EARLY SNP leadership favourite Kate Forbes has had her hopes dashed after a disastrous start to her campaign has seen supporting MSPs melt away.

Ms Forbes was in the running to take over the role of Scottish First Minister from Nicola Sturgeon.

The Finance Minister, who has represented Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch since 2016, has seen support within her own ranks crash as her views on equal marriage have come under the spotlight.

On BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, she said: “My position on these matters is that I will defend to the hilt everybody’s rights in a pluralistic and tolerant society, to live and to love free of harassment and fear.”

Her rival for the SNP leadership, Health Minister Humza Yousaf, has been setting out his stall, not only in stating his support for equal marriage but also marking himself out as the only contender who backs the recent Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill.

The Bill sparked huge debate in the country as well as a potential constitutional crisis as the Westminster government blocked assent.

Launching his leadership campaign, Mr Yousaf preferred to focus on the constitutional point, claiming that the Tory government’s use of a Section 35 order to block the Bill set a precedent.

He said: “I think if we lay down the first time the UK government has brought forward a Section 35 order, then they will do that with every single Bill they disagree with.”

While Mr Yousaf favours a more gradualist approach to achieving his party’s goal of independence — eschewing Ms Sturgeon’s proposal to use the next general election as a “de facto” referendum — the same cannot be said of Ash Regan, the former public relations officer and MSP for Edinburgh Eastern since 2016.

In a contest where all three candidates have a low profile outside political circles, Ms Regan first came to notice when resigning her junior ministerial position to vote against the GRR Bill, and has now made the idea of uniting the disparate independence-supporting groups in a convention the cornerstone of her campaign.

Ms Forbes was at pains to say in her BBC interview that her campaign is “absolutely not over”.