AN SNP MP has insisted the party should have focused more on succession planning for Nicola Sturgeon.
Dr Philippa Whitford, who will stand down at the next General Election, has said the leadership contest throughout February and March exposed a “weakness” in the party that they had failed to “groom” a successor to Scotland’s longest-serving first minister.
The question of who would succeed Alex Salmond following his resignation in 2014 was not a difficult equation to solve. It made sense to members for Sturgeon – who had been Salmond’s deputy – to take on the role. It was essentially a coronation in the end, given no one challenged her.
This meant the SNP had not faced a leadership contest for nearly two decades. Combine that with the sudden resignation of a leader who was lavished with praise for her progressive policy and carrying a nation through the pandemic with effective and compassionate communication, the party suddenly had a real puzzle on its hands.
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SNP MP Pete Wishart said in a revealing interview earlier this month that he didn’t believe candidates Humza Yousaf, Ash Regan or Kate Forbes presented “a new vision” for the party, describing the contest as “deeply uncomfortable.”
Whitford said the contest showed how no-one within the party had been moulded in the way Sturgeon had to be a natural successor and that was potentially a mistake.
Asked how she felt about the contest and the quality of candidates, she told The National’s Holyrood Weekly podcast: “I think leadership contests naturally involve party candidates attacking each other and washing dirty linen in public.
“I think maybe a weakness of the party was, with the strength and also the relatively young age of Nicola, there hadn’t been any succession planning.
“When Alex Salmond stood down, albeit very suddenly, Nicola had been deputy first minister and she had clearly been groomed as a strong successor and I don’t think we had a field of people that were already in that sort of position.
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“Therefore for any of them to be elected, frankly, it was going to be a big step up.
“I think in any big organisation, you want to be thinking of succession planning, asking who the people are we want to groom to be possible contenders, but you don’t necessarily want coronations all the time, you want to have a range of candidates.
“You also need to be thinking well, what’s the young talent that’s come in in 2021 that you’re grooming even for future leadership? It’s something we maybe should have thought more about.”
Polling expert Professor John Curtice described the contest earlier this year as “fractious” and insisted it was the main reason the SNP had seen themselves slip in the polls.
While acknowledging the impact of the police investigation into the SNP’s finances and the resignation of Sturgeon, he maintained the “main culprit” of the party’s decline was the battle between Forbes, Yousaf and Regan.
A year ago the SNP stood on average at 45% in the polls of voting intention for Westminster.
At the start of the contest, the SNP were at 43%, but by the end they had slipped to below 40%. Once Yousaf was declared winner, support had slipped further to between 38% and 39%.
When asked if she agreed with Curtice (above), Whitford said she felt Sturgeon’s departure had had the most significant impact on the SNP.
She added that Yousaf had had a “baptism of fire” with relentlessly negative headlines around the party throughout 2023.
The Central Ayrshire MP said: “I think the loss of Nicola was significant. I think people are very impressed at how Humza is speaking about the war in Israel and Palestine. His nuance and his humanity are showing through.
“But his initial time, including the leadership election, was overshadowed with the police investigation into party finances which is still hanging there.
“What we have that is very noticeable in Scotland is relentless headlines that are always pitched in a negative way, instead of actually [for example] the Scottish NHS, while struggling post-pandemic, is outperforming the other three, or we are making progress at the end of secondary in closing the attainment gap.
“Nothing in Scotland is ever reported positively, and so I think all of that builds up, but it [the SNP dipping in the polls] started from losing Nicola and particularly the police investigation.”
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