The SNP finally manage a divorce...

The Bute House break-up won't save a leader who has lost control of events.

We’ve all had breakups that we pretended were mutual but which really left us a bit broken.

For days, the Scottish ‘Greens’ have debated whether to walk out on the SNP. The junior coalition partner had thrived on a strategy of being the hipster wing of the nationalist movement. They set out their stall explicitly as the depository for the second voters of SNP supporters. As the SNP fall in the polls and deeper into scandal, that now looks like a less fruitful strategy.

Harvie and Slater’s party debased themselves in return for those second-preference voters. Much of the commentary in the coming days will suggest that it was watching their humiliated MSPs defending the dropping of climate targets that broke the relationship. That is to forget that the Scottish Greens decided long ago that their environmentalism was secondary to their nationalism. Remember Ross Greer going to the international climate change conference in Glasgow to attack Greenpeace and to defend the SNP on fossil fuels?

What is driving this isn’t principle but polling.

They’re just not that into you anymore, Humza.

For Yousaf, this is an utter humiliation. Just hours ago he told us that he wanted the agreement to continue - despite his partner holding a vote on whether to leave. Unsurprisingly the First Minister’s own party was miffed as to why only one side of the relationship was getting a say over whether to have a divorce.

We’ve all been here: you know you’re about to get chucked so you dump them first to try salvage a bit of pride. We all know it only ever makes you look more pathetic.

Where does the Bute House break up leave the SNP?

Loss of Pride

There’s no doubt that the Bute House Agreement was not popular but it is relatively far down the list of reasons people have left the SNP. Internally, Yousaf may feel that ending his coalition will enable him to better see off the shadow leadership campaign of Kate Forbes and her supporters. However, the very fact that he is making decisions on how to govern the country on the basis of how it helps him control the right wing of his party only underlines his weakness.

The amount of disorder within the SNP’s system will grow. The Herald’s Tom Gordon summarised how the SNP are now in the grip of political entropy:

“SNP now showing classic hallmarks of government in terminal decline. Struggling leader, powerful rebels, bitter knife-edge votes, legislative turmoil, electoral reverses looming, and oppo parties chorusing 'time for a change' after years and years and years in power”

To survive in politics you need to be able to think several moves ahead. Yousaf has possibly the worst chess game of any leader in history.

When Sturgeon resigned ahead of a mass of government and party scandals, he painted himself as “the continuity candidate.” When it was obvious Michael Matheson would have to resign he told the media that the matter was “closed”. He backed Peter Murrell as a “proven winner.” WIth the Greens now poised to take revenge by removing his parliamentary majority, it seems that, yet again, he wasn’t able to think beyond the moment he is in.

As regular readers know, I’m spending most of my time knocking on doors and talking to voters. Something that is noticeable among those who have previously voted SNP, even if they haven’t yet jumped ship to another party, is how seldom you hear a confident declaration of support for the nationalists. Labour’s parliamentary candidate chat group is full of campaigners sharing stories of meeting SNP members on the doorstep who are no longer sure if they’re going to turn out for their party.

Nationalism, at base, weaponises pride for political purposes. It is that confident feeling of belonging that the SNP’s past success was built on. In the journey from Sturgeon’s dominance to Yousaf’s incompetence, that confidence has evaporated. The SNP have gone from Steve Clarke to Ally MacLeod.

The fundamental problem the First Minister has is this: he doesn’t make people proud to be SNP. An attempt by Yousaf to paint this as the moment he resets his leadership won’t work precisely because he would be leading that effort. It isn’t that his government lost its way. He isn’t returning to a period in his administration when he confidently controlled events because that time never existed. From the first moment of his leadership voters looked at him and were utterly unconvinced.