The oh-so-chummy first hustings with the three SNP leadership candidates seems like a very long time ago.
And the adage that a week is a long time in politics is never more true than when it’s said in the context of a party leadership contest.
The SNP is going through a break-up of sorts at the moment.
It is breaking with the past and the comfortable status it has enjoyed for the last decade, as Scotland’s dominant and apparently unbeatable political force.
But Nicola Sturgeon could not go on forever. And neither could the shaky, surface-level peace that she successfully engineered within her party.
The three leadership contenders might have promised a good-natured contest between colleagues and friends. But if the last few TV debates are anything to go by it seems the gloves are well and truly off.
Of course, pledges to keep things civil for the sake of the kids often disintegrate when they make contact with reality.
And this is politics, after all. It would have been more disconcerting if the contest had continued down the friendly trajectory it started off with.
There are fundamental differences between the three candidates – in personality, policy and their vision for the country they want to lead. So it was only ever going to end in a rammy.
Fighting set to intensify between SNP front-runners
During the recent TV debates, tensions have increased between the two front runners.
Humza Yousaf pressured Kate Forbes on her stance on abortion and protest ‘buffer zones’ around clinics that provide them.
Forbes took a swipe at the Health Secretary’s record in government.
He, in turn, accused her of handing ammunition to the Tories to attack the SNP with.
With friends like these, eh?
Some SNP members and activists are becoming increasingly uneasy with the public brawling.
This open hostility between candidates is bound to feel uncomfortable for a party that is thoroughly out of practice when it comes to leadership contests. They have not held one in more than 20 years.
But there is all to play for as we enter the final stretch. And as the prize edges closer, it’s only natural that the fighting will intensify.
Will SNP popular vote swing it for Kate Forbes?
With just over two weeks to go until the ballots are counted, it is clear that Humza Yousaf is the favourite to win among elected representatives.
While Nicola Sturgeon has said that she won’t be publicly supporting any one candidate, Yousaf does have the backing of some big-name Sturgeon allies, including John Swinney.
What is less clear is whether party members are as enthused by the idea of a leadership contender who is viewed as the ‘continuity Sturgeon’.
Polling guru Professor John Curtice recently said SNP members seem pretty evenly divided between Forbes and Yousaf, but that “if this election was being decided by the general public in Scotland, it seems pretty clear Kate Forbes would win”.
Unionists for independence?
We’ve got a new poll out from @Survation today with a dilemma for SNP supporters.
All that and exclusive story on Stephen Flynn siding with Humza Yousaf in leadership contest. https://t.co/Ht6ZRjkIcx via @thecourieruk— Andy Philip (@andydphilip) March 11, 2023
It remains to be seen whether polls like that will have any sway with SNP members who are currently contemplating their vote.
If they do, and if members choose Kate Forbes, as the candidate they believe has the broadest appeal with the wider public, then the bickering we’ve seen from the party of government in recent weeks will be as nothing compared to the fall-out that her victory would bring.
Would those elected members who condemned Kate Forbes for her stance on same-sex marriage and abortion really rally behind her as Scotland’s next First Minister?
Will it be a case of “these are my principles, if you don’t like them I have others’’?
Or could the SNP be heading towards a period of discord far more fundamental than embarrassing rows between leadership candidates?
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