Blow for Scottish nationalists as UK court rejects independence vote bid

[Emrys]

10. She's from the "Wee Free" culture, which still has active outposts in the Highlands and Islands.

That's the Free Church of Scotland, as close as we get to fundamentalism in our indigenous sects.

Years ago, my wife and I rented a caravan on a tiny farmstead for a week just north of Ullapool. Ina, our landlady, was a notorious Wee Freer whose renown spread along the substantial north-south glen where we were based.

In a casual conversation with someone quite far afield, when the subject of where we were staying cropped up, the guy knew Ina of old.

"Does she still put a bucket over the rooster on the Sabbath?", he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

I don't think Forbes has shown much political nous in what she's revealed about her personal beliefs at this stage of her campaign, given the predictable slavering fixation of the media and various gainsayers, much as I have to admire her honesty. Her outlook is quite traditional and old-fashioned on sexual politics, and it's going to jar no matter how much she maintains that her beliefs are not something she would impose on others if elected.

It jars more because the SNP has grown into a very liberal party on such matters, to some disgruntlement from some of its more traditional supporters, not least those who peeled off to join Alba, who're capitalizing on the current disarray as much as any hardline rabid Unionists and the media are. The Scottish Greens are extremely hot on such matters, so if she did get elected, she'd have to do some pretty flash and fast talking to keep them onboard in the current confidence and supply agreement. If elected, that could be the first major test of her leadership.

She remains impressive, and if not for these considerations, I'd say she would be the best candidate. But, as they say, if my auntie had ...

Humza Yousuf is seen as the continuity candidate, which isn't necessarily as positive in some quarters as it might at first sound, but has faced similar questions of his own on sexual politics because he's Muslim, albeit a decidedly secular one who's got a decent track record on these issues. I've nothing much against him, but I'm not clear how safe a pair of hands he might prove. Having said that, he's gained ringing endorsements from SNP politicians I admire and respect, like MP Tommy Sheppard. Overt racism has already reared its head on social media, and while I don't want to shy away from defending him on such ground, it would quickly get extremely tiresome and distracting if he were elected.

The other qualified contender, Ash Regan, hasn't impressed me so far. She reminds me of some of the more polished Labour apparatchiks of the Blair years, which is unfortunate for her. She's very forthright, but at the same time curiously unhelpfully evasive in some of her interviews I've seen so far.

She shows signs of being a covert Alba holdout, despite her claims to want to bring the various independence factions together, not just because she wants to go hell-for-leather for a referendum, or from what I heard from her tonight, a series of Holyrood and Westminster elections that she'd seek to make plebiscites on independence, which I can't see working out well as a Plan A, but also having stood down very abruptly as a Holyrood minister during the passing of the contested Gender Reassignment Act legislation, which she opposed. She's also brought on board a strategist who served under both Salmond and Sturgeon, but who stood as an Alba candidate in the last election and is on record as bitterly attacking Sturgeon for supposedly trying to frame Salmond in the run-up to Salmond's multiple sexual abuse court case (where he was acquitted of all charges, I should add, though what he did admit to was utterly disgraceful to any right-minded person). The media have already begun capitalizing on that. Her statements about the oil industry and addressing climate change have also run counter to Scottish government policy so far.

I can't say I'm impressed with the very short timescale set for nominations (all three I've mentioned have now met the threshold to proceed to the hustings), nor the range of candidates that has resulted, which doesn't reflect the strengths in depth I know the SNP has. So they'll have to battle it all out, and the media are likely to have a field day. No single candidate is ever going to replicate Sturgeon's various types of broad appeal and strengths, and it's pointless looking for all of those in a single successor.

It's worth remembering that, a few scandals notwithstanding, the SNP hasn't had to endure open schisms on this scale for quite a number of years, while Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have been through various extended debacles and splits over the Sturgeon years, and they're all still standing on the whole, albeit with chips of various sorts in their paintwork and worrying stresses in their undercarriages.

Any predictions that Sturgeon standing down means the end of the SNP, let alone the wider independence movement, misread the situation, but journalists are going to journalist and opportunists are going to opportunize, so the clamour over the next month or so is likely to be exhausting and deeply, deeply stupid.

I may hibernate for the duration.