Far-left Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf’s popularity has plummeted amid the introduction of new draconian speech restrictions, with less than three in ten supporters of his own party believing that he is doing a good job.
A survey conducted between April 9th and 12th by Norstat for The Sunday Times found that First Minister Yousaf’s net popularity among those who voted for his Scottish National Party (SNP) in the 2019 general election fell to negative seven per cent, a steep decline from January when the leftist leader had a positive popularity of net 14 per cent.
The poll, which was done after the chaotic introduction of new hate speech laws championed by Yousaf, went on to find that more supporters of his party believe that he is doing a bad job than a good job, with just 29 per cent of SNP voters approving of his performance, compared to 36 per cent who disapprove.
In terms of the Scottish public as a whole, Yousaf saw the steepest decline of any politician since Norstat’s last survey in January, with the leftist first minister (a position roughly equivalent to governor in the United States) seeing his net popularity falling dramatically by 15 points to a popularity rating of negative 32.
This puts Yousaf ahead of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has been plagued by his own popularity struggles, by just three points.
Professor of politics at Strathclyde University and poling guru, Sir John Curtice said that the polling found that Yousaf “is deeply and increasingly unpopular”. However, Curtice questioned whether the SNP would be willing to risk replacing a second leader in as many years without an election, as it did last year to install Yousaf following the collapse of the scandal-ridden government of Nicola Sturgeon.
Should Yousaf resign after the UK general election — in which his party is expected to take a shellacking — rumours have pinned hopes on the SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn or former SNP finance secretary Kate Forbes, who previously ran for the top gig but was sidelined in favour of Yousaf in large part over her expressing Catholic convictions during the leadership contest.
The embarrassing polling for Yousaf came in the week after the Hate Crime Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 came into effect after years of debate. The rollout of the new speech restrictions, which criminalise the vaguely-worded offence of “stirring up hatred” against several protected classes of people, such as ethnic minorities or the so-called LGBT community. Those who violate the law face up to seven years in prison.
In a humiliating turn of events for Yousaf, many Scotts have reported him to the police for allegedly violating the law over his BLM-inspired parliamentary rant, in which he decried that Scotland — a nearly 96 per cent white country — had too many white people in positions of authority.
Despite reportedly receiving more complaints than Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for her public declaration that several high-profile transgender individuals were men, the police said that they would not investigate Yousaf or log the speech as a “non-crime hate incident”.
Amid the deluge of complaints against the first minister, Police Scotland has reportedly produced a script for officers to tell members of the public trying to log a complaint against Yousaf.
“There was no malice or ill will towards any person or group displayed in anything said, and so it does not meet the threshold to be recorded as a non-crime hate incident,” the script says according to The Telegraph.
For his part, Yousaf has tried to claim that the only people outraged over his infamous “white” rant were either racist or “part of the far right”.
However, Tory Member of Scottish Parliament Sharon Dowey said: “It’s a measure of how farcical Humza Yousaf’s hate crime law is that police officers have effectively been given a script on how to respond to the flood of complaints made against the First Minister under the very legislation that he piloted and introduced.”