John Curtice: Bute House Agreement not source of SNP's woes

The leading pollster repeated his view, first expressed last week, that the main fall in polling support coincided with the SNP's leadership contest which ended in April with the election of Humza Yousaf.

Some SNP politicians including former rural affairs secretary Fergus Ewing have called for the arrangement with the Greens to end saying it was dragging down the larger party, while others including former leadership contender Kate Forbes have backed members being given a vote on whether it should continue.

"The SNP are tarnished, damaged and diminished by our continuing voluntary association with these hard left extremists -  and  unless the deal is scrapped this will only get  far worse. Our polling support has dropped. The evidence is there for all to see," Mr Ewing wrote in an article for the Herald on Sunday yesterday.

Meanwhile, former Scottish Greens' leader Robin Harper said at the weekend the agreement was costing both political parties votes.

READ MORE: Fergus Ewing: Green tail is wagging SNP dog and deal must end

However, Sir Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said the divisions in the SNP over this agreement was not the source of the party's decreasing popularity in the polls. He pointed out that support for the Greens had risen since the agreement.

"The honest truth is that as far as the Greens are concerned it's not clear that this arrangement is doing them any harm at all," he said.

"If you take the average of the last half dozen polls of how people say they would vote in the regional vote at the Scottish parliament election, which is the ones Greens primarily contend, the Greens are running at 11 per cent, that's three points up on what they got in May 2021."

READ MORE: Ian Blackford: Bute House Agreement will continue to 2026

He added: "The SNP have of course a wee bit of electoral trouble. On the regional vote they are down to 30%. They are down by 10 points.

"And it may well be, one of the reasons why there is discontent inside the SNP, is that people are asking themselves 'have we let the Greens into government and they are getting the better deal electorally?'.

“But you can't necessarily assume that the arrangement is the reason... A lot of other things have been going on, not least the change in the SNP leader and the leadership election, which doesn’t seem to have done the SNP much good," he said.

“If we look at the timeline of when SNP support went down, it was slipping a bit before Nicola Sturgeon resigned and it has slipped a bit since, but the primary period during which SNP support fell was during the leadership contest and with the election of Humza Yousaf.

"And I think the SNP have to ask themselves 'one do we necessarily have somebody who is capable of leading us effectively in future'....And secondly, are the divisions that are now emerging amongst us, the public arguments are these also not doing us much good. How it gets itself out of that bind it up to them to decide.

“But the truth is, I think, in looking at their partners in government, the SNP are probably not looking at the principle source of their political difficulties.”

READ MORE: John Curtice: Humza Yousaf to blame for SNP's slump in polls

The co-operation agreement, which was signed back in August 2021, officially brought the Scottish Greens into government and gave the party's two co-leaders, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, ministerial positions.

However, the SNP has been divided on a number of key policies brought forward on the back of the deal and championed by the Greens including gender reform, the deposit return scheme, highly-protected marine areas. All are currently shelved.

The debate inside the SNP also comes as Scottish Greens’ former leader Robin Harper left the party saying they had “lost the plot” and become “careless and cocky” in government.

Mr Harper, who was an MSP for the Lothians region from 1999 until 2011, also branded Mr Harvie and Ms Slater’s leadership “arrogant and abrasive”.

Meanwhile, Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie said the Scottish Greens being in government "scares some people".

Writing in The National responding to the criticism, Mr Harvie compared his party with when he first joined.

"When I look at the Scottish Greens today, a lot has changed - for the better," he said.

"We have far more members, more experience at national and local level, and more profile. Most importantly, unprecedented electoral success has brought us the opportunity to put policies into practice as never before.

"And that scares some people. Some of them are from the right wing of the independence movement, who never moved on from the 'Scotland's oil' generation despite the reality of the climate emergency fossil fuels have caused.

"Sadly, some are even former Greens who never really embraced the social or economic dimension of Green politics and wanted us to be little more than an environmental pressure group.

"Both those viewpoints end up helping only the status quo, and the parties which aim to protect it."

The agreement, Mr Harvie claimed, is the "biggest asset in ensuring the policies of pro-independence parties are furthered, and ultimately in delivering independence itself".

He also took aim at the Conservatives and Labour, with a general election expected to be no more than 18 months away, claiming Rishi Sunak's Tories "expect defeat next year" and have launched a "toxic culture war".

Mr Harvie accused Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer of endorsing a "hostile environment against asylum seekers, hideous welfare policies like the two-child limit, and the same transphobic rhetoric we hear from the Tories".

He added: "They can't win on policy, they have lost on credibility, so finger-pointing and name-calling is all they have left."