The Scottish National Party (SNP) has been going from bad to worse for just over a year. It is as if first he had been robbed in the street, then the thieves had entered his house, later he had suffered a fire, followed by floods, and the cherry on top was an earthquake. The result is that his home is upside down, only a third of the electorate is willing to vote for him in the next election, and his haul of 43 MPs in Westminster may be reduced to less than half. He is torn between asking for leave due to depression or taking pills to combat anxiety.
In order to stop the precipitous fall in popularity since Nicola Sturgeon resigned thirteen months ago, her successor, Humza Yousaf, has unilaterally broken the coalition with the Scottish Greens (also pro-independence) that allowed the SNP to govern with a majority (it is two seats short of have it alone in the Holyrood parliament). It hasn't gone well with his former partners, as expected. And after denouncing the “cowardice”, the “betrayal of the electorate and the commitment to climate change”, they have joined a motion of censure presented by the conservatives.
Yousaf, much less charismatic than his predecessors Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, may have a hard time when it is debated next week, and to survive he will need all members of his party to support him without exception despite the internal fissures, and even request the help of figures like Ash Reagan, who was his rival for the SNP throne and has moved to Alba, another pro-independence party.
Yousaf has broken the coalition and has decided to govern as a minority to release ballast. The alliance with the Greens meant a firm promise to reduce carbon emissions by 75% by 2030 and support the most radical gender policies on sex change. With voters increasingly reluctant, he now has a free hand and will be able to give them up.
To understand the mental impasse of the SNP and its need to go to the psychoanalyst, suffice it to say that almost half of Scots continue to opt for independence, but, of them, one in three are willing to vote in the Labor elections. , who is a unionist. Reason? That, with prices and mortgages through the roof and public services in tatters, at this moment they prioritize fixing the economy, education and health.
After seventeen years of monopolizing power, the SNP has lost the halo of competition that Sturgeon and Salmond had over their heads. To this we must add the lack of a strategy to achieve sovereignty in the face of the refusal of London and the Supreme Court to allow a new referendum, the chronic lack of housing (as in England and Ireland), and the embezzlement scandal that It has already meant the presentation of charges against Sturgeon's husband, while the investigation into the former first minister, dedicated to writing her memoirs, continues. Just as in Spain or the United States, Scottish politicians seem to spend more time fighting corruption accusations than governing. Bad roll.
30% of the electorate believe that the SNP has made their lives better, but the remaining 70% say the same or worse. Like not to sleep.
