Kate Forbes shouldn't quit leadership race but don't hide behind faith

Her inclusion demonstrates that Scots most emphatically do understand democracy.

Who suggests we don’t?

Look around. There is a long, ignoble history in these islands of fitting up the opposition – particularly the Celtic nations who fought Hanoverian rule and have long refused to toe the London line.

Bams.
Warring.
Chippy.
Sullen.
Always settling old scores.

You name the violence-associated idea, the British establishment has created a way to connect it with Scots. That’s one reason the late great Jimmy Reid made such an effort to deter strikers in the successful Upper Clyde Shipbuilders 1970s sit-in from behaviour that would enliven the stereotype. The fact his “nae bevvying” rule has remained in common parlance for so long, is testimony to his canny instincts – aware that the crude caricature of a brawling, drunk, intolerant Scot hovers constantly in reserve, just waiting to be deployed.

That hasn’t changed.

Within a day of Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, I was on Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine programme with Daily Telegraph columnist Alan Cochrane who said twice that the now postponed de facto referendum conference would’ve been “a bloodbath with the Nats all fighting one another”. Happily, someone was on hand to correct this nonsense. But that’s not always the case.

So, I’d add to nae bevvying, nae cancelling.

The best thing happening now is debate. The controversial views of one candidate are being thoroughly aired, talked about and decided upon. And if she finally loses, it’ll be because she failed to engage or persuade, not because she’s been closed down. Indeed, I’d humbly suggest it was the way she spoke – not the widely known fact of her Christian faith – which prompted five MSP supporters to change their minds.

Hannah Bardell MSP was spot on when she said the Finance Secretary’s initial interviews with The Scotsman and Channel 4 hurt because they made no attempt to engage with or reach out to the hundreds of thousands of gay people, their friends and families she was about to offend.

Perhaps it’s unfortunate for Ms Forbes that she follows a skilled communicator who would never make such a basic mistake. Nicola Sturgeon was expert at anticipating the likely impact of her words and building acknowledgement of their impact into the message itself.

She cushioned the blow, essentially created dialogue within her speech and took people with her during Covid precisely because their reactions, questions, suspicions, and pelters had been articulated and answered before they’d even been delivered. That’s called empathy. And without it all forms of communication and non-dictatorial leadership ultimately fail.

The list of social issues facing the new first minister is large and Kate Forbes’s responses haven’t reassured campaigners for abortion buffer zones or a conversion therapy ban. And her belated attempts to acknowledge equal marriages, gay relationships and unmarried parents have not succeeded in softening that initial blow. Could she ever have managed to square the circle? It would have been tough. But it would have been worth trying much, much harder. Because creating consensus is what modern politics is all about.

Some folk respect a person for holding on to their beliefs.

I respect a person who engages with other people about their beliefs.

Kate Forbes is currently asserting her ideas about righteousness within the Free Church – not engaging. And there’s a big difference.

True – assertion of rules is the approach of many faith groups and the Free Church in particular. I almost feel sorry for Kate because every step she’s taken beyond the pale for the urban, secular majority is also a step too far from orthodoxy for Free Church and Free Presbyterian celebrants.

Yet even they make compromises with the modern world.

If Ms Forbes is a strict Sabbatarian, does she travel, answer the phone or do any work on Sundays? If not, it’ll be tough at the top, arriving at Holyrood on Monday mornings after a knackering five-hour drive south (after not sleeping because of the bairn). If Sunday work and travel is possible, despite clear Free Church instruction on the matter, then why is gay marriage not possible too?

To fall back on “faith” is too easy an answer.

Many Free Church adherents take a Sunday ferry or a Sunday flight from the islands, but don’t go shopping. It’s a strange set of social priorities for outsiders, but it makes sense to many people who live there. Which is fine. But suddenly, that Free Church outlook has made a sudden entry to the Scottish consciousness. And it needed far better preparation.

For the avoidance of doubt, I was so horrified by Kate Forbes’s pronouncements, I nearly sat down and cried. It’s taken so very long to get purist, unforgiving attitudes out of Scottish mainstream thinking and it takes so very little for doom-mongers (looking at you, Alan C) to start predicting that Scots will punch the living daylights out of one another to reach a resolution.

So, it’s important to keep saying that is not happening. Scots are not tearing ourselves apart – we are having a debate.

And the current debate is not really about faith in general, but one individual’s interpretation of one faith and we are rapidly discovering other faiths and other Christian interpretations are available.

As Ross Greer demonstrated in an excellent National column, he interprets Christianity as requiring him to campaign for the equality of all people. Likewise, Humza Yousaf whose interpretation of Islam relates the equality he seeks as a first-generation Muslim Scot to the equality expected by everyone else. I’m sure many Muslims disagree with that and the progressive stance he’s consistently taken on equal marriage.

READ MORE: Ross Greer MSP: My Christian faith is why I support LGBT equality

And by the way, I’m not a Yousaf supporter or SNP member and probably won’t take any public stance on candidates till far more has been said.

But the important point is that the public and presumably the entire SNP leadership is now thoroughly engaged in the leadership process – from a multitude of different perspectives. The only problem is that debate has got stuck on social issues. Now it must move on.

More exposure to actual arguments made by real human beings – including on the crucial topic of independence – can only be a good thing, and Ash Regan has raised a lot of hard-to-realise expectations and started to look feart by holding back. Perhaps as debate turns to the economy, we’ll finally have a proper discussion of “green” freeports and the reassuring but ultimately dead-end line that oil and gas have a long-term future in the economy of the north-east. But those are just my bête noires.

No-one has a trump card in the vital process of debate – and faith should not exempt any candidate from proper scrutiny.

Every stance – from taxation rates to conversion therapy – is only as good or weak as its proponent. If Kate Forbes had engaged with unbelievers, she might’ve won respect and maybe some converts to her version of Christian faith. But I don’t think she has.

That’s nothing to do with online bullying or living in a godless age and everything to do with lecturing others instead of using a bit of empathy– a vital part of modern political communications.

But that too is just my opinion.

Long may many opinions get aired, robustly but calmly, until a new SNP leader is finally chosen.