to be careful what they wish for!

This poll came out yesterday.

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Last edited Thu Feb 16, 2023, 07:17 AM - Edit history (2)

Name recognition matters with such an open question. I think the percentage of don't knows reflects that and the attention span of the Scottish media and its obsession with Sturgeon, let alone the UK media's, and the lack of public profile of some of those named, let alone the fact that nobody has thrown their hat in the ring yet.

As a party member who pays a fair bit of attention to Holyrood, I know the main figures ranked, though I've had to remind myself who McAllan and Gray are.

Kate Forbes is impressive. She stepped into the gap at Finance and Economy at very short notice when the previous ofiecebearer stood down suddenly in disgrace, and mastered her brief more or less overnight. She speaks well and is extremely smart, but I don't know how broad her appeal would be. She's not long married and has a very young child, so I don't know whether she'd be open to the idea of taking on such a demanding post as FM at this stage in her life. Her constituency's around Skye, so unless she decamped her family nearer Edinburgh, there'd be a lot of travel involved on a weekly basis.

Swinney would no doubt be a safe pair of hands. Normally mild-mannnered, he can rouse quite an impressive degree of righteous passion and fire when goaded by the Tories. He's the current Deputy First Minister, and led the party from 2000 to 2004, though not to any great effect in the political environment of the time.

Angus Robertson was leader of the SNP's Westminster party until 2017, when he lost his seat, and deputy leader of the SNP from 2016 to 2018, later winning a seat at Holyrood in the 2021 election. I have a lot of time for him for various reasons, but I don't know how inspiring a First Minister he'd be.

Keith Brown has been around the leadership circles for some years. Though competent, I wouldn't say he's charismatic. Neil Gray's inclusion surprises me a little, as he's not exactly been high-profile during his terms at both Westminster and Holyrood.

Màiri McAllan (it might have helped if the pollsters had spelt her name correctly) is another quite dynamic youngish woman (aged 30, compared to Forbes at 32) who comes across well in televised debates etc., but I've not seen anything of her so far that makes me think "leader".

The inclusion of Westminster MPs like Stephen Flynn seems surprising as the general assumption is that the party leader should be an MSP. He's made a solid start as Westminster leader, but it's too early to say what impression he'll make on the wider electorate in Scotland.

I've seen other names bandied about online, like Mhairi Black, now deputy leader at Westminster under Flynn, but I think that is more a question of name recognition and admiration for her plain-speaking style. Personally, I think she wouldn't be a good fit for SNP leader and wouldn't thrive within the confines of the role.

So it's all going to come down to the hustings and what sort of slate of candidates we end up with. There are a number of other MSPs who could conceivably work well in the role, but the question the party needs to ask itself is what sort of leader it wants at this stage. I'd probably be more open to another female leader than a male one because that dynamic seems to throw the opposition off its step, but it would obviously depend on who the woman was.

I guess there's also a question about whether the party leader should also be the SNP's leader at Holyrood. I don't think there's any constitutional reason why they have to be the same person (the post of First Minister is directly elected by all sitting MSPs), and the posts of deputy SNP leader and Deputy First Minister have been held by separate people in the past. There might be some merit in splitting the roles if a referendum campaign is in the offing.

Has centred on Kate Forbes religion. Which is exasperating to say the least.

Even if I do wonder if five point Calvinism is compatible with modern progressive politics even before taking abortion and gay marriage issues into account. But then I'm not a Calvinist, so what do I know?

That's the Free Church of Scotland, as close as we get to fundamentalism in our indigenous sects.

Years ago, my wife and I rented a caravan on a tiny farmstead for a week just north of Ullapool. Ina, our landlady, was a notorious Wee Freer whose renown spread along the substantial north-south glen where we were based.

In a casual conversation with someone quite far afield, when the subject of where we were staying cropped up, the guy knew Ina of old.

"Does she still put a bucket over the rooster on the Sabbath?", he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

I don't think Forbes has shown much political nous in what she's revealed about her personal beliefs at this stage of her campaign, given the predictable slavering fixation of the media and various gainsayers, much as I have to admire her honesty. Her outlook is quite traditional and old-fashioned on sexual politics, and it's going to jar no matter how much she maintains that her beliefs are not something she would impose on others if elected.

It jars more because the SNP has grown into a very liberal party on such matters, to some disgruntlement from some of its more traditional supporters, not least those who peeled off to join Alba, who're capitalizing on the current disarray as much as any hardline rabid Unionists and the media are. The Scottish Greens are extremely hot on such matters, so if she did get elected, she'd have to do some pretty flash and fast talking to keep them onboard in the current confidence and supply agreement. If elected, that could be the first major test of her leadership.

She remains impressive, and if not for these considerations, I'd say she would be the best candidate. But, as they say, if my auntie had ...

Humza Yousuf is seen as the continuity candidate, which isn't necessarily as positive in some quarters as it might at first sound, but has faced similar questions of his own on sexual politics because he's Muslim, albeit a decidedly secular one who's got a decent track record on these issues. I've nothing much against him, but I'm not clear how safe a pair of hands he might prove. Having said that, he's gained ringing endorsements from SNP politicians I admire and respect, like MP Tommy Sheppard. Overt racism has already reared its head on social media, and while I don't want to shy away from defending him on such ground, it would quickly get extremely tiresome and distracting if he were elected.

The other qualified contender, Ash Regan, hasn't impressed me so far. She reminds me of some of the more polished Labour apparatchiks of the Blair years, which is unfortunate for her. She's very forthright, but at the same time curiously unhelpfully evasive in some of her interviews I've seen so far.

She shows signs of being a covert Alba holdout, despite her claims to want to bring the various independence factions together, not just because she wants to go hell-for-leather for a referendum, or from what I heard from her tonight, a series of Holyrood and Westminster elections that she'd seek to make plebiscites on independence, which I can't see working out well as a Plan A, but also having stood down very abruptly as a Holyrood minister during the passing of the contested Gender Reassignment Act legislation, which she opposed. She's also brought on board a strategist who served under both Salmond and Sturgeon, but who stood as an Alba candidate in the last election and is on record as bitterly attacking Sturgeon for supposedly trying to frame Salmond in the run-up to Salmond's multiple sexual abuse court case (where he was acquitted of all charges, I should add, though what he did admit to was utterly disgraceful to any right-minded person). The media have already begun capitalizing on that. Her statements about the oil industry and addressing climate change have also run counter to Scottish government policy so far.

I can't say I'm impressed with the very short timescale set for nominations (all three I've mentioned have now met the threshold to proceed to the hustings), nor the range of candidates that has resulted, which doesn't reflect the strengths in depth I know the SNP has. So they'll have to battle it all out, and the media are likely to have a field day. No single candidate is ever going to replicate Sturgeon's various types of broad appeal and strengths, and it's pointless looking for all of those in a single successor.

It's worth remembering that, a few scandals notwithstanding, the SNP hasn't had to endure open schisms on this scale for quite a number of years, while Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have been through various extended debacles and splits over the Sturgeon years, and they're all still standing on the whole, albeit with chips of various sorts in their paintwork and worrying stresses in their undercarriages.

Any predictions that Sturgeon standing down means the end of the SNP, let alone the wider independence movement, misread the situation, but journalists are going to journalist and opportunists are going to opportunize, so the clamour over the next month or so is likely to be exhausting and deeply, deeply stupid.

I may hibernate for the duration.

But as you allude to, the media may have a whale of a time if they ask her about Sunday trading. Wee Frees are very big on keeping the Sabbath.

People do forget about the Scottish reformation, which is a shame because whilst the teachings of John Knox may be a very bitter pill indeed for the modern mind to swallow, they had a huge impact on Scottish history and that shouldn't be forgotten.

I should probably also examine my own prejudices and attitudes to that minority but significant religion, but wry fun-poking at it is part of wider Scottish culture, from Whisky Galore, to guys like the old Highlander my wife and I talked to, to old jokes like the kirk minister's apocryphal insistence, "Can't have sex, it might lead to dancing!"

While up north of Ullapool (this would be about 20 years ago), we found that the land in certain glens had been feued by the Church, so Sabbath observance was part of the law of the land in some respects, including opening hours and fishing permits. I wanted to flyfish on a Sunday. I didn't want to offend anyone or risk bother, and I could have done without it for a day, for sure, but we didn't have much time up there, so asking around, we discovered a restaurant/pub in the next parallel glen that wasn't on Church land, and was open on Sunday and allowed fishing on its nextdoor loch.

Then there's the old Emo Philips shaggy dog tale (not set in Scotland, but that might have been its origin):

....is how long can Humza Yousaf hold on for now that the alliance with the Green Party has collapsed.

And who would be the next leader if he is pushed out at Holyrood? The only 2 names I've seen bandied about are Kate Forbes and Ash Regan. And both may struggle under current circumstances.

After my initial guarded uncertainty when I voted for him, I'm actually pretty impressed with his performance, not that the media would give that impression.

The Scottish Green Party has run out of road as far as I'm concerned. See here for the history and rationale for abandoning the unrealistic and impossible 2030 CO2 target that triggered this crisis: https://www.democraticunderground.com/108822833

The Green leadership must certainly be aware of these considerations. Maybe some of their constituency who've been very vocal in their condemnations aren't so au fait, but if so, I'd lay responsibility for that at their leadership's feet. In their time as ministers, they've been near invisible in selling publicly the Green-championed measures the government has gone ahead with and taken massive amounts of flak for. I started out moderately enthusiastic at the prospect of giving them a chance at participating in power. In the end, I've not been at all impressed, particularly in the last week or so.

The Greens were on the verge of voting on whether to continue with the Bute House Agreement anyway. Yousaf pre-empted them by shortening the agony. In view of that, their anger and vociferous spouting about betrayal rings totally hollow.

If things pan out with Yousaf resigning, Ash Regan doesn't have a chance in hell of getting the leadership - not insignificantly, she'd have to re-turn her coat after becoming an Alba MSP. Even if she hadn't done that, I don't think she'd improve on her poor distant third performance last time.

If Kate Forbes threw her hat in the ring, she might be in for a surprise, much as she's not short of self-confidence. She got my second vote last time mainly because I didn't want Regan sneaking in if the dice fell in a certain way. She has no chance whatsoever of getting any vote from me in a future leadership election. My misgivings about her tendency to be a loose cannon and display political naivety bordering on disloyalty have only been confirmed since the leadership election. She and the SNP would be mincemeat if she got in given the almost universally hostile media environment. She's also decidedly right-wing on social and some financial issues, and that doesn't reflect the wider SNP or my own views.

Who else might stand if there was another SNP leadership election is anybody's guess. There's enough talent for condidates to emerge who could do a good job, but as Yousaf's term has shown, it's a bloody difficult and thankless post.

I have a feeling Yousaf will hang on, but I've no idea how at the moment. It may be that in the end the Greens wake up and realize the likely electoral cost to them if they put the SNP out of power. They could whistle for many of the second votes from SNP supporters that gave them the PR list seats that make up their only representation at Holyrood.

Even if Yousaf doesn't survive a no confidence vote, there are more hoops to jump through before this debacle is over.

The SNP could call a premature election. All bets are off if that happens, but I'd be surprised if the Greens didn't pay a severe price for effectively bringing down the government.

The SNP could remain as a minority government as the largest single party by far in Holyrood, but the opposition and their allies in the media would no doubt kick up a lot of noise and dust if that happened.

Scottish Labour and the Tories are nowhere near being fit for government, with no serious big hitters and a lot of time-serving visionless opportunists even in their upper echelons, and that would soon become only too apparent even if they did manage to squeak together some sort of working majority between them at any stage.

In among all this, until this last week at least, the SNP's vote has held up tolerably in all but the most pessimistic polling, and support for independence has even coasted moderately higher.

All it needs now is for Sunak to call a general election, as the media rumour mill has been hinting might happen today, and it's going to be a fun late Spring!

Link to tweet

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been arrested in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the SNP.

Police confirmed a 52-year-old woman was taken into custody as a suspect and is being questioned by detectives. It follows the arrest and subsequent release of her husband, ex-SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, in April.

A spokeswoman for Ms Sturgeon confirmed she had attended a police interview by arrangement on Sunday.

The former SNP leader, who stood down in March, was then arrested and questioned by officers who have been investigating for the past two years what happened to more than £600,000 of donations given to the party by independence activists.

There have been calls from hypocritical opportunist Labour and Tory MSPs and Labour sole Scottish MP for her to resign as an MSP on the strength of this. Neither party has much to be proud of in terms of internal party fiscal responsibility and accountability! This is being treated by Police Scotland like some issue of grand embezzlement, whereas it's about party finances and accounting.

A few SNP MSPs have also called for Sturgeon to (at least temporarily) absent herself fom the party. They're mainly the usual suspects, including leadership election third-place loser Ash Regan who would fit better in the obscure Alba Party than the SNP. Yousaf is having none of it.