SNP leadership campaign

[RoyalCorgi]

I thought it would be fun for the leadership campaign to have its own thread.

According to Wikipedia, the timetable for the election is:

"Nominations opened on 16 February, and will close on 24 February. Those nominated will then be put forward as options in a ballot of party members, which will open on 13 March, and close at noon on 27 March, with the result announced on the same day by the SNP's national secretary, Lorna Finn."

So quite a short campaign. I don't completely understand how the voting works - it's not first past the post, but a "type of single transferable vote", according to Wiki, which is clear as mud.

Kate Forbes seems to have lost some key supporters by saying she was opposed to same-sex marriage, which perhaps means some of them will transfer to Ash Regan. The only other candidate is our old chum Humza Yousaf, author of one of the most deranged and authoritarian pieces of legislation, the Hate Crime and Public OrderAct, to pass through a UK legislative body in the past 100 years.

Those of you in Scotland, how do you see this playing out?

I read that Humza Yousaf made himself 'unavailable' or otherwise committed on the day of the vote on gay marriage, which was convenient. At least the others are being true to their principles. As Justin Webb said to him on The today programme a few days ago " so you put politics ahead of your faith".

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-many-missteps-of-humza-yousaf/

The Scotsman has reported Forbes attended a virtual Cabinet meeting on 18 January chaired by Sturgeon where those present discussed the Bill and approved both the exact text of the legislation, bar some technical amendments, which would enter Parliament later that year.

This included provisions for a system of self-identification and for the ability to legally change gender to be extended to 16 and 17-year-olds.

Ms Forbes, who was in attendance, did not object to the Bill, but did speak about the general controversy around the legislation.

Was in The Scotsman on 21/2 but behind a pay wall.

Ms Forbes could easily have logged in and voted against the Bill if she felt as strongly opposed as she now apparently does. She seems to be piggy backing on to the work done by, well everyone who spoke against it in general and Alastair Jack, Kemi Badenoch and Rishi Sunak in particular as they did the work to make it constitutionally dead in the water safe in the knowledge the public doesn't support it either.

Beautifully succinct!
Yes. Me too.

Forbes appears to have kept her objections to the GRR Bill remarkably quiet until the dust against it had settled. She attended a Cabinet meeting where it was discussed and approved, and raised no objection.

I meant this!
Though 'I agree' works too 😂

Honest?

Why didn't Forbes resign as a minister after the Cabinet meeting on 18th January 2022 when the gist of GRR Bill, including self ID and the provisions relating to 16 year old, with which she apparently no longer agrees, were discussed and approved?

Exact text of the bill approved on 18th January? Remind me when the consultation closed? When did Forwomen Scotland finally force them to meet them as promised in their manifesto? Yet more evidence that the ‘consultation’ wasn’t.

The Bill was introduced in March 2022

www.parliament.scot/bills-and-laws/bills/gender-recognition-reform-scotland-bill/introduced

From the first draft it contained the provisions relating to self ID, 3 months waiting time and application to 16 year olds, which Forbes apparently now disagrees with.

Forbes had a ministerial post since February 2020 and only went on maternity leave in July 2022. Under the SNP's rules of collective responsibility Forbes approved the Bill for the whole time she was at Holyrood during Stage 1 progress.

You know that the SNP require zero dissent in their party right?

You don't think it took a huge amount of courage for Kate to raise her voice and say she disagreed? That perhaps it took months to build up that courage?

Boo boo.

Her conscience is apparently forcing her to speak out now - when it's safe to do so but her conscience kept quiet until it was safe to do so.

I appreciate Joanna Cherry is Westminster but she had the guts to speak out long before Forbes' conscience started troubling her.

Did she "raise her voice"? She responded to events and questions but during the passage of the Bill was there a prep from her?

She was on maternity leave - that doesn't mean she can't still take an interest.

All 3 of them are awful.

Yousaf's useless but his uselessness, awfulness and lack of self- awareness is at least transparent.

Regan seemed vaguely sensible until she started speaking at any length.

Forbes is as much a self- serving hypocrite as Yousaf.

Ash Regan didn’t resign until the final stage either. I was unimpressed that Kate used her maternity leave not to vote against it. But to some extent that is politics. Bit like John Major having his wisdom teeth out as Thatcher was stabbed in the back by her party. The current choice is just Forbes, Regan or Yousaf and currently I prefer Forbes now that Regan has shown her separatist fanaticism and her hypocrisy over education.

I'm not as familiar with the ins and outs of Scottish politics as most here...but do you think that if elected as leader Kate Forbes would get behind the revival of the GRR as a way of appeasing her party?

Don't know.

I would rather prefer that Forbes as First Minister of the country did something for the good of Scotland, including those who don't vote SNP, rather than for the good of the SNP.

I am unfortunately related (fortunately only by marriage) to an SNP MSP, from what she has said in the past I'm sure she doesn't support reform but she's clearly been told to.

Slater and Harvie have indicated that they will do a footstamping withdrawal from the power sharing agreement if 1) their preferred candidate (Yousaf) doesn't get the FM position and 2) if the SG doesn't push ahead with the GRR Bill as is, with no amendments, which is going to lead to an embarrassing court case regarding section 35.

So the SNP (and the elected FM) have a choice - defer to the Scottish Greens and keep a majority coalition government or tell the Greens to fuck off and govern as a minority government.

As the Greens are in positions of power and influence despite getting an infinitesimal share of the vote in the election and, frankly, being pure shite, I sincerely hope they get told to get tae.

Here's a wee laugh for you featuring the feral potato himself -

And as the SNP must realise that their unhinged pushing for the GRR has severely damaged their reputation, votes and general public opinion, they'd be absolute fools to push ahead with it, even on a 'Westminister baaaad' type of challenging on the invoking of the Section 35.

They will lose the s35 challenge. I wonder if the whole point was to stoke up anti Westminster feeling " see those Tories, thwarting the will of the people of Scotland" - that's why we need independence.

Unfortunately for the SNP many of the people of Scotland are happy for Westminster to put the brakes on this. And will not appreciate more time, money and civil service time being wasted on another legal battle which will fail.

As the Greens are in positions of power and influence despite getting an infinitesimal share of the vote in the election and, frankly, being pure shite,

Lorna Slater was appointed as a junior minister in the Scottish Government as Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity.

1,727 people voted for Lorna Slater.
She was last out of 5 in the constituency vote.

Patrick Harvey is Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants' Rights.

3,251 people voted for Patrick Harvey.
He was 4th out of 5 in the constituency vote.

I'm not Scottish so I should keep my nose out but this seems to be a case of "If God had meant us to have a leader he would have given us a candidate".

That quote is crazy. If you parse that out, she is saying the personal view of the FM need to be those of the majority of people - and presumably you either have other opinions left out in the cold, or you somehow ensure everyone has the same opinion.

There is zero understanding there about what democracy or pluralism really means.

Whilst Regans plan for the election to be a referendum might be popular with the party, I am not convinced it will be popular with the voters.

Humza is the choice for those who want to stay in the UK.

Forbes I think will never get a chance.

I do think no matter what, its the end of the SNP as a political force for a while.

Having said that - I do think many voters will support Forbes because they aren't actually comfortable about how progressive the SNP seem to be (or pretend to be).

The danger is that the SNP Members vote for Regan's UDI hard talk and thereby a constitutional crisis is caused simply by her being elected; and it ends up with Holyrood being suspended. How can anyone or any business invest in Scotland with the threat of a First Minister not willing to abide by UK Law?
Useless will continue the 'gender identity ideology' nonsense even though that is what ultimately brought Sturgeon down.
This makes Forbes the least bad of the 3 (it's a low bar) as despite being very socially conservative, she is not trying to change the prevailing status quo on these issues (gay marriage, abortion etc), just being more honest about her actual real beliefs.

The SNP seem keen to tell everyone that Scotland is a" socially progressive" country and therefore the leader's views must chime with the majority view; except, of course, when it comes to Gender Self ID.

When confronted with this inconsistency ( the fact that 2/3rd, at least, do not support Slef ID) Humza said " When you are enacting socially progressive policies you often have to counter a lot of opposition" or words to that effect.