When Humza Yousaf took to the stage of Dundee’s Caird Hall on Tuesday to address STUC delegates, few among the audience were expecting the rafters to be in any immediate danger. Mr Yousaf’s speeches tend to be light on substance with an emphasis on old Nationalist barnacles that the passage of time and the changing of guards have failed to shift.

At last month’s party conference he had pledged to rid Scotland of all Tories at the forthcoming Westminster election. How he planned to do this was left unsaid. Not that the party activists, straining to hide the spaces in a half-empty hall – like a short tee-shirt on a bouncer’s stomach – were caring.

The comrades don’t really go in for the orchestrated, sea lion clapping of SNP events. On Tuesday, when the First Minister re-heated the old Tory-free line again it had all the impact of a beach ball.

Yet, even when taking into account a badly-written and shallow speech, Mr Yousaf looked and sounded fatigued. He had reminded his audience that his first keynote speech as First Minister had been delivered to this gathering one year ago. As such, you’d have expected some of the lustre of his newly-minted leadership still to be apparent. On Tuesday morning though, he looked like he was going through the motions.

The Herald: Nicola Sturgeon and Peter MurrellNicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell (Image: free)

The last I saw of him was trying to make eager small-talk with activists and stall-holders at the Caird Hall as he ran half an hour behind schedule. In what would become a calamitous week for the SNP this was as good as it was going to get for Mr Yousaf.

During his speech he’d attempted to mount a half-hearted defence of the Hate Crime Act, perhaps the most chaotically-contrived piece of major legislation attempted in the Sturgeon/Yousaf era. Within a few days it had become a national joke, rendered worthless by one of JK Rowling’s elegant stilettos.

This though, was a nirvana compared with the events that have unfolded over the last three days. The Cass Review of medical care for gender-distressed children and young people in England and Wales eventually forced Scotland’s only gender clinic to pause the use of puberty-blockers for under-18s.

The Scottish Government and Mr Yousaf in particular had looked cowardly and callous in refusing to comment, despite the profoundly disturbing findings of the four-year investigation conducted by Dr Cass, a globally-renowned authority and practitioner in the field.

This was followed by the abrupt ditching of another major flagship under-taking, the pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2030 after accepting that it is now “out of reach”

Much, much worse was to follow. The SNP’s former Chief Executive, Peter Murrell was formally charged with embezzlement in relation to party finances following a three-year investigation. Yesterday, Police Scotland confirmed that Mr Murrell’s wife, Nicola Sturgeon and former party treasurer, Colin Beattie remained under investigation following their arrests – and subsequent release - last April.#

One veteran activist told me last night that this had been “far and away the worst week in the history of the party”.

READ MORE

Greens had one job and they failed ... now Harvie and Slater must go

Green members demand talks to end Bute House Agreement

Another told me that, having voted Yes and become active in the wider independence movement in the five years that followed, he now felt he couldn’t vote for independence if there was another referendum any time soon. “Nicola Sturgeon has done more damage to the cause of independence that anything Labour or the Tories ever did.

“For a few weeks I thought that Humza, having acknowledged this, would set about regaining the trust of the ordinary members. If anything though, he’s made the situation worse by promoting very mediocre and downright incompetent people into ministerial posts that are way beyond their capabilities.”

His tone is more of bewilderment than depression. Of all the SNP activists and politicians I spoke to this week the question wasn’t “how do we get out of this mess” but rather “how did we get here”.

They are all united in who they believe is most responsible: “this can all be laid at Nicola Sturgeon’s feet,” says one senior member of the SNP’s Westminster group. “Say what you like about Humza and his perceived lack of leadership qualities, but he was left with a poisonous legacy.”

Jim Sillars, the SNP grandee, traces the decline of the SNP to an almost psychotic obsession with keeping control within a tiny inner circle of Sturgeon loyalists from which most of her cabinet were excluded.

“In ten years we’ve gone from an organisation that’s gone from civic to one that fosters division and which seems to have been deliberate. People of ability have been replaced by people they’ve deliberately chosen for their mediocrity. During the Hate Crime consultation they have deliberately cut out formidable policy-makers and thinkers in favour of NGOs acting in bad faith.

The Herald: Stephen FlynnStephen Flynn (Image: free)

"I joined the SNP in 1980 when it was the most democratic political party you could get anywhere in the UK and probably in Europe. The senior people in the party had to be elected and they were held accountable. The senior officers had to go to National Council twice a year between conferences with written reports on what we’d done and were questioned on them.

"Then John Swinney began a series of changes which have since become embedded in the culture of the party. The main purpose of the changes is to give the leader group total power. The leader now appoints the Chair of the NEC and the NEC doesn’t just contain those appointed by conference but also those whom I would call third-party organisations.”

Another senior MP tells me how they celebrated when news of Peter Murrell’s charges were announced. They still hoped that Mr Murrell will be found innocent of all charges but that any subsequent trial may be the only way to put the issue to bed.

Across all sectors of the party another narrative emerges: that while the Scottish Greens remain in the cabinet the party faces the prospect of losing the Scottish election in 2026. “The levels of anger at the two Green ministers is off the scale,” I was told by another MP. “It comes up time and again on the doorsteps when we’ve been campaigning. The only way that Humza can save his leadership is to end the Bute House Agreement before they seek to become martyrs over it.”

The question of whether or not Mr Yousaf is around long enough to lead his party into the next Scottish election is now featuring in conversations where SNP supporters gather. A narrative has begun to emerge wherein Stephen Flynn, the party’s formidable group leader at Westminster, cuts a deal with Kate Forbes and Joanna Cherry to have Mr Yousaf removed before an electoral apocalypse occurs in 2026.

The Herald: Lorna Slater and Patrick HarvieLorna Slater and Patrick Harvie (Image: PA)

Sources close to Mr Flynn insist that their man has “no plans” to become leader in the near future. Meanwhile, it’s generally thought that Ms Forbes, who came within a whisker of defeating Mr Yousaf in last year’s leadership contest, has no immediate plans to re-apply.

Others aren’t so sure. “Kate is a lot more ambitious than she’s currently making out,” said one of her party colleagues. “The fact that she’s been largely silent throughout these troubles shouldn’t be interpreted as non-interest. Quite the opposite, in fact.”