Welsh lessons from Hamza’s fall
HAMZA YOUSAF, Scotland’s First Minister, quit on Monday ( Apr 29), only days after tearing up a coalition agreement with the Green Party.
Mr Yousaf, whose period as First Minister has been scarred by a disastrous inheritance from Nicola Sturgeon and his ability to shoot himself in the foot, was Scotland’s third and shortest- serving SNP First Minister.
In fairness to Mr Yousaf, the stink surrounding Nicola Sturgeon’s departure from office, a poisonous internal legacy, and the pledge to stand by unpopular policies hamstrung him from the start.
It also underlines a key issue dividing Scottish voters from the SNP establishment.
SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE WHEN?
In the decade since 2014, the Westminster Government has been led by David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak.
Despite those leaders’ unpopularity in Scotland and their disastrous tenures as Prime Minister, support for Scottish independence has either remained static or fallen.
Faced with a succession of what should have been open goals following Brexit, the SNP has blazed their opportunities high, wide and handsome.
When Nicola Sturgeon succeeded Alex Salmond as First Minister, she pledged another independence referendum. Despite having ten years to do so, she never delivered one.
When Hamza Yousaf competed to replace Ms Sturgeon, he and his two opponents said they would deliver another independence referendum.
That prospect appears more distant than ever.
Rather than pursuing intellectual pipedreams or Braveheart nationalism, Scottish voters prefer that their governments focus on boosting their lives through practical means: by improving housing, health, and education.
Instead, the SNP— like Plaid Cymru and, to an extent, Labour in Wales— has wasted political capital talking to its activist base instead of paying attention to the electorate.
The same applies to the Westminster Government, which has been under Conservative control since 2010.
As demonstrations of the dangers of oneparty rule go, they are hard to beat.
THE DANGERS OF ONE-PARTY RULE
Corruption, scandal, squandering public money and pandering to party self- interest finally caught up with the UK’s political parties. The arrogance and insularity originating in prolonged periods in power for one party or another are as harmful to the UK’s nations as to the parties and the UK’s political health.
Mr Yousaf’s departure also illustrates the dangers of entering coalition agreements with fringe parties.
Hamza Yousaf’s immediate cause of resignation was his decision to scrap the Bute House Agreement with the Green Party. He decided that the green tail was wagging the SNP dog, reducing his room for manoeuvre.
His decision to scrap an undeliverable net- zero target was practically unexceptional. Performative targets have no place in practical governance. That decision provoked the Greens to call a special conference to decide whether to pull out of the coalition.
Mr Yousaf, not unreasonably, decided that he could not serve at the pleasure of a few activists in the SNP’s junior coalition partner. Logically, that position must be correct. It’s one thing to change leader in midstream, as Nicola Sturgeon vociferously complained the Conservatives did. It’s quite another to have a First Minister and their government held to ransom by unaccountable junior partners’ members.
A DISASTROUS COALITION
The SNP’s coalition with the Greens was already strained. The Gender Recognition Act passed during Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership, has been a lead weight around the SNP’s electoral ankles. It’s the sort of law that makes perfect sense to politicians who have lost their connection with the electorate and want to polish their credentials with the fringe through gesture politics.
The SNP’s response to the Cass Report rubbed salt into the Greens’ resentment.
Plans to introduce extensive marine conservation areas and restrict commercial fisheries around Scotland’s coast, championed by the Greens, provoked deep anger at potential damage to a key Scottish industry.
The disastrous deposit return scheme, championed by the Greens, folded after Scottish businesses spent millions preparing for it.
It’s not as if Mr Yousaf didn’t have enough problems caused by SNP policies.
A scheme to deliver ferries to service the islands off Scotland’s coast is years behind and tens of millions over budget.
The Scottish NHS and social care are basket cases. Education is not much better. Devolved policing lurches from crisis to crisis. Social housing provision is crumbling. Scottish local government leaders have warned that many councils are at risk of bankruptcy not “if” but “when”.
The Scottish budget has a huge black hole caused by zero tuition fees for Scottish higher education students and more generous welfare benefits. Attempts to close the gap with higher Scottish income taxes have failed.
Allied with those factors are the continuing revelations about how the SNP bypassed public scrutiny by using private and party emails to conduct official business, governed by WhatsApp during Covid and then deleted the evidence, played politics with the pandemic, and used strong- arm tactics to quell internal dissent.
Anyone would think they were the Labour Party in Wales.
Apart from the financial scandals, of course.
SCRUTINY AND THE PERILS OF PARTNERSHIP
Plaid Cymru ought to look at the SNP and reflect on how often its leaders harked to its leadership as providing evidence of what a Plaid- led government would deliver for Wales. It’s an object lesson of being careful what you wish for and relying on show and publicity over actual achievement.
Like Mark Drakeford’s, Nicola Sturgeon’s public profile rose during the pandemic, they benefited from increased national exposure, a sense of communal difficulties shared, and sounder leadership than offered by Captain Chaos in Downing Street.
Their fall in popularity was swift and
inevitable. When you’ve got the bully pulpit in a crisis, you can shape the narrative to suit yourself. However, with that opportunity comes increased scrutiny once the crisis passes. That increased scrutiny did for them as much as it did for Boris Johnson.
Hamza Yousaf’s fate is also an object lesson for the Labour Party in Cardiff Bay.
“Grown-up partnership politics” - to use the hackneyed phrase beloved of Mark Drakeford and Adam Price - already fuels resentment on the Labour backbenches in the Bay. Mr Yousaf’s abrupt departure illustrates the dangers of sharing power and influence without concomitant responsibility when things go wrong.
Having missed his chance to pull out of the
Cooperation Agreement with Labour, Rhun ap Iorwerth faces it being pulled out from under him as soon as Labour’s wildly unpopular and half- baked Senedd Elections ( Rigging) Bill passes the Welsh Parliament with his side’s support.