Will Humza Yousaf’s conference promises save the SNP?

Humza Yousaf took SNP politicians and activists to the blistering cold of Aberdeen this week to host his first party conference as SNP leader. Yousaf was under great personal stress with his wife’s family currently trapped in Gaza and the event had a sombre tone to it, not helped by an audience turnout that didn’t quite manage to fill the main hall. Off the back of a disappointing defeat in the Rutherglen by-election, a defection of one of his own MPs to the Tory party and polling predicting that Yousaf’s party might lose over half of their Westminster seats to Labour next year, there was a lot hinging on the Aberdeen meet. So, six months into his premiership, has Yousaf’s conference managed to turn the SNP’s fortunes around?

The conference’s first day saw a debate on the SNP’s independence strategy play out. Activists took to the main stage to propose and query amendments, with one member calling for a ‘fully treasonous attitude towards Westminster’ while another described the party’s separatist strategy as ‘flatulence in a trance’.