Leadership elections are a risky business. Ideally, the candidates will set out to run a campaign that will speak to both their party and the wider country.
This becomes much harder if the party and the country are facing in different directions.
So far, the SNP’s leadership contest has been as appetising as a neep-based restaurant menu.
Lacking in any fresh vibrancy, the candidates have found themselves announcing highly nuanced variations of their own existing policies, like the deeply unpopular deposit return scheme.
In truth it doesn’t feel like the campaign has really started yet. And it won’t until one of the candidates begins to address the two fundamental questions facing the SNP and the wider Yes movement.
What does their vision of independence look like and why are they best person to build support for it?
For let’s not forget, the glue that binds the SNP as a political grouping drawn from across the traditional left right axis is the cause of independence for Scotland.
The person who leads the SNP is de facto the leader of that cause. And they embody, at first glance at least, what it looks like.
In the days of Alex Salmond, for me at least, that was an image of a buccaneering oil-rich independent Scotland that drew its worth and pride from land and sea.
During Nicola Sturgeon’s tenure, it was a progressive Scandi-inspired social democracy.
So what might it be for Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes or Ash Regan?
Forbes has been focus of SNP leadership questions
Distilled in a word, so far Kate Forbes wants to represent “competency”. Humza Yousaf “continuity”. Ash Regan “unity”.
Not one of these messages tell us much about who they are and what they represent.
For that we must look at past deeds and words, so let’s look at the track record of the front runner.
Kate Forbes would have voted against equal marriage if she’d been in Parliament when the law was passed and would do the same again tomorrow.
Such an important reflection: https://t.co/CQMsFgEcJ6
— Kezia Dugdale (@kezdugdale) February 21, 2023
She believes sex outwith marriage is sinful and children born from it are illegitimate.
She is anti-abortion.
Her religious beliefs have been well covered in this campaign. All I might add at this juncture is that so many of the voices calling for tolerance and respect come from the privilege of middle class white men whose rights are not current topics of live deliberation.
And they are live topics, even if Ms Forbes is clear she has no intention of changing the law.
Same sex marriage views open up other questions for SNP hopeful
For example, where you stand on same sex marriage leaves me pondering what you think about gay women’s access to fertility services on the NHS?
Do you think they are fit and proper people to be parents?
Will that be reflected in how you fund or organise adoption or fostering policies?
Where you stand on a women’s right to choose leaves me asking whether you think it’s ok for men to stand outside sexual health clinics with placards screaming murder and citing bible passages.
Should they be 10ft away? 100ft away?
Might we disagree on how much one must tolerate and respect?
If children born out of marriage are illegitimate, how much priority might you give to the welfare of lone parents?
SNP leadership contender Kate Forbes says she supports a “balanced” and “targeted” bill on abortion buffer zones pic.twitter.com/Y2usMy1Sda
— Paul Hutcheon (@paulhutcheon) February 20, 2023
Will child poverty policy be constructed around the nuclear family?
How will you support women into work if you’re taught to believe their place is in the home?
Is there more to Forbes than finance?
Perhaps less explored, are Kate Forbes’ views on economics.
She was a member of the SNP’s Growth Commission which accepted that spending on public services in Scotland would have to fall in an independent Scotland initially before the full benefits of independence would be realised.
As a member of the Scottish Government, she has only ever held the public purse strings, first as a junior and then senior finance minister.
We have never seen or heard her talk about her vision for the NHS, the Scottish schools system. Where does she stand on justice policy?
Based on what we know, an SNP led by Kate Forbes would be both economically and socially small c conservative.
So I take you back to the two fundamental questions facing the SNP: Is this the vision of independence existing Yes supporters want? And will it bring any new people to it?
Regan and Yousaf are due scrutiny too
As for Ash Regan, it’s difficult to see past the core campaign message of unity when the only one of your colleagues who publicly backed your candidacy at the point nominations closed is considered one of the most divisive members of your party.
And that leaves us with Humza Yousaf, for whom “continuity” is both a blessing and a curse depending on your outlook.
We know far more about where he stands on key issues because he’s served across a number of different government departments including Health, Justice and Transport.
The spotlight turned on him hones in on his record rather than his principles or ideology.
All of this tells us that this contest is one of critical importance to the future of the SNP and of Scotland more broadly.
We need and deserve every ounce of scrutiny possible, from letting journalists into the hustings to asking the deepest, most challenging questions.
Who are these people and what do they really believe in?
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