The limits of the irreplaceable leader

The SNP put all their eggs in Sturgeon's basket. Now they are broken. What lessons can Labour take from this?

The SNP continue their slow and fast implosion. This coming week could see their leader Humza Yousaf either lose or scrape through a vote of no confidence based on the vote of Ash Regan, someone he recently described as ‘no great loss’ to the SNP when she defected to Alba.

I am no fan of Alba (in particular RT regular Alex Salmond), nor of the prospect of Scottish independence more generally. But watching the SNP’s bungling leader has been instructive in how not to do politics. And watching him now being toyed with and played by these more canny political rivals has shown the importance of being able to ‘play the game’ when it comes to politicking.

I am not going to dwell on the party’s ongoing legal troubles as these are still to be resolved through the police and courts process. But if we look at the dominance that Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Morrell had over the party it is clear that their expedited removal from the top perch of the party left a significant vacuum that no one was ready to fill.

In fact they were not ready to fill it because SNP discipline had for so long meant fealty to Nicola. And as such little if any work was done on succession either from the Sturgeon side or her rivals. There wasn’t a build-up of talent looking to replace her and jockeying for position for when the time came because for so long it was simply impossible to think of that time coming.

As a leader, that can feel like a blessing. You can focus your time and attention not on those trying to replace you but on your own political priorities. Too much constant pressure on a leader can lead to the mess the UK Tories have got themselves into where all calculations are made with one eye on keeping your job. As a party, it can feel like a blessing too - to most. There will always be some who can’t reconcile themselves to the leader they chose and those who will be disappointed even in the leader they voted for. But in general, when a party is doing well, a leader is popular. Some leaders get to step down at a time of their choosing. At least I believe in theory this is true, though now I come to type it, I can’t, off the top of my head, think of any in the three main UK parties who have.