The hypocritical, feuding SNP has been found out as the wreck that it is

‘We have reached the stage that the SNP looks like nothing more than a complete wreck’

‘The party hierarchy are backing Mr Yousaf in spite of his lack of success in any of the ministries he’s held’

As the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon staggers towards a shambles, the basic truth of Walter Scott’s dictum becomes ever clearer.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” is what he wrote, and now there is nothing in politics more tangled than the state of the SNP.

In its increasingly fratricidal leadership race, one leading contender, whose backers have launched ferocious attacks on his main rival over her fundamentalist Christian views, is now accused of being misleading in an attempt to hide his Muslim beliefs. Another wants to take Scotland out of the UK by a simple declaration of independence if the SNP gains a majority in next year’s general election.

We have reached the stage that, where once it sought to portray itself as Scotland’s natural party of government and was ready to break up Britain, the SNP looks like nothing more than a complete wreck.

The race to replace Ms Sturgeon, who announced her resignation as party leader and First Minister last week, began in earnest yesterday when nominations closed for the contest to replace her.

But the 10 days up to that point had already seen ferocious attacks on the views of Kate Forbes, the current finance minister, who is a member of the Free Church of Scotland. She has admitted that she opposes sex before marriage and Sturgeon’s plans to allow people as young as 16 to change their gender by simply declaring their intention to do so.

However, it was her admission that she wouldn’t have voted for gay marriage that brought most criticism, with both Ms Sturgeon and her deputy, John Swinney, questioning whether someone of her views would be an “appropriate” choice to lead the party and country. Although Humza Yousaf, the Scottish health minister, has not publicly joined in these attacks on Ms Forbes, there is little doubt that they have led to him gaining more supporters. But, having previously said repeatedly that he supported gay marriage he has now been accused, by a number of sources, of pleading with senior ministers to be allowed to “skip” the key vote in Holyrood on the issue because he was “under pressure from the mosque”.

He has denied the claim but the accusation has come as an opinion poll of SNP supporters showed that Ms Forbes was their preferred candidate and as she received a ringing statement of support deploring the attacks on her from the Roman Catholic Church – not normally an ally of the Free Church.

There is little doubt that Ms Sturgeon and the bulk of the party hierarchy are backing Mr Yousaf, in spite of his singular lack of success in any of the ministries he’s held.

Nevertheless, the ferocious and often hypocritical attacks on her from the bulk of the SNP “establishment” has not only resulted in an embarrassing backlash from party members but has also led to voters looking anew at the party that has ruled the roost in Scotland since winning its first election in 2007.

What they’ve seen is sincerely held beliefs being traduced by a governing party that, amongst the other nonsense it has preached, has appeared to suggest to us that a double rapist was a woman with a penis.