The Very Meh Humza Yousaf Thread.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

9 hours ago, Ziggy Sobotka said:

Would there be enough SNP rebels for a vote of no confidence ? Not so sure.

I think he'll stay until the General Election where he'll live or die by the result. The SNP are near guaranteed to lose seats there, which will be factored in, it'll depend on the scale of the loss.

Another similar by-election loss would probably do for him as well.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

47 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

There is no doubt that the downturn in SNP fortunes is largely of their own making.

That said the option facing anyone at an election is to vote for the least worst option.  How the people in Scotland can think that a Starmer led government is the least worst option defies logic.

 

This byelection they got an incredibly easy ride - their vacuous lack of policies really needs to be challenged.

Edited October 6, 2023 by DeeTillEhDeh

[vikingTON]

29 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

I get what you are saying. I doubt he'll step down despite continuity being a political noose. His only roll of the dice is to change course.

To put his fingers in his ears and continuing as before will just see things getting worse.

As I say, the apathy for the SNP in the wider independence movement is getting bigger and bigger. Its not confined to Wings or the Alba wing.

You need to have political capital and credibility to change course - Yousaf won by an extremely narrow vote on more of the same. He cannot pivot now and remain leader of the party other than in name only. 

Instead of obsessing about nonsense theology issues during the leadership campaign the party should have recognised the greater benefit of chucking the Greens overboard and pivoting back to the centre ground. The usual suspects can bray about Labour being Tories all they want - that's not the message they're sending north of the border though, and the onus is on the SNP to do better by actually doing things of consequence in government. Failed recycling bottle schemes isn't going to work. 

[AMMjag]

I think a GE is too far gone, being less than a year away - that event needs to blow up in Humza's face rather than a new leader's.

The next 8-12 months within the party needs to be spent ensuring that there is at least one halfway credible candidate to replace him, rather than going through another absolute nick like the last leadership election. 

I couldn't care less if said replacement is a self-proclaimed socialist or a God-fearing Tory: if they can prioritise the binning of pointless identity politics; uniting as broad a spectrum of pro-independence members as possible; and punting out utter incompetents from key positions of responsibility (Green coalition, Susan Aitken, many others), then we can think about maybe getting somewhere.

 

[Thane of Cawdor]

4 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

Wow, a solitary win in a flip-flop seat. SCOTTISH LABOUR ARE BACK BABY.

I'd be more impressed if they actually won an election.

Aye, lucky for them the pandas didn't procreate. Now that metaphorical monkey is off their back.

[vikingTON]

5 minutes ago, AMMjag said:

I think a GE is too far gone, being less than a year away - that event needs to blow up in Humza's face rather than a new leader's.

The next 8-12 months within the party needs to be spent ensuring that there is at least one halfway credible candidate to replace him, rather than going through another absolute nick like the last leadership election. 

I couldn't care less if said replacement is a self-proclaimed socialist or a God-fearing Tory: if they can prioritise the binning of pointless identity politics; uniting as broad a spectrum of pro-independence members as possible; and punting out utter incompetents from key positions of responsibility (Green coalition, Susan Aitken, many others), then we can think about maybe getting somewhere.

Completely agree with this. While Yousaf's leadership is a busted flush, they might as well run with that through a GE that is not actually going to be decisive for Scottish independence anyway. Let's not forget that Scottish Labour had the lion's share of seats at Westminster in 2007 and 2011, when Salmond secured victory and then a crushing landslide at Holyrood. The L needs to be taken by Yousaf but also all the other hangers-on who peddled Continuity Sturgeon as a credible policy for a party 15 years into government.

After a GE they need to elect a leader who recognises that their task is to lead a Scottish National Party, as opposed to marshalling an ever-narrowing group of Central Belt, 'Laebur left me' social democrat/social liberals. 

[Donathan]

I can’t see anyone wanting to oust Yousaf because a loss of seats at the general election is already baked in. Better to let Yousaf be the fall guy for that than be looking for a 4th leader in 18 months.

 

I wonder how many seats Yousaf needs to win at the general election to keep his job. The SNP won 56 seats in 2016, lost 21 of them in 2017 and won 13 back in 2019.

 

If he loses 10-15 seats and delivers a similar result to 2017, I think he can cling on (that result wasn’t fatal for Sturgeon), but losing 20+ and he would have to resign IMO. 

[RuMoore]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

There is no doubt that the downturn in SNP fortunes is largely of their own making.

That said the option facing anyone at an election is to vote for the least worst option.  How the people in Scotland can think that a Starmer led government is the least worst option defies logic.

 

From reading other posts on here am I correct in saying you voted for Brexit?

If so then your barometer is, if I'm being generous, completely fucked when it comes to defining such things as least worst options...

Surely even the most ardent of New Labour haters would think voting this Labour over the Tories is a better decision than voting Leave over Remain?

[Cheese]

Yup, the 'Nicola but less competent' positioning used to get him over the line in the leadership contest is now a noose around his neck and arguably holed him below the water line before he even got started.

The cracks that Sturgeon was able to paper over due to her and her camarilla's iron grip on the party are now widening at an alarming rate. Yousaf possesses neither the authority or ability to do similar.

[StellarHibee]

1 hour ago, Donathan said:

Probably because people are fed up of the cost of living crisis

Good thing Labour promised to resolve the issue....

Before the endless run of u-turns.

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, Donathan said:

Probably because people are fed up of the cost of living crisis, the NHS at breaking point and the small boats. The Tory government have made all of the above worse and are pandering to the far right with nutters like Braverman making comments that would have been more likely in the BNP a few years ago. You’ve got Labour pledging to sort all this out or the SNP banging on about independence. 

 

 

[StellarHibee]

2 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

You've got to wonder what people are on. Incredible.

[vikingTON]

SH playing the daft Corbyn-supporting persona is one thing - the doddery old clown who actually voted for Brexit is something else. 

[Cheese]

I'd also add that 'the electorate must be fucking thickos to vote for anyone but us' attitude was quite prevalent before Slabs fucking hounding in 2015.

[Bonksy+HisChristianParade]

1 hour ago, RuMoore said:

From reading other posts on here am I correct in saying you voted for Brexit?

If so then your barometer is, if I'm being generous, completely fucked when it comes to defining such things as least worst options...

Surely even the most ardent of New Labour haters would think voting this Labour over the Tories is a better decision than voting Leave over Remain?

I’m sure Granny Danger voted Brexit and then fucked off to live in Spain. Morally bankrupt hypocrite. 

[Dunning1874]

Obviously the scale of internal revolt in response is going to be what tips it, but I'm not certain dropping 20+ seats come a GE will necessarily do for Yousaf. They dropped to 31 seats in 2017 and still came back to increase their seats again come the next Holyrood election, I think you're maybe looking at 25+ as a definite point of no return.

Obviously it'll be considerably harder to spin that as a mid-Holyrood term slump as opposed to terminal decline than it was for Sturgeon, but I think it’s only when you see consistent Holyrood polling after a Labour GE victory that suggests there's a serious chance of the SNP not forming the next Scottish government that the knives get plunged in rather than just sharpened. Even at that point there might be a f**k it, let him take the fall approach, if the inevitable hit to popularity Labour take once Starmer is PM hasn't translated to an SNP polling bounce.

[vikingTON]

The fall is the GE and Yousaf has no inherent value as a politician to be worth holding onto beyond that. It would be like handing Gus McPherson a new contract after he's already relegated your football club.

[RuMoore]

30 minutes ago, Bonksy+HisChristianParade said:

I’m sure Granny Danger voted Brexit and then fucked off to live in Spain. Morally bankrupt hypocrite. 

That position would be relatively acceptable if you didn't then spend half your time slagging off people that live in Scotland for not being subservient to grievance politics and basing their whole political engagement around such things like being inconvenienced  by "imposed Brexit" when you actually voted for it. 

[GTee]

Hilarious that folk think Westminster will solve the crap.  As someone once said. Bring it on. The only country on the planet that relies on its larger neighbour to survive

[ClydeTon]

The most important thing about the by-election wasn't Labour's margin of victory, it was the turnout.

Labour only won 17,845 votes.

In 2019, Labour had 18,545.

That's a fall of 700...

The reason the SNP lost is because the SNP vote in Rutherglen stayed home. The SNP is a shambles, therefore, don't earn the vote. However, the average SNP voter won't back a Unionist party like Labour, so they just don't vote.

Just like Labour at a UK level - they aren't offering anything to win votes (if anything they actively push people away), they rely solely on the collapse of their rivals - in England the Tories, up here, the SNP. The only exception is Wales, where Labour enjoy enough popular support to maintain power. Just.

The best thing Humza could do, and the best option for the SNP, is to resign before he - like he has in every other job he's done in government - makes an arse of it.

The best thing for the independence movement would be an SNP tanking in the next GE, Humza gets punted, and the SNP do a clean out. Although, that could easily go bottom up.

Either way, Humza needs punted, fast.