SNP needs reform amid crisis and loss of 'trust'
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The state of the SNP and the effect on the Highlands dominated comments after the Inverness Courier debate from the three candidates – Humza Yousaf, Ash Regan and Kate Forbes.
Nicola Sturgeon appeared to make matters worse during a subsequent appearance on Loose Women where she reiterated inaccurate claims the SNP was responding to specific claims about membership numbers.
That repeatedly demonstrated to be untrue when leading national journalists posted the original media inquiries showing they only sought accurate figures and in fact were given inaccurate figures.
Humza Yousaf, seen as the establishment candidate, believes the incident shows the party is badly in need of reform, admitting that: “I think we scored a bit of an own goal as a party in terms of not releasing the membership figures and I called for them to be released earlier this week, they should have been at least probably the beginning of this contest.
“And I believe that that's symptomatic sometimes of the issues that headquarters does face. So, I've said, in many instances from the very first hustings that took place at the beginning of this campaign that internal party HQ reform is needed.”
Ash Regan has been forthright about her objections to the party machine and when asked said: “Well, it is a question of trust. I'm standing on a platform for change, for accountability, transparency, modernisation in the party.
“I think I was doing one husting when I said right at the beginning that I felt the party had lost trust.
“Clearly one of those issues was a lack of progress on independence and the other was Gender Recognition Reform. So I feel like it shows what I had been feeling for some time, and I'm sure many members of their party had been feeling that leadership was perhaps not going in the direction that the membership wanted.
“And you can clearly see that now with the drop in members, I think it's something like 31,000 down since August last year, which obviously chimes very closely with the period when the Gender Recognition Reform Bill was going through parliament.”
She added that she started her campaign in the North of Scotland because “I wanted to distance myself from the current messaging that is currently coming out of the SNP-Green government.
“I do get the feeling when I visit up here that there is a feeling of being a bit left out, feeling things are distant and that in the Highlands that the Edinburgh government is not making it enough of a priority of some of the issues up here. So if I'm First Minister I am going to change that.”
Kate Forbes agreed with that in part saying the Highlands does not receive equal treatment.
“I think the brilliant thing about having a leadership hustings of course is that all candidates are forced to confront some of the issues when it comes to the Highlands," she said.
"And I made the point that often when there is a road blocked in the middle of Glasgow there's mass outrage and yet when we in the Highlands face similar issues with our lifeline services or key roads then we don't hear so much about it.
"So I think it's really important. That any leader is a leader from all of Scotland. That includes our Highland communities.”
