Sooner or later, the SNP will need a new leader. Here’s who is in the running

The SNP have always afforded their leaders an unusual degree of loyalty and longevity. The FM has been doing the arduous job of running the country as well as her party for seven years. Hapless Scottish Labour has had nine leaders (if you count acting posts) in the same period. Alex Salmond actually served a full 20 years as SNP leader, albeit in two, decade-long stints interrupted by John Swinney’s short, unhappy time in the role.

Before Salmond, wily Gordon Wilson ran the party for 10 years, and before him pugnacious Billy Wolfe was in the hot seat for another decade. That’s only five leaders in half a century.

Not that the SNP in all those years were above a little internal faction fighting. In fact, the mutual blood-letting and multiple expulsions of the 1980s almost tore the party apart.

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As with most civil wars, the conflict petered out in exhaustion. Ever since, the SNP have exhibited an iron discipline that is the envy of other political parties. It is this residual discipline, in the face of a relentlessly shrill Unionist media, that ensures the Sturgeon-Salmond internal battle remains firmly off limits as far as the membership is concerned. However, sooner or later, the day will dawn when the SNP will need to elect a new leader. Are they prepared? My view is that the succession is far from clear – which could prove awkward given the complexities of the current political and economic situation, never mind the lurking divisions inside the party and wider independence movement over strategy and tactics.

Rarely has the SNP leadership succession race been so open. Remember that Nicola Sturgeon was elected unopposed in 2014. Salmond’s return to the leadership in 2004 was facilitated by Sturgeon’s withdrawal in his favour, turning that internal contest into a coronation. You have to go back to 1990 and Salmond’s first elevation to the leadership to find anything like an open fight.

Who is in the present running? First up Angus Robertson, former party leader at Westminster and head of the SNP’s polling operation. Robertson is bidding to return to frontline politics in May, contesting Baroness Davidson’s Edinburgh Central seat for the Scottish Parliament. If elected, he would be the party establishment’s choice as Sturgeon’s successor.

However, there is no guarantee that the activist membership (or the electorate, for that matter) will warm to Robertson’s patrician, grandee style. True, he is a formidable campaigner and is willing to fight dirty, but his conservative politics are more suited to Westminster than Holyrood. Above all, Robertson lacks the charisma to front a battle for independence. After all, Robertson lost his Moray seat (after 16 years) to a Tory populist, Douglas Ross.

Inside the Holyrood ring, that leaves the youthful but confident Kate Forbes and the clever but sometimes erratic Humza Yousaf. The latter would make for an interesting choice if Scottish Labour pick Anas Sarwar as theor leader. Selecting either Forbes or Yousaf would put the SNP into the hands of the Millennial generation. This might appeal to young voters, who are overwhelmingly pro-independence. On the other hand, Forbes and Yousaf are relative unknowns when it comes to public campaigning. And neither has a personal base in the wider party or indy movement. This suggests either’s leadership would lack grip and direction, opening the prospect of internal strife and external drift.

THE lack of a clear line of succession must be attributed to Nicola Sturgeon herself. For her Cabinet and for political advice, she relies on friends. That keeps talent at bay and fosters resentment.

Also, Sturgeon is not always good at picking allies. She over-promoted Derek Mackay to be in charge simultaneously of finances, the economy and the constitutional question. She also relied on Mackay, as SNP party chairperson, to keep the membership under control. No wonder he saw himself as the FM’s designated successor.

Alas, as was known inside the SNP hierarchy and to many attending the conference Ceilidh, Mackay had behavioural issues. He was eventually was forced to resign from his ministerial posts and the SNP in 2020, following revelations he had pestered a 16-year-old boy on social media. I do not reprise this to denigrate Derek Mackay. We are all human. But those in the leadership had a duty of care to help him with his problems, not promote him beyond his abilities, thus making him feel invulnerable.

Who else might challenge for the leadership, from outside the first circle? First comes MP Joanna Cherry, who is closely aligned with Alex Salmond and the Plan B awkward squad who are not minded to wait patiently on Boris Johnson to sanction indyref2. Cherry is dynamic, charismatic and one of the SNP stars at Westminster.

But therein lies her Achilles’ heel: she is marooned politically on the green benches in London, far from the action. Technically, she could run the show till the SNP machine got her a place at Holyrood. But that would allow her avowed political opponents (eg Angus Robertson) to make mischief.

Another Westminster challenger might be Alyn Smith, the former MEP. Smith has long held leadership ambitions and previously tried to get a Holyrood nomination in 2011. Smith is media friendly, a veteran campaigner and someone who strokes the membership assiduously. He is also a serious policy wonk, which is rare.

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However, Smith sits squarely on the right wing of the party, opposing anything but a long constitutional slog to persuade Westminster to grant a Section 30 order for a referendum, and defending the neoliberal nostrums of the Growth Commission report. As a result, he was voted out as chair of the party’s policy committee last November. Smith can also be acerbic and overtly factional. As leader, he would doubtless launch a culture war against the left in the party.

None of this suggests internal SNP politics will be a bed of roses once Nicola Sturgeon leaves office. But for now, the leadership remains in complete command. The National Assembly yesterday was a masterful exercise in controlling the membership, including the pre-announcement of an “independence taskforce” and the publication of an 11-point “roadmap to a referendum”.

But the composition and actual activities of the taskforce remain opaque. Are new campaign staff being hired? Will it be active during the pandemic or only afterwards?

As to the roadmap, it appears at best to lead to a legal confrontation with Westminster over the right to call a referendum. In which case we are in the hands of the UK Supreme Court, whose current president – Baron Reed of Allermuir – is an establishment Scot.

The SNP look set to command a majority at May’s Holyrood election. But thereafter I suspect we are in deep, uncharted waters. Nicola Sturgeon might well quote Madame de Pompadour: “Après moi le deluge”.