If it wasn’t for bad luck, Humza Yousaf would have no luck. After hobbling over the line in a brutal SNP leadership election, his tenure was instantly plunged into chaos by a police probe into the party’s finances. Raids on Nicola Sturgeon’s home and SNP HQ were followed by the arrests of Peter Murrell, Sturgeon’s husband and former party chief executive, and Colin Beattie, the now-resigned treasurer. Both men were released without charge.
Since then, Yousaf has been plagued by rumours of a leadership challenge from erstwhile rival Kate Forbes, faced a Westminster crackdown on using devolved institutions to promote independence, and was forced to U-turn on a pledge to join a separatist rally instead of attending the coronation.
Now a nightmare poll suggests he is unpopular with both SNP voters and the general public, and that the party is losing support among those in favour of independence. Before Sturgeon quit, three-quarters of independence supporters planned to vote SNP, a figure which is now below two-thirds. Yousaf’s net favourability (29 per cent) is the same as Rishi Sunak’s, while his net unfavourability (41 per cent) is just two points behind that of Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross.
The poll was commissioned by Scottish public affairs consultancy True North. Rather awkwardly, True North is headed up by Fergus Mutch, Sturgeon’s former chief spin doctor, and Geoff Aberdein, who was chief of staff to Alex Salmond. Appearing today on the Holyrood Sources podcast of which Aberdein is co-host, Professor Sir John Curtice gave a bracing assessment of Yousaf’s polling performance:
The SNP is losing the support of people who believe in independence. The truth is that we are looking at a situation where a political institution is in trouble, even though the cause for which it’s in favour isn’t in trouble… Whatever was Nicola Sturgeon’s intention in resigning as leader she has created a sequence of events whereby support for the SNP has gone down.
Sir John added:
In electing Humza Yousaf the SNP have created political difficulties for themselves. For good or ill Mr Yousaf is not popular not just within the wider Scottish public but the supporters. Only 45 per cent of 2019 SNP voters say they think favourably of him and this echoed what the opinion polls were saying during the course of the leadership contest itself.
If Kate Forbes is working to bring down Humza Yousaf, she’s not doing half as good a job as Humza Yousaf himself.
Source : Spectator
