‘Indyref2 policy is a total mess': Wishart candidly reveals all on SNP

“It’s been a tough year,” he begins. A series of blows since Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation “compounded the misery”. The party hasn’t “sufficiently addressed the difficulties we’re having”. With elections looming, the SNP faces its “key test”: whether it “continues to prevail as Scotland’s majority party”.

Chief among the SNP’s “difficulties” is “the lack of confidence in our ability to deal with tough decisions. There’s a sense of fatigue setting in around some of our agenda”.

The party “got bogged down – we cannot move beyond some of our difficulties. Take anything from ferries to Michael Matheson’s iPad. We seem singularly unable to deal with these constructively, put them behind us and move on. We’ve got to get better than that”.

He adds: “The ‘big vision thing’ matters. We’ve got to give people a reason to believe in us, a sense that if they’re voting SNP it’s aligned with their values. We’ve got a lot of soul-searching ahead of the 2026 [Holyrood] election: what we’re about, how we govern, the things we consider priorities … We can’t take for granted anymore that support is just always going to be there because we’ve seen in opinion polls in the past year people are looking at other alternatives.”

Nevertheless, Wishart believes the party is “still in a reasonably good position. We’re competitive”. The public “are forgetful” of SNP achievements now. He adds: “From tuition fees to the Scottish Child Payment, we’re not very good at restating what we’ve delivered.”

Forbes

Does he blame the leadership contest for declining support? Many seemed taken aback by Kate Forbes’s social conservatism, Ash Regan’s populism, and were uninspired by Humza Yousaf.

“That Kate did so well came as a genuine surprise to many in the party. We didn’t understand and appreciate just what resonance some of the more socially conservative parts of her agenda had. We’ve always taken for granted that we’re a left-of-centre liberal party that supports progressive ideas.”

Kate Forbes MSP

Wishart said many SNP figures, like former Westminster leader Ian Blackford, are “socially conservative in their personal views [but] able to set that aside … in a way that’s more in line with the party. At the beginning of the contest I was prepared to give Kate the benefit of the doubt. I thought … she’d be able to make a distinction between her own faith and a general view more in line with party values.

“That wasn’t possible and some of the extraordinary things that she came away with - around children out of marriage - was beyond the usual brand of social conservatism we see in some of the darker recesses of our movement. That was quite a shock.”

When Forbes “did really well … we all stood back and thought ‘wow, are we as a movement capable of delivering a result like this, which would seem to endorse a set of values which would be almost alien five years ago … For the sake of a couple of percentage points, we might be led by somebody who firmly believes these things are important and would have led the nation according to the values they espouse.”

Wishart was “prepared to look at anybody who came forward” during the contest. Though adds there was “one I wouldn’t have gone near with a barge pole”.

Who’s that? “Ms Regan. I was mightily relieved she didn’t have the resonance she thought she had. The result was derisory.”

Caretaker

HOWEVER, although Wishart stresses his support for Yousaf as leader, he says that during the contest “I wanted to hear more about a new vision, clarity about how we take [the party] forward, how we refresh our agenda. I looked at the range of candidates and didn’t feel there were any that gave that. My decision was based on who was the best of the people available, and I voted for Humza on the basis of that.”

The leadership contest was “a profound moment”, as previously there was always a “natural” who took over, whether that was John Swinney, Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon.

“We’re not giving the right type of democratic environment for ideas and new people to emerge and say something different. We really handled it so badly. We got to a stage where we just didn’t get the best out of people that were available to come forward and stand. I hope we never do that again. It was a distinctly uncomfortable moment for us.”

Any party, he says, would struggle to escape the shadow of Sturgeon and Salmond, “huge defining figures of our political era … absolute giants in the same way Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, John Smith and Donald Dewar were for Labour”.

He adds: “To the same extent that Labour suffered when they disappeared, we’re in a situation where we’re having to accommodate that we were led so dynamically by two hugely charismatic, effective politicians. Replacing them was always going to be difficult. It was always going to be a tough task for whoever came after Nicola … I think Humza has seen quite a bit of that. He’s always going to be compared to her, which could be fair or unfair, but it’s something that’s going to happen.”

While emphasising his support for Yousaf, Wishart says of the leadership race: “There were a number of us looked at the contest as it started to shape up. There was an appeal went out to senior, significant members to take on the leadership of the party, almost like a caretaker role … to come and take over the party for a period, possibly up to the next Scottish election, where we could roughly continue along the trajectory we’re on just now, and use that period to see who was available, to nurture somebody, maybe not just one, maybe a succession of people, who could come forward and redefine what the party’s objectives and ambitions should be.

“That’s what I was looking for in the contest, because as it started to shape up, you were looking at a series of people who’d said that they were interested, and thinking ‘surely we’ve got more than this’. My idea was to find a caretaker role for somebody with the skills to see us through this period, make space for other people to emerge and then make a decision at that point. That, unfortunately, didn’t happen so we were in the situation where we had to choose between the individuals available.”

Yousaf

WISHART voted for Yousaf. “I think Humza surprised a number of us just how effective he’s been. He’s not had the easiest conditions to deal with – police investigations – and obvious difficulties through ferries to Michael Matheson’s iPad,” he points out.

“You’ve also a Labour Party that’s found its mojo. But I’m genuinely surprised just how well Humza has navigated his way through. He comes across as a leader with great empathy. He demonstrated that with his response around Gaza and his family. The public saw and like it.”

FM Humza Yousaf

However, Wishart believes “the public still don’t have their mind made up about him: “He’s not made a decisive difference to perceptions about him yet –the jury is still out.”

He thinks a General Election may see Yousaf’s approval ratings rise through exposure. “I’ve certainly not given up on Humza. He’s someone I like immensely.”

Yousaf interned at Westminster when Wishart was Chief Whip. “Everybody sensed he’d go on to great things in the party, which obviously he has. He’s been a steady pair of hands, he’s not made any huge clangers.”

However, he “wishes” that Yousaf had “dealt with some of the sillier issues more constructively”, such as “the whole iPad stuff. Why was that allowed to rumble around for weeks?”.

What should have happened? “When it first emerged, just pay it, get it out of the way, don’t let it grow legs. We didn’t deal with it, we let it go on and on. I’m not necessarily saying Michael should have been sacked but this could have been managed a lot better. The way we allowed this to drag out, it became more about honesty and integrity than iPads. We got to that place without an effective strategy.”

Matheson will survive, Wishart predicts, as the story fades “from the top of the news agenda”.

Police

ANOTHER story that’s dominated is the police investigation into party finances. “Every time we suggest this inquiry should be coming to a conclusion, we’re automatically interfering in a live police investigation, and apparently that’s the worst thing for a serving politician to stray into.

“But it’s becoming political, clearly, as we go into an election year where this remains unresolved. We know this upsets the population – we saw that in Rutherglen. The issue came up repeatedly on the doorstep. It leads to a question of trust.

“At some point, certainly in the next couple of months, there must be resolution. It’s singularly unfair that a party would go into any General Election with this hanging over them.”

Nutters

WISHART is a fierce critic of Alba. A “psychiatrist” is needed “to find out what Alex’s motives are concerning his latest venture”. In Alba’s “early days”, the SNP “thought they realistically could get a foothold in the Scottish Parliament”.

Alba didn’t succeed, however, as Salmond “surrounded himself with the weirdest bunch of miscreants and nutters who emerged from the blogging community”. These figures were “obsessed with trans people … and had an antipathy to anybody who was trans”, nor were they “happy with the way [the SNP] was addressing the independence question”.

This “curious hotchpotch stopped [Alba] having reach”. The behaviour of Alba figures on social media has been “antagonistic, hostile and hateful. People come across them and are immediately repelled. The surprising thing is Alex never addressed any of this. I keep waiting for him to say ‘listen, this isn’t working, we’ve got to be careful how we communicate, we’ve an opportunity to build a party here’ – rein in some of the more hateful supporters, discipline a couple, show he means it. But he’s not done that, and seems happy to go along with this”.

Alex Salmond

Given Salmond is an “almost unsurpassed political intellect and strategist”, Wishart is “mystified” why the former first minister hasn’t “demonstrated more leadership”. Alba’s attacks on the SNP, Wishart says, make it “impossible that we’d ever be enticed into an arrangement with them”.

Wishart loathes the online trolls of both unionism and nationalism. He says: “They’re two ultra groups down in the sewer bashing lumps out of everybody who gets in their way. It destroys everything in its wake. It’s a scorched-earth policy that serves nobody. It’s just awful, yet it continues.”

Unionism

WISHART blames “unionists” for divisions in the Yes movement. Despite a pro-independence majority at Holyrood

– “a mandate for a referendum” – Westminster parties, “particularly the Conservatives just had to say ‘no’ and then let the frustration and impatience build, which it did”.

Some Yes supporters “gleefully went along with this”, leading to “ill-conceived” attacks on the Scottish Government. “It’s been relatively easy for [unionists] to stir discontent in the Yes movement.”

Malcontents fell into a unionist trap, Wishart feels. “It surprises me they don’t see how they’ve been played. The result is everything [unionists] dreamed they’d achieve: another independence party attacking the SNP. Along with the unionist voice, there’s an independence voice continually attacking the Scottish government.”

Wishart is proud of what his generation of independence activists achieved, particularly solidifying the notion of “civic nationalism, that’s nothing to do with ethnicity”, and positioning the party as “centre left”. That led to the SNP’s long run of electoral success. However, since 2014, the party “has been wrestling about how we get to independence”.

Westminster parties won’t agree to another referendum. “Why would they if it looked like we might actually win?” However, “all this is set to a clock. At some point, levels of support will start to drop off”.

That means the party must “have a clear process”. People “will lose heart if they don’t see a way forward. They want to know how you get there”.

Indyref2

WISHART supports the “de facto referendum” route. “I can’t see a cleaner, more elegant way, having had a clear ‘no’ from unionist parties. There’s nothing left other than this,” he says.

“That would have been the thing to do. Now, we’ve decided on a policy at conference which I just don’t understand. It’s a total mess, it’s two contradictory things: if we get a majority of seats, we start independence negotiations, and almost concurrent we ask for more powers. It just doesn’t work.”

Winning a de facto referendum would lead to Westminster “probably telling us to get stuffed”, but it would also mean “that Scotland had voted for independence. That changes everything. We could start to act like an independent nation, push beyond the Scottish Parliament’s powers as we had the backing of the majority of the Scottish people”.

The Scottish Government could appeal to the international community “that we’re a nation that’s voted for independence and we’re not getting it because of the way the UK Government treats us”.

He doesn’t think the current independence policy will “encourage supporters who are tempted to stay at home – and there’s lots of them – to get out and back the party. It’s confusing and contradictory”.

Given that after the next UK election the SNP “might be in a worse position than we’re currently in with the number of MPs”, Wishart says “nobody seriously believes” independence negotiations would begin.

“We just can’t get around the credibility factor,” he says. “I don’t believe that’s something the UK Government would readily concede, and I don’t think the people who proposed this motion believe that either.”

Losing a de facto referendum, however, wouldn’t mean independence was “all over … We just brush ourselves down and get on to the next one, and keep doing that until they sit down and agree a process with us, or until we win”.

Labour

SNP MEMBERS must get their “ heads around” the fact that “Labour will win [the next UK election] by a significant majority. We don’t know how well they’re going to do in Scotland, but they’re not going to get below 30%. A number of seats will be in play.

“We’re going to have to learn to live with Labour, and look at the opportunities a new government presents.” If Labour is serious about constitutional reform then the SNP “must positively engage”. Not engaging in the 1990s Constitutional Convention “cost us dearly, we probably lost five years of progress”.

Strategically, the SNP must consider “getting nearly everything we want short of our full goal of independence”. That means “tempting Labour into thinking more seriously about nearly all powers [for Holyrood]”, including referendum powers and “full fiscal autonomy”.

However, Wishart adds: “Let’s just say Labour take a significant amount of seats from us – they’ll still have a constituency of independence-supporting [voters]. How do they manage that?”

But doesn’t that show independence decoupling from the SNP – that must worry him? “Absolutely, it gives us nightmares, the amount of people who are independence supporters and now thinking about voting Labour. We recognise that dynamic is going on. Again, I go back to clarity about independence. I don’t think we’ve got our offering right. I don’t think that’s motivating enough of our support.”

Holyrood needs more powers, he says, to ensure “effective” government. But surely the SNP hasn’t used all the powers available? “I don’t think anybody would be able to confidently, credibly claim that. We’ve got powers in the Scottish Parliament we’ve never even started to use – we should be using tax powers more decisively and significantly. We’ve got real powers when it comes to welfare.

We’ve got other powers at our disposal that we’ve never touched.”

The SNP government is experiencing “policy inertia” and “malaise”, he says, “that’s common to every government in power this long. To think we’d escape that is naive. The focus on minutiae starts to creep in, government management issues become bigger and more difficult. We’re experiencing all these things.”

After the next General Election, the SNP must “redefine, reshape, re-energise, reinvigorate – get a bigger vision of what we want for Scotland in advance of the 2026 election. That’s a lot of hard work. Colleagues must start shaping that up. We’re going to have to break a few taboos”.

Greens

WISHART firmly supports the pact with the Greens. “We wouldn’t be able to govern without the Greens. If we lost our arrangement and asked the Greens to leave government, there’d be a vote of confidence practically every week. At some point that would be successful, so the government falls. Unionists know that. They see the Greens as the government’s soft underbelly. They’re made out to be bogeymen, Marxist revolutionaries – how your gas boiler can be a demon, I don’t know, but unionists have done that really effectively. We should be defending them more robustly. I think the party is torn.”

Patrick Harvie MSP

Some SNP figures “are starting to believe this narrative that it’s the Greens costing us support. But if you look at support for the Greens, it’s going up. I’m really proud we’re in government with a progressive party.”

So, why do figures like Fergus Ewing disagree? “I don’t know what motivates him, what gets him up in the morning and makes him tick. Maybe he profoundly believes that, which he’s entitled to, but it’s unhelpful. Why would you return to [minority government]? I don’t get it.”

If the SNP loses the UK General Election in Scotland to Labour, Wishart says: “I don’t think it will threaten Humza’s leadership. I think he’ll remain First Minister as he should. He deserves the opportunity to lead us into the Scottish election. That’s the key test for Humza.”

Fascism

AS for the Tories, he feels that “one of the most important contributions in parliament” was Mhairi Black “talking about the encroaching F-word, a sort of sense of fascism”.

Conservatives “are in for an absolute hiding” at the election, which means “if you think they’re right wing now, wait to see what happens when they’re defeated. They’ll move to an extraordinary length to the right – you’re talking the terrain of Trumpism”.

He says “every second” Tory at Westminster “would welcome Nigel Farage. They see him as a charismatic leader that would get them out of opposition. Some hope for a Trump victory”.

The Tories might be a mess, but what about the SNP at Westminster, after defections and the unceremonious departure of Ian Blackford? There are no more defections coming at Westminster, he says. Nobody is “tempted” by Alba. However, Wishart adds: “I don’t know enough about the Scottish Parliament.”

So is the Westminster group a stable, happy family? “I wouldn’t go so far as that. We’re certainly getting along better that we have for quite some time.

“All of us, even the sceptics, myself included, have been impressed with Stephen [Flynn, the new Westminster leader].

“Old tensions are pretty much in place, and largely unresolved, but we’re all facing the General Election, so we’ll be managing as consensually as we can. I’m not going to pretend we’re singing Kumbaya. We’re not characterised by huge splits, though there’s stuff rumbling away that’s never been resolved.”

What tensions? “A lot of us were unimpressed by the way Ian was dealt with and still wonder what this was about. We don’t get it. It’s never been properly explained. There’s unresolved conversations about exactly what was intended by the change in leadership and whether this was absolutely necessary.”

Does Wishart’s longevity as an MP give him the liberty to be so forthright in his views about the party? “If you’ve done this job as long as I have, you’re entitled to a certain degree of forthrightness.

“You get to the place where you’re not just allowed but expected to talk about what you’ve learned from experience. There’s an obligation on all of us in the independence movement to speak candidly.

“Honesty is an important feature of politics. Sometimes you might upset somebody, but as you get older you care less and less about that.”