ANDREW LIDDLE: Humza Yousaf may have Dundee option in 2026 – but he could have fight on his hands

The process of selecting the SNP’s candidates for the 2026 Scottish Parliament election was always going to be amusing.

Dozens of recently unemployed MPs – coupled with a diminishing number of winnable seats – offered the tantalizing prospect of intrigue and incompetence that only the nationalists can deliver.

And yet the early signs suggest the SNP’s candidate selection may muster even more entertainment than first expected.

Take vetting. This, as you will know, is the process by which political parties determine whether an individual is a suitable person to represent them as a candidate.

As a process, it is designed to filter out the dodgy and the delinquent before they get on the ballot, and to avoid the party being brought into disrepute.

It was something of a surprise, therefore, to see not only that former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had put herself forward for vetting with a view to running again in 2026, but that many in the SNP apparently see no issue with this.

There have, of course, been some notable issues with vetting in the past, and every party at every election ends up with some bad apples in the basket.

But it is fair to suggest that being under police investigation for allegedly defrauding the very party you are hoping to represent should – just possibly – be a precluding factor [Nicola Sturgeon was arrested last June and released without charge, and denies any wrongdoing].

Humza Yousaf Dundee option

Not that the SNP’s system seems particularly robust in other cases, either.

The candidacy of Michael Matheson – who tried to charge taxpayers £11,000 for a phone bill run up by his family streaming football matches while on holiday in Morocco – also, apparently, yields little cause for concern.

Meanwhile, a string of SNP ministers currently under scrutiny for their use of chauffeur-driven government cars to attend football matches, seem equally to have nothing to worry about.

Such a vetting process would, it is fair to say, make Robert Maxwell blush.

Sturgeon is, of course, not the only former first minister contemplating continuing life on the backbenches; erstwhile nationalist leader Humza Yousaf is also putting himself forward for re-election, but the question here is not one of vetting, but of where he will stand.

Yousaf notionally represents Glasgow Pollock but lives in Broughty Ferry, therefore almost certainly spending more time in Dundee than the SNP politicians elected to represent the City of Discovery.

Taking over from his former deputy, Shona Robison, might be an option if she chooses to make way.

But with the newly-elected MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, Stephen Gethins, already growing weary of Westminster and seeking selection for a Holyrood seat, Yousaf may have a fight on his hands.

Which brings us to the biggest story of the selection so far: the three recently elected SNP MPs who are, just months into the job, already seeking election to another parliament.

Stephen Flynn controversy

The highest profile case is that of Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Dundee-born Westminster leader, who will seek the nomination for the Holyrood constituency of Aberdeen South.

To long-time observers of Scottish politics this decision, at least, is no surprise. But that does not mean it is without its own hypocrisy or, indeed, hilarity.

Ahead of the Scottish Parliament election in 2021, the SNP had ruled that sitting MPs could not seek selection for Holyrood without first resigning their Westminster seat.

Rather conveniently for Flynn, however, it seems the rule has now been scrapped or was just – in Flynn’s own words – “election-specific”.

Not that the controversy ends there.

The nationalists had previously derided Douglas Ross for holding a dual mandate at Holyrood and Westminster – the very same thing these three SNP MPs now hope to do.

One SNP MSP said at the time that the then Scottish Conservative leader was “failing” his constituents by “thinking he can do both jobs properly”.

Certainly, such arguments seem to die hard, with another SNP MSP, Emma Roddick, now demanding Flynn “rethinks” his decision to stand for the Scottish Parliament on the basis it is impossible to deliver a dual mandate – apparently forgetting she herself continued to serve as a councillor after her election to Holyrood in 2021.

‘Serious point’

Amid such insincerity, we can, at least, spare a thought for the sitting SNP MSP for Aberdeen South, Audrey Nicoll, who far from worrying about dual mandates will – should Flynn succeed in his ambition to unseat her – be left with no mandate at all.

But there is also a serious point to be made here.

Flynn is considered a rising star among nationalists, and has not kept his ambitions to lead his party carefully concealed.

If he has decided to run for Holyrood, it is because he believes the nationalists will lose the Holyrood election, and that John Swinney will lose the SNP leadership with them.

Judging by the state of the SNP’s selection contest so far, that seems an entirely reasonable assumption.