Scotland’s Humza Yousaf faces plummeting popularity and mounting criticism over his ill-received hate crime laws, casting shade over the SNP’s electoral prospects and his own political future. The Telegraphhas more.
Even among SNP voters, more people believe the First Minister is doing a bad job of running Scotland than those who think he is doing a good job, the survey by polling company Norstat showed.
It is the first such survey carried out since the introduction of the laws that Mr. Yousaf steered through Holyrood as Justice Secretary and which came into force earlier this month.
The controversial legislation is widely seen to have been botched by the SNP Government, with an appeal to the public to report all instances of “hate” leading to more than 7,000 reports in the first week.
Fewer than 4% of the reports were assessed as actual crimes.
The findings showed that among all Scots, Mr. Yousaf now has an approval rating of minus 32, putting him just three points ahead of Rishi Sunak. It amounts to a 15-point drop for Mr. Yousaf since the previous survey carried out in January.
Even among those who voted SNP at the last General Election, just 29% believe Mr. Yousaf is doing a good job, compared with 36% who think he has been poor in office.
This resulted in a score of minus seven among SNP voters, down from plus 14 in January. …
Polls suggest Labour has overtaken the SNP in Scotland in voting intentions for the General Election.
A recent seat-by-seat poll by YouGov predicted that Labour was on course to win 28 Scottish seats, compared with one in 2019, while the SNP’s tally would fall from 48 to 19.
Such a disastrous result, should it be replicated in the General Election, would inevitably lead to calls for Mr. Yousaf to stand down.
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