Again in August, TIME traveled to Edinburgh to satisfy with Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf—the primary Muslim politician ever elected to steer a Western democracy, in addition to the primary non-white and youngest Scottish chief—for a brand new cowl story, in what was his first main interview with international media. At the moment, Yousaf had been in put up for slightly below 5 months; he succeeded his colleague and good friend, the longtime Scottish chief Nicola Sturgeon, on the finish of March following her shock resignation one month earlier.
Not like most new leaders, Yousaf didn’t get a honeymoon interval—fairly the alternative, actually. His transient tenure has been rocked by the arrest of three senior SNP figures, together with Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell (all three have since been launched), as a part of an ongoing police probe into the get together’s funds; inside strife; and polls projecting that the get together may lose as many as half of its seats within the U.Okay. Parliament in Westminster when Britons go to the polls for a normal election anticipated subsequent 12 months. Over the course of our two-hour assembly, we mentioned the historic nature of Yousaf’s management, the cost-of-living disaster and different challenges going through Scotland, and the way he plans to attain his get together’s overriding goal: Scottish independence.
Learn Extra: Meet the New Face of Scotland
Listed below are 5 takeaways from Yousaf’s wide-ranging dialog with TIME.
{Photograph} by Gabriella Demczuk for TIME
1. There isn’t any clear path towards reaching Scottish independence
Because the U.Okay. Supreme Courtroom dominated final 12 months that Scotland doesn’t have the ability to carry an independence referendum with out the consent of the British authorities, the trail ahead for the independence motion seems to have hit a lifeless finish. Westminster is adamant that the 2014 referendum, which noticed 55% of Scots vote in opposition to independence, was the ultimate phrase on the matter. The SNP argues that the dimensions of change within the U.Okay. since then, most notably its determination to go away the E.U., entitles Scots to a different vote.
Earlier than quitting workplace in February, Sturgeon briefly floated the concept of treating the following U.Okay. normal election as a “de facto referendum” on independence—a place that many inside the get together, together with Yousaf, distanced themselves from. Throughout our dialog, Yousaf stated getting the U.Okay. authorities to conform to sanction a referendum would at all times be the “most well-liked possibility,” however that absent such cooperation, the SNP ought to as a substitute give attention to constructing a constant majority for independence that Westminster can’t probably ignore. This in any case was how Scotland secured its personal Parliament following the 1997 devolution referendum, wherein Scots voted overwhelmingly for its creation. And whereas Yousaf concedes that Scottish independence doesn’t declare the assist of a constant majority of Scots, he believes it’s solely a matter of time earlier than it does.
“If we are able to exhibit that independence has a constant majority—not 52% sooner or later, 48% the opposite day,” says Yousaf, “then it’ll be not possible for the U.Okay. authorities to proceed and proceed and proceed to disclaim.” SNP members will get their likelihood to vote on the get together’s independence technique after they meet for his or her annual convention later this month in Aberdeen.
2. Yousaf believes the Labour Get together is taking Scotland with no consideration
For British opposition chief Keir Starmer—who’s broadly anticipated to change into Britain’s subsequent Prime Minister ought to his center-left Labour Get together defeat the Conservatives on the subsequent normal election—the street to 10 Downing Road will virtually actually run by Scotland. (So dominant has the SNP been in Scotland that Labour claims solely one of many 59 Scottish seats in Westminster and simply 22 of the 129 seats within the Scottish Parliament.) It’s in Scotland that many political observers consider the Labour Get together should win large with a view to safe a governing majority in Britain.
Yousaf speaks to supporters exterior the SNP workplace in Largs, Scotland, on Aug. 23.Gabriella Demczuk for TIME
The battle for Scotland begins as we speak, in a by-election close to Glasgow, the place the SNP is defending considered one of its U.Okay. Parliament seats in opposition to the ascendant Scottish Labour Get together. The by-election, which was triggered after now-former SNP lawmaker Margaret Ferrier was discovered to have damaged lockdown guidelines in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, is projected to lead to a Labour victory. Yousaf, for whom this contest constitutes his first electoral check as SNP chief, concedes that the race was at all times “going to be a troublesome one” given the circumstances. “However Labour are improper to already put out the bunting and pop the champagne corks,” he says. “I feel that takes folks with no consideration. I do know a factor or two about folks in Scotland, having knocked on as many doorways as I’ve, and so they don’t like folks taking them with no consideration.”
As for Starmer, Yousaf says that the extra the Labour chief aligns himself with Conservative welfare insurance policies and local weather positions, the extra skeptical Scots will change into. “The extra he flip flops,” Yousaf says of Starmer, “I feel folks will simply see him for what he’s, and that’s any person who lacks any imaginative and prescient or ambition for the nation. He simply desires to get to Quantity 10 and if he wants to hold on the coattails of Conservative insurance policies to try this, I feel the folks of Scotland will reject that fairly roundly.”
Learn Extra: Keir Starmer on His Imaginative and prescient for Fixing Britain
3. He’ll proceed to battle for transgender rights in Scotland
Final 12 months, the Scottish Parliament voted to cross laws designed to make it simpler for folks in Scotland to legally change their gender. That laws was finally blocked by the U.Okay. authorities in an unprecedented intervention utilizing its veto powers below Part 35 of the Scotland Act—a transfer that it justified on the grounds that the brand new legislation “would have an antagonistic impression on the operation of Nice Britain-wide equalities laws.”
To the SNP, this represented a direct assault on Scottish democracy. “Members of each single get together voted for that laws; it acquired handed by a majority of our parliament,” Yousaf says. “What proper does one other authorities have to come back in and strike a purple pen by it, to veto that laws, to torpedo it? For me, that’s not self authorities. That’s not devolution.”
The Scottish authorities is at the moment within the technique of difficult that call on the Courtroom of Session, Scotland’s supreme civil courtroom. Regardless of the contentious nature of the laws (roughly half of Scots supported the U.Okay. authorities’s determination, in keeping with an Ipsos ballot), Yousaf says he’ll proceed to battle for it. “I’m unequivocal about my perception within the rights of our marginalized communities, together with our trans neighborhood, as a result of I’m a minority myself,” he explains. “I’ve lived my complete life as a minority on this nation, and my rights don’t exist in a vacuum. My rights are utterly interdependent on all people else’s rights and if they’re attacking the rights of our trans neighborhood or anyone who’s in a marginalized minority neighborhood, then they’ll come for me subsequent.”
Yousaf aboard the ferry to Isle of Arran on Aug. 23. Gabriella Demczuk for TIME
Yousaf’s place stands in marked distinction to Britain’s ruling Conservatives. Talking on the get together’s annual convention in Manchester this week, Sunak informed get together colleagues that “We shouldn’t be bullied into considering anybody may be any intercourse that they wish to be. A person is a person and a girl is a girl, that’s simply frequent sense.”
4. He argues that the challenges going through Scotland cannot be divorced from its place inside the U.Okay.
Very similar to the remainder of the U.Okay., Scotland is coping with a cost-of-living disaster and overwhelmed public companies. Whereas voters might maintain the SNP liable for these challenges as the federal government in cost in Scotland for the previous 16 years, Yousaf says that these challenges can’t be divorced from its place inside the U.Okay. He says being within the U.Okay. (and, crucially, exterior of the E.U.) has made Scotland poorer and fewer productive when in comparison with different European international locations of an analogous dimension, corresponding to Eire, Denmark, and Sweden.
“Being connected to this unequal union is what’s holding us again,” he says, “and I consider that weaves its means by each single subject that individuals are grappling with as we speak.”
5. Yousaf believes that his historic management, and that of different minority leaders throughout the U.Okay., is price celebrating
On Yousaf’s first evening in Bute Home, the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland, he posted some images of his household observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan of their new house. He admits that he was initially reluctant to take action, fearing a possible on-line backlash. It was his spouse, Nadia El-Nakla, who inspired him to share them. “Nadia was saying, ‘You must completely put that on the market as a result of folks ought to understand that being a Muslim in Scotland is regular … So that you should not have to cover what’s a extremely essential second for you,’ and this was a extremely essential second,” Yousaf remembers. The photographs went viral, garnering hundreds of thousands of views.
Yousaf doesn’t see his achievement in a vacuum, although. “You’re dwelling in a U.Okay. the place the Prime Minister is of Indian descent, the First Minister is of Pakistani heritage, and naturally the Mayor of London is of Pakistani descent as effectively,” Yousaf says. “That claims one thing good about how far the nation has moved ahead.” He later acknowledged that his chief rival in Scottish Labour chief, Anas Sarwar, additionally of Pakistani heritage, belongs to this group of trailblazers.