By Alistair Smout and Andrew MacAskill
LONDON (Reuters) – Three candidates are set to fight it out to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as Scotland’s next leader, with the winner facing the daunting task of uniting a country divided over its future and a party fracturing over how to pursue another independence vote.
Sturgeon, in office since 2014, unexpectedly announced last week she was resigning as first minister of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government, saying she had become too divisive.
The frontrunner to succeed her and become the next leader of her Scottish National Party (SNP) is Humza Yousaf, a Sturgeon loyalist who faces criticism for his record in government.
Up against him are Kate Forbes, a rising star whose views on same-sex marriage have already lost her supporters, and Ash Regan, who quit the government over proposed gender recognition reform.
The deadline for nominations is on Friday at 1200 GMT.
The campaign so far has been dominated by a debate about views on social issues such as gay marriage, transgender rights and abortion.
However, whoever wins will need to restore the Scottish government’s reputation for day-to-day competence amid constrained budgets, while members of the SNP want them to chart a route forward towards the ultimate goal of independence.
“What the SNP need is somebody, a rare individual, who combines both of those talents,” John Curtice, Britain’s best known pollster, told Reuters, adding that the debate over social issues had meant none had yet set out their vision for Scotland.
“The big fundamental question of facing the party… is how it’s going to acquire majority support in Scotland for independence: That question has not been addressed.”
INDEPENDENCE
Under Sturgeon, who became leader after an independence bid was defeated in a 2014 referendum, the SNP positioned itself as a progressive, pro-European voice for a Scotland that needed to break away so it could end years of Conservative government from Westminster.
But her attempt to call a new independence referendum without the consent of the UK government was stopped by the UK Supreme Court, while another row when London blocked a planned gender recognition reform law revealed as many divisions over the policy within the SNP as it did with Westminster.
Sturgeon quit admitting that she could not ask her party to follow her controversial plan to declare the next UK-wide election as a de facto referendum on independence if she was unsure of her own future as leader.
James Mitchell, a professor of public policy at the University of Edinburgh, said Health Secretary Yousaf was “the continuity candidate” who had not been associated with any particular vision of Scotland beyond independence.
He has however been criticised for his handling of a health service still struggling to recover the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yousaf has distanced himself from Sturgeon’s independence plan, and has said the party needs to get back to making the case for independence, rather than endlessly debating process.
But his momentum mainly stems from pitfalls suffered by his main rival.
AN IMPORTANT VISION
Forbes, the nation’s finance minister and a member of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland, had been the frontrunner until she said she wouldn’t have voted for single-sex marriage. Some SNP politicians withdrew their support.
She has caused further controversy with her views on abortion, and by saying having children outside of marriage is wrong and that a trans woman is a biological man, though she has emphasised she will protect the rights of everyone.
One SNP lawmaker said that Forbes’ campaign would likely continue to be dominated by her views and distract from other issues, which would be bad for her, the party, and other politicians who are religious but hold progressive social views.
“I can’t see how she can continue. So much damage has been done,” the lawmaker said.
The other candidate, Regan, who is less well-known has said she would push for independence as soon as possible while looking to use North Sea oil reserves and rejecting the gender recognition law, policies that would strain a governing agreement with the Green Party.
As other policies are debated, Curtice said Sturgeon’s pro-European stance was set to endure. Unlike the English and Welsh, most Scots opposed Brexit in the 2016 referendum.
“Sturgeon’s framing of the independence debate in the last few years has been very much one in which really getting back into the European Union… is an important vision,” he said.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Andrew MacAskill and Elizabeth Piper; editing by John Stonestreet)
