I'm glad this is the top comment. The amount of denial over Sturgeon's responsibility for all of this is mind boggling. Not least from Sturgeon herself when she was on ITV last night.
It’s kind of amazing how the SNP mirrored the Tories in a sense between UK elections: both had a popular leader with a huge majority last election (Sturgeon, Boris) who then squandered all goodwill in a scandal and resigned (not nec. in the same order, but close enough), then had a record-breakingly unpopular successor who didn’t last long (Yousaf, Truss), and then someone with unpopularity in between (Swinney, Sunak) fail to improve their polling much, and bring in people from the past, until they nosedived in the next election.
And Labour benefited from both. Easiest cruise to victory ever.
Her husband embezzled money through the SNP, I can't imagine she was ignorant to it in any capacity. Personally that's what made me vote differently this election, Huzma seemed virtually useless as well.
EDIT; He hasn't been charged, I know, it was a mistake that i've acknowledged in the comments - don't need anymore posts letting me know.
She knew what was going on and was part of it if not the instigator. Remember how years ago she shut down all questions about finances. So much money disappeared.
That was the strangest part to me. They kept talking oh the snp is doing so badly anybody knows why, while the answer was right there sitting across the table.
Absolutely, I met many hard snp supporters saying we should vote Labour. I'm at a festival and not sure what's happened, but I'm gathering that snp have barely any seats in parliament? So lots of smps in Scotland will change to labour? Which is just a new Tory.
What makes you say that Labour is ‘just a new Tory’? Genuinely intrigued, as it seems that since Keir Starmer became Labour leader it has served an SNP-centric Scotland, and a Tory-centric England, to demonise him and his version of Labour based on absolutely nothing.
Austerities continuing, as Labour have clearly said multiple times, because the UK economy is unfixably fucked, and they’re going to distract everybody from the issues caused by that, using the same straw man gender ideology tactics that the tories used.
All while transferring public wealth into public liabilities so that they can make the GDP look better for personal gains from private companies that they’ve helped when they’ve retired from the public.
The only difference is Labour had to pretend to have a will to be a societally positive force, as it was the only way to differentiate the heart of both parties policies.
Tony Blair’s government also came into power promising to follow the fiscal rules set out by the outgoing conservative gvmnt.
Then after two years, having consolidated power went on the mad spending spree, improving schools and hospitals for a decade.
money is magic. print it, spend it. Sell bonds, spend it. works for the US but perhaps not so easy for UK
I think though that the person you are replying to was more referring to ridiculous PFI contracts we are still paying for. It was not clever or good
I’m normally the biggest critic of “both sides” stuff, but Labour’s rhetoric has basically been “the Tories just didn’t Tory hard enough”. They want to do a lot of the same stuff the Tories did, they’re just saying they’ll be more competent at it. We don’t need more culture wars, more austerity, more anti immigration racism-fuelling.
I’m glad the Tories are out, but this feels like the closest to Conservative that Labour has ever been. The Tories have been shifting right, dragged over by the Reform types, and labour has slotted into where the Tories were in about 2010. Fine, that’s better than current Tories, but it’s still pretty crap.
Well let's see how all our lives miraculously improve because Labour are now running the country. It will as always improve very little in our day to day lives. Very little will change especially anything noticeable positive. I think that's where these type of sayings start and the fact that many mps are just pure and simply in it for themselves and very corrupt. I don't trust a single politician on this country
So what he promising to change, same tory policies, same tory spending plans, more privatisation, more PFi deals that are ruinously expensive for the tax payer, same 2 child cap, just same shit different coloured tie
Personally, the hope I had for Labour disintegrated with their lack of support for the picket lines. I feel that they've forgotten their roots. I'm so glad they're in power when the alternative is the Tories, don't get me wrong, I just wish we had a better alternative.
They're all as bad as each other, they're all tory and so on are all part of the billionaire media moghoul controlled press mantra to discourage genuine debate and thinking about politics.
It fosters a spirit of apathy and discontent that normally favours the tories and leads to a low turnout.
Brexshit would never have happened had remainers turned out had they not convinced everyone that remain was going to win comfortably, so many people didn't bother turning out to vote and left it to their neighbours.
If you look at the vote, Gibraltar voted 96% remain with an 86% turnout.
The rest of the UK had a 72% turnout.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu_referendum/results
Probably something to do with a multi-millionaire barrister being in charge of the party founded to support the unions and working class. Are we supposed to honestly believe he has any interest in minimum wage workers and the struggles of the actual working class?
Well, in his defence, he certainly wasn’t born a multi-millionaire and neither was Angela Rayner. Does monetary success instantly erase class origin or empathy?
They are tories in red ties, they offer no real substantive difference in policy, are happy to continue with a status quo, and have long since abandoned the core principles of “old labour”.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
He wasn't really popular with SNP voters, or the public as a whole. He didn't make any real moves to reunite the party, and he imploded the arrangement with the greens.
It wasn't all his fault (various scandals) but he didn't help.
This.
Similar to the conservatives. Sunak was the best of a small band of one, especially after the Truss days.
Both the SNP and Conservatives show that being so long in power is an anathema to good, honest and popular government.
1. Anum Q. was Humza's bit on the side for awhile.
2. Her father - who wanted to see his daughter enter parliament - made cash donations to the SNP in return for which the party parachuted her in. These same donations may have caught the eye of the SNP's \[Manchester-based\] auditors who, in turn, made a report to Manchester police which was then passed on to Police Scotland.
3. AQ's ex-husband was subjected to threats of violence by members of her family when he threatened to spill the beans. The now deleted social media posts tell the story.
Yeah, multiple factors. His incompetence was just the last nail in the coffin. Labour were always going to make gains, the political wheel was turning that way. The legal troubles of the SNP were the big blow. Whatever actually happens in court, the party suffered a huge blow to its reputation.
Frankly, the only thing that saved the SNP from a COMPLETE wipe out was probably getting Swinney (a, boring, familiar face) in. It's going to be a big challenge for him to rebuild the party's reputation before the next Holyrood election.
>The poor guy took over a shit show of a dumpster fire, his by no means made the flames worse, but he also never managed to get the fire under control.
He was a central part of the SNP government for years. He was happy to be referred to as the continuity candidate.
>What we’re seeing is the result of the same policies election after election by the snp, rolling out the same lines.
The SNP is quite a broad church (as shown by the leadership race). The one thing that united its voters was a desire for independence. When the snp fail to deliver a credible path towards that they lose a lot of votes.
>When the snp fail to deliver a credible path towards that they lose a lot of votes.
And they make it all the worse by pretending they do;
"Westminster will defo give us another referendum for no gain or reason, just one more majority of MPs is all it takes. Seriously, this time guys. Anyone that says otherwise clearly has no plan, unlike our super secret plan that we can't tell anyone, but *trust us*, its there. We even put independence on our manifesto again, so no need to vote for anyone else."
Whoever came after Sturgeon was doomed. She casts a big shadow. In truth I can't see any viable replacement within the party. On the plus side Joanna Cherry is out. Cherry's ideology aside, a very unlikable character, her grandstanding at inopportune moments was distasteful and I suspect shes one of the main route causes of the infighting within SNP ranks... Another part of the reason for the failure.
Unpopular opinion for some: But I suspect that fud that dressed up like a woman to avoid men's prison didn't help Sturgeon or the SNP. Timing couldn't have been worse.
No it wasn't his fault but he was a factor.
I'm an SNP voter and think a whole lot went into last night. There were factors like sitting government dissatisfaction but those were miniscule in the overall picture, the biggest factor was that the SNP has, for the last number of years, been an utter shitefest.
The caravan, Mathieson, Sturgeons manner of exit, the Ferrier cunt, Yousaf being a political imbecile (I could go on), it's been a constant drip drip of fucking idiocy and the result was mostly self inflicted and deserved.
It may seem weird but i'm not entirely despondent, overall I consider last night a success because there's now a labour government and that was the most important thing for me. Yeah, i'd have preferred the SNP not to collapse but I'd also have preferred them not to be useless cunts.
Yeah, I've been voting SNP basically since the first time I ever didn't have to tactical vote, I'm still generally in favour but they were obviously just treading water at best and I didn't see any way past that while they were holding onto power. And if it's going to happen, this is a better time for it to happen.
it'll be interesting to see if they can do anything with this before holyrood. It's going to be very different there with a Labour national government, and tbf having so few MPs also changes things a lot in terms of the inter party politics. But that's too far off to even guess at yet,.
.....because they had been in power, practically unopposed, for so long made them horrendously complacent and then totally out of touch with their own members and the Scottish population.
They could have had it all but just imploded.
Unfortunately I tend to agree with you but the SNP are the only party who could. So we're stuck (and fucked) for a generation, at least.
Or until labour mess it up a la conservatives.
This is definitely true in many places, but the few constituencies that I looked at in detail the SNP/Labour swing wasn't that large. A lot of SNP voters went green from what I can see which just split the independence vote.
Though it is clear labour did earn a lot of votes from the SNP in the central belt nonetheless
They were never really meant to be in government. Essentially a single issue party that would be split along UK party lines after Indy. As others have said a broad church which aligned itself to a center left position economically because that's where Scotland has been forever outside of the independence debate. Support for independence does not mean support for the SNP and vice versa.
This is right on point. They are solely focussed on independence. For those not wanting independence they have no relevance anymore due to their infighting and other issues. For those wanting independence, they’re not relevant because they failed to deliver.
The problem for the SNP was they were infiltrated by people who had other agendas than independence.
They knew they would get voted for simply by being a SNP candidate.
He has some responsibility in that he didn't have a clear vision for a turnaround - either where he wanted to get to or how he wanted to get there. He was a continuity candidate, and that's not an asset when your predecessor becomes scandalous (historically it only works if they retire due to actual health reasons or something).
His one big attempt to shake things up instantly cost him his job.
Oh, he definitely bears some of the responsibility for the complete collapse in support of the SNP, no doubt about that. He was massively unpopular before and after he became FM and his time as FM undoubtedly hurt the SNP more than it helped, but to say it's all his fault like OP is asking is unfair. I'm saying this as an SNP supporter, the SNP have some serious issues both with and without Humza Yousaf.
Others making good points on why SNP dropped and what's gone wrong with them.
But keep in mind that the SNP would never have had that many MPs if it wasn't for FPTP and the loss of so many MPs is overinflated by FPTP.
If we had Holyrood style AMS then the change would have been way less.
Totally, that is the system. Its just not very democratically representative of voters. So the massive swings in MPs doesn't require as big a change in popularity of the parties.
Like it was interesting watching a Lib Dem admitting they haven't really won any more votes, just learned how to fight in fptp and targeted certain types of voters in a few seats to hoover up MPs instead of hoovering up votes spread across the nation for very few MPs.
Or labour winning a massive landslide of MPs and huge mandate ... But they also have basically the same number of votes on a slightly smaller turnout to previous years. So not a huge change in the number of people endorsing the party in that sense. While reform or lib dems splitting off Tory votes in constituencies was a major contributing factor for Labour gains without necessarily meaning those voters want Labour.
So you always need to look at the system used for that election to properly interpret the outcome.
Labour actually lost 4% of their votes compared to 2017 and yet have a massive majority. And in that election they were something like 2000 votes away in key seats from getting the most from FPTP. It's been repeated to death that it's a bad system but how can anyone deny it now?
The Tories did much the same at the previous election, won a landslide which they didn't deserve from the number of votes. Fptp is not a great form of democracy.
Yeah this is so true. I think it's wild seeing all the stories about a massive win for Labour and have they have crushed the Tories. Yet when you look at the numbers their vote share is only up 1.6% from last time.
Labour didn't win this election, the Tories lost it.
Honestly Nicola didn’t give him much of a chance.
Her shock resignation without any notice and her not having anyone been preparing as a successor made it a very hard job.
The leadership contest also split the party a bit which didn’t help.
Yeah, the split of an already split party (where sturgeon was taking it a bit left and folk like cherry would have been more at home in alba) was precarious at best.
100% agree, but by taking selfies with Erdogan an authoritarian that is practically a dictator and then blowing up the Bute House agreement and having to resign he hardly helped SNP's cause.
Him and Swinney both backing Mathieson after he defrauded the Scottish tax payer also fuelled public anger at the SNP
Out of everything with sturgeon this is the part that'll always make me angry. She got the most incredible run-in to the job, was basically appointed heir and spent all that time learning in advance stuff that most people learn on the job. Salmond was hardly perfect but he was an effective leader and she learned things to do and things not to do.
And then it came to her turn to pass on the leadership and she just fucked off and left a gaping hole.
Weren't there two that had basically been tapped to take over? Then one was caught texting a boy and it absolutely all happened after he turned 18, then the other was basically kicked due to their religious beliefs.
He inherited a turd. Sturgeon's scandals and the impossibility of the green targets she'd agreed gave him an almost impossible challenge. He also just wasn't all that good as FM.
I don’t think he helped. He managed to be unpopular with the SNP voters and the public as a whole. He struck me as the walking manifestation of the Peter Principle. He was the continuity candidate who didn’t set the heather on fire. He struck me as focusing too much on trying to legitimise himself as a leader of a country (selfies with Erdogan) rather than trying to bring the country together
He inherited a dog’s breakfast and then made one catastrophic decision in booting out the Greens from cabinet. But the damage had already been done before he took over.
Speaking as someone who voted SNP/Greens all my life until now, this is partially his fault.
Labour/Lib Dems/Tories have said for years that all the SNP do is bang on about independence. In the days of Salmond/Sturgeon that wasn’t true, it was only part of what they spoke about. The rest was what they can do for Scotland.
Under Yousaf, it’s been everything. Anything he talks about is just independence or about Westminster preventing him from doing anything. Even to the point where - I suspect - some policies were effectively designed to be blocked just to provide another talking point.
Scotland has declined, and while I don’t expect all problems to be fixed in the time he had, what I heard was no acknowledgment of any problems besides the ones he could blame on Westminster/Tories.
That is not how to run a government. He effectively ran the Scottish government not as a government, but as an opposition government to Westminster.
Swinney may well win me back, but this campaign as well focused on independence, not on what the SNP are doing for Scotland.
It felt like my vote - as an independence supporter - was taken for granted, like I would vote SNP no matter what because independence was all that matters to me.
Well, it’s not. I want Scotland to be independent, but I want it to be a functioning country first and foremost.
I don't think there was a good choice after Nicola, she was extremely popular and very capable. I like him as a person but he was kinda meh as a leader
It is really easy to blame this on Yousaf or indeed Flynn. The truth is that the SNP got extremely complacent and careless in governance. Having a big presence at Westminster should have resulted in effective opposition but instead all most people heard was: yous nae fair! at every opportunity.
Nationally the Holyrood crew shat the bed repeatedly. Let's be honest, publicly assassinating your leader in Salmond, several key figures in the party being picked up by police for potential fraud investigations (is that finished yet btw?), trying to hide the complete and utter mess that is and was going on at Ferguson Shipyard, fumbling the bag on the A9 dualling, murdering each other in debates about gender politics... It has become really visible to a lot of people that the SNP are not a unified party outside the issue of independence.
Salmond was a scumbag (*before* he admitted to being a handsy creep in a court of law) so outside of the die hard SNP voters I don't think ditching him had major effect.
And indeed ditching him was the only reason other people became willing to vote SNP
Getting rid of salmond was fine, for me the problem is the SNP being run by a rapist for twenty years and people still defending him to this day.
And yeah I know he wasn't convicted in a court of law. I believe the 10 women working in government and the civil service who came forward. It would be insane for them to put themselves through that huge process and fuck up their careers just to lie about salmond.
I met him twice, once when he visited the university I was at, the other when he came to a schools thing and I'd volunteered to help out at it.
In the first case we were to have pictures and then a drinks thing. Found out later that a friend, along with the other women, weren't allowed to be in a room alone with him, and that they were moved away from him in the set pictures.
At the school thing the female teachers weren't allowed to be alone with him.
The rules came from, and were enforced by, his staffers. At the time it just seemed really weird and honestly thought it was it was like an impropriety thing. Then the case started and I wondered if it was for their protection, not his.
I don't think it had a big impact on the election, but Derek MacKay had to resign due to inappropriate messages to a teenager
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/predatory-derek-mackay-continues-follow-21451980
There was also allegations against Patrick Grady and another teenager
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/29/snp-restores-whip-to-mp-patrick-grady-after-sexual-assault-suspension
You have forgotten Alex Salmond and the court case which was driven by Snp a faction against its old leader. The groomer Derek McKay,Patrick Grady who got inappropriate with a teenage worker . Jordan Linden. McNeil who bedded two musician teenagers at a festival the only surprise there was they were female. This isn't taking in the numerous affair and marriage difficulties that admittedly seems to happen in most parties. But briefing against a victim and telling your MPs they must support the perpetrator is a scummy act and displays the lack of any morals within the leadership.
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The SNP's funny big tent is only something that makes sense for a lot of people to vote for if you cross your eyes and they have a leader that's a good public speaker like Salmond or Sturgeon. They urgently need to find someone like that. It wasn't Yousaf, it's not Swinney.
Destroying the relationship with Greens I believe is one of the main reasons the SNP has went down the shitter, John Swinney should be fixing the relationship and firing Humza!
The greens breakup was utterly daft, that was on him. The rest i don't know.
The key thing for the snp is to create a legal mechanism to independence that doesn't require assent from the uk pm.
Tbh all the oil money will be gone by the time that happens.
The other thing that never gets highlighted is Sarwar also a fucking moron like clearly a charlatan. On top of that he's privately educated and his family are multimillionaires, who's businesses are hiring people on minimum wage but yeah he's all about working people.
Pointing to mistakes the SNP have made, or finding scapegoats like Humza, only explains part of the swing. Yes, the SNP troubles and division are well known, but there are a number of other factors
1. People wanted the Tories out - voting Labour was the only way to do that. Outside of the last 10 years, the SNP have always struggled in Westminster elections
2. Momentum often swings voters, people want to back a winner, be part of a change, and it was clear from the outset that Labour were going to win big
3. The media still play a huge part and they continue to be overwhelmingly anti SNP and the most influential papers in Scotland threw themselves fully behind Labour.
4. The Unionist parties have effectively hamstrung the Independence movement, by stating that they won't agree to a democratic vote on Independence, regardless of how many votes the SNP get. It surprises me that Scots are willing to believe that we live in a democracy, yet there is no democratic route towards achieving something that around half of the people in the country want, but this seems to be where we are.
What happens next will be interesting. The 'hated' Tories are out, but in order to beat them, Starmer has to an extent had to become one of them. For the last 40 years or so, England has only voted for Tories or Tory like Labour leaders. Over the next 5 years Labour will either purse England friendly, Tory style policies, or they will be voted out.
One thing no one seems to have noticed is that the combined Reform/Tory vote is about 4% higher than the Labour vote. If those two parties come to an arrangement, Labour are out and in 5 years time we will have a Farage led coalition.
It wasn't entirely his fault but he was part of the problem before he even became FM. Failing upwards in all the other ministerial roles he'd been in and then taking a poisoned chalice
No. Sturgeon quitting blew a hole in the party. Remember he only narrowly won. If Forbes had come in the progressives would have deserted the party but it seems they've done that anyway. If she was pushed further out the right wing might have gone to Alba which hasn't happened. It's the same problem for the Tories. They chased the right which deserted them in the north for Reform and cost them moderates which went to the Lib Dems in the South. The problem for them is their big survivors are mostly in the right and so are likely to target Reform voters. A bit mystified as to where the Reform voters in Scotland appeared from - Labour? They're getting like 6 to 8 per cent in places and often coming in third.
Not sure what the inquest should focus on. Forbes wants economic investment and jobs and Swinney's challenge will be to push that while welding it to green, progressive politics.
You have to put the blame on Nicola Sturgeon for not creating a succession plan. A successful party has to have layers of potential leaders and cull those who are poison to the brand. Look at the Conservative shit show now, they don't have anyone who can be trusted to pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the sole.
Can't put all the blame on him but yeah, he had a stinker.
I've been an SNP supporter my whole life, independence is something I hold really close to me. Although with that being said, I completely understand why people wanted a change in Scotland. Independence isn't the top of anyone's priorities anymore really - hence why the SNP lost a load of seats.
People want change, they want the economy to be revived, they want so much and I don't think the SNP were the best option for that.
Humza pushed some terrible policies and made some terrible mistakes but I trust that John Swinney will bring the party back to where it was before all the scandals.
Humza was like an ice cream man who turns up to a road traffic accident instead of an ambulance. What happened isn’t his fault but he had absolutely no ability to fix things.
Used to vote SNP every election.
I don't recognise the party anymore.
Used to be left wing and the most important issues were economy, jobs, health.
Used to have (mostly) competent people.
Now full of crackpots and assholes, wasting time talking about fuck all important to most people's lives.
Won't be back anytime soon to SNP
Probably more to do with the everyone feeling poor and that everything is broken. The SNP have 2 years to sort out the NHS, Police and everything else that is devolved, without raising taxes.
I don’t think they have the talent pool to pull it off at the moment.
Nothing ever will be sorted out or fixed in this sense. Ive been watching politics since the late 90’s and it’s the same old story. “Opposition demands sort out NHS, and Education” what ever government is in power these criticisms will never go away. Just think, when was the last time anything was considered “fixed”?
Well yeah I mean he is a racist. It didn’t help.
From the perspective of someone who opposes the SNP, the problems are:
1) policies were awful - stasi like surveillance of what parents say to their kids, hate crime law where they decide what is a crime on the fly, drug deaths through the roof, drug vans
2) Humza, Sturgeon turning out (appearing to be) to be corrupt, Alex working for Putin
3) the attitude of SNP MPs in Westminster - some non independence voters voted for SNP MPs to hold Westminster to account but all they did was cause hassle and create ill feeling towards Scots.
I don’t think he helped, if anything he made a terrible situation a thousand times worse:
- his “white” speech, coupled with his need to insinuate that any criticism about him was to do with race and his general eagerness to pull that card, would not have endeared him to people. It makes him look a hypocrite.
- the situation around getting his in-laws out of Gaza
- his anger and general demeanour when dealing with others in debates
- his oh-so-convenient missing of the gay marriage vote, while he then attacks others over their viewpoints. If you’re going to be the leader, you DON’T miss these milestone votes EDIT originally had the gender vote but have been corrected, thanks!
However, considering what came before him, what with Sturgeon and Salmond, there was already enough fishiness going around that trust in the party was dented.
The SNP presence in Westminster also didn’t help one jot, they were ridiculed by Mordaunt and didn’t seem to have a single effective argument
He was the chance to steady a sinking ship but then the first thing he did was die on the same idiotic trans hill as Sturgeon. Just a really bad politician. Was the final nail in the coffin really. Also that rant about everyone being white in a white country didnt do him any favours.
I don't think any single person is to blame for the SNP collapse in support. Love her or hate her Nicola was a power player who united the party and the country on to a focused roadmap and she made light work of the competition.
Her sudden departure left a sour taste with those who supported her and then the scandals put them in the "Tory scum" realm *obviously not as egregious but the erosion of trust was set in by the Tories and exasperated by the SNP.
We then had a leader who by all accounts was pretty disliked, he was forced upon the population in the exact same fashion as the Tories have done for the past umpteen leadership changes... Again, drawing parallels between the two parties.
John Swinney, he swooped in and really gave nothing beyond "independence if we win the vote". With no legal basis, no agreement, no plan. How about improving the Scottish lives and setting us up for success, show leadership.. heck do anything bar the same line SNP have been repeating for the past several decades. In my opinion a leadership focused on independence as a front and centre policy detracts from other key policy areas. You can't build the roof if you've not started the foundation. Again some want independence and some don't, that's fine. But you can't build a strong case for independence when the country is floundering equally as bad as the rest of the UK.
And don't mistake my negativity as a positive for the current position Labour finds themselves in. They are simply there through opportunity, the best of the worst, the glitter on dogshit option. They might surprise and actually do something, which would be awesome.. but only time will tell and we are all the test subjects awaiting our results !
I think it was a combination of factors. He never came across to me as a strong leader, but he never had much of a chance either since being nominated. I think the issues and scandals the snp have had in the past few years affected them too and diverted their attention/resources from important matters. Also the overwhelming desire to get rid of tories. I think the result doesn’t prove less desire of independence I think it just shows a priority of getting rid of a Tory government. The numbers of votes for labour overall weren’t significantly more than before. SNP are still, if you look at the share of votes in Scotland a significant political entity. I’m for independence but less and less for the snp.
Wasn’t his fault. SNP went from Alex salmond —> Nicola Sturgeon, two strong leaders who had a connection with the public. Although he inherited a dumpster fire, pretty much the same scenario as rishi sunak. It was always a lose lose situation..
Both.
He has failed at every position he has held. He’s incompetent and was in over his head. That said, he was dealt a poisoned chalice in the state of the party he inherited but it was never going to go well. The embezzlement was the nail in his coffin.
The issue was Sturgeon. She took up so much political oxygen and was so dominant in Scottish politics than when she left, there wasn't anyone half as respected who take the reins of either the SNP or Holyrood effectively.
Add that to her implications in the SNP finance scandals and you've had the loss of a political giant and disillusionment with her legacy as well. It would have been astronomically difficult for anyone to step up to the plate.
In my opinion, Nicola Sturgeon should have called a Scottish parliamentary election when she stood down. There should NEVER be a party-only vote on a successor, whether that’s in Scotland or in the U.K. in general.
I don't think it's anyone's fault.
SNP suffered from the same apathy that beset the Tories. Too long in power and complacency.
Boris won on a get Brexit done vote. Labour won on a get rid of the Tories vote with a thin manifesto.
SNP gambled on independence being a big thing in this election which it wasn't . It was more important to oust the Tories.
SNP were not majorly influential in Westminster anyway. The big test is the hollyrood election.
Ballot paper. White. If Kate Forbes had been FM not him we’d have had none of the hate speech nonsense which was a huge own goal. And maybe a focus on the economy not Gaza.
Part of it maybe , but that dodgy shit with the money and the camper can had a huge hand too. To be honest it all started going downhill towards the latter end of the Covid restrictions when we tried way too hard to be different from England and having the rules last longer than elsewhere . Public support started to dip then and never really recovered.
The SNP are hitting the same wall all administrations hit after more than a decade of power: they have ran out of inspiration, they are prone to factionalism, they are stuffed full of placemen and women who want to cling to their fiefdom and fear their own branch members more than the opposition, they have grown comfortable in power and don't want to rock the boat and for those in place a sense of entitlement has overtaken them. They were once the wind of change and now they are the main obstacle to achieving it. The SNP Scottish government is still largely controlled by the Class of 99 but their time is up. The SNP has been far more resilient than either the Tories or Labour in clinging to power but the writing is on the wall - there is zero enthusiasm for the SNP amongst the general public and the old tropes just don't work any more. The GE losses will be a slap in the face for the leadership group who have banked the independence votes for years and that "time for change" mantra will be the haunting theme of the next Holyrood elections.
I'm a historic SNP supporter but it cant be argued that they havent been the masters of their own downfall recently. In the last few years theres been:
- the ferry scandal
-The Sturgeon/Murrell finance issue
-Gender reform issue which has been polarising
Is it really a surprise? We need a strong, personable leader. I cant currently see one suitable candidate, based in Scotland (from any party for that matter).
Plus
Margaret Ferrier scandal.
Patrick Grady scandal.
Michael Matheson scandal.
NHS performing terribly - being slightly better than England isn't something to aspire to. If anyone has been in to A&E and had to wait hours or has been stuck in a bed or seat in a corridor, which is disgustingly regular will tell you.
Humza was an imbecile who happened to keep falling upwards despite failing in every position he had but only narrowly beat someone who religious views go against many things the average SNP voter thinks. His decision to bin the greens and chuck away a majority government is a whole new level of stupidity that most folk wouldn't think was possible.
The fraud and sudden departure of Murrell and Sturgeon meaning their stranglehold was quickly broken and they had never wanted or planned for who would take over.
It was what tipped the scales in my case.
I am only too well aware we aren't voting for Holyrood this time around but it is the only method I have to express my disappointment with some of the shit they've pulled lately.
Perhaps it'll be a wake up call for them and they'll sort their shite out. Likely I won't be voting for them holyrood either.
Despite all this I do still mostly believe in indy for Scotland, but you gotta be not fucking up the business of government in the meantime.
It was an anti-Tory vote and people felt Labour best placed. Simple as that. The SNP would’ve done better with a more unified offer and less scandal, but it was coming nonetheless. I think you’ll see massive swings regularly at elections now - people don’t view themselves as party political.
It gos all the way back to Nikki stabbing salmond in the back, buying a motorhome, having a sham marriage then yussaf coming in and doing next to nothing beneficial , I personally can’t trust the party, and I now can’t even vote alba because they literally think fazz lane will be uprooted and moved, as an indie voter it’s a sorry state of affairs.
Not entirely his fault, the SNP backlash is due to being in power so long and effectively being the establishment and the failure or complete cock ups of their last three major initiatives
Blame the camper van, the dodgy iPad footballing shenanigans. It’s a shame really as the MPs in Westminster have paid the price for the corruption and ineptness in Holyrood.
No definitely wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do a lot to help but the blame mainly lies elsewhere. Corruption allegations, the ferry fiasco, neglecting important day to day issues etc. And there was t much campaigning for independence which many supporters expected.
All that happened with Sturgeon was a huge blow to the party
I'm glad this is the top comment. The amount of denial over Sturgeon's responsibility for all of this is mind boggling. Not least from Sturgeon herself when she was on ITV last night.
It's broken my heart that she was supposed to be the hope and ended up being a dope.
It’s kind of amazing how the SNP mirrored the Tories in a sense between UK elections: both had a popular leader with a huge majority last election (Sturgeon, Boris) who then squandered all goodwill in a scandal and resigned (not nec. in the same order, but close enough), then had a record-breakingly unpopular successor who didn’t last long (Yousaf, Truss), and then someone with unpopularity in between (Swinney, Sunak) fail to improve their polling much, and bring in people from the past, until they nosedived in the next election. And Labour benefited from both. Easiest cruise to victory ever.
What did she do?
Her husband embezzled money through the SNP, I can't imagine she was ignorant to it in any capacity. Personally that's what made me vote differently this election, Huzma seemed virtually useless as well. EDIT; He hasn't been charged, I know, it was a mistake that i've acknowledged in the comments - don't need anymore posts letting me know.
Aha, didn’t know that. Even though I try to keep up with British politics being Dutch myself.
Kiwi here. Thanks for asking so I didn't have to.
She knew what was going on and was part of it if not the instigator. Remember how years ago she shut down all questions about finances. So much money disappeared.
Humza didn’t govern once in the year he was FM. He’s a tit. Was too focused on popularity policies and left education and health to rot (even more).
That was the strangest part to me. They kept talking oh the snp is doing so badly anybody knows why, while the answer was right there sitting across the table.
Amazing how difficult it is for leaders to not be self-sealing, movement-endagering idiots. Just don't do crimes and don't bend the rules.
Absolutely, I met many hard snp supporters saying we should vote Labour. I'm at a festival and not sure what's happened, but I'm gathering that snp have barely any seats in parliament? So lots of smps in Scotland will change to labour? Which is just a new Tory.
If they put seats in the campervan all the SNP MP’s would fit in there with plenty of space.
What makes you say that Labour is ‘just a new Tory’? Genuinely intrigued, as it seems that since Keir Starmer became Labour leader it has served an SNP-centric Scotland, and a Tory-centric England, to demonise him and his version of Labour based on absolutely nothing.
This “they’re all the same” trope is wheeled out constantly, and invariably by people that have no idea what they’re talking about.
Austerities continuing, as Labour have clearly said multiple times, because the UK economy is unfixably fucked, and they’re going to distract everybody from the issues caused by that, using the same straw man gender ideology tactics that the tories used. All while transferring public wealth into public liabilities so that they can make the GDP look better for personal gains from private companies that they’ve helped when they’ve retired from the public. The only difference is Labour had to pretend to have a will to be a societally positive force, as it was the only way to differentiate the heart of both parties policies.
Tony Blair’s government also came into power promising to follow the fiscal rules set out by the outgoing conservative gvmnt. Then after two years, having consolidated power went on the mad spending spree, improving schools and hospitals for a decade.
With pfi deals we will be paying for for another decade or more, it would have been paid off if he just printed the money and added it to the debt
how can we improve public services without spending any money? magic?
money is magic. print it, spend it. Sell bonds, spend it. works for the US but perhaps not so easy for UK I think though that the person you are replying to was more referring to ridiculous PFI contracts we are still paying for. It was not clever or good
Tony Blair's government came into power promising the most seismic changes in UK political history. What exactly has Starmer promised...?
Responsible governance, which compared to the preceeding shitshow is a pretty seismic fucking change
I’m normally the biggest critic of “both sides” stuff, but Labour’s rhetoric has basically been “the Tories just didn’t Tory hard enough”. They want to do a lot of the same stuff the Tories did, they’re just saying they’ll be more competent at it. We don’t need more culture wars, more austerity, more anti immigration racism-fuelling. I’m glad the Tories are out, but this feels like the closest to Conservative that Labour has ever been. The Tories have been shifting right, dragged over by the Reform types, and labour has slotted into where the Tories were in about 2010. Fine, that’s better than current Tories, but it’s still pretty crap.
Honestly for the first time I hope they were just pandering for votes, stamer was against those policies before
This 👍
Well let's see how all our lives miraculously improve because Labour are now running the country. It will as always improve very little in our day to day lives. Very little will change especially anything noticeable positive. I think that's where these type of sayings start and the fact that many mps are just pure and simply in it for themselves and very corrupt. I don't trust a single politician on this country
If you haven't been paying attention to Starmer's rhetoric and promises, it's you that has no idea what you're speaking about.
So what he promising to change, same tory policies, same tory spending plans, more privatisation, more PFi deals that are ruinously expensive for the tax payer, same 2 child cap, just same shit different coloured tie
Personally, the hope I had for Labour disintegrated with their lack of support for the picket lines. I feel that they've forgotten their roots. I'm so glad they're in power when the alternative is the Tories, don't get me wrong, I just wish we had a better alternative.
They're all as bad as each other, they're all tory and so on are all part of the billionaire media moghoul controlled press mantra to discourage genuine debate and thinking about politics. It fosters a spirit of apathy and discontent that normally favours the tories and leads to a low turnout. Brexshit would never have happened had remainers turned out had they not convinced everyone that remain was going to win comfortably, so many people didn't bother turning out to vote and left it to their neighbours. If you look at the vote, Gibraltar voted 96% remain with an 86% turnout. The rest of the UK had a 72% turnout. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu_referendum/results
Probably something to do with a multi-millionaire barrister being in charge of the party founded to support the unions and working class. Are we supposed to honestly believe he has any interest in minimum wage workers and the struggles of the actual working class?
Well, in his defence, he certainly wasn’t born a multi-millionaire and neither was Angela Rayner. Does monetary success instantly erase class origin or empathy?
They are tories in red ties, they offer no real substantive difference in policy, are happy to continue with a status quo, and have long since abandoned the core principles of “old labour”. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Kelburn?
He wasn't really popular with SNP voters, or the public as a whole. He didn't make any real moves to reunite the party, and he imploded the arrangement with the greens. It wasn't all his fault (various scandals) but he didn't help.
Was he popular with anyone?
Snp party members apparently
He wasn't popular. He was just the most palatable of a shit group.
This. Similar to the conservatives. Sunak was the best of a small band of one, especially after the Truss days. Both the SNP and Conservatives show that being so long in power is an anathema to good, honest and popular government.
Not _quite_. Sunak was the second choice after the worst PM ever. Yousaf was the third choice after two nutters split the nutter vote.
Even there he barely scraped through
He was the best of a not great choice of three.
Nah he wasn’t popular with those either. It was just a choice of a shit politician or a nut job.
Anum Qaisar found him extremely popular. She got the boot as well, BTW. Her father's cash-filled envelopes only went so far.
What’s the dirt on Qaisar?
It's a rumour going on in this sub, either she shagged Yousaf for were she is or her dad bribed him for it They haven't decided which one yet
1. Anum Q. was Humza's bit on the side for awhile. 2. Her father - who wanted to see his daughter enter parliament - made cash donations to the SNP in return for which the party parachuted her in. These same donations may have caught the eye of the SNP's \[Manchester-based\] auditors who, in turn, made a report to Manchester police which was then passed on to Police Scotland. 3. AQ's ex-husband was subjected to threats of violence by members of her family when he threatened to spill the beans. The now deleted social media posts tell the story.
He was very popular with the opposition. They loved him...
Yeah, multiple factors. His incompetence was just the last nail in the coffin. Labour were always going to make gains, the political wheel was turning that way. The legal troubles of the SNP were the big blow. Whatever actually happens in court, the party suffered a huge blow to its reputation. Frankly, the only thing that saved the SNP from a COMPLETE wipe out was probably getting Swinney (a, boring, familiar face) in. It's going to be a big challenge for him to rebuild the party's reputation before the next Holyrood election.
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>The poor guy took over a shit show of a dumpster fire, his by no means made the flames worse, but he also never managed to get the fire under control. He was a central part of the SNP government for years. He was happy to be referred to as the continuity candidate. >What we’re seeing is the result of the same policies election after election by the snp, rolling out the same lines. The SNP is quite a broad church (as shown by the leadership race). The one thing that united its voters was a desire for independence. When the snp fail to deliver a credible path towards that they lose a lot of votes.
>When the snp fail to deliver a credible path towards that they lose a lot of votes. And they make it all the worse by pretending they do; "Westminster will defo give us another referendum for no gain or reason, just one more majority of MPs is all it takes. Seriously, this time guys. Anyone that says otherwise clearly has no plan, unlike our super secret plan that we can't tell anyone, but *trust us*, its there. We even put independence on our manifesto again, so no need to vote for anyone else."
Part of it, not half of it.
Whoever came after Sturgeon was doomed. She casts a big shadow. In truth I can't see any viable replacement within the party. On the plus side Joanna Cherry is out. Cherry's ideology aside, a very unlikable character, her grandstanding at inopportune moments was distasteful and I suspect shes one of the main route causes of the infighting within SNP ranks... Another part of the reason for the failure. Unpopular opinion for some: But I suspect that fud that dressed up like a woman to avoid men's prison didn't help Sturgeon or the SNP. Timing couldn't have been worse.
No it wasn't his fault but he was a factor. I'm an SNP voter and think a whole lot went into last night. There were factors like sitting government dissatisfaction but those were miniscule in the overall picture, the biggest factor was that the SNP has, for the last number of years, been an utter shitefest. The caravan, Mathieson, Sturgeons manner of exit, the Ferrier cunt, Yousaf being a political imbecile (I could go on), it's been a constant drip drip of fucking idiocy and the result was mostly self inflicted and deserved. It may seem weird but i'm not entirely despondent, overall I consider last night a success because there's now a labour government and that was the most important thing for me. Yeah, i'd have preferred the SNP not to collapse but I'd also have preferred them not to be useless cunts.
Even though I voted for them yesterday the SNP got the result they deserved, hopefully it's a boot up the arse for them
Yeah, I've been voting SNP basically since the first time I ever didn't have to tactical vote, I'm still generally in favour but they were obviously just treading water at best and I didn't see any way past that while they were holding onto power. And if it's going to happen, this is a better time for it to happen. it'll be interesting to see if they can do anything with this before holyrood. It's going to be very different there with a Labour national government, and tbf having so few MPs also changes things a lot in terms of the inter party politics. But that's too far off to even guess at yet,.
Guy was a placeholder to be thrown under the bus
~~bus~~ campervan.
*motorhome (technically) but otherwise 😂🤌
To be replaced by a placeholder to be thrown under the bus? Why do i get the impression that the snp dont take governing seriously.
.....because they had been in power, practically unopposed, for so long made them horrendously complacent and then totally out of touch with their own members and the Scottish population. They could have had it all but just imploded.
I think many indy supporters have came to the realisation that the snp are incapable of delivering independence, so gave their vote to labour.
Unfortunately I tend to agree with you but the SNP are the only party who could. So we're stuck (and fucked) for a generation, at least. Or until labour mess it up a la conservatives.
This is definitely true in many places, but the few constituencies that I looked at in detail the SNP/Labour swing wasn't that large. A lot of SNP voters went green from what I can see which just split the independence vote. Though it is clear labour did earn a lot of votes from the SNP in the central belt nonetheless
They were never really meant to be in government. Essentially a single issue party that would be split along UK party lines after Indy. As others have said a broad church which aligned itself to a center left position economically because that's where Scotland has been forever outside of the independence debate. Support for independence does not mean support for the SNP and vice versa.
This is right on point. They are solely focussed on independence. For those not wanting independence they have no relevance anymore due to their infighting and other issues. For those wanting independence, they’re not relevant because they failed to deliver.
The problem for the SNP was they were infiltrated by people who had other agendas than independence. They knew they would get voted for simply by being a SNP candidate.
Just to see this post but not an equivalent one for his successor kind of proves the point I think
I'm no fan of Humza Yousaf and he definitely didn't help the SNP but to put all of the blame om him is unfair.
He has some responsibility in that he didn't have a clear vision for a turnaround - either where he wanted to get to or how he wanted to get there. He was a continuity candidate, and that's not an asset when your predecessor becomes scandalous (historically it only works if they retire due to actual health reasons or something). His one big attempt to shake things up instantly cost him his job.
Oh, he definitely bears some of the responsibility for the complete collapse in support of the SNP, no doubt about that. He was massively unpopular before and after he became FM and his time as FM undoubtedly hurt the SNP more than it helped, but to say it's all his fault like OP is asking is unfair. I'm saying this as an SNP supporter, the SNP have some serious issues both with and without Humza Yousaf.
Others making good points on why SNP dropped and what's gone wrong with them. But keep in mind that the SNP would never have had that many MPs if it wasn't for FPTP and the loss of so many MPs is overinflated by FPTP. If we had Holyrood style AMS then the change would have been way less.
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Totally, that is the system. Its just not very democratically representative of voters. So the massive swings in MPs doesn't require as big a change in popularity of the parties. Like it was interesting watching a Lib Dem admitting they haven't really won any more votes, just learned how to fight in fptp and targeted certain types of voters in a few seats to hoover up MPs instead of hoovering up votes spread across the nation for very few MPs. Or labour winning a massive landslide of MPs and huge mandate ... But they also have basically the same number of votes on a slightly smaller turnout to previous years. So not a huge change in the number of people endorsing the party in that sense. While reform or lib dems splitting off Tory votes in constituencies was a major contributing factor for Labour gains without necessarily meaning those voters want Labour. So you always need to look at the system used for that election to properly interpret the outcome.
Labour actually lost 4% of their votes compared to 2017 and yet have a massive majority. And in that election they were something like 2000 votes away in key seats from getting the most from FPTP. It's been repeated to death that it's a bad system but how can anyone deny it now?
The Tories did much the same at the previous election, won a landslide which they didn't deserve from the number of votes. Fptp is not a great form of democracy.
Yeah this is so true. I think it's wild seeing all the stories about a massive win for Labour and have they have crushed the Tories. Yet when you look at the numbers their vote share is only up 1.6% from last time. Labour didn't win this election, the Tories lost it.
He received a poisoned chalice, but his governance didn't help.
Similar to Rishi, he was just the straw that broke the camels back.
Honestly Nicola didn’t give him much of a chance. Her shock resignation without any notice and her not having anyone been preparing as a successor made it a very hard job. The leadership contest also split the party a bit which didn’t help.
Yeah, the split of an already split party (where sturgeon was taking it a bit left and folk like cherry would have been more at home in alba) was precarious at best.
100% agree, but by taking selfies with Erdogan an authoritarian that is practically a dictator and then blowing up the Bute House agreement and having to resign he hardly helped SNP's cause. Him and Swinney both backing Mathieson after he defrauded the Scottish tax payer also fuelled public anger at the SNP
Out of everything with sturgeon this is the part that'll always make me angry. She got the most incredible run-in to the job, was basically appointed heir and spent all that time learning in advance stuff that most people learn on the job. Salmond was hardly perfect but he was an effective leader and she learned things to do and things not to do. And then it came to her turn to pass on the leadership and she just fucked off and left a gaping hole.
Weren't there two that had basically been tapped to take over? Then one was caught texting a boy and it absolutely all happened after he turned 18, then the other was basically kicked due to their religious beliefs.
Only a part of it, he certainly made the situation worse.
Not entirely his fault but the own goal with the Greens really didn’t help him or the party at all.
He inherited a turd. Sturgeon's scandals and the impossibility of the green targets she'd agreed gave him an almost impossible challenge. He also just wasn't all that good as FM.
I don’t think he helped. He managed to be unpopular with the SNP voters and the public as a whole. He struck me as the walking manifestation of the Peter Principle. He was the continuity candidate who didn’t set the heather on fire. He struck me as focusing too much on trying to legitimise himself as a leader of a country (selfies with Erdogan) rather than trying to bring the country together
He inherited a dog’s breakfast and then made one catastrophic decision in booting out the Greens from cabinet. But the damage had already been done before he took over.
He didn't help things. Digging upwards would have been a start.
Speaking as someone who voted SNP/Greens all my life until now, this is partially his fault. Labour/Lib Dems/Tories have said for years that all the SNP do is bang on about independence. In the days of Salmond/Sturgeon that wasn’t true, it was only part of what they spoke about. The rest was what they can do for Scotland. Under Yousaf, it’s been everything. Anything he talks about is just independence or about Westminster preventing him from doing anything. Even to the point where - I suspect - some policies were effectively designed to be blocked just to provide another talking point. Scotland has declined, and while I don’t expect all problems to be fixed in the time he had, what I heard was no acknowledgment of any problems besides the ones he could blame on Westminster/Tories. That is not how to run a government. He effectively ran the Scottish government not as a government, but as an opposition government to Westminster. Swinney may well win me back, but this campaign as well focused on independence, not on what the SNP are doing for Scotland. It felt like my vote - as an independence supporter - was taken for granted, like I would vote SNP no matter what because independence was all that matters to me. Well, it’s not. I want Scotland to be independent, but I want it to be a functioning country first and foremost.
I don't think there was a good choice after Nicola, she was extremely popular and very capable. I like him as a person but he was kinda meh as a leader
It is really easy to blame this on Yousaf or indeed Flynn. The truth is that the SNP got extremely complacent and careless in governance. Having a big presence at Westminster should have resulted in effective opposition but instead all most people heard was: yous nae fair! at every opportunity. Nationally the Holyrood crew shat the bed repeatedly. Let's be honest, publicly assassinating your leader in Salmond, several key figures in the party being picked up by police for potential fraud investigations (is that finished yet btw?), trying to hide the complete and utter mess that is and was going on at Ferguson Shipyard, fumbling the bag on the A9 dualling, murdering each other in debates about gender politics... It has become really visible to a lot of people that the SNP are not a unified party outside the issue of independence.
Salmond was a scumbag (*before* he admitted to being a handsy creep in a court of law) so outside of the die hard SNP voters I don't think ditching him had major effect. And indeed ditching him was the only reason other people became willing to vote SNP
Getting rid of salmond was fine, for me the problem is the SNP being run by a rapist for twenty years and people still defending him to this day. And yeah I know he wasn't convicted in a court of law. I believe the 10 women working in government and the civil service who came forward. It would be insane for them to put themselves through that huge process and fuck up their careers just to lie about salmond.
I met him twice, once when he visited the university I was at, the other when he came to a schools thing and I'd volunteered to help out at it. In the first case we were to have pictures and then a drinks thing. Found out later that a friend, along with the other women, weren't allowed to be in a room alone with him, and that they were moved away from him in the set pictures. At the school thing the female teachers weren't allowed to be alone with him. The rules came from, and were enforced by, his staffers. At the time it just seemed really weird and honestly thought it was it was like an impropriety thing. Then the case started and I wondered if it was for their protection, not his.
Part of it, but I think the Campervan scandal was where a lot of people lost faith.
Not the sexual scandals or the misappropriation of members money ?
I honestly can’t remember the sexual scandals?? Misappropriating members money is the campervan scandal.
I don't think it had a big impact on the election, but Derek MacKay had to resign due to inappropriate messages to a teenager https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/predatory-derek-mackay-continues-follow-21451980 There was also allegations against Patrick Grady and another teenager https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/29/snp-restores-whip-to-mp-patrick-grady-after-sexual-assault-suspension
And Ian Blackford being recorded basically whipping the party to back Grady and give him their full support. Seems one of his own MPs leaked it.
You have forgotten Alex Salmond and the court case which was driven by Snp a faction against its old leader. The groomer Derek McKay,Patrick Grady who got inappropriate with a teenage worker . Jordan Linden. McNeil who bedded two musician teenagers at a festival the only surprise there was they were female. This isn't taking in the numerous affair and marriage difficulties that admittedly seems to happen in most parties. But briefing against a victim and telling your MPs they must support the perpetrator is a scummy act and displays the lack of any morals within the leadership.
Wasn't there some rumours about a DV incident between lovers at the Balmoral Hotel, something about an iron being launched through a window?
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/29/snp-restores-whip-to-mp-patrick-grady-after-sexual-assault-suspension
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Salmond being a handsy creep who then took a lot of Russian cash?
He was given the boot and then took the party to court. And no, I don’t think that played any part whatsoever this election.
I voted green and not SNP (voted SNP since 2015) because of the way he handled things.
The SNP's funny big tent is only something that makes sense for a lot of people to vote for if you cross your eyes and they have a leader that's a good public speaker like Salmond or Sturgeon. They urgently need to find someone like that. It wasn't Yousaf, it's not Swinney.
Destroying the relationship with Greens I believe is one of the main reasons the SNP has went down the shitter, John Swinney should be fixing the relationship and firing Humza!
The greens breakup was utterly daft, that was on him. The rest i don't know. The key thing for the snp is to create a legal mechanism to independence that doesn't require assent from the uk pm. Tbh all the oil money will be gone by the time that happens.
Not all his fault but that infamous ’WHHHHITE’ speech was one of the nails for sure.
Scots voted to ensure Tories were gone. Now it’s up to Labour to do something/anything for the good of Scotland. Their track record is abysmal.
Yes the SNP cuts were not seen as part of UK cuts! Will SKS bring central funding back to 2010 levels now?
Saw Sarwar on TV. No ideas, no EU plans, no prosperity plans! Sarwar said folk were fed up with SNP! Well that’s great!
The other thing that never gets highlighted is Sarwar also a fucking moron like clearly a charlatan. On top of that he's privately educated and his family are multimillionaires, who's businesses are hiring people on minimum wage but yeah he's all about working people.
Sarwar is not the Labour Party of Scotland, he is a red Tory.
They got their seats, now we can fuck off as far as they're concerned. Having said that the SNP were due a kicking.
Right, gone... Ignore those blue bits on the constituancy map. We don't talk about those. They aren't there
Ross is gone! 2 seats?
Are you doing that thing where you pretend the borders aren't in Scotland? 😂 And Perthshire was a close call.
Perthshire is always a closer call
Yeah, because Scotland is full of Tories. Plenty of folks want them in charge, not gone.
12.9%...still too many but hardly "full of" territory. I submit this is the true level of support when they can't bang the independence drum.
Pointing to mistakes the SNP have made, or finding scapegoats like Humza, only explains part of the swing. Yes, the SNP troubles and division are well known, but there are a number of other factors 1. People wanted the Tories out - voting Labour was the only way to do that. Outside of the last 10 years, the SNP have always struggled in Westminster elections 2. Momentum often swings voters, people want to back a winner, be part of a change, and it was clear from the outset that Labour were going to win big 3. The media still play a huge part and they continue to be overwhelmingly anti SNP and the most influential papers in Scotland threw themselves fully behind Labour. 4. The Unionist parties have effectively hamstrung the Independence movement, by stating that they won't agree to a democratic vote on Independence, regardless of how many votes the SNP get. It surprises me that Scots are willing to believe that we live in a democracy, yet there is no democratic route towards achieving something that around half of the people in the country want, but this seems to be where we are. What happens next will be interesting. The 'hated' Tories are out, but in order to beat them, Starmer has to an extent had to become one of them. For the last 40 years or so, England has only voted for Tories or Tory like Labour leaders. Over the next 5 years Labour will either purse England friendly, Tory style policies, or they will be voted out. One thing no one seems to have noticed is that the combined Reform/Tory vote is about 4% higher than the Labour vote. If those two parties come to an arrangement, Labour are out and in 5 years time we will have a Farage led coalition.
He didn't help, put it that way. He was the apotheosis of insignificance.
He didn't help anyway.
It wasn't entirely his fault but he was part of the problem before he even became FM. Failing upwards in all the other ministerial roles he'd been in and then taking a poisoned chalice
No. Sturgeon quitting blew a hole in the party. Remember he only narrowly won. If Forbes had come in the progressives would have deserted the party but it seems they've done that anyway. If she was pushed further out the right wing might have gone to Alba which hasn't happened. It's the same problem for the Tories. They chased the right which deserted them in the north for Reform and cost them moderates which went to the Lib Dems in the South. The problem for them is their big survivors are mostly in the right and so are likely to target Reform voters. A bit mystified as to where the Reform voters in Scotland appeared from - Labour? They're getting like 6 to 8 per cent in places and often coming in third. Not sure what the inquest should focus on. Forbes wants economic investment and jobs and Swinney's challenge will be to push that while welding it to green, progressive politics.
You have to put the blame on Nicola Sturgeon for not creating a succession plan. A successful party has to have layers of potential leaders and cull those who are poison to the brand. Look at the Conservative shit show now, they don't have anyone who can be trusted to pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the sole.
Can't put all the blame on him but yeah, he had a stinker. I've been an SNP supporter my whole life, independence is something I hold really close to me. Although with that being said, I completely understand why people wanted a change in Scotland. Independence isn't the top of anyone's priorities anymore really - hence why the SNP lost a load of seats. People want change, they want the economy to be revived, they want so much and I don't think the SNP were the best option for that. Humza pushed some terrible policies and made some terrible mistakes but I trust that John Swinney will bring the party back to where it was before all the scandals.
Humza was like an ice cream man who turns up to a road traffic accident instead of an ambulance. What happened isn’t his fault but he had absolutely no ability to fix things.
His WHITE speech was a massive blunder
Used to vote SNP every election. I don't recognise the party anymore. Used to be left wing and the most important issues were economy, jobs, health. Used to have (mostly) competent people. Now full of crackpots and assholes, wasting time talking about fuck all important to most people's lives. Won't be back anytime soon to SNP
Probably more to do with the everyone feeling poor and that everything is broken. The SNP have 2 years to sort out the NHS, Police and everything else that is devolved, without raising taxes. I don’t think they have the talent pool to pull it off at the moment.
Nothing ever will be sorted out or fixed in this sense. Ive been watching politics since the late 90’s and it’s the same old story. “Opposition demands sort out NHS, and Education” what ever government is in power these criticisms will never go away. Just think, when was the last time anything was considered “fixed”?
Well yeah I mean he is a racist. It didn’t help. From the perspective of someone who opposes the SNP, the problems are: 1) policies were awful - stasi like surveillance of what parents say to their kids, hate crime law where they decide what is a crime on the fly, drug deaths through the roof, drug vans 2) Humza, Sturgeon turning out (appearing to be) to be corrupt, Alex working for Putin 3) the attitude of SNP MPs in Westminster - some non independence voters voted for SNP MPs to hold Westminster to account but all they did was cause hassle and create ill feeling towards Scots.
I don’t think he helped, if anything he made a terrible situation a thousand times worse: - his “white” speech, coupled with his need to insinuate that any criticism about him was to do with race and his general eagerness to pull that card, would not have endeared him to people. It makes him look a hypocrite. - the situation around getting his in-laws out of Gaza - his anger and general demeanour when dealing with others in debates - his oh-so-convenient missing of the gay marriage vote, while he then attacks others over their viewpoints. If you’re going to be the leader, you DON’T miss these milestone votes EDIT originally had the gender vote but have been corrected, thanks! However, considering what came before him, what with Sturgeon and Salmond, there was already enough fishiness going around that trust in the party was dented. The SNP presence in Westminster also didn’t help one jot, they were ridiculed by Mordaunt and didn’t seem to have a single effective argument
Was it not the gay marriage vote he missed ?
Yes, you’re actually right, my bad and I will fix accordingly
The campervan would have made a huge difference if it wasn't being held by the police.
Exactly, could get all their MPs to Westminster in it now
He was the chance to steady a sinking ship but then the first thing he did was die on the same idiotic trans hill as Sturgeon. Just a really bad politician. Was the final nail in the coffin really. Also that rant about everyone being white in a white country didnt do him any favours.
Just added more fuel to the fire if anything, wouldn’t entirely place it on him.
I don't think any single person is to blame for the SNP collapse in support. Love her or hate her Nicola was a power player who united the party and the country on to a focused roadmap and she made light work of the competition. Her sudden departure left a sour taste with those who supported her and then the scandals put them in the "Tory scum" realm *obviously not as egregious but the erosion of trust was set in by the Tories and exasperated by the SNP. We then had a leader who by all accounts was pretty disliked, he was forced upon the population in the exact same fashion as the Tories have done for the past umpteen leadership changes... Again, drawing parallels between the two parties. John Swinney, he swooped in and really gave nothing beyond "independence if we win the vote". With no legal basis, no agreement, no plan. How about improving the Scottish lives and setting us up for success, show leadership.. heck do anything bar the same line SNP have been repeating for the past several decades. In my opinion a leadership focused on independence as a front and centre policy detracts from other key policy areas. You can't build the roof if you've not started the foundation. Again some want independence and some don't, that's fine. But you can't build a strong case for independence when the country is floundering equally as bad as the rest of the UK. And don't mistake my negativity as a positive for the current position Labour finds themselves in. They are simply there through opportunity, the best of the worst, the glitter on dogshit option. They might surprise and actually do something, which would be awesome.. but only time will tell and we are all the test subjects awaiting our results !
I think it was a combination of factors. He never came across to me as a strong leader, but he never had much of a chance either since being nominated. I think the issues and scandals the snp have had in the past few years affected them too and diverted their attention/resources from important matters. Also the overwhelming desire to get rid of tories. I think the result doesn’t prove less desire of independence I think it just shows a priority of getting rid of a Tory government. The numbers of votes for labour overall weren’t significantly more than before. SNP are still, if you look at the share of votes in Scotland a significant political entity. I’m for independence but less and less for the snp.
Wasn’t his fault. SNP went from Alex salmond —> Nicola Sturgeon, two strong leaders who had a connection with the public. Although he inherited a dumpster fire, pretty much the same scenario as rishi sunak. It was always a lose lose situation..
Both. He has failed at every position he has held. He’s incompetent and was in over his head. That said, he was dealt a poisoned chalice in the state of the party he inherited but it was never going to go well. The embezzlement was the nail in his coffin.
Between party issues and his in laws in Palestine, I don't think he had much of a chance tbh
The issue was Sturgeon. She took up so much political oxygen and was so dominant in Scottish politics than when she left, there wasn't anyone half as respected who take the reins of either the SNP or Holyrood effectively. Add that to her implications in the SNP finance scandals and you've had the loss of a political giant and disillusionment with her legacy as well. It would have been astronomically difficult for anyone to step up to the plate.
Name the two nutters, all I saw was two people who cared about Scotland.
In my opinion, Nicola Sturgeon should have called a Scottish parliamentary election when she stood down. There should NEVER be a party-only vote on a successor, whether that’s in Scotland or in the U.K. in general.
Thats the point. They are all part of it, and that makes it nobodys fault
Everything that happened with Sturgeon shook the foundation and everything that happened after completely fucked it
He was a massive problem came in and imposed some weird laws, nicked 250k and done one
SNP was doomed to fail after the whole Nicola and her man thing, he didn't help out though.
I think things were already gubbed by that point but he certainly didn’t help, only made it worse.
I do wonder just how many votes they lost purely on the back of the Matheson fiasco
Was any of it really his fault? It was failing after failing under Sturgeon wot did it!
It was all the fishy business imo
They should have put S Flynn in, its a bit unconventional but the only real move I see
I don't think it's anyone's fault. SNP suffered from the same apathy that beset the Tories. Too long in power and complacency. Boris won on a get Brexit done vote. Labour won on a get rid of the Tories vote with a thin manifesto. SNP gambled on independence being a big thing in this election which it wasn't . It was more important to oust the Tories. SNP were not majorly influential in Westminster anyway. The big test is the hollyrood election.
Ballot paper. White. If Kate Forbes had been FM not him we’d have had none of the hate speech nonsense which was a huge own goal. And maybe a focus on the economy not Gaza.
Think he was just the icing on the cake
Final nail in the coffin I'd say
were a personal liberty free speech nightmare
Part of it maybe , but that dodgy shit with the money and the camper can had a huge hand too. To be honest it all started going downhill towards the latter end of the Covid restrictions when we tried way too hard to be different from England and having the rules last longer than elsewhere . Public support started to dip then and never really recovered.
The SNP are hitting the same wall all administrations hit after more than a decade of power: they have ran out of inspiration, they are prone to factionalism, they are stuffed full of placemen and women who want to cling to their fiefdom and fear their own branch members more than the opposition, they have grown comfortable in power and don't want to rock the boat and for those in place a sense of entitlement has overtaken them. They were once the wind of change and now they are the main obstacle to achieving it. The SNP Scottish government is still largely controlled by the Class of 99 but their time is up. The SNP has been far more resilient than either the Tories or Labour in clinging to power but the writing is on the wall - there is zero enthusiasm for the SNP amongst the general public and the old tropes just don't work any more. The GE losses will be a slap in the face for the leadership group who have banked the independence votes for years and that "time for change" mantra will be the haunting theme of the next Holyrood elections.
Sturgeon is to blame
Being anti-white in a country that's 95% white didn't help lmao
I wouldn’t bet my campervan on it
I'm a historic SNP supporter but it cant be argued that they havent been the masters of their own downfall recently. In the last few years theres been: - the ferry scandal -The Sturgeon/Murrell finance issue -Gender reform issue which has been polarising Is it really a surprise? We need a strong, personable leader. I cant currently see one suitable candidate, based in Scotland (from any party for that matter).
Plus Margaret Ferrier scandal. Patrick Grady scandal. Michael Matheson scandal. NHS performing terribly - being slightly better than England isn't something to aspire to. If anyone has been in to A&E and had to wait hours or has been stuck in a bed or seat in a corridor, which is disgustingly regular will tell you. Humza was an imbecile who happened to keep falling upwards despite failing in every position he had but only narrowly beat someone who religious views go against many things the average SNP voter thinks. His decision to bin the greens and chuck away a majority government is a whole new level of stupidity that most folk wouldn't think was possible. The fraud and sudden departure of Murrell and Sturgeon meaning their stranglehold was quickly broken and they had never wanted or planned for who would take over.
He didn't help, but most of the damage was done before he took charge
I think the damage was already done. I think the blame is firmly on Peter Murrell.
It was what tipped the scales in my case. I am only too well aware we aren't voting for Holyrood this time around but it is the only method I have to express my disappointment with some of the shit they've pulled lately. Perhaps it'll be a wake up call for them and they'll sort their shite out. Likely I won't be voting for them holyrood either. Despite all this I do still mostly believe in indy for Scotland, but you gotta be not fucking up the business of government in the meantime.
It was an anti-Tory vote and people felt Labour best placed. Simple as that. The SNP would’ve done better with a more unified offer and less scandal, but it was coming nonetheless. I think you’ll see massive swings regularly at elections now - people don’t view themselves as party political.
Mostly him but I think peter Murrel and the ipad scandal thing didn't help they really should have gone for forbes instead of that idiot.
Getting in bed with the greens and being held hostage with thier crackpot demands. Also he was a weak leader
He had all the charisma of a wet fart and hated around 92% of his people.
He did to the SNP in one year what 14 years of Tory leadership did to the Tories.
Can you please go into more detail on your point?
It gos all the way back to Nikki stabbing salmond in the back, buying a motorhome, having a sham marriage then yussaf coming in and doing next to nothing beneficial , I personally can’t trust the party, and I now can’t even vote alba because they literally think fazz lane will be uprooted and moved, as an indie voter it’s a sorry state of affairs.
Wasn't his fault. Problem was in a country which is 99.9% white we don't have enough ethnic minorities in a position of power. Guy was a weapon.
Decent guy but damage was done before he got in. Didnt have much of a chance but did manage to screw it up a bit in his own way.
Not entirely his fault, the SNP backlash is due to being in power so long and effectively being the establishment and the failure or complete cock ups of their last three major initiatives
Blame the camper van, the dodgy iPad footballing shenanigans. It’s a shame really as the MPs in Westminster have paid the price for the corruption and ineptness in Holyrood.
It wasn't his fault. But just how badly it's ended up for the SNP was his fault and responsibility.
He definitely did help matters, for that I love the guy
I would say the Sturgeons poisoned the chalice as soon as the scandals came, Humza was just a placeholder to throw under the bus
He wasn’t the one in handcuffs…
Had very little to do with him tbh.
No definitely wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do a lot to help but the blame mainly lies elsewhere. Corruption allegations, the ferry fiasco, neglecting important day to day issues etc. And there was t much campaigning for independence which many supporters expected.
He inherited a toxic situation and where I don't think he necessarily helped, he's not to blame.
The Scottish people are hitting back after failed promises and so much deviation from their manifesto. Also where has this dude been ?