A leading polling expert has suggested that opposition parties at Holyrood may have actually aided the SNP by helping to precipitate the resignation of Humza Yousaf as leader.
Sir John Curtice pointed out that Yousaf had ended up being “rather unpopular” with voters, claiming his departure could be “good news” for the party he formerly led.
The comments come after a YouGov poll, conducted between between April 26 and 29, found that 55 per cent of Scots said they would prefer the Scottish parliament to remove Yousaf from his post in a confidence vote, with 24 per cent responding that MSPs should keep him.
The polling found that Yousaf also ended his tenure as first minister with a net approval rating of minus 47, his lowest recorded score.
***Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website, providing comprehensive coverage of UK politics. Subscribe to our daily newsletter here.***
On Monday, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross claimed credit for the SNP leader’s ouster. Speaking before the first minister’s press conference at noon, Ross said Yousaf was choosing to quit rather than face a “humiliating defeat” at a vote of no confidence later this week.
He insisted that “The Scottish Conservatives have delivered on our promise to be a strong opposition to Humza Yousaf and the SNP”.
Speaking to Times Radio on Tuesday morning, polling expert Sir John implicitly countered Ross’ triumphalism, saying opposition parties “have actually managed to get rid of an SNP leader who has proven to be rather weak”.
He said: “What happened yesterday might be regarded as a bit of good news for the SNP in that what the opposition have managed to do, they have been a bit too successful, they have actually managed to get rid of an SNP leader who has proven to be rather weak, struggled to bring his party together, struggled to give a consistent sense of direction.
“And now at least the SNP have an opportunity, although it comes with risk, to replace him with an alternative.”
Sir John also cautioned that the wider public is unlikely to be gripped by the “soap opera” in quite the same way as journalists and commentators.
“We shouldn’t necessarily assume that the public are necessarily gripped quite so much by this soap opera in the way that one has to admit that most journalists and most commentators like me certainly are”, he told Times Radio.
Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, claimed on Tuesday morning that the SNP is no longer capable of providing Scotland with stable leadership as he repeated his call for an early Holyrood election.
Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Sarwar said he believed an election was the “only way to stop the chaos”.
He argued the SNP “has become so chaotic, so divided, so dysfunctional that they aren’t able to give this country the stable credible leadership it needs”.
The next Holyrood election is not scheduled to take place until May 2026.
Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website, providing comprehensive coverage of UK politics. Subscribe to our daily newsletter here.
