The fall of Humza Useless means independence is dead for a generation. The only legacy of the SNP is decline and decay

The resignation of Scottish First Minister humza Yousaf is more than just the demise of a hapless nonentity who was never up to the job anyway.

It is a milestone marking the end, at last, of the SNP’s arrogant domination of Scottish politics for almost two decades. The Nationalists now face defeat in Westminster and holyrood elections.

But most significantly of all, it symbolises the demise of the SNP’s defining goal of Scottish independence. That is now dead for a generation, if not longer. The Union is safe for the foreseeable future.

Those who wish to keep the Union intact are indebted to Yousaf, an unwitting ally to the cause. But, in truth, the SNP’s separatist project was coming off the rails even before he moved into Bute house 13 short, disastrous months ago.

Stupidity

Under his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, always given more credit for her political acumen by the London-based media than she ever deserved, the quest for independence had already run out of road.

At the same time, it was becoming clear that her government was making an unholy mess of the things that really mattered to Scots, like schools, hospitals and roads. No wonder she scuttled for the exit before the roof fell in, bequeathing Yousaf a weak hand which he proceeded to play badly.

Nobody should be surprised by this. Yousaf made a hash of everything he touched in government but, so shallow is the holyrood gene pool, he could always count on being promoted to his next level of incompetence.

Like many an over-confident public school boy who never had a proper job outside politics, he seemed to think he could glide through life without being overburdened by homework or preparation.

he is by no means a bad man, or even nasty. But vanity and stupidity can be a fatal cocktail.

As transport minister he failed to deliver two ferries for Scotland’s poorly-served western islands which were meant to become operational on his watch. (Years late and tens of millions over budget they have still to start service.)

he made no progress in turning the A9, Scotland’s most dangerous road, into a dual carriageway. But he did become the first ever transport minister to be pulled over for driving without insurance.

As justice minister, he fathered the ludicrous hate crime legislation which has tarnished Scotland’s global reputation for free speech and became a national joke on implementation.

As health minister he left Scotland’s NhS in even worse shape than he found it, which was quite an achievement since he had taken over during the pandemic. The recent Covid inquiry hearings revealed a health minister out of his depth.

Despite far greater funding than the english NhS, barely one significant health target was met while he was in charge and now, for the first time, private healthcare is booming north of the border.

A track record of failure like this should have disqualified him from becoming First Minister. But it didn’t. he had Sturgeon’s blessing, he was amiable, young and progressive. his sister had once dubbed him ‘humza Useless’. he proceeded to live up to the nickname she gave him.

‘I will not trade my principles to stay in power,’ he said in his resignation statement yesterday. In fact, he has no principles. he merely mouthed fashionable progressive platitudes, which went unchallenged in the Left-wing echo chamber he inhabited. It made him inclined to go along with every madcap scheme the SNP’s Green coalition partners proposed.

his political touch was tenuous. he pitched himself as ‘ Continuity Sturgeon’ just as her reputation was being trashed.

he hitched himself to the gender self- identification zealots, promoted by the Greens, even though they had already done much to undermine Sturgeon’ s standing with a Scottish public which is much more socially conservative than its political elite. he bought into impossible cuts in climate emission standards by 2030, requiring the hugely unpopular removal of one million gas boilers.

he brought a slapstick, Keystone Cops element to the corridors of power. The SNP camper van seized by the police and the police tent erected on Sturgeon’s garden had already made Scotland something of a laughing stock but Yousaf did his bit to add to the gaiety of the nation: falling off his scooter in a holyrood corridor, struggling with scissors as he tried to cut a ribbon at an office opening, bleating that he ‘didn’t mean . . . to make them [the Greens] angry’ when he terminated the SNP’s powersharing agreement.

his failure to see this and the fact he was bereft of a Plan B was what brought him down in the end and suggests he’s not really suited to politics. There were times when he made even Liz Truss look competent. his departure leaves the SNP in tatters.

Turmoil

The two modern giants of Scottish Nationalism are much diminished. The SNP was in turmoil by the time Sturgeon stepped down, with membership in freefall and the police all over the party like a rash. her husband, until recently the SNP chief executive, faces embezzlement charges, her hopes of becoming an elder stateswoman on the international stage now dashed.

When her predecessor and mentor Alex Salmond went on trial for various sexual assault charges, he was acquitted on all counts bar one ‘not proven’. But what we learned in that trial sullied his reputation irretrievably.

When it comes to its bestknown faces, the SNP is not in a good place.

Then there’s its record after 17 years in power. With independence a distant pipe dream once more, that is all it has to fall back on. It is not much to boast about.

Decline and decay have been the order of the day. By 1900, more than one in five of the world’s ships were being built on the Clyde. Now it can’t even manage two island ferries. An education system, in which a kid like me from a council estate (or ‘scheme’ in Scotland) could get a worldclass education at a 16th century school ( Paisley Grammar) and a 15th century university (Glasgow), is in sad decline. Scottish schools have plummeted down the international league tables.

The attainment gap — a measure of the difference between the performance of poor and affluent children — has widened so that for the first time in recorded history a poor english kid gets a better education than a poor Scottish kid.

Disgrace

And places at Scottish universities for Scots students are being cut (they pay no fees so the places have to be rationed), while overseas students — who pay full fees — are welcomed in ever larger numbers.

More fundamentally, the SNP has done nothing to reposition Scotland for success in the 21st century.

Its financial services have never really recovered from the Great Crash of 2008: famous names such as Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank and Standard Life are either no more or a shadow of their former selves.

North Sea oil, on which the SNP once said it could build a prosperous independent Scotland, is in decline — and the party now wants to phase it out altogether.

Glasgow is mired in urban squalor once more, its sanitation workers fearful of being bitten by rats. even affluent edinburgh is fraying at the edges. World-famous Princes Street is a disgrace.

Yousaf’s political career has ended and the SNP dream of separation has ended in a rude awakening. The United Kingdom will remain intact. This is to be celebrated.

But much damage has been inflicted on Scotland. Those responsible for the vandalism will soon be gone. But who will put it right is uncertain.

The Tories won’t be given the chance and, on many policies, Scottish Labour is too often just SNP-lite.

A Scottish renaissance would be the best way to bury separatism for ever. It remains, alas, some way off.